Never Bet a Dollar on a Horse Called Eternity (Millard example)

[Jim Eshelman]

Bonnie, May 16, 1977, 12:14 PM EDT, Whiting, ME
Died June 8, 1977, 7 PM EDT, Portland, ME

Dr. Millard gave the birth coordinates as 44N44, 67W19, which is somewhat outside of Whiting. It's either an error or more exacting coordinates of someone born in deep woods. I've used Whiting in my calculations. [NOTE later: Lyse tracked down this birth information to Casco, Maine, but the coordinates are quite a bit off: 44N00, 70W31. I'm recording this here, but will continue to use Whiting, matching the coordinates Millard gave.]

Bonnie was born prematurely in the north of Maine and weighed only eight hundred and fifty grams [30 oz.]. She was at once transported about two hundred miles by helicopter to the nearest intensive care unit in Portland, where she arrived looking very vigorous, considering she was so premature. She was placed in an incubator with 30% oxygen, and put under the bilirubin lights. After twenty-four hours, she was breathing room air, and all seemed to be well.

It is important to give nourishment to these small babies as early as possible, in order to avoid brain damage from low blood sugar. Since their stomachs are too small and underdeveloped to tolerate anything by mouth, routine intravenous feeding is used...

Bonnie began to vomit on the third day, and for the next four days, she was bringing up bile-stained fluid. X-rays showed no obstruction in the digestive tract, and there was no blood in the stools. Although all the cultures taken from her skin, stomach and umbilical cord were sterile, she was given a five day course of antibiotics. By the eighth day, she was much better, and could take feeding by mouth... Everything went well, and she became able to tolerate larger and larger amounts without vomiting.

An error in management was then made. On her sixteenth day of life, the formula was changed... with twenty-four calories per ounce instead of only twenty... The abdomen became distended, and bloody fluid could be withdrawn from her stomach. X-rays showed that her intestines had perforated.

...it was downhill all the way. She was given [various treatments] and finally taken to the operating room where a colostomy was carried out. She went into shock, had renal shut-down, and died four days after the operation. The diagnosis: necrotizing enterocolitis. The national incidence is 3-4% of admissions to neonatal intensive care units, and the mortality is around 38% It is a disease of intestinal and gastric dysfunction.

[Jim Eshelman]

My Analysis: First, there are a couple of things we expect to see that aren't obvious at first. The real cause of death here was medical error, and the nativity doesn't have any indications of this. However, the hour she died there was a nearly precise (to the minute) Jupiter-Neptune which just happened to align with her SNQ/SQ MC-IC. That Dr. Millard later called Jupiter-Neptune "the commonest of all aspects at death" bothers me a lot because I see the aspect as one of medical error. If this is a correct interpretation, then the idea that medical error is the most common cause of death is greatly distressing.

That aside: Since the final cause of death was intestinal, we expect Pisces. We see in the natal a 0°06' Venus-Mars conjunction in the background in Pisces. Knowing the cause of death, this deserves more attention than I might have given it.

So, back to the beginning... If I had seen this chart when she first came to the hospital, what would I have judged medically...?

• Sun is closely foreground. Innate vitality and life-force is strong.
• Moon is in Aries. Aside from adult issues (like uterus), the main anatomical reference is to buttocks-rectum, and kidneys-urethra.
• Mars is in Pisces. Its main anatomical reference is to the lower abdomen, especially the intestines and umbilicus (and perhaps the pancreas).
• Moon is severely aspected. It's in the middle of a cadent house opposite Uranus 0°54' and square Saturn 1°04' (0°02' from their midpoint). This T-square is the main set of health aspects because it is in the background houses and involves Moon.
• The other background hard aspect is the Venus-Mars conjunction 0°06' in Pisces (0°02' mundo). House-minded astrologers would not miss that this is in the 8th House, though I don't think we have nearly enough evidence to conclude that this sort of placement means it would be a cause of death.

The loudest message is the Moon-Saturn-Uranus T-square. This, I think, is the astrological sign of being born prematurely, the simple message of severe early-life hardship. Yet she also had a strong, unafflicted Sun: When she showed up at the hospital/NICU her vitality ("looking very vigorous"). This is main health tension of the chart: A very hard start and a lot of vigor. (Were it not for the medical error, she likely would have done well.)

The most vulnerable parts of the body are the rectum, kidneys-urethra, and intestines etc. This was quite correct.

Moon-Saturn, besides being simply an afflicted Moon and showing limiting conditions, interestingly is connected to "childbearing problems." I wish I had her mother's chart to check, but, as a severely premature delivery, this birth was clearly some sort of "childbearing problem." (I don't know if this is a common aspect for premature births.) It is generally adverse for health and especially suggests sluggish system, blockages, etc.

Moon-Uranus, in Bonnie's case, was probably part of the "premature" pattern, i.e., showed a surprise. Saturn-Uranus doesn't give me any clear clues except for the general way it relates to elimination. My medical interp for it is: Inhibition of biological rhythms. Impairment of body’s electrical system (e.g., congestive heart disease, electrical injuries... muscle cramps). Tension. Spastic colon, elimination struggles (constipation)...

But I think we can agree that this is a hard-hit configuration consistent with prematurity - and that the prematurity was the real trouble here. It warns us of broad health difficulties. Aries Moon implicates rectum and kidneys, and in her short life she experienced kidney shutdown and had a colostomy.

But let's turn to the Venus-Mars conjunction. First of all - the simple part - is that intestinal perforation is as literal a reading of Mars in Pisces (constellation connected to the intestines) as one could get! Also, the Venus-Mars conjunction is the closest aspect in the chart (0°02' in mundo) and background. Does this give us interpretive insight? Here is my current standard interpretation for Venus-Mars aspects in health matters:

Sex and reproductive functions. Thymus and adrenal gland functioning. Surging hormones. Inflammation and abnormal immunity responses in the endocrine system. Eruptive skin conditions. (? Kidney infection, iron metabolism.)

Unless it's a kidney matter (renal failure was the last system failure before her death) - which I doubt - this aspect isn't all that helpful. The Mars in Pisces itself is quite helpful. I can't quite turn Venus into the nutrition factor (even though it was an increase in glucose that created the crisis), and maybe it's as simple as Mars in Pisces, activated by the aspect to be a health issue. Most of these hormonal issues aren't age-relevant, and we have no information that there was a specific hormone rage of any sort.

So, my bottom line is that the chart shows a vital baby who nonetheless was going to have serious hardship in infancy, had greatest vulnerability in kidney-colon-intestinal areas (all of which failed, with intestines being the specific location of failure), with accentuated Mars in Pisces being the literal marker. I don't know what a couple of the background aspects might mean.

She died 23 days after birth as progressed Moon moved to within a few minutes of square natal Saturn.

[Jim Eshelman]

Lyse was able to track (through genealogy records) and identify "Bonnie's" mother as born April 30, 1939, Portland, ME (no birth time available).

The mother was an Aries-Virgo with the most obvious aspect being Mars square Saturn, Sagittarius to Pisces. (We can't check relative angularity or mundane aspects without a birth time.) Mars was also exactly trine Neptune, though this wouldn't commonly have a medical repercussion in my experience other than the broad Mars-Neptune themes.

There is no Moon-Saturn or equivalent.

When her daughter was born prematurely on May 16, 1977, 12:14 PM EDT, we have these transits to mother's noon positions:

14°39' Lib - t Uranus
15°31' Ari - r Sun
15°34' Ari - t Moon [Sa/Ur = 15°38']
16°38' Can - t Saturn

So it was an impactful day on Mom!

She might have had a progressed Moon-Uranus square, but we don't know without a birth time. There are no other important progressions obvious besides a progressed Sun-Mercury conjunction, nor any solar arcs to report. Tertiaries, as best I can tell, had progressed Mars on natal Neptune, which is fitting, but also Sun opposite natal Jupiter which presumably is not fitting.

Her prior Dem-SLR occurred May 13, the day of Mars-Venus exactly opposite Pluto, which (as a guess) one would think was angular. Her April 30 SLR was on her birthday, so the SSR and SLR occurred the same day: It's most obvious feature was that Saturn and Uranus (plus Mercury) were both EXACTLY on her natal Sun degree, and there may have been a Moon-Mars opposition near natal Moon. Her next SLR was May 27, just before the medical error, and had transiting Mars exactly conjunct her Saturn (and Venus to Saturn only a degree further away), plus (medical error?!) a partile Mercury-Saturn square. Again, we can't tell if any of this was angular, but a birth time that brought all these diverse factors to the angles would be a winner!