Page 1 of 1

Let there be lightbulbs!

Posted: Thu May 11, 2017 3:08 pm
by Jim Eshelman
I'm pretty settled into the idea that solar and lunar ingresses and quotidians do not act as a layer of personal chart - they don't engage natal planets, for example, as part of some "top-down rheostat" on astrological affects.

But I sometimes wonder about personal, individual events - personal triumphs and tragedies - that have world-touching impact, that represent, in and of themselves, a singular shift in human history. At least a few examples have disappointed on this, but today I found one big enough that seems quite the opposite.

Wouldn't you like to have the horoscope for the invention of the wheel? (I would!) Wouldn't this be world-altering? I suggest that the invention of the lightbulb as about as close as we can get to that in modern times. (Well, maybe the next one is the invention of the transistor.)

On this day in 1879, in Menlo Park, NJ, Thomas Edison finally succeeded in inventing a working electric lightbulb. When I saw this "today in history" note, I asked myself, "I wonder if there was some Uranus in the mundane be charts."

Yes, there was.

The CapQ for Menlo Park on October 21, 1879 had transiting Uranus on MC and a transiting Mars-Pluto conjunction on Descendant.

When I saw a wide (too wide) Jupiter-Uranus opposition, I thought we might get some Jupiter-Uranus in some significant place and, indeed, we did. Here are the critical transits to the Capsolar for Menlo Park at noon:

9°52' Aqu - t. Jupiter
10°39' Leo - s. Uranus
11°40' Sco - s. MC

Jupiter is within 2° of square Capsolar MC and concurrently within 1° of opposing Capsolar Uranus.

Even the CanQ contributed, with progressed Ascendant square Cansolar Jupiter. It was a successful day - but not just for Edison. It was a defining, future-branching event for the human race.

Or... so I see it today :)