You’re probably going to find this an odd start and perhaps even an odder article. You see, I don’t know if I ever saw Luke Perry on television or in a movie. I might have, but I could have just as easily fallen over him at the supermarket and would never have known who he was.
I know he was on Beverly Hills, 90210 and, more recently, on Riverdale. There’s just one problem with both of these shows: I never saw them. I have seen Criminal Minds and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but he only had guest spots on those. Again, I wouldn’t have known him if I’d fallen over him! On the other hand, if he was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert recently, I think he was on there once and I’d seen him.
Just from his photo however, I sense there was a good, kind soul in this man. But I didn’t know this man as an actor and knew nothing more about him than the news of his stroke on February 27 and his death on March 4. Perhaps I wouldn’t have done this article, but the time of the stroke caught my attention and that was the nudge I needed to have a look at the chart. I was unable to locate his time of birth.
Through the years, I’ve learned to adjust to not having an accurately timed birth chart while considering an event that appears related to a native. When the event itself has an accurate time but the birth time is missing for the native, we can place the event chart on the inside and the untimed natal outside to construct the comparative chart. While this particular angle might be somewhat out of the box because the astrologer is usually taught to place the transiting chart outside of the natal, this transposition–placing the transiting chart inside–offers additional perspectives we might not otherwise see. It’s more accurate than our trying to read a natal without a time of birth, and it offers the advantage of using an actual time. The event then becomes critically important in telling the story.
Were we to consider the event chart, the one just for the stroke alone, there would be a limit of what we might be able to see in the single chart: Both Mars and Uranus are placed in the 12th house with Mars in Venus-ruled Taurus. This might imply some kind of slowed physical responses; but it can be more challenging to tell since we don’t know where the responses might come from or how they would be likely to show up. Uranus in the 12th certainly can give one some concern as well; but without the additional natal chart–even untimed–there would also be no reference for what kind of event chart we might be observing.
This kind of observation isn’t even possible with the Solar or Lunar Returns. While many work with the returns by leaving the return itself outside the natal chart, I move the return inside the natal chart and then observe the natal as a means of focusing on the strongest natal aspects in play while not forgetting the more important return chart at that time as an integrative process with the natal.
In a similar fashion then, I’ve moved the event chart as I would with the returns to the inside of the untimed natal chart. That the natal is untimed doesn’t matter in this case since I wouldn’t have even been able to examine the Solar or Lunar Returns at this time. Yet the same principle of understanding for my work with returns becomes the integral principle for my work with this event chart as the main focus.
This view additionally offers the astrologer an opportunity to consider the angles still as key components of the event. In Luke Perry’s case, such an observation brings the relevance of natal Neptune close to the Descendant of the transiting chart from the inside of the event’s 7th house. This particular placement might have been less visible from the perspective of the event chart outside of the natal; yet it quickly comes into view with this chart reversal. This kind of placement validated my thought that Luke Perry was likely to be unresponsive at the time EMT personnel had examined his vital signs on arrival at the Perry home.
Just as a point of note, btw, TMZ had initially reported the time of the stroke, or the 911 call, at 9:39 AM PST; however, they have since adopted a commonly known rounded off time reference in updated articles. That time reference now shows 9:40 AM PST.Whether this was the actual time of the stroke or the time of the 911 call appears to be moot. This is the only time that was listed before the updated time now shown in rounded off format, and one can expect someone had been at the Perry home to have made the call that quickly.
Since we’re on the subject of the angles, consider as well the 1°20 Meridian (the line between the Midheaven, or MC, and the 4th house cusp known as the Imum Coeli, or IC. Here, we see the 00 Leo 52 degree from the January 20 Lunar Eclipse forming a powerful 28-minute partile conjunction to the Meridian and Luke Perry’s natal Jupiter forming a conjunction to the IC which, in turn, reveals his Jupiter with a 1°03′ orb to the eclipse!
At the time of Luke’s stroke, transiting Mercury had been in an ongoing separating conjunction to natal Saturn. Meanwhile, the transiting Moon-Jupiter conjunction in Jupiter-ruled Sagittarius had moved into place to square natal Saturn and transiting Mercury. Just as the Moon serves as a key timing trigger to the Solar Return, we can apply a like principle with a bit more flexibility–again because of the untimed natal chart–to this event chart. The transiting Moon-natal Saturn square shows a 1°20′ orb while the Moon’s orb to Mercury reveals a 3°34′ distance.
Depending on the astrologer, orb guidelines for any planetary body can vary greatly. I am inclined to work with wider orbs and have found them to be valid. In particular, luminaries–the Sun and the Moon–have the widest orbs, and I’d struggle to see any astrologer disputing the orbs the transiting Moon makes between these two charts. The Moon serves as a bridge between the other bodies involved in the square–Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn.
Transiting 12th house Mars was opposing Luke’s natal Mercury in the 6th house within 1° at the time of the stroke. I have no doubt he displayed severe speech impediment within minutes of the stroke if he was conscious at all. The transiting chart also holds the 6th house Vertex, a point we often consider for “fatedness,” or “destiny.” I don’t use these words lightly but the Vertex and other heightened sensitivity points of the chart seem to point to the possibility that certain points including the Vertex carry this kind of interactive association between natal, transiting or synastric placements. In this case, the Vertex formed an 8-minute partile square to transiting 9th house Pluto.
Whether or not any reader would consider this a valid concept since the Vertex isn’t actually a physical point, Pluto forms a conjunction to Venus (27 Capricorn 41), the midpoint of which is 25 Capricorn 02, representing a conjunction to the South Node at 25 Capricorn 59. Just as a point of curiosity, I decided to consider one more thing: The Vertex and Uranus by most astrological standards are probably not going to be considered opposed. Even I, with my penchant for wide orbs, wouldn’t call this an opposition.
On the other hand, I went with a hunch and located the midpoint between the Vertex and Uranus: 25 Capricorn 59 in a perfected conjunction to the South Node! Worthy of consideration? While I wouldn’t use this as a sole means of saying, “See??? I told you so!” I would consider it a valid consideration as another factor in determination of the impact of these points especially in this chart, including the relevance of the Vertex-transiting Pluto partile square. The Vertex-Uranus midpoint in square to the Nodes is especially significant as well since the extraterrestrial (outer) planets with a huge emphasis on Uranus, Neptune and Pluto often indicate catastrophic consequences (natural or otherwise) when placed in hard aspect to the Nodes of the chart.
For interested observers and students who may not yet understand all of the astrological terminology, a partile is an aspect of less than 1°. 59 minutes would be partile, 1° would not. While I frequently note the partile and even the perfected (0°00’00”) aspects, such tight aspects do not need to be in place for aspects to be triggered. Some astrologers seek these out. I offer them as a courtesy while also paying attention to the broader aspects that still offer significant relevance. No single aspect in any transiting or Return chart will be a one-shot focus that would reflect some kind of causal relationship between events and the cosmos. Astrology could be said to be more sequential, just as cooking is. Here, I’d point to recipes where you take specific measurements of a recipe and work methodically to create a cake or a dish of some kind. The difference between astrological sequential observation and the creation of a recipe, however, lies in the need for most recipes (cakes, for example) to be accurately measured while astrology observes from the broader picture with many “ingredients.”
Transiting Uranus and Chiron (now in Aries), still forming a semisextile (30°) aspect, resolve at a 6th house Blooming Undecaquartisextile (165°) in a 47-minute partile conjunction to the midpoint of Perry’s natal Sun-Venus conjunction in Libra. Again, we don’t know where this duo falls in the natal chart, but we do know it sits in the 6th house of health matters (among other things) and that bears mentioning. Chiron is close to the 12th house cusp in the transiting chart, and Uranus is already in the 12th. We can talk about the subconscious and mental state in our observations of the 12th house, but this particular kind of dynamic points to the additional thought that the 12th is also a house of self-undoing. I’m more concerned, however, about the turn of events that led to his passing on March 4. The 12th house is a terminal house, just as the 4th and the 8th houses are. It’s possible that this was one of those signs. Astrology often merely hints at these symbolisms, and we need to keep such things in mind. For years, the astrological community has dealt with misunderstandings from those who attack this field without having bothered to study the subject. Clarity in our dissemination of knowledge offers the opportunity for broadened understandings.
