The New York Times brought the news this morning of the death of Günter Grass, winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature at the ripe age of 87 in Lübeck, Germany. Born in Danzig which is in the West Prussia section of Germany (my program located Danzig in Poland under the name of Gdansk), Grass created a furor in 1962 with his first novel, The Tin Drum.

His birth chart, however, is untimed and carries a Rodden Rating of C for its unknown source. Nevertheless, there are enough remarkable points related to his death that are simply well-worth noting. I will caution, however, that neither the time of birth nor the time of death were available to me as I wrote this brief analysis.

Since I’m going to merge my observations between the natal and the transiting charts–neither of which need timing for understanding in this case–I’ll post the transiting chart next on the outside of the natal. Please understand the time I used was strictly random and should not be considered a valid time.

As we have moved past the perfected square between transiting Uranus and Pluto, it’s pretty safe to say he did not: Uranus was already in the midst of an approaching opposition to his natal Sun-Mars conjunction in Libra while Pluto was in an approaching opposition to natal Pluto and was potentially still opposed to his natal Moon (since that on-the-hour time warrants a bit of caution as well). The Sun today, however, is making a 22-minute partile opposition to Grass’ natal Mars while  transiting Uranus is in an approaching 20-minute partile square to his natal Pluto. And then there’s the transiting Aries stellium I haven’t yet mentioned simply because I wanted to focus on those partiles. The Uranus-Sun-Mercury stellium creates the bridge to each point of a natal-to-transiting Cardinal Grand Cross that simply can’t be missed!

And then there is transiting Saturn in 39-minute partile conjunction to natal Saturn (yes, he was going through his third Saturn Return!)–and this alone is astounding! Saturn went into Retrograde motion on the 14th of March (2015) at 4 Sagittarius 55. Grass had 2 hits of that Saturn Return in March–on the 5th and again on the 24th! Of course while Saturn has been making its return in his chart, transiting Saturn was also squaring transiting Neptune in what I call the peeling of Life’s onion.

Now I have to tell you here, I have never read any of Grass’ work, interviews or articles about him. I knew absolutely nothing beyond his name and the name of the novel that garnered so much attention, The Tin Drum, so imagine my surprise a few minutes ago when I read the following in AstroDataBank‘s brief blurb taken from Grass’ Wikipedia biography on him: “In advance of his memoir’s release, the noted German novelist confessed in an August 2006 interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that he had never until now told the truth about his military service under the Nazi regime. He said that his autobiography, Peeling the Onion, reveals that he volunteered for service and was not unwillingly conscripted as a youth. His secret…” was a weight on me. My silence over all these years is one of the reasons I wrote the book. It had to come out finally.”

Not the same words, but certainly the same meaning. Seems like it’s time I find some of his work and read it!

Rest in peace, Mr. Grass.

Open for discussion.

©2015 Michelle Young