Pre-Birth Lunation Chart
According to Rudhyar’s ‘Progressed Lunation Cycle’ theory this chart reflects Joy Adamson’s life from 1910 (birth) to 1930 (Age 20).
“The New Moon before birth is an apt and fitting station with which to begin a study of lunation progressions in a person’s life. The sign of the zodiac in which it occurred, whether it was in the same or preceding sign as the Sun at birth, the degree of the zodiac and particularly the Sabian Symbol for this degree: all these provide significant clues to THE TONE AND DIRECTION OF THE [WHOLE] LIFE …” [Leyla Rael, ‘The Lunation Process in Astrological Guidance’, 1984, p.13]
For Joy Adamson the Pre-Birth Lunation occurred on the 21st degree of Capricorn, conjoined to the position of Uranus (1° orb). Coincidently, the 21st degree of Capricorn also appears as the Pre-Birth Lunation degree for Martin Luther King some 19 years later, the shared Sabian Symbol :
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
21° Capricorn : “A relay race.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
As we recall from the Martin Luther King study this symbol is supposedly a metaphor for some type of group activity where …
“… individuals take turns successively in order to maximise the possibility of outstanding results.” The context Rudhyar gives for the relay race is broad and can be ‘planetary’ : “The whole of civilisation is a vast kind of relay race in which groups of individuals and generations carry the torch of what we call progress,” he goes on to say. [‘Astrological Mandala’, 1974, p.242].
Does the biographic material confirm this idea of a ‘carry-the-torch’ drive being conditioned in our subject (by parents, teachers, and culture-in-general), in the years to which this cycle refers ?
What the biographies reveal is that (1) Joy was born into a wealthy Austrian family; (2) she was the second of three daughters; (3) her parents divorced when she was 10; (4) after which she lived with her grandmother on an estate near Vienna; (5) where she was educated, studying the arts and humanities : psychoanalysis, archaeology, sculpting, painting; (5) before earning a music degree in her late teens; then (6) studying medicine, a course she never completed.
The overall childhood picture appears one of privilege and gentility. Unlike Martin Luther King she clearly did not follow her father’s career (architecture), nor had any significant ‘group’ associations. In fact, I think it’d be fair to say the biographic material offers NO EVIDENCE AT ALL that resonates to the ‘tone’ of a metaphorical “relay race”, and in fact, she presents as almost the antithesis of a group-oriented world-server-in-the-making at this stage of her life.
About all we can say with confidence is that she enjoyed a rather privileged childhood and emerged from it ‘conditioned’ as a fairly normal example of an Austrian woman of the upper middle class of her epoch, this, reflected well enough by her Moon Sign (Taurus) and the sort of personality profile associated with the sign, that’s to say : a down-to-earth somewhat rigid personality to which ‘Taurean’ trait words such as conservative, contented, opinionated, and pleasure-oriented may well have applied.
To these qualities we might add traits conditioned by traditional Austrian cultural values* such as cooperation, neutrality, artistry, formality, privacy, pragmatism and what’s known in Austria as Gemütlichkeit (geniality, friendliness), none of which contradict the personality indicated by the Taurus Moonsign, and none of which confirm the meaning of the pre-birth lunation degree symbol in any way at all.
So, what might account for the apparent breakdown in Rudhyar’s Lunation Cycle theory here? Joy Adamson’s childhood biography and the symbolism for the pre-birth lunation degree simply do not corelate ???
I can think of a few possible answers to this conundrum …
1 … It may be that only the ‘seed’ of the symbolic “relay race” was planted in Joy Adamson in these years, but this remained – for reasons discussed below – a seed that failed to germinate during the years of this cycle. Rather, it may have sprouted later in life. I may be reaching here, but one of the biographies does mention that, “Hunting was a favourite sport on her family’s estate but, after she shot a deer with the estate’s gamekeeper as a teenager, Joy promised herself she would never kill for sport again.” A ‘seed-planting moment’, perhaps?
2 … Austria probably wasn’t the most emancipated country in Europe in the 1920s, and the pressure on women to pursue traditional ‘domestic’ gender roles was likely strong. The young Joy Adamson – because of gender inequality – may simply have had no opportunity to pursue a ‘career’ direction that might have let her flex her potentials.
3 … In ‘An Astrological Mandala’ Rudhyar says, “… the Sabian Symbols belong to the collective unconscious of the average educated American” (p.27). This begs the question, how different would be a set of Symbols belonging to the collective unconscious of the average educated Austrian? Maybe the ‘American’ Sabian Symbol set has relevance only to Americans and people of similar Western cultures?
4 … Joy Adamson was 4 at the outbreak of World War One, lived through it as a child, and shared with her countrymen and women the austerity that followed it. The stark facts of the war and its aftermath may well have retarded Joy’s chances of finding her ‘path’ in the tumultuous years witnessed by this cycle.
5 … Rudhyar suggests there are OTHER facts in the pre-birth lunation chart – beyond the degree Symbol for the New Moon before birth – that reveal clues about the ‘tone’ of a life. He refers in particular to planet(s) that aspect the lunation degree (especially by Conjunction). Rudhyar calls these contacts ‘channels of destiny’ and well worth the astrologer’s attention. For Joy Adamson we see Uranus closely conjoined to the degree of the new moon before birth. This may be indicating that our subject was in fact the FIRST ‘runner’ in the modern evolutionary movement dedicated to conservation and animal welfare rights – an inspired ‘Uranian’ breakthrough incarnation or something like that. I mean, someone’s gotta run the first leg of any relay, don’t they?
Ferreting around in the back of ‘An Astrological Mandala’ I came across the following passage (abridged), which may be revealing in this regard …
“… the three trans-Saturnian planets … refer to a more mysterious capacity to transform oneself and to transcend one’s limitations … a mutation on the seed [potential] that occurs because the species is either adjusting to new planetary conditions … or taking a new and preordained step in its evolution [especially when one is] … aroused by the vision and example of an Avatar (divine Manifestation) heralding a new phase of human and planetary evolution. In such a case …
• Uranus refers to the revelation of the new goal or archetype;
• Neptune refers to the dissolution of the old structures, personal and social; and
• Pluto stands for the chaotic stage which already contains the latent promise of future reorganisation.” [p.362]
Interesting. In any case, the foregoing of course is all just speculation. As researchers, about all we can do with such guesswork is to log it and see if any of those ideas are replicated in other pre-birth lunation charts that we study. Some or other pattern that adds to Rudhyar’s theory may yet emerge!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
* … https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au › austrian-culture
Quest for the Real Astrology 
Leave a comment