Broken Neck Generation

[Kelly C]

Kathy Rose's scholarly post got me thinking about a very different Uranus square Pluto generation.  Born on January 6, 1876, in Somerset, PA, my grandfather had a close Saturn Pluto Uranus T-square.  At age 64, while in excellent health, he decided to trim a tree while standing on an extra high ladder.  He lost his balance and landed on his head, thereby suffering a brain injury and also fatally breaking his neck.  On that tragic date, November 24, 1940, transiting Uranus (unexpected events) was conjunct natal Pluto in Taurus (neck) and exactly square natal Saturn (bones).  This transit was quite significant but he also had a Uranus Pluto square in his harmonic age chart within less than 1 degree.  If he was born between about 8:15 AM and about 3:45 PM, then he had SA Mars parallel natal Uranus, within 5 minutes.  If he had this aspect, it really told the story of an unexpected head injury.  Wait a minute!  Aren't all head injuries unexpected?  What guy checks his schedule: "Let's see. I have to pick up the dry cleaning. Oh! Then at 3:00 PM, I have a crowbar to the head!"?
It wasn't really a broken neck generation, but nevertheless, the meanings were in his chart.
So my dad, the jitterbug giant, lost his dad when he was a young man.  My dad had just married his first wife 5 days before the fatal accident!

[Halina]

Hi Kelly, sorry about your dad,,,,,EBERTIN says of Uranus-Pluto...."daring and foolhardiness".    also "putting a gun to one's head"   I've heard Noel use this expession, I think.   Our neighbor climb his shed to clean the snow off, last winter, fell and broke his hip on the cement below, needs a second surgery.

[Kelly C]

Hi Halina,

I forgot to write that grandpa had Pluto=Saturn/Uranus so it was a close T-square.  Thanks for your nice response.

[pdw]

Kelly C, sorry to hear about your grandfather’s accident, but thanks for sharing his astrology with us.

I’m struck with the bizarre timing with two such significant family events occurring so close together. First, your dad’s wedding, a joyous occasion for all, I presume, followed by his dad’s deadly accident less than a week later. Talk about highs and lows…

For significant outer planet tension and event potential, you noted (often suddenly disruptive) T Uranus conjunct your grandfather’s N Pluto and I’d add T Pluto squaring his N Neptune (and potentially his natal Moon if he was born early in the morning). I can see these big bells reflecting a range of possibility, from excitement and joy to shock and extreme vulnerability. Or both as it turned out, which made me wonder if there was a significant astrological change in the five days between the wedding and his death…

Check out T Mars and see what you think. Often associated with accidents and being a trigger for events, transiting Mars moved from late Libra (accenting relationships, perhaps) to early Scorpio (more pointedly referencing a critical risk or dangerous mistake, perhaps, during close natal contacts). And, at 2 Scorpio, T Mars was forming a T-Square with T Pluto (4 Leo) and your grandfather’s natal Neptune (0 Taurus) and, again, possibly his natal Moon.

I’m kind of a fraidy cat in general, but this sure reinforces the notion that you can’t be too careful or get distracted in high places. 

[Kelly C]

Hi PDW,

Thanks for adding the Pluto transit I hadn't noticed.   With regard to the time between my dad's two big events, you really nailed the planetary symbolism.  When his dad fell, he had harmonic age Mars conjunct natal MC, within less than one degree.  Note that my dad didn't have this aspect when he married just 5 days earlier. 
Uranus, in both directions and transits, is very frequently the most precise timer.  Dad had converse transiting Uranus square natal MC within about 1 minute when his dad died.
I forgot to note in my jitterbug giant thread that dad's hospital was in South Pasadena.  In 1919, it may have been the only hospital in South Pasadena.
I added just 16 seconds to the birth certificate time partly because of the stunning astrology at the time of his dad's death and also because of the telling astrology he had when he began working at Tupperware Headquarters in 1965. I made an educated guess that harmonic age Mars manifested while in the applying phase because of its rash nature and because the rest of his life events fit so well with the MC I'm using. 
I also wanted to thoroughly analyze grandpa's natal Mars and Uranus relationship. In right ascension, they were in quincunx aspect, but in longitude, they were in a weak biquintile.  When I tried to find out in what harmonic the approximate 146.5 degree aspect would be in close conjunction, I became more confused than "Jim" from "Taxi."  Alice and/or Halina might know this because they have software with all the bells and whistles.

Take care,

Kelly

[Kelly C]

My software doesn't show the floating Descendant so my dad could have had that harmonic age angle aspecting his natal Venus when he married.  So I might have adjusted the birth time slightly because those floating angles, as Alice Portman has demonstrated on this site, tend to be important.
If one were to use the derivative house system, then Mars (accidents, head injuries), as the 11th house ruler, would rule the father's death.  So it's not surprising that harmonic age Mars culminated when his dad died.
I just noticed today that dad's natal chart has a Pythagorean figure (see my thread) so I'm a chip off the old block.