Lennon-McCartney and Harrison: In the Crow's Nest of the Sixties

(This article appears in abbreviated form in Eric Francis's Planet Waves newsletter: today's special issue, "Yesterday and Today," commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Beatles landing in America. Yeah, yeah, yeah!)

“We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.” --John Lennon

So much has been written about the significance of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the mid-1960s that it has overshadowed the meaning of Neptune in Scorpio (1956–70). If Neptune rules music, drugs, mystery, and the collective imagination, and Scorpio immediately brings to mind sex, power, and the underworld, put the two together and what do you get? Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.

And if the Beatles were situated in “the crow’s nest,” they did not all see, or report, identical findings to their youthful baby boomer generation.

The songwriting team of Lennon-McCartney was a formidable force. John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s Suns were both in the communicative air element (John’s in Libra, Paul’s in Gemini). The trine between the two musicians’ Suns manifested in mutual inspiration and what Beatles producer George Martin deemed “a healthy competition.” John and Paul rarely wrote songs together—but often wrote in each other’s presence, sought out each other’s feedback, and helped each other with lyrics. Their mutual agreement was that whoever wrote most of a song sang the lead (with the exceptions of songs expressly written for their band mates). The finest Lennon-McCartney composition, “A Day in the Life,” was the result of two separate, unfinished songs grafted together into pure genius. This song also perfectly symbolizes the opposition between their Moons: John, the explosive “teddy boy” and drug-oriented, intellectual iconoclast, had an Aquarius Moon; Paul, the magnanimous, regal, pop-oriented showman, had a Leo Moon. This lunar opposition magnetized John and Paul to each other from the day they met and formed the duo’s backbone--first in a positive way (riding to what John called “the toppermost of the poppermost” together) and later in bitter, backbiting enmity.

George Harrison was also in the crow’s nest--but he was in his own private corner, as one might expect from a Pisces Sun and Scorpio Moon. On Beatles albums George was a hapless victim of what John referred to as “the Lennon-McCartney carve-up.” In the early days of the Beatles success, when the rest of the band was able to tolerate Beatlemania, George hated it--and wrote the sulky “Don’t Bother Me” to underline his repulsion. In 1965, during the Uranus-Pluto conjunction, George first came across the sitar. Through his subsequent study of this difficult instrument and Eastern philosophy, was responsible for bringing the East to the attention of the “new world” of hip sixties Western culture—-and he continued to support the Maharishi even after his band mates became disenchanted with the yogi. Apropos of his Scorpio Moon, George was also the first Beatle to explicitly reference sex in a song: on Revolver’s “Love You To” (1966). He and John bonded over many LSD trips when Paul abstained, yet this bond did not translate into a Lennon-Harrison songwriting team. George’s water-sign vision, which ranged from cynical (“Taxman”; “Piggies”) to mystical to just plain beautiful (“Something”), continued to be overshadowed by the Lennon-McCartney duo. When the Beatles began to bicker during the White Album sessions, George brought in a fellow Moon in Scorpio, Eric Clapton, to play on his impressive "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." However, George and Ringo, the two sensitive water signs, both took turns walking out of an increasingly tense studio atmosphere dominated by Paul's perfectionism and John's growing heroin addiction and his insisting on keeping Yoko not just in the studio, but next to him at all times. To the rest of the world in 1968, the Beatles were still together, but the rot was setting in. As George's songwriting efforts grew more confident and prolific, he felt so stymied by the Lennon-McCartney fortress that his first solo effort, All Things Must Pass, was a triple album.

It is no coincidence that the Beatles tenure in the crow’s nest ended in 1970, the same year Neptune left Scorpio. There was no longer a deep, unfathomable ocean to traverse; Neptune in Sagittarius was more akin to a spaceship.

Uranus-Pluto Square Update: Tornadoes; RIP Ray Manzarek

Yesterday I posted about the Uranus-Pluto square; unfortunately but unsurprisingly, this intense outer-planet aspect has manifested in extreme weather patterns. At least two dozen tornadoes occurred in Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, and Illinois, and today, a severe tornado touched down south of Oklahoma City, resulting in two fatalities and over a dozen injuries.

Also, musician Ray Manzarek of the seminal '60s rock band the Doors died today. Interestingly, he was a Sun in Aquarius (ruled by Uranus). Manzarek formed the Doors with Jim Morrison in 1965, during the Uranus-Pluto conjunction; their first single was, apropos of this conjunction, "Break on Through (to the Other Side)."

It's Not the End of the World As We Know It (And I Don't Feel Fine)*

*Apologies to R.E.M. for such cynical paraphrasing of one of the finest anthems created by the Pluto-in-Virgo generation.

Were you relieved or disappointed or perhaps a mixture of both emotions when you woke up this morning to discover that the world was still spinning on its axis, that life was still going on?

Bar none, the most annoying question I've had to contend with as an astrologer this year is the end-of-the-world scenario due to occur on December 21, 2012, predicted by those mystical Mayans all those years ago. Never mind that the Mayans themselves have long since put the kibosh on this prediction, which was as out of context as one could get, a literal fragment.

(Next year, winner of Most Annoying Astrology-Related Question will most likely revert back to a tie between "Oh, you seem so smart, how could you believe in astrology?" and "Ha, what exactly did you just say about your anus, ha-ha?")

Back to the question I posed. I can't pretend to speak for everyone; I wouldn't want to, and everyone is not the same anyway. But as someone so strong in the water element, I do pick up on other people's moods, and what I have gotten from so many people this year, both in person and from news articles, is a desire for apocalypse. As if the only action that will stop the madness symbolized and manifested by the Uranus-Pluto square I keep going on about is spontaneous global combustion. Fire? Ice? Bombs? Death by Chocolate? (Sign me up for that last one.)

Something I find truly interesting and disturbing is not that so many people have major thanatos (death wish) during these topsy-turvy times, but that apocalypse literally means "uncovering," as in a lifting of the veil. Disclosure. Knowledge.

Perhaps many of us want both: to be in the know and to die. Heightened consciousness can indeed bring bucketfuls of pain. Ignorance may not always bring bliss, but a willful unwillingness to follow current events may also keep you from feeling like there is just no point in going on...unless, of course, your personal circumstances are such that you want to die anyway.

The last time the mood was this apocalyptic was during the late 1960s, an era triggered by Uranus-Pluto conjunction -- a handful of years when I was a concept, a tie-dyed-in-the-wool hippie, or my uncle (who died in January 1970, six months before I was born). Peaceful flower power and civil disobedience waned as violence and black-and-white thinking became more commonplace and accepted; you were either on one side of the fence or another; no shades of gray were tolerated. Change would have to occur, as Malcom X warned before he himself was gunned down, "by any means necessary." Time horizons shrank as events sped up and seemingly out of control. As Jim Morrison of the Doors sang on their very first album, "The future's uncertain and the end is always near."

On the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, the first day of Capricorn, the midst of the holiday season, and most assuredly not the end of the world, my only cosmic prescription is to find something to ease any pain you might be feeling that does not hurt you or anyone else. Laughter is a safe bet; find something to tickle your funny bone. If you find that solitude is more comforting than company right now, by all means shut the door and indulge in some downtime. But remember that Capricorn, for all its standoffish, CEO airs, is still a sensual, hands-on earth sign, and still needs to be held close sometimes.

'Twas the Night Before the Uranus-Pluto Square, and All Through the House...

...or shall I say "houses"?

A few posts ago I wrote about the upcoming Uranus-Pluto square; the first of seven (!) is exact tomorrow, June 24, 4:14 a.m. EDT.

I turn now to you, Dear Readers, to further enlighten (or endarken) me on this major aspect -- for although outer-planet aspects are collective and global in nature, the world is comprised of individuals.

If you know your birth chart, please write in and let me know in which houses the Uranus-Pluto square occurs, as well as any pertinent details as personal as you care to make them.

If you do not know your birth chart, but have been reading about the Uranus-Pluto square, how has this square been affecting you?

I am interested to hear from you whatever your sign, age, or experience of the square, but am especially interested in hearing from those of you who were born during the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of 1965-66, for the Uranus-Pluto square marks your official entry into midlife. Any interesting crises to report? Any predictions on the trajectory of your "X" generation?

How about those of you who were born a decade later, 1975-76, with natal Pluto at 8 degrees of Libra (which forms a stressful T-square to the already-stressful Uranus-Pluto square)? Post-Saturn Return but pre-midlife, are you energized or are you burning out?

And what's up with you even younger upstarts born in 1988, with Neptune at 8 degrees of Capricorn (conjunct transiting Pluto and square transiting Uranus)? Are you having a spiritual awakening, dissolving any walls or defenses, or are you having a full-fledged waking nightmare?

Okay, I will share first: the Uranus-Pluto square falls in my seventh (Uranus) and fourth (Pluto) houses. I have just moved (for the second time with Pluto transiting my fourth house of home), and it was extremely traumatic despite the overwhelmingly positive "realities" (location-location-location, plus cheaper rent). My relationship (seventh house) feels uneven and unstable (Uranus) partly due to the move and partly thanks to unexpected (Uranus again!) and unwelcome health issues brought on by too little sleep and too much stress (my sixth house of health and work is 29 degrees of Aquarius, and so is ruled by Uranus). And speaking of work, I have lost much of my freelance (oh, you're still here, Uranus?) momentum; I have little energy to hustle for projects, which is at least half the freelancer's battle. At least today, on the Sun-Neptune trine, I had a good day with my Neptune-ruled sweetie, first at my new place (Sun in Cancer) and then at the beach (Neptune in Pisces), though I could have lived without the annual Mermaid Parade crowd. Too bad my energy later drained to the point that I ended the night alone (oh, you Neptune, you).

Your turn. I thank you in advance for your candor.