Challenge Corner Answer

Zip Dobyns

The first triplet, born at 5:18, was the fraternal one. The other two were identical, from the same egg. The first-born was the one with cerebral palsy which was at least partly caused by the birth process. The second baby born at 6:29 was the healthy one who has led a successful life. The last baby, born at 6:40, had her chest crushed in the delivery process and died in about a half hour.

Triplet one who lived to December 1989 is the only one with Cancer rising, the astrological principle of the baby-mother relationship. She also has an exact T-square involving the MC on the Aries point square Mercury and the East Point at 0 Cancer with Juno (which is like Pluto) on the IC at 0 Libra. If we include the West Point which is opposite the East Point and similar to an auxiliary Descendant, the combination forms a full grand cross in cardinal signs. Mars and Uranus, (primary keys to individual freedom), hold a wide opposition in all the charts, but their midpoint at 16 Aquarius 11 is octile-trioctile the cardinal cross and quincunx the Ascendant in this chart within one degree orbs. The Sun-Moon square is also closest in this chart. Ceres in Pisces is trioctile the Ascendant within 15 minutes of longitude. Pluto in Cancer is in the first house. All of these aspects emphasize the water principle, connecting it to “letter one” in our twelve sides of life. The Moon rules the Cancer Ascendant. A water planet in a water sign is in the first house. Two of the angles which represent the individual’s basic identity, her right and power to do what she wants, are in water signs and they have conflict aspects to a water asteroid (Juno) or an asteroid in a water sign and house (Ceres).

Water is the element of dependency or nurturing. In this case, we have an individual who remained totally dependent all of her life. Water symbolizes the unconscious side of the mind, including the capacity to be sensitive and empathic. The healthy, middle triplet remained very close to her helpless sister all of their lives, and says that the sister demonstrated love and a sense of understanding despite her tremendous handicaps. We can also see the harmony aspects in the chart which show the potential for unconscious faith that the universe would care for her and it did with a mother and a sister who never abandoned her. Mars in a water sign is trine the Ascendant. Neptune, a water planet, sextiles the Ascendant. Ceres, key to mothering or being mothered, is in a water sign and house and trine Mercury-East Point in a water sign and house.

All three charts have fire and earth trines, but only the middle triplet was actually able to use that “steamroller” potential. She started out as a teacher, which fits her tenth house Uranus and sixth house Jupiter as well as the nodes in Gemini-Sagittarius and in the fifth house–eleventh house polarity, but later she became a highly successful real estate broker. Juno’s exact sextile to her Ascendant fits her desire for marriage, but the double quincunx (yod) from Ceres in one of the partnership houses (8th) also suggests a challenge in maintaining a long-term marriage. She is currently separated from her second husband, largely because her nurturing instinct was encouraging him to become more dependent and irresponsible. Mixtures of “parent-partner” principles are present in several ways in the chart. Ceres is in the eighth house. Libra and Scorpio are in the fourth house. Saturn is a co-ruler of Aquarius in the seventh and eighth houses. Venus is just inside the tenth house. Jupiter, co-ruler of Pisces in the eighth house, is in Capricorn. Pallas, a Libra asteroid, is in Capricorn. Pluto is in Cancer. In many ways, these first and second triplets played out the opposite sides of this chart, the potential conflict between independence and competence and power (the fire and earth) versus dependence (the water) which is often backed up by air in its role as spectator, watching others “do it.”

We could point to the close sextile between the Antivertex and Vesta and between the East Point and Neptune in Virgo as keys to the demonstrated Virgo ability of this middle triplet. Virgo-Vesta can represent efficient functioning in our job or in our body (health). This triplet has manifested ability in both areas. Mercury exactly semisextile her Ascendant is another plus for her mind and competence. Her MC quincunx to Mars suggests tension between personal will and power and the limits of personal power which might have manifested as health or job problems. But, knowing the circumstances of her life, we can say that she has had to accept her inability to heal her handicapped sister or to “save” her husband. The Mars-MC aspect also fits her change of career with a shift to one with more variety and independence, as does the Vesta square to Uranus in the tenth house and the oppositions of Jupiter-Pallas in the sixth house to Pluto in the twelfth house.

The charts of the middle and last triplets are far closer, yet their lives could not have been more different. The Antivertex, an auxiliary Ascendant so a key to health, is more closely conjunct the south lunar node in the last baby, but it is more closely octile Pluto for the healthy one. Neptune is octile the Ascendant within the crucial one-degree orb for the last baby and just a little more than a degree for the second baby. But the second (healthy) one has the Ascendant more closely trioctile the north node. The strongest clue may be the Moon’s exact octile to the eighth house cusp (a key to death along with the fourth house cusp) for the last baby, which also puts the Part of Death in a one-degree orb octile to the Ascendant. The Moon-eighth house aspect has an orb of almost 3 degrees for the middle baby so the Part of Death-Ascendant aspect is equally wide and I limit aspects to midpoints and Arabic Parts to an orb of one degree. But that puts the healthy baby’s Part of Death closely conjunct her Antivertex and octile Pluto, so the patterns could have pointed to her own death instead of to meeting death through a close relationship, a typical manifestation of node aspects.

For once, aspects of the asteroids to the angles were not helpful, or at least we would have to be cautious about assuming that they have to be negative. Nemesis was closely conjunct the Ascendant of the healthy baby. Our normal impulse would be to see that as a key to some kind of retribution, but Karma (the consequences of past action) can be good as well as stressful! Midpoints actually provided the most evidence. There were at least eight stress aspects hitting the MC axis of the last baby while the middle one had very few. But a strict Cosmobiologist would have probably picked the middle one as the victim since she had two Neptune midpoints on her Ascendant and another one square it. Like Nemesis, in her case, they were a key to her deep spiritual faith which has carried her through whatever life presented to her.

Copyright © 1991 Los Angeles Community Church of Religious Science, Inc.

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