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As we prepare
to celebrate our newest national holiday, Americans will be remembering
Dr. Martin Luther King and his life’s work within a society that has come
a very long way from the world he knew and transformed. A man of such
vision and influence must have had an equally inspiring astrological chart.
Let’s take a look at some of the astrological forces within Dr. King’s
personality to further celebrate this inspired leader and his moral legacy.
 Dr.
King was a Capricorn, born on January 15, 1929, around noon in Atlanta.
That earthy and ambitious Capricorn nature was evident in his highly developed
leadership and organizational skills. He had a quick and disciplined climb
to the mountaintop. After graduating from Morehouse College at the tender
age of nineteen, he earned his bachelor of divinity degree from Crozer
Theological Seminary three years later. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in
theology at Boston University in 1955.
All
You Need Is Love
It was during
his seminary days at Crozer that he became interested in the life and
teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. King found a ready parallel between Gandhi’s
philosophies of passive, nonviolent resistance and the teachings of Christ.
Like Dr. King, Jesus had also lived under a repressive regime, surrounded
by revolutionaries who were quick to resort to violence in their futile
efforts to drive the all-powerful Roman army from Israel. Dr. King realized
early on that both Gandhi and Christ had succeeded specifically because
they transcended the violent means of the English and the Romans, offering
up the infinitely more powerful forces of peace, love and forgiveness.
Without ever drawing a sword or firing a shot, Gandhi had liberated India
from the English, and Christ had ultimately conquered Rome.
While serving
as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama,
Dr. King was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association
in 1955. This organization had recently been formed to coordinate policies
and strategies for the impending bus boycott. Only 26 years old, the young
Capricorn’s gift for leadership was already apparent. Facing a crisis
of historic proportions, Dr. King enunciated the principles that would
guide his life’s work: “We will not resort to violence. We will not degrade
ourselves with hatred. Love will be returned for hate.” He never wavered
from this, even in the face of death.
Quest
for Truth and Freedom
This does
sound awfully idealistic for a Capricorn, a social-climbing earth sign
ruled by the no-nonsense planet Saturn. However, Dr. King’s natal Saturn
was in Sagittarius, the sign of philosophy and religion, and the quest
for truth and freedom. The planet Saturn in a natal chart reveals a person’s
most serious side, where he finds his discipline and self-control. A symbol
of authority and order, Saturn can also represent the father principle.
As a Capricorn,
Dr. King’s Saturn placement is especially noteworthy. The son and grandson
of Baptist ministers, in a certain sense, King inherited his religious
profession, and eventually, even his position as pastor of the Ebenezer
Baptist Church in Atlanta. With his Saturn in truth-seeking Sagittarius,
Dr. King demanded practical results from his faith. He wanted a truth
that he could live and manifest, one that went far beyond mere thoughts
and words, a truth that would prove itself in contention with the world.
Dr. King’s
natal Saturn is opposed by the macho planet Mars in the communicative
sign of Gemini, lending force to his voice and his dreams. To say that
he was an inspired orator is putting it mildly. His words still echo throughout
our national consciousness. The Saturn-Mars opposition is often found
in the charts of military leaders and athletes. These are disciplined
and hard-working people who are born for conflict and who consistently
hone their winning edge. Dr. King led the civil rights battle from the
front lines, a peoples’ general in the fight for peace.
Spiritual
Warrior
The
t-square (a tense configuration formed by one planet at a right angle to two opposing
planets) between that Saturn-Mars opposition and his Moon in Pisces, the
spiritual water sign where we also find his Venus, mirrors his unique,
loving style of conflict resolution. Within the structure of this planetary
alignment, the persistent Saturn-Mars antagonisms are doused with the
healing waters from Pisces’ reflective depths. It is from this ultimate
and all-encompassing twelfth and final sign that King summoned up the
great love and forgiveness that finally transformed a nation. The Piscean
ideal of justice transcends the tit-for-tat equality of Libra and seeks
the ultimate absolution, that complete cleansing of the soul that brings
liberation and loving reunion.
Venus rules,
or is associated with Taurus, the sign on King’s Ascendant. Because Venus
is linked to his Ascendant, Dr. King’s natal Venus in Pisces also serves
as his chart ruler, exercising extra influence within his personality.
Named for the goddess of love, the planet Venus is considered the
exalted ruler of the sign Pisces, because here she can demonstrate her most universal
and redemptive qualities of self-sacrificing love. In the end, Dr. King
made the ultimate Piscean sacrifice, laying down his life for a truth
that would never die. His Piscean dream of perfect equality and social
justice awakened America from its nightmare of segregation, and is now
more of a reality than ever before. But it was his great love for humanity
that made it all possible.
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