Ledger and Romney: Public Transits in Real Life

As most of you probably know by now, actor Heath Ledger was found dead in January of an apparent accidental overdose caused by a variety of prescription drugs. As you may also know, Mitt Romney recently suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Both of these public events provide good illustrations of how transits can actually work in real people's lives--whether they know anything about astrology or not.

In the case of Heath Ledger, when someone dies of drug-related causes, I suspect a heavy Neptune transit. Sure enough, Mr. Ledger was just completing a square of Neptune in Aquarius to his natal Uranus in Scorpio when he died, along with a sextile between Neptune in Aquarius and his natal Neptune in Sagittarius.

Now, the first thing I want to emphasize is that Neptune in Aquarius square Uranus in Scorpio does not cause a drug overdose and death. Many, many people have Uranus in Scorpio and Neptune in Sagittarius, and the vast majority of them are not keeling over dead from drugs when transiting Neptune touches these placements by aspect, thank goodness. In fact, some of them may be doing the opposite. This kind of transit can convince a person to quit drugs altogether, sometimes out of what seems like sheer necessity.

In Heath Ledger's case, he had sun in Aries in opposition to natal Pluto. In my own personal experience, the combination of an Aries sun in the 12th house, Uranus in Scorpio in the 8th house, Pluto in Libra in opposition to the sun, and Mars in the 4th or 12th houses can be a problematic for dangerous or even lethal accidents. Uranus is sudden; the 8th house is death; Scorpio is the sign associated with the 8th house; Pluto is the planet associated with the 8th house; Aries is impulsive; 12th house is self-destructive impulses; Mars is rash impulses and accidents; 4th house is conditions at the end of life. A chart with these things has an overload of tendencies toward impulsive and potentially self-destructive behaviors or accidents. Neptune (drugs) in Sagittarius is not the most considered and prudent of placements either. I do not know Ledger's birth time; it is possible that he had this combination.

I should also point out that he was contending with his first Saturn return at the time of the accidental death, as well as transiting Saturn in opposition to Venus. Uranus also conjoined his south node at the time, and I have noticed that the nodes seem to be more often involved in abrupt and "fated" occurrences than mere coincidence would dictate. The accident also took place within range of a lunar (ending) eclipse in his solar house of health issues. My point here is not to analyze Ledger's birth chart or his character. It is to point out that your young relative or friend with Uranus in Scorpio probably doesn't have a chart like Ledger's and is not likely to die during his or her Neptune square, although it can be a difficult transit.

What I actually wanted to highlight is that in real life, turning points, noticeable and visible turning points often occur right at the end of a transit from one outer planet to another. A situation gets resolved one way or another. In Ledger's real life, he was apparently confronting the symbolism of Uranus in Scorpio by playing the dark and dangerous and maniacal role of the Joker in a Batman movie. The role was probably bringing up dark stuff from the psyche (as a transit to a Scorpio planet is wont to do), during the year or so before the overdose. Transiting Neptune (drugs) was fighting off (square) the implications and difficulties of the dark stuff, and the sextile to natal Neptune in Sagittarius indicates that his use of the prescription medication was an attempt to elevate his mood and rise above the anxiety that an activated Uranus in Scorpio can bring.

Indeed, the prescriptions were probably helpful as well as dangerous. Although it is tempting to use medication during a Neptune square, it is usually not considered advisable in astrology (just so you know), as the body's ability to metabolize these substances is thought to be impaired. So although it may have seemed natural and even advisable to Ledger to get the prescriptions (especially in today's pill-popping society), he probably also knew on some level that they were causing him potentially serious problems.

He probably knew this all the more acutely if he had friends  or a social group (Aquarius) that supported drug use (Neptune) as a way of fitting in. When a difficult transit is occuring, a person usually knows that something is wrong, that a crisis or choice point is looming. Although I don't particularly wish to stand in judgment of Ledger, I will say that outer planet transits are important, and that a key value of astrology is in its ability to help us confront the crises or choices that we all inevitably face in life with some conscious awareness and willingness to get something valuable from them.

Mitt Romney's case is less somber. He had Uranus in Pisces squaring his natal Uranus in Gemini, and this transit entered its final days as he made his announcement. In this case, the major issue at hand was changeability. Changeability of viewpoints and changeability in the rhetoric one uses to express oneself.

Transiting Uranus in Pisces had been trying rather desperately to update Mr. Romney's public reputation, to deal with issues posed by religious affiliation (Pisces), to bring his visible beliefs into line with current circumstances, and to change how he was perceived at this point in his life. It kept running into repeated problems, though, with the Romney of the past (the natal Uranus placement). This conflict became quite literal in the sense that his political opponents kept bringing up the more moderate statements he made earlier in his career, statements out of kilter with his attempt to present himself as a "candidate of change" in line with core conservative Republican values.

A Uranus square like this will often show up in the form of an outright conflict with specific other people, and this dynamic became apparent in the visible conflicts and animousity that developed between Romney and McCain and between Romney and Huckabee. Given that Uranus has recently passed over his natal Mercury, Romney was not lying when he asserted that his ideas had legitimately changed over the past several years.

As the transiting square came to an end, though, he had to make a decision as to what to do about the conflict in his chart. He did. He withdrew. During the rest of this year and into the next, Romney will undergo yet another change of his identity as Uranus passes over his sun. Within the next two or three years, the tide will turn in his life and he'll be able to move forward with much more confidence in who he really is and what he really stands for. If he still desires public office at that point, he will be better equipped to capitalize on his native talents than he was during this campaign. Timing, it would appear, really is everything.