Clowning Around with Chiron, Robin Williams, and an Eclipse

 ©1-5-2010 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

Are you yearning for some humor? We’ve been dealing with such weighty issues of late that a break is in order.

The other day my email included one of my monthly treats, Lynda Hill’s Sabian Symbol newsletter, with her thoughts about the lunar eclipse on New Year’s Eve, which was at a degree associated with clowns. With her permission, I’ll quote it,  and then we’ll take a look at Chironic clowns like Robin Williams and Patch Adams. Here’s part of what Lynda had to say:

Clown and guru are a single identity: the satiric and sublime side of the same higher vision of life. Theodore Rozak

“The new year starts off with a partial lunar eclipse. The Sabian Symbol is Cancer 11°: A Clown is Caricaturing Well-Known Personalities. As we go into 2010, it seems that current issues have to do with entertainment, putting on a happy face, being optimistic and cheerful, keeping your deeper or darker thoughts to yourself versus being real, authentic and transparent about your emotional reality. 

“Keywords of this Symbol are: Exaggerated responses, wanting to entertain, show business, trying to be something or someone that one’s not, putting on a face, comic performances, parodies of personalities, making fun of someone, clowns and clowning, life imitating art, always performing, irony, satire, objective observance, criticism, laughter, caricatures, cartoons, lampooning, voice impressions.

“The Cautions include: being foolish in the face of positive potential, trying to cover up reality through buffoonery, being constantly “on stage”, living vicariously, inauthentic behavior, not having the courage to display one’s true self, putting on a face to manipulate or fool others, irritating behavior that wears thing after a while, being the laughing stock, overblown impressions, loss of true identity.

 “Please do remember that the ‘clown’ motif will be in full swing for the entire month, although as it’s a lunar eclipse, the effects are likely to be felt way into the future. We are being asked to put on a brave face, smile, sometimes when we don’t want to. On the other hand, though, we always need to remember to be authentic. A fine balance, especially as we head off into 2010.

“I started writing this on New Year’s Eve and was interrupted by a circus troop arriving at my house for a party. No one knew about the clown degree being the Symbol for the eclipse; it was all serendipity. I’d also like to mention that a good friend of mine here in Australia started a clown doctor troop that does fabulous work in hospitals here. He recently went to Afghanistan and did some marvelous work there (where I can only imagine many probably need a bit of a laugh).”

 The Sabian symbol Lynda presented for the eclipse reminded me of an article Mimi Christ wrote here some time ago, Chiron and Humour: Wounded Clowns that Heal Us. She analyzed Chiron in the charts of numerous comedians and observed,

“Chiron the healer appears when we unlock the door by accepting the inevitable with grace and a sense of humour, and allow empathy to grow in response to it. Comedy helps us cope. If a problem is incurable, we can be healed on another level by laughing about it. Finding humour in the human condition helps when you’re having a hard time.”

Robin Williams and Patch Adams–It Takes a Clown to Play a Clown! 

Wouldn’t you wonder whether the birth charts of hospital clowns also have planets around 11° Cancer–the degree of that Sabian symbol–and where Chiron is in their charts?

 One of the first such clowns to gain recognition in the US was Patch Adams. The birth information given in his AstroDataBank fileis May 28, 1945, Washington DC, 8:15 PM Eastern War Time.  (You can see his chart and biography here:  Adams, Patch. )  His Chiron at 26° 58’ Virgo is strong, being on the Midheaven and square his Moon at 29° 24’ Sag.  As for the Sabian symbol for clowning, he has Saturn and the North Node conjunct at 9.5° Cancer…close, but no exploding cigar!

Beloved comic Robin Williams played Patch Adams in the movie of the same name. His AstroDataBank record (Williams, Robin) says he was born July 21, 1951, 1:34 PM, Milwaukee, WI. Here we do find the Sabian symbol degree of 11° Cancer strongly featured, because he has Mars at 11° 56’ conjunct Uranus at 10° 51’. They’re closely conjunct Adam’s Saturn and North Node.

 

Williams’ Saturn is at 27° Virgo, closely conjunct Adams’ Chiron, while his own Chiron is at 27° Sagittarius, conjunct Adams’s Moon. These close contacts between their charts, with Chiron and Virgo highlighted, are no doubt why he was able to portray this medical clown with such poignancy. (You can get the DVD at  dvd-moviefans.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive…)

 Robin himself has had little to laugh about in the last year or so while his second Saturn Return coincided with the transiting Saturn-Uranus oppositions and set off the natal square to Chiron.  Transiting Chiron’s conjunction with Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius has hovered around his  MC/IC axis most of the past year as well. As you may already have noted, the recent eclipse at 11° Cancer fell on his Mars/Uranus conjunction in the 8th.

The corresponding events are that on March 21, 2008, his wife of 19 years, filed for a divorce, and he had an aortic valve replacement on March 13, 2009.  It pleases me to fantasize that a troupe of medical clowns visited him in the hospital.

 These natal positions will once again be triggered by the last Virgo-Pisces opposition between Saturn and Uranus in May, 2010—a cause for concern for those of us who have loved him and his clowning over the years. Will these transits affect his zany humor–or will it take it to a whole new level of wisdom and compassion?  If you have any ideas about that, leave us a note in the comment section. 

Need more Diversion?

Have you taken a few pratfalls lately in the circus we call life?  Are you still nursing wounded pride, or have you found a couple things to laugh about in the situation?  If not, perhaps reading some funny essays or watching a rerun of one of your famorite sitcoms would give you a guffaw or two.  Remember, laughter heals!

Without even leaving the computer, you can find more humor from other astrologers on the internet. You can read Mimi Christ’s article here: Chiron and Humour: Wounded Clowns that Heal Us. You can find a wealth of wisdom about Chiron and enjoy the effervescent humor of inveterate punster, Joyce Mason at The Radical Virgo. Her current posts are priceless:   Humor: Auntie Joyce’s Astro-Aphorisms and Chiron’s Key Word Corner: Teacher and Wounded Heal… . And, finally, have a few more laughs with posts in the Humor & Creative Writing category on Skywriter  with pieces like Clients Say the Darndest Things! and The Law of Progressive Annoyance—Mars or Jupiter?

Not humorous per se, but certainly diverting is Lynda Hill’s brilliant contribution of an online oracle based on the Sabian Symbols.  If you haven’t tried Ask The Sabian Oracle, you’re in for a treat. Ask it questions about your coming year!  and www.sabiansymbols.typepad.com.  Also vist Linda’s site, www.sabiansymbols.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter.

FREE EBOOKLET FOR SKYWRITER SUBSCRIBERS ONLY:  a 50-page excerpt from my out-of-print book, The Moon in your Life, also known as Being a Lunar Type in a Solar World.  Read more about it here: NEW: FREE BOOKLET FOR SKYWRITER SUBSCRIBERS!  If you’re already a subscriber and want a copy, forward your most recent email notification to me at moonmave@spiritone.com.  To sign up for a subscription, go to the top right hand corner of the blog and click on “Subscribe.”