Seeing Vocational Confusion
Please erect this chart: Hector Berlioz, December 11, 1803 at 5:00 PM LMT in La Cote Saint Andre, France. [This data is extremely reliably rated; 00 Cancer 29 Ascendant.]
Berlioz was an opera and symphonic composer who affected music dramatically throughout the 19th century and certainly beyond. He was regarded as a genius, championed by such celebrated musicians as Franz Lizt and Paganini, highly influenced by Beethoven (who was still alive twenty years into Berlioz life).
But before his achievements in music, Berlioz’ doctor father had sent him to Medical School! –Let’s track this confusion and resolution through the horoscope.
As soon as we see the double-bodied Pisces (or Gemini) sign on the Midheaven, we can anticipate more than one profession, or confusion about professions. The MC is ruled by Neptune, which is very importantly conjunct the Moon. –Note that this Neptune-Moon conjunction is the only Ptolemeic planetary aspect made by Neptune and the Moon. It will speak very strongly; it is a “peregrine island”.
Pluto hugs the MC and is disposited by Neptune. In fact, Neptune and Pluto are in mutual reception. –This is a very powerful set of ties between Neptune-Moon and Pluto-MC.
Pluto puts us into several possible channels vocationally: government, research, monumentality of expression, and, in that day and age, the potential of (the coercion to) following in the father’s footsteps since the MC is also the father reference point.
However, the Neptune dimension is not compatible with those expectations! There is confusion to be anticipated. –What is suggested strongly by the Neptune-Pluto combination is the supernatural, the ethereal,the aesthetic.
The father prevailed at first, and Berlioz was sent to Medical School in Paris. We can work to adapt the vocational signature to Medical Research, to Pharmacology (Neptune). But it doesn’t satisfy, especially when we try to assimilate more about the MC, the possible point of confusion, and another path of Midheaven extension: the MC sextile with Venus, strongly angular, and squared by Saturn. –Fascinatingly, this Saturn-Venus square is the only Ptolemeic planetary aspect made by either planet as well; this square is also a mutual reception square(!) and will also operate as a peregrine island!
So we have Pluto.MC-Neptune.Moon; we have MC-Venus.Saturn. Those are the possible two professions extended from the Midheaven. The key link in this picture is the Venus-MC.Pluto sextile.
[Note: the peregrination of Jupiter usually would speak strongly as well since it is also trine the Midheaven, but its significance is shifted immediately to Venus since Venus disposits Jupiter.]
Some analytical background In biography, Berlioz is described as “by nature very impressionable, and even as a child completely at the mercy of his feelings.” This is vivid here with the 00 Cancer Aries Point Ascendant! –In fact, biographers make much of the startling occurrence that “At twelve, Berlioz fell in love with a girl six years older than himself.” This was an enormous event of deep impression power for Berlioz and it stayed with him a long, long time. [Practice picking up important arcs with just your eyes, adding 12 degrees here for this precocious, paranormal love affair; you can see Venus=Uranus, Pluto=Sun, MC=Mercury, Neptune=Pluto and Mars-Sun=Asc all at 12 years of age!! –At the same time, he was also teaching himself music and already composing.
We must see that this AP Cancer Ascendant will flow deeply and compellingly into the vocational bipartite profile since the Moon, ruler of the Ascendant is conjoined with Neptune within the vocational picture.
Well, this Romantic went to Paris to study medicine, pushed there by his father, and “his first acquaintance with dissections filled him with such horror that he escaped through the window, firmly decided never to become a doctor.” On that evening he attended an opera performance and was totally transported to another realm. –His worlds had come together.
Shortly thereafter, some of his compositions were presented publicly and the great teacher Lesueur at the Conservatory pronounced that “You will be neither a doctor nor a chemist [Neptune], but a great composer, because you are a genius. It is true!”
Project Pluto forward 23 degrees [Berlioz at age 23]: at 29Pisces, SA Pluto=Asc took place, changing his life perspective and personal identity. There were other arcs active as well at the same time. –This is when Berlioz entered the Paris Conservatory, a major step for his legitimacy as a composer.
Note that if we project Pluto four more degrees (years) to an Arc of 27 we bring SA Pluto=Venus vividly into his life! In that year, 1830, Berlioz won the Gran Prix de Rome and wrote the “Symphonie Fantastique”, a supernaturally conceived work that made orchestral history. [There is commentary in the literature that Berlioz used a drug stimulus in writing this fantastic symphony, but that may have been critical gossip conceived after the fact of this stupendous “new-sound” achievement; but Neptune does fit in here again.]
A further dimension about the vocational stature: Pluto is associated with monumentality, grand scope, extraverted grandiosity, and it is dominantly strong here at the Midheaven. –Berlioz was a genius innovator with orchestral coloration, composing new sound textures on a grand scale. He called for choruses sometimes numbering 500 voices, orchestras of 140 pieces, and he wrote an opera that takes six and one-half hours to perform (Les Troyens) and was never performed in its entirety in his lifetime.
Berlioz became a monumental presence in music of the 19th century, and his extraordinary orchestration conceptualizations have endured influentially to the present day. –The most expressive monument-composer died with SA Asc=Pluto, in 1869.