Born November 29, 1832 12:30 AM LMT Germantown, PA 40N02, 75W10. Source: Astrodatabank. Reference: Family bible.

Chick Lit is defined as women’s fiction written for and marketed to young women. This particular literary genre was launched after the Women’s Movement in the 1970s, earned its own category of genre fiction in the 1990s, and is now front and center in 21^st century popular culture. Media moguls market the breadth of women’s experiences to captive audiences on film, bookstores, newsstands, and television. It scintillates, it sizzles, and, above all, it sells.

But despite feminism and the repercussions of liberated women in contemporary society, chick lit is nothing new. It was born in the 19th century in Concord, Massachusetts, and its creator was none other than Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women. This tale of the March family, comprised of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, mother Marmee, and absentee Father, holds a precious place in the annals of American Literature, for it was the first American saga that captured the joys and sorrows of adolescent girls who blossom into women.  Alcott captured the ethos of these timeless sisters and their neighbors with passion, brevity and wit. Her classic story was an international sensation upon publication in 1868 and has never been out of print. It has been adapted to play, musical, opera, film, and animated feature. Alcott’s photograph has graced a United States postage stamp. Alcott and her March Family Trilogy, comprised of the novels Little Women, Little Men, and Jo’s Boys, were the 19th century’s counterpart of J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series of the present time.  The profits of these novels catapulted Alcott and her family from genteel, and, eventually, dire poverty to financial independence and eventual wealth.  But life for Alcott was often far from the domestic bliss she depicted so endearingly.  (But don’t tell her pubescent readers that).

Alcott was the second of four daughters of Transcendentalist philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail Sewall May. After moving to Concord, Massachusetts, her neighbors and social circle consisted of no less than Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Concord, the seat of American Transcendentalism movement, was such a hotbed of civil disobedience, self reliance and literary brilliance that it was dubbed the Mecca of the Mind. After the publication of Little Women, Alcott was lionized as a literary superstar and hobnobbed with the literati in the US and Europe, yet she would never associate with a more eclectic society than the one in which she was raised. Emerson was her idol and helped her select books from his personal library. He employed her as a governess to his daughter Ellen, to whom Alcott read the stories she had written.  It was Emerson’s wife Lidian who encouraged Alcott to collect them in one volume and publish them. Thus, in 1854, at age 22, Alcott published Flower Fables, her first book.  Thoreau took Alcott and her sisters on his boat on the Concord River and on frequent excursions in the woods.  Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of the Scarlet Letter, was Alcott’s next-door neighbor. But despite the prodigious talent that surrounded her on a daily basis, Alcott is the most widely read author of the nineteenth century, outselling even in her own lifetime her stellar neighbors and colleagues.

In 1942, two rare book dealers discovered that Alcott wrote under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard and published many Gothic potboilers in magazines. Alcott referred to her short stories as “blood and thunder tales,” and wrote in her letters that “I fancy lurid things” as opposed to writing “moral pap for the young,” (The Journals of Louisa May Alcott, edited by Joel Myerson. University of Georgia Press, October, 1997) which ironically made her a fortune and a household name. Her characters in these potboilers were a Grand Canyon leap from Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, and these  tales included stories of transvestitism, sadomasochism, incest, opium eaters, hashish smokers, insanity, violence, and, above all, feminism.  All were written to pull her impoverished family out of debt, and nearly all preceded her 1868 publication of Little Women.

A Mutable Dilemma

Mercury, ruler of the Virgo Ascendant, is Alcott’s ruling planet. It is also the ruler of her Gemini Midheaven. Mercury is in detriment in Sagittarius in her fourth house of home and family. Mercury is squared by Saturn rising in Virgo in the first house and by Jupiter in Pisces on her descendant. Thus Mercury is at the apex of a T-square that further emphasizes Alcott’s connection to home and family, a connection that served as the cornerstone of her life, and underscored her talent for writing.  It is fascinating to note that the three planets in this T-square receive each other in one way receptions. In the same manner of mutual reception, a planet receives another planet when one planet is in the sign that the other planet rules. Thus reading the T-square clockwise, Mercury receives Jupiter in dignity, (Mercury is in Sagittarius, the natural ruler of Jupiter), and Saturn receives Mercury in dignity and exaltation. (Saturn is in the sign of Virgo, a sign Mercury rules and, also in this case, the sign of Mercury’s exaltation).  To take this T-square one step further, the Gemini Midheaven can serve as the point opposite the Mercury apex, creating a wide Grand Cross in mutable signs. Alcott also has Mars, Saturn and Neptune in a Grand Trine in earth signs, with Neptune receiving Saturn in dignity and Mars in exaltation. (Neptune is in Capricorn, the sign of Saturn’s rulership, or dignity, and the sign of Mars’ exaltation). Thus the two major configurations in her chart contain one way receptions that aid and abet the action of the aspect. Every planet in her chart is involved in a one-way reception:

• Jupiter receives Neptune
• The Sun receives Jupiter
• The Moon receives Saturn
• Pluto receives Mars
• Venus receives Saturn
• Jupiter receives Venus in exaltation
• Mars receives the Moon in exaltation.
• Venus and Mars are in a mixed mutual reception, with Venus receiving Mars in exaltation and Mars receiving Venus in dignity.

Thus despite the hard angles of the T-square and the ruler of her Ascendant and Midheaven in detriment, the planets in Alcott’s chart flow together so harmoniously that the one-way and mixed mutual receptions entwine around each other like a set of New England contra dancers.

Alcott has two planets conjunct the Cardinal, or World Axis. This axis mirrors the Sun at 0 degrees Aries, the inception point of the zodiac.  Using the rubric of the 90 degree square divided by two, the answer is 45 degrees, or a semi-square. Dividing 45 degrees by two equals 22 degrees and 30 minutes, or a semi-semisquare. Using the dividend of 22 degrees and 30 minutes throughout the 360 degrees of the zodiac, these degrees equal 0 Cardinal, 22 degrees 30 minutes Cardinal, 15 degrees of Fixed Signs and 7 degrees 30 minutes of mutable signs. These highly energized degrees have an electrifying impact that catapults them into the public eye for better or worse. Thus any point or planet conjunct these degrees within a one-degree orb warrants a closer look to see how these energies will “go public” and place them in a position of recognition. Alcott has the Sun at 7 degrees Sagittarius, 03, conjunct the Cardinal Axis, in her third house of writing and siblings. Writing about siblings in Little Women placed Alcott in the public eye throughout the world.  The Sun rules her twelfth house of solitude, service and the shadow life; Alcott rented rooms in Boston to write her pot boilers for 14 hours a day, isolating herself for months.  In her later years, she was an invalid in a rest home.

Uranus, at 15 degrees Aquarius, is also conjunct the Cardinal Axis, in her fifth house of children and creativity. While she never married or had children of her own, Alcott’s literary creativity made her a seminal force in children’s literature. Uranus rules humanitarianism and radical ideas, and these characteristics describe her family circle perfectly. Bronson Alcott was a strict vegetarian and insisted that his family adapt to his dietary principles. For periods of time he permitted neither himself nor his family to wear clothing made of any material other than linen, because linen was made from flax, not from cotton, which exploited slaves. Wool, which, in Bronson’s opinion, exploited sheep, was also forbidden. It is no accident that the Alcott’s home, along with Thoreau’s, was a stop on the Underground Railroad, where young Alcott and her sisters taught escaped slaves how to read. Abigail “Marmee” Alcott was known to give shelter to every stray animal and person she found and treated them as one of her own. Thus the humanitarian streak in the Alcott Family was deep and wide, complete with its adherence to the free-thinking philosophy of Transcendentalism. Alcott was an ardent suffragette. She was the first woman to register to vote in a Concord school board election and signed her personal letters, Yours for reform. Uranus rules her sixth house of illness, and Alcott suffered for 25 years from one which was unknown in her time; the circumstances of which fundamentally changed her life.

In November 1862 Alcott volunteered as a nurse during the Civil War at Union Hospital in Washington, D.C. After her application was accepted on December 11, she arrived in Washington two days later on December 13.  A week earlier on December 6, 1862, there was a total lunar eclipse at 14 degrees Gemini, 0 minutes, conjunct Alcott’s Midheaven. Three weeks later, Alcott discovered that one of her stories won first prize in a contest, awarding her $100.00, a sum that would equal nearly $2,000.00 in present times. On January 7, 1863, she was stricken with typhoid pneumonia. At that time medical protocol treated this illness with calomel, or mercurous chloride, a treatment that caused a poisoning effect, though this was not known at the time. During her months of convalescence back in Concord, Alcott wrote the book Hospital Sketches. At this time her progressed Venus was at 15 degrees Aquarius on the Cardinal Axis, and, when Hospital Sketches was published in serialization in May 1863 to critical acclaim, her progressed Moon was at 0 degrees Aries, also on the Cardinal Axis.  Thus the eclipse on her Midheaven on December 6, 1862, placed her in the public eye, and caused a watershed of events that changed the course of the rest of her life.

From 1862-1868, Alcott was a voracious writer of potboilers for various mainstream publications and worked as an editor for a children’s magazine in Boston.  When her employer noticed the popularity of the Horatio Alger series, he asked Alcott if she could write a story for girls. Writing ferociously, often skipping meals and sleep, she completed her manuscript in an astonishing ten weeks. The result was Little Women, published in October 1868.  At this time Alcott’s progressed Moon was at 12 degrees Gemini, reaching her Midheaven four months later, when the book was published internationally.  Her progressed Venus was conjunct her Moon (women!), progressed Part of Fortune was exactly conjunct her Ascendant, transiting Jupiter was conjunct her Pluto for financial gain, and transiting Saturn was conjunct her natal Part of Fortune. Solar arced Venus (women) was conjunct her natal IC (home and hearth), and solar arced Jupiter square her natal Neptune, which indicated Alcott’s utter bewilderment with fame.

Success and the pursuit of improved health gave Alcott the urge to travel abroad. In France she consulted a British army doctor who diagnosed her myriad medical problems as mercury poisoning, dosing her with opiates to relieve her chronic symptoms and insomnia. Narcotics would become her constant companion.

Alcott suffered permanent damage from mercury, but modern medical analysis shows that the effects of mercury, in addition to poisoning, caused Alcott’s immune system to attack itself, resulting in Lupus, a disease that ruined her health. On February 11, 1888, a solar eclipse occurred at 22 Aquarius, 44, conjunct Alcott’s Moon in her sixth house of illness within a 5 minute orb. Two weeks later on February 24, Mercury stationed retrograde at 19 Pisces 22, conjunct Alcott’s descendant, ruling open enemies, and Jupiter, ruling her fourth house, or the end of the matter.  On March 6, 1888, she slipped into a coma and died just two days after visiting her father on his deathbed.

Alcott’s legacy was her creation of Topsy Turvy Jo March, the first character in American Literature who showed adolescent girls how to run with the wolves. Over 140 years later, her readers are still running.

And they’ve never looked better.

Bibliography

John Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and her Father. Copyright 2008 W.W. Norton and Company, New York City.

Madeleine Stern, Louisa May Alcott, a Biography, copyright 1985 University of Oklahoma Press.

Madeleine Stern, Louisa May Alcott: From Blood and Thunder to Home and Hearth. Copyright May, 1998, Northeastern University Press.

Louisa May Alcott: The Journals of Louisa May Alcott, Edited by Joel Myerson. Copyright 1997, University of Georgia Press.

Norbert Hirschorn and Ian A. Greaves, Louisa May Alcott, Her Mysterious Illness (Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Spring, 2007, Volume 50, number 2.

Copyright 2009 by Jackie Slevin. All rights reserved.

Originally published in

Adolph Hitler’s best known victim of Nazi persecution has become a universal hallmark of human triumph under adversity. The thirteen-year-old girl who went into hiding in the attic of an Amsterdam warehouse left behind a diary of her daily life which eventually became required reading for every adolescent student in all comers of the world. Often the first window on World War II and the Holocaust to the baby boomer generation and those to follow The Diary of Anne Frank, a poignant legacy of abject political oppression and victimization, strikes a primal chord of humanity in everyone who reads it. This Gemini girl had a tale to tell, and was clearly suited to doing it. A study of progressions, transits and solar arcs to Anne’s horoscope gives a crystal clear picture of her short, sheltered and ultimately heroic life.

Annelise Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany the second daughter of Otto and Edith Frank. (Source: Lois Rodden, Profiles of Women, Reference: Otto Frank). A brief glance at Anne’s chart shows a Gemini Sun in the 11th house, Moon and Neptune conjunct in Leo in the 2nd house and Leo rising. The sign Gemini rules communication and writing and the Sun in the 11th house often indicates someone who acts as a leader or representative for a cause. This placement can also point to a person’s tendency to be an idealist, for in the face of unspeakable oppression, this thirteen-year-old girl wrote “in spite of everything, l still believe that people are really good at heart.”

The emphasis in Leo illustrates Anne’s need to be the center of attention among her friends as well as her love of Hollywood films, as photographs of movie stars brightened the walls of her makeshift yet habitable hiding place. A flair for dramatic expression and an overall benevolence, combined with an investigative journalist’s eye for detail, endeared this gifted and talented girl to the world at large. The Moon-Neptune conjunction gives heightened awareness and deep intuition. Anne read the minds of all her cohabitants in the Secret Annex and absorbed their moods and feelings like a sponge. Her Part of Fortune conjunct her I.C. illustrates her development in a serene and tranquil family environment in addition to her utter devotion to her beloved father, Otto, whom she nicknamed “Pim.”

The Frank family had strong roots in Frankfurt’s one-thousand-year-old Jewish community and Otto, affectionately known as “Papa” Frank, enjoyed a stellar reputation from his prior status as an officer during World War I. Kind, capable and socially astute, Otto took a dim view of tile disturbing political changes sweeping Germany, most notably the chancellor ship of the radical Adolph Hitler who took office due to a secret agreement on January 30, 1933, and began to rule as a dictator within two months. Sensing the imminent threats to the Jewish community, Otto took steps to relocate his family to a place safe from the encroaching anti-Semitism that began to manifest around them. By the summer of that same year, Otto moved his wife and daughters to their maternal grandmother’s home in Aachen, West Germany, near the Belgian border. During this time period Anne’s Progressed Midheaven was conjunct her natal Uranus, a classic indication of sudden change, and transiting Jupiter was sextiling her Ascendant, showing an opportunity to enhance and protect one-self. In the winter of 1933-34, transiting Jupiter conjoined Anne’s Part of Fortune and her I.C. and trined her Mercury and Sun, her ruling planet. The move proved a successful stepping stone by all accounts. Otto, moving ahead with his plan, traveled westward and took up residence in Amsterdam, Holland, a country known for its neutral position during World War I. After establishing himself in a food services business, Otto summoned his wife and daughters to the new home he had established and the Frank family was reunited in the Spring of 1934. At this point, transiting Saturn opposed Anne’s Moon, a sure sign of the solidification of domestic events, underscored with hardships of necessity.

Storm clouds of war began brewing when the Nazis invaded Amsterdam on May 10, 1940. Jews were forced by decree to wear the yellow star of identification and Anne and her sister Margot, due to their heritage, were forced to leave a Montessori school and attend the Jewish Lyceum. Otto was also forced to leave his business, yet he retained loyal friends in his employees and associates, who were to become invaluable later on. Despite these problems from the World outside her family, Anne proved to be a bright student and enjoyed a happy childhood that passed without incident.

A Diary Named “Kitty”

In her book, we meet her just after her thirteenth birthday when she received her beloved diary, which she named “Kitty” as a gift. Four days before her birthday on June 8, 1942, Neptune made a station in the 28th degree of Virgo, exactly squaring Anne’s Saturn in the 28th degree of Sagittarius in her 6th house of daily  routine. This station marks the beginning of a serious dedication to observing and recording her own feelings, emphasizing the discipline that Anne used to document the events of her life. Saturn also rules one’s career, and one could say that in the next two years that Anne was laying the foundation for a hoped-for career, for she frequently wrote in her diary that she wanted to be a famous writer.

Life in the Frank family knew it ended three weeks after her thirteenth birthday, on the afternoon of July 5th, when Anne’s older sister Margot received a letter ordering her to report to a labor camp. Wasting no time, on the following morning, Otto moved his family to a warehouse attic (“The Secret Annex”) that was concealed by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Anne’s solar-arced Pluto was conjunct her Ascendant within 27 minutes of arc, representing an external event that triggered a crisis in her personal life. Along with this, her solar-arc Moon was exactly conjunct her 3rd house cusp, which rules siblings (Margot) and communication (the letter). It is also important to note that the radio, a 3rd house instrument of communication, became the focus of daily life in the Secret Annex and the enforced seclusion inclined Anne to incorporate writing, a 3rd house activity, into her daily life on a steady basis. On the day Margot received the letter there was a third-quarter Moon in the 12the degree of Aries conjunct Anne’s Midheaven (her place in the world), as well as her Uranus, ruler of her 7th house of open enemies and her 8th house of crisis.

Anne, along with her sister, her parents and four other Jews, lived in the Secret Annex for two years. Kept alive with clandestine food deliveries from Otto’s employees, the inhabitants prayed daily for an end to the war and took particular interest in the broadcasts of D-Day, thinking that freedom from Nazi occupation would come any day now. Through the ever-present fear of being discovered, the upbeat Anne always saw the light at the end of the tunnel. “I have often been downcast, but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting al at the same time. In my diary I treat all the privations as amusing. I have made up my mind now to lead a different life from other girls and, later on, different from ordinary housewives. My start has been so very full of interest, and that is the sole reason why I have to laugh at the humorous side of the most dangerous situations.”

To this day, no one knows who made the telephone call that informed the Nazis of the group of eight Jews hiding in the Secret Annex. They were raided and captured on August 4, 1944, the day of a solar eclipse in the 13th degree Aquarius. Incredibly enough, this eclipse was conjunct Anne’s solar-arced Descendant, the point of open enemies, and her solar-arced Venus was exactly conjunct her North Node in the 11th house of personal identity within a group. A few days later, the Frank family was taken by train to Westerbork, a deportation camp for Jews and other prisoners. They departed for Auschwitz on September 3, 1944 and arrived there two days later. At this time, transiting Mars and Neptune were conjunct, an aspect that gives an atmosphere of high voltage energy surrounding treachery and confusion. This conjunction took place on Anne’s Part of Fortune and on her I.C., or her parental axis. The Frank family was separated by gender on the platform at Auschwitz, and it was the last time Anne ever saw her beloved father. Otto passed selection by Joseph Mengele himself and was sent to the men’s camp for work.

At Auschwitz

Anne arrived at Auschwitz suffering from scabies, so she could not be sent to the work camp;  her skin condition forced her to remain in the main camp near the crematories. Her mother Edith and her sister Margot, both still in good health, were offered the opportunity to be transferred to the work camp, yet chose to remain with Anne. Transiting Jupiter at this time was conjunct Anne’s 3rd house cusp indicating protection from kin.  With the stunned expression of sleepwalkers,  the prisoners moved about in a state of consciousness that numbed and somehow protected them from the horror of their environment. ”But Anne had no such protection, one survivor wrote “I can still see her standing at the door and looking down the camp street as a herd of naked Gypsy girls were driven by to the crematory and Anne watched them go and cried. And she cried also when we marched past the Hungarian children who already had been waiting half a day in the rain in front of the gas chambers because it was not yet their turn.” The hypersensitivity of the Moon-Neptune conjunction inclined Anne to empathize with virtually everyone, despite her own debilitating hardship.

With her scabies under control, Anne, Margot and Mrs. van Pels, another inhabitant of the Secret Annex, (Anne used the pseudonymous last name Van Daan in the diary), were among a group of the youngest women to be transported to another camp at Bergen-Belsen in Germany, where the horrors were even worse. There was none of the meticulous organization of Auschwitz; no roll call, no food and no water. Anne arrived at Bergen-Belsen on October 30, 1944. The following day there was a Full Moon in the eighth degree of Taurus, conjunct Anne’s Midheaven, the point that identified her place in the world and also the location of her Uranus, the planet of sudden, unsettling events. Transiting Neptune was still conjunct her natal Part of Fortune on the cusp of the 4th house (parents). Otto Frank was still alive, but Anne did not know this. Neptune also rules wasting away, and this is precisely what happened to her mother. Remaining behind at the hospital barracks at Auschwitz the already despondent Edith Frank slipped into what is now known as clinical depression. At Bergen-Belsen, the fortunes of the Frank sisters plummeted. A fierce Winter was beginning and Anne and Margot’s bunks were placed next to the door of an unheated barracks. During a particularly ferocious storm one week later on November 7th, Anne and Margot met with friends they knew from the Dutch Resistance who were also interred in the camp. One of these individuals, who survived the Holocaust, described Anne at this point as emaciated, overwrought and shivering in a horse blanket. Their misfortune continued. Back at Auschwitz, Edith Frank died on January 6, 1945. Transiting Neptune made a station and turned retrograde in the sixth degree of Libra, exactly conjunct Anne’s I.C., that very same day.

Typhoid Winter

In late February, the friend from the Resistance again visited Anne and Margot, who by now were both stricken with typhoid fever. The mortally ill Margot was moved to another barracks and soon died and Anne, while never informed of her sister’s death, sensed it. A few days later, a starving Anne glimpsed a schoolmate through the fence and poured her heart out, claiming she had no one, that her parents and sister were all dead and she had nothing. Anne was never to learn the fate of either of her parents.

When the friend from the Dutch Resistance returned seven days later Anne was also dead from typhus, which had reached epidemic proportions, killing 18,168 people in March 1945. While her death was recorded in the camp as occurring on March 31, ”There are, however, some in indications that they both died a few weeks earlier, possibly at the end of February or early March.” One can surmise the date by the placement from her progressed Sun, which in March 1945 was in the fifth degree of Cancer. Transiting Saturn made a station in the third degree of Cancer Sun on March 3, which is most likely the day that marked her final demise.…”she died, peacefully, feeling that nothing bad was happening to her.” She was three months short of her sixteenth birthday. When British soldiers liberated Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945, they emptied the contents of a small hut that stood a few hundred feet from the barracks where Anne and Margot lived. It contained medicines for typhoid fever.

Anne Frank possessed a passion for life that saw her through the darkest of human experiences. For being a member of the Jewish religion she was exiled, humiliated, cloistered, captured, imprisoned, starved and finally annihilated. But she was never defeated. Four months before she was captured, she wrote in her diary: ”I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, the possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me.”

We, in turn, are grateful to God for the gift of Anne Frank, whose young life, while so cruelly ended, continues to be an inspiration to us all.