Patch’s life was shaped and shrouded by those four months spent in Flanders, where three of his five-man team were shelled to pieces. This experience in his twentieth year covered his life like a banded cage, grey in hue and shocking in its immediacy. Wounded in the groin by a shell splinter, he was sent to Rouen, then England. This is loss and trauma experienced on a collective level and made entirely ndividual. [3]

We do not know Patch’s birth time but his solar chart shows a cluster of three planets, book-ended by the two luminaries, all in Gemini (see chart above). A focus on polarity or duality or communication, we might say if reading the natal chart raw, with more specific issues of emotional obsession (Moon-Mercury-Pluto) contrasting with problem of confusion and/or spirituality (Sun-Neptune). However, if we look at this configuration in the sky, we see a deeper theme emerging. Despite a lack of birth time we can still look at the sky for the day he was born.

 

 

 

The Egyptians also annually slew a sacred bull to wash away the sins of the many. As the Bull slipped from the equinoctial position, so its mythologies expressed messages of domination and submission, thus Jason in reaching for the Golden Fleece of Aires is given the task of taming a fiery bull; and Theseus has to slay the bull of the Minotaur, hidden in the labyrinth and feeding on sacrifices of human flesh until conquered by Theseus. Sacrifice by blood and cleansing by blood are inherent in the meaning of the constellation The Great Bull.

 

Personalising that in the chart of Harry Patch, the meaningless blood sacrifice of the many, the young of the kingdom, consumed by the Minotaur of War, became part of the fabric of his world. �?/SPAN>For eighty years I’ve never watched a war film, I never spoke of it, not (even) to my wife,�?he says. But it haunts him and becomes an emotional worry of which he never speaks (Moon-Mercury-Pluto) in the background of his life.

 

Harry Patch is remarkable. Married to his first wife for fifty-six years, they had two sons, both of whom have since died. Following his first wife's death in 1976, he married again at the age of eighty-one. His second wife died five years ago. He himself should have died ninety years ago, on a battle field in September 1917 with his mates in a foreign country fighting a war not of his choosing. His physical body survived, however, and so have the emotional scars, no matter how hard he has tried to eradicate them. Living in a nursing home for the last six years, Patch expresses it this way:

‘Opposite my bedroom there is a window and there is a light over the top. Now [when the staff go into that room] they put the light on. If I was half asleep �?the light coming on was the flash of a bomb. That flash brought it all back�?For six years, I’ve been here [in the nursing home]. Six years it’s been nothing but World War One. As I say, World War One is history, it isn’t news. Forget it. ' [5]

Andrew Motion expresses it this way:

�?life is like that now, suddenly and gradually
everyone you know dies and still comes to visit
or you head back to them, it's not clear which
only where it happens: a safe bedroom upstairs
by the look of things, although when you sit late
whispering with the other boys in the Lewis team,
smoking your pipe upside-down to hide the fire,
and the nurses on night duty bring folded sheets
to store in the linen cupboard opposite, all it takes
is someone switching on the light - there is that flash,
or was until you said, and the staff blacked the window.
                                                         Andrew Motion, 2008

 

The Stare of Cetus

 

The ram of Aries shares his glory with no-one and Cetus the Sea Monster is the unknown beast from the depths which can erupt bearing with it moments of great insight or chaos. When a planet/luminary passes through this area of the sky, then, depending on which planet/luminary that is, whilst it may imply independence or supremacy of an individual or a concept (in Aries, the Ram), it comes at a price, for it is trapped in the stare of the sea monster and there will be hidden issues which sit beneath it.

 

Harry Patch is now a symbol of war and trauma. Being the last UK soldier alive, his longevity has made him the final witness and thus his chart, like his life, has become symbolic of that great struggle, illuminating that piece of the sky where Aries, the Ram and Cetus the sea monster form an unwitting partnership.  

 

In Aung San Suu Kyi’s chart (VAN, October 2007) with Mars at 5 degrees Taurus and Venus at 11 degrees Taurus, both travel through this area of the sky. Here the imposed supremacy of the military junta is representative of her Venus-Mars travelling through Aries the Ram, and Aung San Suu Kyi, as the Prime Minister elect, is the one unafraid to look Cetus in the face, knowing at some level that she ushers in resurrection and change

 

In the chart of ‘Victoria�?(VAN December 2007) with her Moon at 7 degrees Taurus and forming a T-Square with Neptune and Uranus, she sought emotional security (Moon in Taurus) through independence (Moon travelling through Aries, the Ram) but there was a hidden issue beneath that (Cetus the sea monster). In her case it was connected with giving birth to a child in a lesbian relationship. In that issue of the VAN I also focused on how Cetus appeared to “chase�?Mars (at 23 degrees Taurus and conjunct the South Node) who leapt onto the back of the Great Bull of Heaven and appeared to cling to it for protection. This Mars-South Node square Pluto contained deep and hidden agendas to do with blocked energy and inherited patterns of illness/behaviour magnified by the sky narrative.

 

Thus the charts of Aung San Suu Kyi, Victoria and Harry Patch reveal a question for you who are following this journey of visual astrology. Do you have a planet/luminary in the 'Stare of Cetus' (between roughly 5 and 20 degrees of the tropical sign of Taurus)? If so, is there a deeper issue or scarring of some sort that sits underneath it of which you have become aware? Have you had someone “switching on the light�?

 

This is how I have seen it working in clients�?charts and the charts of prominent people but as this is new ‘old�?territory, we would love to hear how it is working in your life in order to gain further understanding of this for all of us.

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