Malcolm Gladwell

God is in the Details -- the Virgo's Fight Song. Virgo is the sign of the perfectionist and the analyst. They excel at creation and management of details. Virgo follows the sign of Leo which sees the big idea. And so Virgo must take Leo's big ideas and make them work. When Virgos work on something usually every part of the thing will be perfectly crafted. Their sign is ruled by Mercury and is a mental, thinker's sign. Often they notice the little things in life that have so much meaning.

The Writer, Malcolm Gladwell, is a Virgo born Sept. 1, 1963 in England (I don't know what town so I used London as place in his chart). Sun at 7 Virgo, Moon probably in Aquarius. He was born at the beginning of Uranus and Pluto's pass through Virgo and his Sun is conjunct these signs. Venus is also included in this conjunction and Chiron opposes it from Pisces. His writings follow what one would expect from this combination. Actually, I was expecting Mercury, Virgo's ruler, to be in this sign too but it is in Libra quindecile Saturn in Aquarius in his chart which explains the popularity of his writing. Often a problem Virgo faces is that it can bog other less precise folks down with too many details. Libra is the sign that follows and so is concerned with graceful communication and social skills, easier for public comprehension.

Gladwell's two best selling books so far are The Tipping Point and Blink. From his website www.gladwell.com you can see the keywords from the Uranus-Pluto-Virgo combination all over the descriptions for his books.

The Tipping Point: "an examination of social (Uranus) epidemics (Virgo/Pluto) that surround us." "Quick" (Uranus), "Unexpected" (Uranus) "Change" (Pluto).

Blink: "Rapid Cognition" (Uranus in Virgo) The Kind of Thinking (Mercury) that happens in the Blink of an Eye (Uranus). Instant conclusions. Intuition as a thinking process rather than emotional state. Well, this I would attribute to Moon in Aquarius. Saturn, a slow planet, is placed in Aquarius, a quick sign. The tension created by this contrast has produced a creative (quindecile) way of looking at thoughts, in particular instant (Aquarius) thoughts.

Many people from this Virgo generation have gone either into computer programming and nanotechnology (working on a very miniature scale).

Gladwell also has an opposition of Jupiter to Mars in his chart which squares the Nodes. Jupiter and Mars together are often associated with speed, they happen in racehorses. Gladwell's work so far centers around observing really fast changes and quick thought processes. This activates his spiritual South Node in Capricorn to drum up great knowledge about anything having to do with timing, fast v. slow and eventually he may project this in a Cancerian way which deals more with space and environment.