Herman Melville

In College I had a well respected professor who asked the class "What is the one true meaning behind Moby Dick?" I had never read it so I was exempt from answering, but someone cutely said, "It's a Whale Hunt." The Teacher sneered. He could have coached us along by saying that it was an allegory full of symbolism and then asked us what the symbolism was, but he didn't, this was the 70's when students were expected to teach themselves. We were trembling, feeling stupider and stupider by the second. I think that some bold student eventually piped up with "It's about obsessive people going after their goals." The teacher this time winced and said, "That's just the appetizers." He scoffed to let us know of our ignorance and dropped the subject as it was a Renaissance Lit class, totally unrelated. Teaching through sneering as never done much for me so I remember just drifting off and waiting for the class to be over. But, it always bugged me. What is Moby Dick about? I read the first 100 pages at least three times and couldn't go on. I carried the damn book around with me on the bus once for about 3 months while I lived in San Francisco and do remember telling a friend on the elevator at work that Melville was obviously Gay and Moby Dick should be embraced as a Gay Manifesto. He got really excited and carried the book around with him for maybe a couple of days. But, I never made it past the first 100 pages, don't even think I was properly introduced to Ahab. Finally thousands of years later, while meandering through a book store, I picked up a Remainder called something like "How to Read Books." Miraculously, it opened right to a page where the professor/writer clearly and succinctly explained that Moby Dick works on several layers of symbolism, the main theme being that "Man can never really know God." Wow. Totally awesome. If only they had told me years ago I would have been curious enough to get through the 50 page chapter on how to shop for harpooning equipment. Or at least I would have known it was worth skipping.

So, as Melville was a Leo and the Sun is in Leo, I thought I would try to see what it takes for the Stars to come up with such an unfathomable work. And someday, I do hope to read the thing. And Thank God for Wikipedia, now this information is much easier to get hold of.

Herman Melville
b. Aug. 1, 1819 11:30 PM New York, NY

Sun 9 Leo; ASC AS 22 Taurus; Moon 14 Sagittarius; MC 1 Aquarius; NN 15 Aries Rx

It makes sense that with Sagittarius Moon Melville would publish great novels about his exotic travels to far-off places. With Sun and North Node also in Fire, he was an inspired visionary, but also very adventurous and restless. According to his Wiki bio, Melville was born into a wealthy family but insisted on making it in the world on his own. After teaching for a few years, he took off sailing on a Whaling Ship which is where he got the subject matter for most of his most successful novels. He left port at Fairhaven, Mass on Jan. 1, 1841, sailed around Cape Horn for 18 months and then left the ship in the Marquesa Islands and spent a few weeks living with the Islanders. It's interesting to look at his astrocartography chart. After passing through the Cape he would have had to pass through a crossing of his Saturn-Pluto-Chiron lines. The Marquesas were probably the first stop after this and this is where he jumped ship. He probably got a little claustrophic on that ship...

Melville returned to Boston in October, 1944 and started to write about his adventures in fictional form. In 1846 he became an overnight success with his novel Typee. (Prog. Sun c. natal Mercury (writing); T. Uranus c. n.Aries NN (overnight success); Prog.Lunar Return conjunct n.Uranus-Neptune; t. Saturn c. MC; t. Jupiter c. n.Chiron-Saturn. He enjoyed 4 years of success with more novels after this, got married, and moved out to a farm in Massachusetts near Nathanial Hawthorne where he lived for the next 13 years. This is where he wrote Moby Dick. Moby Dick which was published Oct. 18, 1851. Moby Dick was not a success and his life sort of fell apart. (Guess lots of people got stuck on the first 100 pages.) Melville's fame slowly passed away. One of his sons commited suicide in 1867, his marriage suffered, and he worked as a Customs Inspector for the last 19 years of his life. In the 1920s there was a revival of interest in his writings.

Like Emil Nolde's life, the Leo I talked about yesterday, Melville's shared a strong Saturn-Pluto aspect with a conjunction of Pluto 28 Pisces-Chiron Rx 29 Pisces- Saturn 1 Aries placed in his 11th house. It's interesting that he also achieved Success early and lost it.

Melville's Saturn is right on the Aries Point meaning that career will bring him before the public. Even the Customs Inspector job he held was considered a good accomplishment so he was never really a "failure." Saturn connected with Pluto and Chiron means that he will be brought before the public in a way connected with their energies which can be quite an intense combination of crash and burn around desire and ambition.

I think that a whaling ship manned by a guy obsessed with catching a demon whale is perfect imagery. So is his Aries North Node and Aries on his 12th house cusp (hunting big sea mammals). In fact, when Moby Dick was published, Melville had just had his Saturn Return two years before so that he had been writing the work as a Saturn Return expression and with his complicated natal Saturn he was due to produce a "Behemoth". At time of publication, Saturn was once again conjunct Pluto along with Uranus in Taurus in Melville's 12th House. A deep allegory, unfathomable (12th house), a work that pretty much destroyed Melville's success (12th house). On the more spiritual side, this is totally awesome for imagery of a whaling trip, especially one that is symbolic on many layers for "obsession, religion, idealism v. pragmatism, revenge, racism, hierarchical relationships, politics." These descriptors are a direct quote from the Wikipedia article on "Moby Dick:" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_Dick.

Opposing this huge 12th house conjunction transit, t.Jupiter in Scorpio was opposing from his 6th house. This novel was published within a year of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, both works that look closely at the evils within society, so you can see that it was a banner work for publishing very deep and questioning works of Literature about right and wrong and alienation. I can't think of a greater aspect for publishing a work that uses as one of its main themes "It is impossible to ever truly know God."