Mark Zuckerberg - Mars Synodic Cycles

Forbes Magazine recently named Mark Zuckerberg as the World's Youngest Billionaire. Zuckerberg is going to celebrate his 24th Birthday next month. Happy Jupiter Return year you little mutt. Zuckerberg is the creator & CEO of the online social website Facebook which he created from his dorm room while attending undergrad classes at Harvard. Can U Imagine?

Looking at his chart, I found a great example of someone born at the beginning of a Mars Synodic Year. (I discussed Synodic Years on a previous entry called something like "Baby's first Synodic Years.") I'm interested in finding out if these "Years" present themselves as Cycles in person's life. Synodic Years are created from the Sun's opposition to a planet that is in the middle of a Retrograde period. Humans on earth never experience Sun opposite Mercury and Venus because those planets never oppose the Sun, but all the other planets outside the Earth's orbit do.

The Mars Year cycle seems like it would create a person who is highly energetic, aggressive, youthful, creative, perhaps having problems with authority through the planet, signs, and houses involved. It makes sense that a person who rushes into his life, makes his first Billion during his first Uranus square would have gained some extra boost from Mars in his chart.

Mark Zuckerberg
b. May 14, 1984, Boca Raton, FL

Sun 25 Taurus; Moon in Scorpio; NN 7 Gemini

Zuckerberg's chart shape is one of those fascinating See-Saw/Butterfly shapes. There's a bundle of mostly personal planets here in Aries through Gemini opposing a bundle of mostly outer planets in Scorpio through Capricorn (all Rx too). I've read somewhere that this chart shape is sort of a balancing act type of aspect between the two sides. The individual is continually playing a tight rope dance with life and with others. In this chart, even the Nodes are connected in with this chart pattern.

Included in this opposition is a Full/or near Full Moon in the financial signs of Taurus (Sun) and Scorpio (Moon). One can see that he's got a natural affinity with the green stuff. Zuckerberg's Sun is opposite this Retrograde Mars which is conjunct Saturn in Scorpio. The Moon is definitely in Scorpio but I don't know how closely placed it is to this conjunction without a birth time.

What got my attention is, as I said before, is the fact that Zuckerberg has a Mars Retrograde that opposes his Sun. Sun and Mars are highly energetic & forceful when working together, relating through an opposition means that the energy is used through relationships, sort of seems good for a sparring match.

The Mars-Saturn Rx in Scorpio conjunction (Saturn doesn't oppose n.Sun), possibly conjunct the Moon brings in some strong influences from the parents as Saturn rules the Father and Moon the Mother. Zuckerberg's parents are both professionals, I believe his Father is a lawyer and his mother is a psychiatrist. These planets in the sign of Scorpio indicate that they are driven, hard working, and very psychologically penetrating, exacting people. Zuckerberg learned from them well. He also may suffer emotionally from not understanding when to apply force and when to use the brakes. (Certainly hope he doesn't drive a stick-shift.) It's extremely interesting that Zuckerman is basically a glorified Hacker who has learned how to balance (opposite, Butterfly chart) his extreme behavior into a successful, constructive form with the outside world (not without problems, mind you). Harvard actually suspended his Internet privileges when he hacked into the school records in order to create a student website. He's in similar legal straights now for another breach of privacy through the Facebook sight. In December I guess he gave a public apology. Pluto was conjunct his natal Neptune at 1 Capricorn and opposing transiting Mars Rx. Nasty transit on the Aries point which brings things into public arena.

His Nodal Axis is in Gemini/Sagittarius and presents a completely different life pattern. One can see these two converge in his early life. His progressed Sun and Venus pass over his North Node in Gemini. Meanwhile, his Nodal Axis passes backward over his natal Sun and Venus. This might be significant because they were both hitting each other as he created Facebook at Age 19 (time of Nodal Return). He literally could create the Resources (Taurus) for a school social network (Gemini).

One of the problems presented in his life though is that Zuckerberg doesn't seemed to have learned how to respect the privacy rights of others (planets in Scorpio) and sort of assumes that others want to have a huge open social network where everyone can get to know each other. He understands the Gemini Side of the World and is in denial of the Taurus/Scorpio side. This is also indicated by the Sun-Mars opposition as you will see when you read Bob Marks' description down below).

Magically, many people really do want such a network, and hence Zuckerberg's fabulous sudden wealth. His Facebook software took off like lightening on College campuses (Sagittarius South Node conjunct Uranus in Sagittarius) and spread to the older population after that. Asking permission just isn't his way of doing things, slows things down, not a Mars keyword.

Okay, so to look at the Synodic Mars Year to see if it influences. These happen on average every 2 years plus 1-2.5 months (779.7 days). Recently they've been occurring on odd number years. From eyeballing the dates it looks like Mars goes retrograde for about a month, opposes the Sun and then continues the Retrograde for another month, then begins to move forward. It's not completely finished its the damage until it returns to the spot where it began its retrograde which seems to take another couple of months.

July 29, 2003 - Nov. 9, 2003 / Mars Retrograde beginning at 11 Pisces.
Sun opposite Mars Rx on Aug. 28-29, 2003 at 5-6 Virgo-Pisces.
Mars D at 1 Pisces on Sept. 27, 2003

Oct. 2, 2005 - Feb. 5, 2006 / Mars Rx beginning at 24 Taurus
Sun opposite Mars Rx on Nov. 7-8, 2005 at 15-16 Scorpio
Mars D at 9 Taurus on Dec. 10, 2005

This Sun-Mars Rx was involved in a Grand Square aspect to the Saturn-Neptune opposition that was happening at the time. This squares Zuckerberg's Venus-Saturn opposition from Taurus to Scorpio. But Saturn was helped at the same time because it was involved in a Grand Trine with the NN and Mercury.

Nov. 15, 2007 - Apr. 7, 2008 / Mars Rx beginning at 13 Cancer
Sun opposite Mars on Dec. 25, 2007 at 3 Capricorn-Cancer
Mars D at 25 Gemini on Jan. 31, 2008

My analysis of the Mars Synodic Cycle isn't very good because I don't have enough dates to really compare against Zuckerberg's life. It sort of looks like he created Facebook close to a Mars opposition. He found investors during a trine to the Sun-Mars opposition. So perhaps it's a strong cycle to watch, perhaps not. I'd like to compare the oppositions to when Zuckerberg gets in trouble with authority, which is a strong marker of Sun-Mars oppositions. From Bob Marks' description from www.bobmarksastrologer.com:

Mars Aspecting the Sun: Whatever squares or opposes the Sun frequently shows traits that we reject, that we don’t even want to believe we have. But we do have them. Mars is anger and energy. One woman with a stressful aspect between the Sun and Mars had a violent father who beat her mother in front of the kids. She always wondered why her boyfriends were abusive. I asked her if she also had no energy. She replied "How did you know?". You cannot cut off the "bad" traits of a planet and keep the good. It’s a package deal. Jung was right in this case. She told herself that she wasn’t going to be like that violent Mars, so she attracted it from the outside. And since she rejected her Mars function, she also cut off her own energy. In other cases, the Mars seems to take over, and the person has an explosive temper. Stress aspects between the Sun and Mars can also tend to be defiant of authority if the Mars influence predominates. Once you learn to deal with this combination, however, the energy can seem never ending.

I don't have the Date that Zuckerberg hacked into the Student Records at Harvard in order to create his first Student Directory. I think they said it was in his Sophomore year.

He created Facebook from his Dorm Room at Harvard on Feb. 4, 2004. He was 19 and just past his first Nodal Return (7 Gemini). The Nodes then passed over his natal Chiron, Sun and Venus in Taurus. Facebook's "birth date" had a Leo Full Moon from 16 Aquarius-Leo. This squares his Sun-Mars opposition plus the transiting Nodes. Leo and Aquarius are rulers of Entrepreneurship and are very social so this is appropriate. As for Mars aspects, transiting Mars was at 2 Taurus so was almost opposing natal Mars but not quite. His Sun-Mars Synodic Cycle was almost halfway through. T.Mars was conjunct his natal Mercury at 30 Aries and opposing Pluto at 1 Scorpio. (The Mercury in Aries opposite Pluto in Scorpio shows how sharp and shrewd his mind really is).

Zuckerberg moved across Country to Palo Alto, CA in the Summer of 2004 with his roommate and some friends. They meant to stay only the Summer, but found an investor to back the company and stayed in Palo Alto. One would expect a Sun-Mars person to drop out of college. It's interesting that Zuckerberg's prog. Sun and Venus were in the social, networking sign of Gemini opposing his natal Uranus of computers, high tech. Venus = Money and Uranus = suddenness so I suppose this is a good aspect for asking for investor money. I took lousy notes but do remember reading somewhere that Zuckerberg was offered millions of dollars by his investors and while driving to meet friends to celebrate some guy pulled a gun on him at a Gas Station. Would be interesting to check that date for sure for Mars-Pluto influences.

Mars passed through Cancer, Leo and Virgo that Summer (2004) and ended mid-September with a nice conjunction of Sun-Mars-Jupiter-Mercury in Virgo which would have trined Zuckerberg's Taurus-Scorpio opposition.

Facebook ran into problems (always having to do with privacy issues and copyright laws) after it launched its Newsfeed on Sept. 5, 2006. This program was criticized for giving personal information over to cyberstalkers. The Saturn-Neptune opposition was in a t-square to Jupiter in Scorpio at the time which was right on top of Zuckerberg's natal Saturn-Moon-Mars in Scorpio stellium.

During the launch, Zuckerberg's first Uranus square was exact to the degree from Sagittarius (n.) to Pisces(t.). His progressed Sun and Venus were still within aspect to this square, so he could expect sudden and unpredictable events both good and bad. Mars was in an interesting aspect. It was at the end of Virgo conjunct the South Node and trining/sextiling Zuckerberg's natal Sun/Mars. It seems to have presented a test for his natural aggressiveness tendencies. You just want to go ahead and do whatever you want to do during a trine.

You can really see the Mars-Saturn conjunction in Scorpio pulling on each other in this chart. Zuckerberg seems to always get caught. The oppositions from the Sun just really put the spotlight on him and the Mars energy wants to keep jumping the fences. He's certainly learning about privacy issues through it seems all the Fixed Sign energies. He keeps insisting that openness and sharing are the way that society must exist on a larger scale. Hopefully he will figure out a way to make that happen without the evil element. He's so young, he probably hasn't weened off the Tolkien Trilogy yet.