BETTY WHITE: A memorial, written in the stars

Okay, so 2022 started off on a pretty bum note.

Like the legions of surrogate children, grandchildren and great grandchildren she left behind, I am in deep mourning over the loss of one modern day Prophet and Icon; The radiantly Divine Betty White. She left us on the 31st of December 2021, just two and a half weeks out from celebrating her 100th trip around the sun. Opinions may differ, but I’m here to solemnly say she was taken from us FAR too soon. Her public persona as a messenger of Universal Love, will remain a lasting symbol of all that is good and pure in this world, and her parting legacy will continually manifest itself in the attachment issues of the generations who grieve her passing. 

As you can probably tell, I am not taking this well at all.

Through my bedridden grief, I feel it is my duty to offer some kind of public  Eulogy;  An offering to the collective consciousness to aid in our coming to terms with this devastating tragedy. A fond farewell to someone that meant so much to each and every one of us and finally, on an extremely selfish personal note;

For the love of Rose Nyland!- I  obviously need closure.

As the Queers are often known to do, I've taken to Astrology to provide me with the answers and comfort I need during these destructive and confronting times. I don’t know for sure what beliefs of the afterlife Betty held to be true, she kept her privacy gloriously private. But I do know that though she wasn’t publicly religious, she was known to marvel at the whats, ifs and whys of life’s final frontier; And her sense of humour was as Camp as my Tarot card collection.

Therefore, I’m going to pay tribute to Betty using the cosmic music of the spheres as my guide. I’ll celebrate the timeline of her life through the planetary aspects found in her natal chart and finally, take a look at the transits that occured in the current sky the night of her passing. I do this in order to try and make sense of the senseless, and to fondly remember just how powerful she truly was. 

Before I begin, A disclaimer and quick heads up; I’m going to read Betty’s chart using Tropical Astrology and the whole house system, for no other reason than it is the way I was taught to read. Also,  I intend to leave no asteroid unturned so, grab a hotdog and pour yourself a large vodka, this is going to be a loooong reading…

Betty White was born in the early evening of the  17th of January 1922 just outside of Chicago, in Oak Park Illinois U.S.A, at 6:38pm. The Leo constellation was rising over the eastern horizon at 19°, supercharging the size of little Betty’s heart, and imbuing her soul purpose with a sense of fun, creativity, and an enormous love of an audience. Her fiery and flamboyant Leo Ascendant set off the placements for her 12 houses, each one activated in it’s own unique way by the planets that drifted through them at the exact moment she was born.

The Virgo Moon hadn't quite risen, and busied itself at 28° in her 2nd House of Values, Talent and Self Worth. Having shone fully a few nights prior in the Cancer Sky, it glowed happily in Virgo at Waning Gibbous, bestowing Betty with the intricate skill of patience, the ability to focus in on the finer details of her craft, to perfect the subtleties required, all the while providing her with a sense of emotional security and groundedness that she would find through practicality and hard work.

Betty’s 3rd House of Communication was busy that night in Libra, with Jupiter the planet of optimism and expansion on one side of the scale at 18°, buddying up in conjunction with the Karmic restrictiveness of Saturn on the other at 7°. Opposing forces, but working in harmonic balance in order to solidify a strong Social Conscience, that helped to bolster Betty’s enduring message of Justice and Equality for all living beings. This equal measure of jubilance and self-regulation aided Betty’s communication style greatly,  allowing her to deftly duck and weave any obstacles (set before her for simply existing as a young woman in 1950s America) on her path to becoming a Pioneer of the brave new medium of television.

I’ll respect the sanctity of Betty’s 4th House of Home, Privacy and Foundations. It lay in Scorpio after all and I’d be loath to cross a boundary with one of them. I’ll simply say that Mars, the planet of passionate drive, sat simmering there at 12°, maybe suggesting that behind closed doors, Betty was hot for it. Nothing more will be said of this, it’s none of our business and besides, Mars was in almost direct opposition to Betty’s  Midheaven at 10° in nurturing Taurus; Her most public face and how she’d prefer to be perceived. (Ditto no comment on her 5th House of Sex, Creativity and Leisure in gung-ho fire sign Sagittarius. I’m not talking, so show some common decency and stop asking. She is a Universal Treasure.)

Moving right along to where Betty truly shone; Her 6th House of Daily Work and the Animal Kingdom. Lit up majestically by her Ascendant Ruler, the Capricorn Sun at 27° and in a close conjunction with brilliant Venus, the planet of love and beauty at 21°, this is the area of Betty’s chart that energised her, and was responsible for her life force and enduring vitality over a career that spanned some 80 years. From her 6 day shooting schedules in her early days on television, to the countless hours on the many conservation boards with the San Diego Zoo, Betty’s identity was forever intrinsically linked to good old-fashioned gumption, and her heart truly belonged to the animals; Her proudest service was to them and their welfare.

The sign of Aquarius lit up her 7th House of Partnerships, Cooperation and VIPs, as it made it’s steady descent under the western horizon. Betty’s intelligence was revolutionary, and her humanist beliefs were well documented. To her, we were all Very Important People, each and every one of us. Mercury, the planet of the mind and messenger to the Gods, aided her crystal clear mental capacity, glistening at 10° just below the horizon and out of sight from the visible sky.

Pause for a moment and hold this image in your mind;  the view of the sweeping night sky, 100 years ago at the moment Betty White was born. The seven celestial bodies we’ve discussed so far all sit in the first 7 houses on Betty’s birth chart, all below the horizon and out of sight at that time in Oak Park, Illinois.

The five classical planets; Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, as named by Babylonian Astronomers in the second millennium BC, were yet to ascend the horizon. The Sun had set, and the Moon had not yet risen on the east, with only a gentle whisper of dreamlike idealism from Neptune at 15°, in a supportive conjunction with her Leo Ascendant. Betty’s first sky would have been dark, expansive. A twinkling blanket of distant constellations, and a smattering of modern planets and asteroids invisible to the naked eye, with some yet to be discovered.

It could be said that Betty’s guiding lights were somewhat ahead of her time.

Betty’s 8th House of Change and Rebirth shimmered in the intuitive depths of Pisces. Here the sign of the fish played host to Uranus at 7°, the guru of the modern planets. Discovered in 1791 and symbolising Freedom with it’s rebellious axial tilt, this eccentric elder made strange bedfellows with dwarf planet Eris at 28°. Eris wouldn’t be discovered until 2005, however this spunky teenager adept in Chaos Magick hid under the cover of darkness, making an exact opposition to Betty’s sensible, perfectionist Virgo Moon, taunting her all the while, and daring her to flip the tables of convention.

The bold and confident sign of Aries would take up Betty’s 9th House of Education, Philosophy, Religion and Publishing, however it’s here that we may get a glimpse at her vulnerability. Chiron, an asteroid discovered in 1977 and named after the noble Centaur of Greek Mythology, is the sole cosmic body found in this normally exuberant house. The tale of Chiron is that of the wounded healer, and where he shows up in our chart goes to suggest the area of life in which we are most helpful to others and yet, it is also where our deepest pain lies. Chiron in Aries suggests a deep wound of the self. Preoccupied with concern over the welfare of others and boldly supportive of their growth, Betty may have concealed a lack of self worth, or perhaps the generational wounds of her gender were deeper than she would ever admit.

At 9° in Aries, Chiron made an almost direct opposition to the North Lunar Node, the point in the sky where the Moon intercepts the Sun’s ecliptic, at this time found wedged between the supportive balancing act of Jupiter and Saturn at 11° of Betty’s Libran 3rd House. We can perhaps find some comfort that no matter how elusive Betty’s self esteem may have been, The North Lunar Node eclipsed Chiron’s pain to the point that she really had no other choice but to follow her karmic destiny as a great communicator for change.

The last bit of planetary influence I’ll talk about here was cast in the hidden dimensions of Betty’s 12th House of Sorrow, Mystery and Magic. Pluto, the great harbinger of Transformation hid out of view at 8° of Cancer. It would be another 8 years after Betty’s birth, in 1930 that this Plutonian Power would be officially discovered and named by us earthlings, however out of all the planets in Betty’s chart, Pluto may be the one of most profound influence.

Because of this final placement, a Grand Trine was cast in the sacred leagues of Betty’s chart, with each tip of the triangle anchored by the planets in the three Water Signs: Powerful Mars at 12° Scorpio, Shamanic Uranus at 7° Pisces and the great reckoner Pluto at 8° Cancer. This sacred symbol galvanised Betty’s emotional resilience, sharpened her intuitive senses, and gave her courage to face the evolutionary changes that would occur over her 100 year lifetime, including the blunt endings in her personal life that would sometimes arrive with no warning, like a bolt out of the blue.

Pluto takes 248 Earth years to make one orbit around the Sun, and in turn one trip around the Zodiac Wheel. It’s for this reason, and Pluto’s fairly fresh arrival in the collective awareness, that data on the effects of a Pluto Transit over a Natal Chart placement is still in the early stages of collation.

By Transit, I mean the possible effect the real-time activity of the planets in our current sky may have on particular areas of our life, according to the placements found in our Natal Chart; The map of our Soul’s journey, as drafted from a single frame of the strobe-lit sky at the time of our birth.

Ever felt emotional catharsis and then realised it was a Full Moon? Ever been warned your Saturn return is approaching, or been told to think carefully because Mercury is retrograde? Have you ever celebrated your solar return (your birthday, more or less)? These are all examples of a current transit and the ways the planetary energy can intermingle with our conscious and unconscious reality.

Because of Pluto’s snail pace, not everybody will experience a Pluto Transit, which is comforting in a way because Pluto often brings with it destruction, complete dissolution and intense transformation in one way or another. In late 2021 and as a fellow Capricorn Sun, I was interested to see when Betty was due for Transiting Pluto to cross her Natal Sun placement.

I had just recently endured my own Pluto reckoning, as it made its disastrous passage over my Natal Sun of 24° Capricorn. Starting in February 2020, it set fire to my very sense of identity, dragging the charred remains in its wake for the next 20 months.

I am happy to report I survived by the skin of my teeth, and once stabilised, therapised and reborn, I frantically drew up a birth chart for Betty, as  I knew her birthday was just one day after mine. The effects are  different for everyone and I knew a self-possessed Powerhouse such as Betty would perhaps not experience an identity crisis akin to my own, but I couldn’t help wondering what kind of reckoning she would experience? My calculations proved that her Natal Sun sat at 27° Capricorn, and Pluto was due to Transit in exact conjunction on the 2nd of February 2022, just two weeks and two days after her 100th birthday.

THREE. TWO. ONE. Happy New Year.

Betty never made her Pluto/Natal Sun Transit. She didn’t even make her solar return this year, she passed away on New year Eve, the 31st of December 2021. We were all heartbroken at the news, especially those of us who’d been surreptitiously monitoring her Astrology, feeling the presence of her energy as we ticked off the days on the calendar in the lead up. There was a collective upswell of emotions, some relief, some sadness, some anger that she was short changed out of reaching her 100 year milestone. 

I was feeling a mix of all the above. While relieved that she’d gone out peacefully, I was saddened that she didn't make it to her Pluto/Sun transit, as if that moment would somehow justify her passing, protect me from sadness, or bring her experience of existence closer to my own. Grief is so selfish, right? To find a bit of comfort, I brought up Betty’s Natal Chart on my computer, and a comparison chart of all of the transit placements happening the night she died.

What I saw unfold in front of my eyes was shocking, and humbling, as I quickly checked my mind and ego at the door, sat back and let the symbols and patterns race before my eyes. Once I saw one, I saw another, and another, at lightning speed until I gave over all control and just let the music of the spheres gently flood over me in cacophonous chaos. I hadn’t realised before, but the New Years Eve sky was like a pitch perfect choir, singing in unison with Betty’s natal placements. With the sheer scale of what was energetically pumping through the stratosphere that night,  no wonder Betty decided to tap out!

Here I was thinking how sad it was that Betty hadn't made it to feel her Pluto/Sun Transit, without having realised that Pluto had Transited near every other planet in her entire chart over the 100 years it spent travelling on it!

When Pluto plodded on over to Leo, there was a little thing called World War II, completely rerouting where Betty thought her life was headed and from this confusion emerged a new purpose. It was the mid 1960s by the time Pluto was wrapping it up at the tail end of Virgo, with Betty in full swing as the all-American girl-next door TV star. She was being berated (and still is) by small minded conservative commentators for being a few marriages in, with no plan for children of her own. Thankfully though, this all happened with Pluto in opposition to fire-starter Eris, who held her hand through everything and told them all to go to Hell!

Back on the road, Pluto made its slow crawl through Libra, just as Betty had met, married and lost the love of her life, Mr Alan Ludden. Alan passed away of stomach cancer in 1981, right on time for Pluto to transit her Jupiter and puncture her optimism, simultaneously triggering her Chiron wounds in a cruel opposition.

Then around 1984, as Pluto entered Scorpio, you know what happened? THE GOLDEN GIRLS! With that, all of her newfound surrogate kids filled up her 4th house for the next four decades! Hell, Betty even experienced a Pluto on Pluto direct Opposition transit! Do you know what happened in 2012, as the planet of Power stared itself down face to face? She starred in another television series; Off Their Rockers, with BETTY WHITE!

Betty White knew more about Pluto’s powers than Pluto! Destruction, Dissolution, Rebirth! Who was I to be so naive? Who was I to worry, patronisingly, that she maybe didn't get a fully rounded Astrological experience? But that's not the only synchronicity that I'm talking about here. Like, Pluto was just one point of light in a whole constellation of events that were occurring above our heads on NYE 2021.

Transiting Mercury was in near exact conjunction with Betty’s Natal Sun, sharpening that intelligence back to the knife-edge it always was, as she basked in the warmth of her own glow. If that wasn't enough, she was also experiencing her 2nd Chiron return to near exactitude, the wounded healer finally free of any pain, free of any shame. Full of self-love.

Uranus made an exact conjunction with her Natal Midheaven at 10° in Taurus, and in that moment the planet of rebellion flipped the table on us, reshaping  the way we would remember her forever AND at the same time, she was also experiencing a near exact Venus return in Capricorn, her house of love and animals! Maybe Venus would have showed up with every single dog that she'd ever owned, and Alan Ludden was there with a cocktail shaker who was like, “Come on, baby. Let's get out of here!”

And at that very moment, just as she was stepping off this mortal coil with Alan, and the dogs, and the vodka, transiting Saturn was in a near exact conjunction with her Natal Mercury in Aquarius. The planet of Karmic lessons was finally holding the evidence of her life up in front of her eyes, allowing her to fully understand the full breadth of what her legacy meant to all of us.

And sure, Transiting Pluto may have never quite made it to her Natal Sun, but you know what made it to her Natal Pluto? The Transiting SUN; Flipping the script on all of us for a one night only stay at 9° Capricorn, to Natal Pluto’s 8° Cancer! A near exact opposition, shining the brightest light in our Solar System on her Power, her Glory, her Resilience, her ability to restructure her life over and over and Succeed, and Prevail, and care for all of us while doing it.

I never knew Betty personally, though I still miss her nonetheless. It’s the first time in my lifetime I’ve had to picture a reality without her existing in it. But I hope that she is somewhere beautiful, covered in puppies and living in style, and I like to think that in her final moments, as the planets aligned with hers, she felt something close to Nirvana.

I’ve got another slow burn project on the go. I intend to paint a Tarot deck of my own in oils, all 78 cards. I’ve got 5 done so far, all Pips though, no Major Arcanas yet. I’ve decided I’m going to paint Betty as Number 8; Strength. In honour of her bold Leo Heart and enduring Spirit. I love you Betty, so do all of us; Your surrogate kids, grandkids and great grandkids. We’re gonna miss you. Sweet Dreams.