I just finished reading Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery – a very interesting take on a woman who led a fascinating life. I was going to say a fascinating woman who led and amazing life but Alice was a hard person to like. She was terribly cruel to her cousins Eleanor and Franklin, was spiteful and capricious. This is what makes the book more interesting – it has a protagonist with major faults and yet kept my interest.
Well you just know I ran to my computer and whipped up her birth chart as soon as I finished the book!
February 12, 1884, 8:30 PM in New York City. The first thing that grabbed my eye was her Aries South Node. Remember that is our karmic identity – the memory of who we were in our past lives. Aries is the ruler, the sign that demands everyone to follow. Aries, ruled by Mars the god of war, wants its way NOW and if you don’t listen to me I will let you know about it. Let’s flesh this out more. Her South Node is in conjunction with Pallas Athena, the androgynous warrior goddess and in the 10th house – the house of government and societal structures. Do you think that before she came into life as the rambunctious daughter of the President of the United States, Alice lived lives as the leader of society – a woman but one who led her society with force with power and with an iron fist? She was used to being the undisputed power source and wouldn’t allow anyone to usurp her power.
Now let’s look at the ruler of her South Node. The planet that rules our South Nodes indicate where our strongest karmic identity exists – where it is hardest for us shake our karmic past. Alice’s Mars (the ruler of Aries) is in her first house in the fire sign of Leo, in retrograde for goodness sakes! Our first house is the ascendant, where we project ourselves to the world. She carried that Aries ruler identity into her current personality. It is no wonder she had a love hate relationship with her father. She wanted to be the President!
With her Mars in retrograde – a pause for karma – this is an indication that she overstepped her bounds in the past and has to learn a new way to express her power. So she was born female in a society that wouldn’t allow them to advance. She was born next to power – married power but never found satisfaction because the males in her life held all the cards. (Her husband was a known womanizer and alcoholic.)
With her Leo ascendant giving her a regal, domineering bearing – she was fire personified.
The “trick” to her life would have been to move from the Aries dominance to a Libran existence – one in which she became more involved with “the other.” Did she do it? Well, that is something each person can only know for themselves. Judging from the book I would kind of doubt it.