Today on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, I felt it was appropriate to look at his birth chart. For all of his faults, he was a leader who told us that public service was a great thing – not that government was bad, He told us that we could reach great goals not that we don’t want to pay taxes. He told us that we all had to contribute to the country, not just grab all we want for ourselves and damn the other guy, especially if he is poor or “different.” That is what we lost 50 years ago today and we yearn for it again. He made us feel good about America and united us toward common goals. Yes, he was a flawed man but a charismatic leader who makes us reach for the stars is something all nations crave.
It is not ironic that his South Node, his karmic identity was in Cancer in the 9th house. Cancer is the sign of the nurturer, the one who helps his people, and the 9th house is our connection to people beyond our borders. He came from lifetimes of involvement in huge, worldly issues that he tried to manipulate to help those in his care. Cancer is the traditional sign of the mother, the nurturer. No wonder that he loved international politics – he had been doing it for quite some time.
With his North Node in Capricorn, the sign of the authority figure – the provider in the 3rd house, the house of communications it is no wonder we still hear so many of his words. He took that role very seriously – he constructed his words as much as he created his image. He took the role of leader, communicator, and thinker very seriously. In addition, the ruler of Capricorn is Saturn that is in the 10th house, the house of politics and government. It is a fair bet that he loved being the leader. Also note his Mars and Mercury in conjunction in Venus, the sign of creativity, is in the 7th house – the house of interacting with people on personal level. Mars, an intense amount of energy, conjuncting the communication planet yielded a speaking style that still inspires. Again, the words, the power behind the words and how they affect us is so prevalent in his chart.
Speaking of leader his chart is one of cardinal energy – cardinal signs are the movers and shakers, His “anchor houses” the first, fourth, seventh and ten houses are holding cardinal energy. He wasn’t about to not take the lead. (Cancer and Capricorn, his nodal axis, are also cardinal.) Sometimes this burst forward as recklessness, over reaching but he was not one to let life go by,
In his 6th house, the house of health is the sacred wound carrier, Chiron, and Vesta, the asteroid that puts roadblocks in our path. Pisces opens his 6th so we see how hard it was for doctors to pinpoint his illnesses – Pisces is very ephemeral.
What about his notorious womanizing? (Actually, it went well beyond that and my liberal friends who bash Newt Gingrich for his sexual faults should be careful. JFK would today be classified as a predator.) Well, let’s look at his Venus in the 8th house, the house of power, regeneration, death, and rebirth. The 8th house makes it a power conquest issue and shows how reckless he could be – he dared and tempted the fates. His Venus squares the Moon and Ceres so emotion and nurturing would not natural to him and makes a trine to his retrograded Uranus- the sign of the rebel. Any Venus-Uranus combination gets me wondering about someones sexual preferences.
Here is something interesting too. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ Venus was also in the 8th house. Both shared a Venus in Gemini. So they shared that sense of drama and shared a love of words. This was a karmic marriage and one that will repeat itself sometime in the future.
Who was John Kennedy? He is who we need him to be and he was gone too soon.
