© 2009 by Joyce Mason
Michael Dies Near Chiron Return
His struggle to make peace with his own inner opposites, as described in Wholeness and the Inner Marriage, were painful to watch. A talented yet tormented soul, Michael Jackson has died at a most dramatic time, close to his Chiron Return.
As he was featured in the article The Radical Virgo, the ultimate launching point for this blog and the concepts behind it, I feel a strong need to comment on his passing.
Holes in His Wholeness
Although I am unaware of an accurate public record of his birth time, Michael died just beyond his Chiron Return. Based on a noon chart of his August 29, 1958 birth date (Gary, Indiana) Michael’s most exact Chiron Return period spanned roughly from March 2008 through January 2009. The 50-year-mark (plus or minus a little), when Chiron returns to its natal position, is often a time of taking stock. Where do we have “holes” in our wholeness? People who are “missing something” often seek it. A confirmed bachelor may up and marry. Someone with financial struggles may seek expert advice, turn it around, and make his or her fortune later in life. A highly spiritual person like Michael Jackson (Pisces Moon) who has struggled his entire life with incarnation and being in a body may just disincarnate--cross the Rainbow Bridge to the Great Beyond.
The Chiron Return begs us to heal our deepest wounds and get on with it, whatever form that may take. Michael’s Pisces Moon cries out as someone with deep emotional needs for merger. I am still haunted his quote I cited in the original “Radical Virgo” article, “My dating and relationships with girls have not had the happy ending I’ve been looking for … They want to rescue me from loneliness, but they do it in such a way that they give me the impression they want to share my loneliness, which I wouldn’t wish on anybody, because I believe I’m one of the loneliest people in the world.” He had personal adulation and love from afar like all stars bask in, but that one-on-one intimacy remained illusive.
Michael Dies Near Chiron Return
His struggle to make peace with his own inner opposites, as described in Wholeness and the Inner Marriage, were painful to watch. A talented yet tormented soul, Michael Jackson has died at a most dramatic time, close to his Chiron Return.
As he was featured in the article The Radical Virgo, the ultimate launching point for this blog and the concepts behind it, I feel a strong need to comment on his passing.
Holes in His Wholeness
Although I am unaware of an accurate public record of his birth time, Michael died just beyond his Chiron Return. Based on a noon chart of his August 29, 1958 birth date (Gary, Indiana) Michael’s most exact Chiron Return period spanned roughly from March 2008 through January 2009. The 50-year-mark (plus or minus a little), when Chiron returns to its natal position, is often a time of taking stock. Where do we have “holes” in our wholeness? People who are “missing something” often seek it. A confirmed bachelor may up and marry. Someone with financial struggles may seek expert advice, turn it around, and make his or her fortune later in life. A highly spiritual person like Michael Jackson (Pisces Moon) who has struggled his entire life with incarnation and being in a body may just disincarnate--cross the Rainbow Bridge to the Great Beyond.
The Chiron Return begs us to heal our deepest wounds and get on with it, whatever form that may take. Michael’s Pisces Moon cries out as someone with deep emotional needs for merger. I am still haunted his quote I cited in the original “Radical Virgo” article, “My dating and relationships with girls have not had the happy ending I’ve been looking for … They want to rescue me from loneliness, but they do it in such a way that they give me the impression they want to share my loneliness, which I wouldn’t wish on anybody, because I believe I’m one of the loneliest people in the world.” He had personal adulation and love from afar like all stars bask in, but that one-on-one intimacy remained illusive.
Did Michael’s relationship, financial, and public image
losses become too much for him to bear? Did he die not just of cardiac arrest, but also of a broken heart?
Comeback Kid or Moving On?
Michael was preparing to patch some of the holes in his wholeness. Michael’s death came on the brink of a huge UK comeback tour. My take is that he wasn’t ready to come back to the reality of the music business and all its tedious work, public exposure, or to risk another failure. I think Michael at some level decided on the ultimate comeback--to go back to the stars.
Michael’s Mercury, his Sun Ruler, was closely opposite transiting Chiron and its currently close traveling companions, Jupiter and Neptune. (See chart.) Healing, past pain, and spirituality were on his mind, perhaps both the conscious and subconscious parts of it. Jupiter is prevalent in death and divorce, expansion by “moving on.” This incarnation was tough on Michael Jackson. I suspect he wanted a do-over. He had entered a time-space continuum where it may have been easier than usual to go through the door to the other dimension.
Also causing mental unrest: Uranus inconjunct Mercury sent jolts of shockwaves demanding drastic readjustment, which going back on stage with its intense public exposure demanded. I wonder if he was really psyched up for it. With transiting Pluto in trine to natal Pluto and his nearby Sun, death could come easily to a person who never felt any demotion of Pluto’s power during his entire life.
The Photo
I pondered what photo to use to accompany this tribute. Since I’m a stickler for not pilfering photos I have no legal right to post (it’s a form of theft and bad karma), I was happy to find this image on my tried-and-true source, Dreamstime. Even the name of the site itself seems fitting now that Michael has gone into the dreamtime himself.
The photos of Michael’s disintegrating face and painful-to-watch transformation from a young, hip, and good-looking man into an androgynous bad ad for plastic surgery have always offended my very Venus-ruled sensibilities. Worse than that, his “evolution” always struck me as a man who hated himself enough to hack away at his literal interface with the world that might have loved him as-is or as-was. (Shades of Billy Joel, “I Love You Just the Way You Are”). I felt he had disfigured himself in a very public way, cut away at the Michael I wanted to love and did in spite of it.
I felt the photo on this NY Daily News article was a good one for latter day Michael, but I barely considered his mugshot from his child molestation arrest, where his facial deconstruction is very pronounced along with his distress. Ultimately, this is not how I want to remember Michael. I want to remember him as a musician in full, flashy stage regalia who touched me with his music and triple-jointed dancing. Most of all, he touched me by his poignant vulnerability. I see the photo I chose as a person tipping his hat at me in rainbow lights on the Rainbow Bridge in his last performance. I tip mine back.
I love you, Michael Jackson—warts and all, even the ones you had removed. May you Moonwalk for real and finally feel with great intimacy the love all around you that you sometimes could not see past the bright lights. I got that gift, once, during my own brush with the Beyond.
Meantime, peace--and please channel any newfound wisdom to those of us who resonate to the unique soul you are. You are my charter member in the Radical Virgo Hall of Fame.
~~~
Photo Credit: MJ DANCE © Thefinalmi... Dreamstime.com
Postscript: My deep condolences to Michael’s family, especially his children, and to all those who loved him.
