No, it’s not just an excuse to work a blues song into the title, Marie Antoinette’s astrological chart, a map of the heavens at the exact moment of her birth, revealed some most troubling aspects.

The position of Mars, close to her Ascendant (or “rising sign”) in Cancer, was abysmally aspected by Saturn and squared by the Moon. I’ve studied a minimal amount of astronomy, giving up when it seemed to become the unholy offspring of Algebra III and Advanced Physics, but I can still tell you that having a Saturn in such a negative relation to your Rising Sign with Mars in tow is not something you’d wish on your worst enemy. Even if she had Petit Trianon and you didn’t have flour for bread...yeah, it’s that bad. 

Marie Antoinette was a Scorpio and the chart shows a strong helpful influence in Venus, the planet of love. Venus was joined to the Sun and Mercury. The Moon was in Libra, a Venusian House. All of this seems deceptively innocuous, even positive, because of that Mars-Saturn aspect and it’s amplification by the Moon’s position. Rarely have I seen Venus “turn bad” but history doesn’t lie, hindsight is 20/20 and I don’t know THAT much about reading natal charts to even be qualified to make such a sweeping comment.

In case you can’t tell from the geometrical quagmire illustrated above, natal charts are extremely complex. This cursory explanation may prove a point but other areas of the chart accurately explain her personality, physical appearance, public vs private comportment. Your blogging hostess–moi–intends to pour over an in-depth analysis of her chart, cross-reference it and bring you the stuff that the stars hit right on the head. (I smell a theme week! Maybe even a theme month…as I said, those charts are complex. I’ve included a few “keys” to elucidate those symbols at which you’re wondering.)

My astrology training aside, history still doesn’t lie. The newborn ‘Toinette’s godparents were to be the King and Queen of Portugal, whom were unfortunately detained. Shortly before Maria Teresa went into labor, Portugal was rocked by an epic earthquake so strong that it was felt as far away as Jamaica and Finland. (Modern seismologists estimate a 9.0 on the Richter Scale.) Shockingly, the earthquake was only the precursor to more chaos. It was Mother Nature‘s preface: Born under a bad sign indeed.

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• Online, Website-Generated Astrology Chart Readings, and a Big Grain Of Salt (cosmictuesdays.wordpress.com)