An Astrological Tribute To Coretta Scott King

[Guest guest]

by no less than four Presidents, luminaries and the like, has been the topic of

much conversation accross the country, both in memory of what Mrs. King stood

for, and as well, for the many comments made by the VIP attendees at her

homegoing service. The following is what the online resource, Wikipedia, had to

say about the affair:"Over 14,000 people gathered for King's six-hour funeral at

the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia on February 7, 2006

where daughter Bernice King is an elder. The megachurch whose sanctuary seats

10,000 was better able to handle the expected massive crowds than Ebenezer

Baptist Church where King had been a member since the early 1960s up to her

death and which was the site of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral in 1968.

Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter,

their wives and numerous other political figures attended the service. In

addition to the presidents, speakers included former FBI director William

Sessions, chairwoman of the National Council of Negro Women Dorothy Height,

poet Maya Angelou, Dr. Joseph Lowery, Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin, Attallah

Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X, Bishop T.D. Jakes and former Ambassador Andrew

Young. Music was provided by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and vocalists

Stevie Wonder, Michael Bolton, BeBe Winans and CeCe Winans. Bernice King

delivered the final official eulogy with Dr. Robert Schuller providing the

closing benediction.Some conservatives expressed dissatisfaction with remarks

made by several of the speakers, including President Carter and Rev. Lowery,

who were accused of injecting current politics into the affair. Lowery,

referencing King's vocal opposition to the Iraq war, noted the failure to find

WMDs in Iraq. Carter, referencing King's lifelong struggle for civil rights,

noted that her

family had been the target of secret government wiretapping. Their comments were

met with thunderous applause and standing ovations, as President Bush looked on

and smiled weakly."We'll let others hash out the rightness or wrongness of the

remarks made by certain attendees; in the meantime, it's very useful to

consider some of the following questions astrologicallly:1. Can we see Mrs.

King's widowhood astrologically?2. Can we see the infidelity in Mrs. King's

marriage to the late Dr. King?3. Can we chart Mrs. King's passing

astrologically?4. Finally, what is the astrological legacy of Coretta Scott

King, whom many have dubbed "the First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement"?

Where do African Americans in particular, and America as a whole, go from here?

To answer our first three questions, we enlist the aid of Vedic

astrology...Coretta Scott King Apr 27 1927 4PM Marion AL; Lahiri 13 Vir 36,

Rodden1. Mrs. King's Vedic chart does indeed answer our questions. First, we can

see that her 7th House of marriage and the husband is considerably challenged.

Lagnesh Mercury is placed in the 7th in its debilitation Sign Pisces, and

associates with Jupiter, also in the 7th/Pisces. However, Jupiter is weakened

by degree (00:13) and therefore is unable to render much assistance to Mercury.

Although Mercury is technically Neecha Bhanga Raj Yoga (a combination that is

said to lift the status of a "fallen" planet to that of a royal) what help it

got by way of this celestial exception is not enough to turn back the tide of

Mrs. King's marital woes, pain and eventual witnessing of her husband's

passing. Indeed, it is well known in Vedic astrological circles that benefic

planets that are in some way greatly weakened can and often do serve as malefic

forces which can bring discomfort and pain into the native's life. So we can

see that Mrs. King would get "name and fame" from the death of her husband, it

is still death by any other standard. Jupiter is also to be taken as the planet

of the spouse in a female chart, and again, in this case, Jupiter is weakened by

degree, a confirmation of the overall 7th House scenario. Rotating the chart so

that the Moon is now the Asc (what is called Chandra Lagna) we see that the Sun

is now the 7th lord; from the birth Asc the Sun is exalted in the 8th, and from

the Moon Mercury now becomes the 8th House lord...the 8th House is that of

death, particularly of the spouse. Finally, we can check the Navamsa chart for

final confirmation of Mrs. King's marital life; in that sub chart, Saturn and

Rahu are both in the 7th, in Scorpio no less. Note how MLK passed away in the

Jupiter Dasa (Aug 1959-Aug 1975; Vimshottari Dasa calculated from Lagna

position). 2. We can answer our next question by assessing again Mrs.

King's 7th House, and then turning to MLK's chart in comparison to hers. First,

we have to consider that whenever a weakened planet exists in the 7th House of

someone's chart, it is an indication that the person's spouse is "weakened" in

some way, be it educationally, healthwise, mentally, emotionally, financially,

etc., and that this weakness will almost certainly manifest itself over the

course of the union between the two people. Because Mercury is Mrs. King's

Lagnesh, we could suggest that perhaps MLK found her to be "weak" in the sexual

department in someway, and since Mercury again is in the 7th House, also

representing MLK himself, we can also say that he gave in to his weakness in

this regard. Turning now to his chart (Jan 15 1929 11.21AM EST Atlanta GA;

Lahiri 7 Ari 43, Lewis) we can see even more signals of trouble in

marital/sexual bliss for this couple. For one, his Asc is in Aries, Coretta's

in Virgo; they fall

6 and 8 Houses away from each other. This causes misalignment not only in terms

of who they are as individuals (the respective Asc's) but also in every other

area of life (represented by the following Houses in both charts). In Vedic

astrology a concept known as Planetary Relationships is vital, because it

assesses how well (or not) planets work together; the resulting relationship

between any two planets, will spill over into the House they rule. This concept

is extremely important and helpful when matching two charts for marriage. In

this case here, we can see that MLK's 5th lord is the Sun, while in Mrs. King's

case it is Saturn - in the Vedic planetary relationship scheme of things, these

two planets are dire enemies. It means that they will get along only

begrudingly. In that the 5th House is one of the main Houses to consider in

terms of Sexuality in a Vedic chart (the other being the 12th) this alone sends

up red

flags. One would think that the infidelity, found out by way of wiretaps and

other forms of surveilliance on the part of the Hoover Era FBI, would break the

King Marriage, but it did not. We can surmise that the reason for this lay at

least in part due to Mrs. King's chart, where we can see that while weak, the

Mercury-Jupiter presence in her 7th House forms both Bahu-Stree Yoga and

Satkalatra Yoga, combinations that promise marital stability and love. It's

difficult for people with such combinations to break away from a spouse, even

when they've done wrong. 3. Mrs. King fell ill to a stroke in Aug 2005; at the

time this happened, she was having Mercury/Rahu, which ran from Feb 2004 till

her death last week (it would have ended in Aug 2006). Very often Rahu plays a

hand in cases of stroke, and both planets, Mercury and Rahu, represent the

central nervous system. As noted earlier, Mercury, which is Mrs. King's

Lagnesh,

is considerably weakened; it was hard to see her recovering fully from the

stroke, if at all. We can also consider the transit of the sub lord Rahu,

passing thru Mrs. King's 7th House. In the System's Approach method, the sub

lord of any Dasa is the main timer of events, especially when their transit

passes over key areas in the chart. The 7th House is a Maraka, or Killer House

(being 12th from the 8th, the House of Longevity), and both Mercury's Dasa

running, and sub lord Rahu's transit going thru there at the same time, augured

the time of Mrs. King's passing. 4. Finally - where do we go from here? With the

passing of Rosa Parks and now Coretta Scott King, it is truly the End of an Era,

the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans have made great strides in American

society and life: home ownership by married African Americans is at all time

highs; a burgeoning Black Middle Class is becoming more and more prevalent;

and Black folk from Oprah to Russell Simmons to Condoleeza Rice are becoming

more and more a part of the American mainstream. But, on the other hand, the

rift between the haves and have nots in Black America continues to grow,

exacerbated by the recent Katrina tragedy; out of wedlock births in the Black

community are at 70% with no end in sight; and, as my hometown Philly shows,

gun violence claims hundreds of lives each year, by Black, on Black - in most

instances, young males. Many of these questions will not be answered by

government alone, and indeed, many pundits and observers on both sides of the

color line suggest that Black America is facing a significant moral crisis. The

key horoscope for the African American people - the moment when the first

African slaves were offloaded onto what would become American shores - may

provide some clues as to where we go from here. We need to switch back into

"Western" astrology

mode in order to properly analyze this map:American Slavery Aug 30 1619 10.15AM

LMT, Jamestown VA; Placidus 4 Sco 21, PenfieldAt the time of Mrs. King's death,

in the AS chart, Solar Arc Sun=Pluto, a fitting symbolism of the occasion, as

well as soul searching, discovering a new power within oneself (in this case,

the Black community realizing that it's time to continue the next leg of the

great task at hand that the Kings put into motion); and in the year ahead,

exact in Oct 2007, SA Moon=Sun and SA Mars=Sun, perhaps an energetic new start

to address the many social ills that have afflicted the Black community for

decades? The long and painful Neptune transit, in square to the AS Moon-Pluto

conjunction from the 4th House (soul searching again) has finally moved on,

with transit Saturn coming about for more hits later this year. No matter what

happens, we can be sure to hear about Black America in the major

national headlines in the aforementioned target time of Oct 2007, as the major

arc pictures come into sharp analytical focus. Hmm...Salaam,Mu To ,

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