With last year’s ingress of Pluto into Capricorn, a global economic crisis engulfed humanity and plunged mankind into despair. Millions of unemployed have lost health care benefits. Millions more are behind on mortgage payments. Hundreds of thousands have lost homes to bank foreclosures. Staggering credit card debt for those having lived beyond their means will now never be repaid. Banks have gone into insolvency or are barely surviving on taxpayer bail-outs from the government.
Such a desolate and hopeless landscape in which the world finds itself. The recent retrograde Venus in detriment in Aries had millions holding their heads in sorrow as they pondered depleted investment or retirement accounts decimated by the stock market crash of last Fall. Each evening, the nightly news would be watched to find any glimmers of hope for a resuscitated economy or good news on the job front.
On Saturday, 11th April, retrograde Venus made her ingress back into Pisces, sign of her exaltation. She would be stationing direct the next week on 17th April in the final degree of the Zodiac, once again to ingress back into her detriment in Aries on 24th April at the Taurus New Moon. Oh, how the world yearned for 13 days of relief as Venus stationed in her exalted sign in the most karmic degree of the Zodiac.

… But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hopes apart
As they turn your dreams to shame …

That Saturday night, on the Britain’s Got Talent TV show, a homely 48-year-old spinster named Susan Magdalen Boyle, microphone in hand, fearlessly took the stage and faced the sneers of the judges and the audience. Ian Youngs, entertainment reporter for the BBC News, wrote:
“Last Saturday, viewers saw Boyle, with double chin, unkempt hair, frumpy appearance and eccentric demeanour, step onto the talent show stage and roclaim her dream of being a professional singer. The judges rolled their eyes and the audience pulled incredulous faces. Onlookers, on set and at home, were rubbing their hands at the prospect of another hopeless, deluded loser being crushed by a withering Simon Cowell insult. Then she opened her mouth and sang I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables. Her voice confounded all expectations – the judges’ eyes bulged, the crowd went wild and Boyle became an instant star.”
Over the next week, a YouTube video of her performance was viewed over 30 million times by people around the world, many brought to tears by the operatic beauty of her soaring voice as their hearts were pierced by her innocent and angelic presence.

… And still I dream he’ll come to me
And we will live our lives together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms
We cannot weather …

During her backstage comments, Ms Boyle revealed that she lived alone in her village of Blackburn with her cat, Pebbles. She also stated that she had never been married; indeed, she said she had never even been kissed by a man. With her natal Venus
retrograde in Aries and square to Saturn, one’s heart aches for the barren existence she has had to endure. It was also revealed that she was the youngest child of nine from a Roman Catholic family and that she had cared for her ailing mother until she
passed away in 2007 at the age of 91. She had always aspired to be a singer, and her mother had encouraged her to audition for that British TV talent show.
To what does the astrologer attribute the sudden fame and global acclaim for Ms Boyle? Surely, her nativity¹ must contain a hidden seed which has now borne fruit.

For each of us, there is a powerful degree in the Zodiac that remains charged, or filled with life-giving power, throughout our earthly existence. This degree is the one in which our pre-natal solar eclipse occurred. For Susan Boyle, her pre-natal eclipse transpired on 15 February 1961 in 26° Aquarius.
Remarkably, now that she has become a worldwide symbol for the hope and faith required to never give up on one’s dream, we see that the upcoming conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune in late May, itself an alignment of hope and transcendence, will fall precisely on Ms Boyle’s pre-natal solar eclipse.
One may ask, ‘What about all of the other souls born in 1961² with this degree as their pre-natal eclipse?’ At the time of Ms Boyle’s birth, 15° Aquarius culminated on the Midheaven. As the meridian of the nativity moves one degree each four minutes of clock time, one’s MC is rather unique and can only occur once a day for a few minutes. 15° of the fixed signs are known to astrologers to be the “power degrees” of the Zodiac, and Aquarius is the sign that rules radio and television broadcasting.
When the pre-natal solar eclipse is calculated for her place of birth, the 20th degree of Pisces was rising and the Galactic Center degree in 26° Sagittarius is culminating.
From Charubel, for Pisces 20, we find the all-important rising degree symbol to be:

An angel blowing a trumpet.
Denotes one whose office will be to publish to the world some important message: a message having a bearing on the social or spiritual condition of mankind. A preacher, a lecturer, or some popular person.

It has been speculated that Susan Boyle will win the TV talent show and go on to become an international singing sensation with a multi-million pound recording contract. With Pluto conjunct her North Node, and being born at the Full Moon with an exalted Sun, her life purpose is to become a powerful and transformational human being. With Pluto having stationed on her Descendant in 2007-08 and now above her natal horizon for the first time in her life, she is on her way to living her purpose.
What other hidden seeds are found in the nativity for Ms Boyle that give testimony to her angelic and powerful voice and to her musical ability? Astrologers working within metaphysical and esoteric dimensions know that the 5th harmonic family of
aspects, which include the 72° quintile and its 144° derivative, the biquintile, often are found in the horoscopes of artistic or musical geniuses.

For Susan Boyle, one finds a rather rare Quintile Yod with her Pluto/North Node conjunction as its apex. An exalted Sun and a dignified Saturn comprise the base of the isosceles triangle, the two strongest planets by sign in her nativity.
One also finds an equally rare Septile Yod in her horoscope with her chart ruler, Mercury as its apex. The transit of Saturn through 16° Virgo on the day of the British TV show for which she performed, triggered this Yod by opposing her natal Mercury.

The 7th harmonic family of aspects, which include the 51 3/7° septile, the 102 6/7° biseptile, and the 154 2/7° triseptile, are known to produce spiritual awareness and to also give an individual the ability to experience a suspension of normal reality.

Will her new found success and fame be of a lasting nature? Yes, and the astrologer can confirm this by observing that her secondary progressed Sun is now applying to a trine with natal Saturn, an aspect with enduring qualities. One also sees that her
secondary progressed Pluto is stationary direct and that her minor progressed Saturn is additionally stationary direct; both stations revealing an emerging from an inward and withdrawn existence into a powerful and lasting presence in the outer world.
Susan Boyle will be popular in the USA, as natal Mars, the apex planet of a Cardinal T-Cross, is in the exact degree of America’s Sun. In her Astro*Carto*Graphy®, the Jupiter/Ascendant line runs right through Chicago, home of the broadcast studios of
Oprah Winfrey. It was reported that she has been invited to appear on the Oprah show and will thus receive additional exposure from the millions of her viewers.

Just when the world needed it most, an innocent and guileless soul with the voice of an angel stepped onto the stage of life and lifted millions of tired and weary spirits up to higher ground. With each tear shed upon listening to her moving rendition of I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables, one more human being was immersed into the healing waters of a stationary direct Venus exalted in Pisces.
For every middle-aged female underdog who feared that her hope was caving in and that she was about to abandon her dreams to age and to the vicissitudes of earthly existence, one prays that these women of certain years will have been inspired by the courage of Susan Boyle. With her exact progressed Mars-Jupiter opposition, she has become a blood transfusion for those souls whose veins were devoid of hope.

… I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving …

© 2009 Robert P. Blaschke

1. Birth data from Ms Caroline Gerard of The Scottish Astrological Association who obtained the birth certificate from the records office of the Scottish New Register House. The Blackburn, Scotland sole entry listed in many astrology software atlases shows an incorrect latitude and longitude for a Blackburn in Aberdeenshire, and not for the correct second Blackburn in West Lothian.
2. It should also be pointed out that the new U.S. president, Barck Obama, born 4 August 1961, has the same pre-natal solar eclipse as Ms Boyle.

Addendum: Caroline Gerrard would like to add that Susan Boyle was in fact born at Bangour Hospital, near Broxburn, 03w34, 55n55, which changes the angles slightly.

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PRESS RELEASE – PRESS RELEASE – ENTERTAINMENT -
ON ABC’S WIFE SWAP (4/24)
A COWBOY FAMILY WHO BELIEVE MEN SHOULD RIDE THE PLAINS WHILE WOMEN STAY HOME SWAP LIVES WITH A VEGAN FAMILY OF ASTROLOGERS WHO TALK TO PLANTS, ON ABC’S “WIFE SWAP”
“Brazenwood/Taylor” – A meat-loving cowboy family with traditional values swap lives with a free-spirited vegan family who consult the stars, on “Wife Swap,” FRIDAY, APRIL 24 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network. Each week two very contradictory families from across the country participate in a two-week-long challenge: The wives exchange husbands, children and lives (but not bedrooms) to discover daily life in another woman’s shoes. This astonishing experiment repeatedly changes lives and redefines families.
The Taylor family from Texas own a cattle ranch and live for the good old fashioned American rodeo! World Champion Team Roper Dad Calvin (33), and his wife, Heather (34), have four children, Claire (12), Caroline (9), Cameron (6) and Calvin Jr. (4), who are tough rodeo competitors themselves in barrel racing and roping. The Taylors are raising their kids to be hardworking winners. Calvin strives to lead by example and spends most of his time outside with the animals, while Heather prefers to stay at home, “barefoot and pregnant.” Calvin expects hot dinners of meat and potatoes but refuses to do any housework. To ensure Calvin Jr. follows in his footsteps, his father takes him out for meals alone, leaving all the Taylor women behind. Even if it upsets his daughters, the girls aren’t allowed to show any emotion because the Taylors believe crying makes you weak. They believe their traditional values are creating well-grounded, practical children, which is important to the cowboy way of life.
Meanwhile, the new-age Brazenwood family from North Carolina live in a world of their own, literally. Astrologist Dad Kelly (37) wrote a fantasy novel about a fictional world named “Thandoria” starring a boy named Arian Brazenwood, which is the name he later gave to his real-life son here on planet Earth. Adrian’s step mom, Christina (28), is an energy healer who lets her astrological chart dictate her days because she believes it puts her in touch with the meaning of life. She enjoys spending time outside talking to her friends the plants, and isn’t afraid to rub dirt all over her body or even have a taste of it while communing with nature. When she’s not one with nature, she dons funky costumes and teaches a dance class called “soul shaking.” Back at home, Kelly wears a towel wrapped around his waist instead of pants and loves to run around and to pretend sword fight or play in fantasy worlds with Arian (13). When it comes to domestic duties, they all chip in, and they prefer a vegan diet. To help unify the family, they chant “om” before every meal, which is the sound of the universe being created.
In the first week, Heather leaves behind the rodeo for the world of fantasy. Kelly begins by giving her an astrological reading, but pragmatic Heather claims she doesn’t believe in all the “fluff.” Though she tries to talk to plants like Christina, she finds it difficult to have a true conversation. With so much focus on astrology and the world of make believe, Heather worries the family doesn’t know the difference between work and play. Meanwhile, in Texas, Christina Brazenwood notices the plants on the ranch are far less inviting than the friendly foliage back at home. Like the plants, she thinks the family has difficulty expressing emotion and is saddened that Calvin chooses to spend time with his only son and leave his daughters behind. After spending time with the Taylor girls, Christina confronts Calvin about his lack of emotion and chauvinistic attitude, but Calvin maintains he’s happy living life by his cowboy code.
In the second week of the swap, when the wives change the rules and turn the tables, Heather rules that Kelly has to trade in his skirt and star-gazing for spurs and become a real cowboy. For Heather, that means eating like one too… after 17 years of abstaining from meat, Kelly has to chow down on chicken fried steak and cheeseburgers. Although Kelly tries to man up and follow her rules, he eventually melts down and tosses his burger off the balcony, leading Heather to believe he’ll never grow up. Meanwhile in Texas, kooky Christina bans rodeo, ranching and riding in favor of poetry, writing and painting. However, before she can even finish reading her rules, Calvin stages a walkout and takes his kids for a meat dinner. After the explosive rule change, Calvin takes the whole family to live in a trailer. Christina decides to persevere anyway and tries to introduce the family to interpretive dancing, but Calvin continues to shut her out, claiming, “real men don’t dance!” After two weeks in another home, can Heather Taylor bring the eccentric Brazenwoods one step closer to reality? And can Christina Brazenwood help the no-nonsense Taylors get in touch with their emotional sides?”

In other words:
LAUGH at the hilarious astrologists, as they dance, chant and talk to their plants!
JEER at the rootin’ tootin’ Texas cowboys as they chew their raw beef!
GASP at the sight of a man wearing a skirt!
APPLAUD a real old-fashioned man who makes the womenfolk stay at home!
YES! Forget about watching real human beings explain their lifestyles and beliefs! Be entertained instead! Switch on in your millions to see all your favourite stereotypes CONFIRMED!