This series covers events from 09/06/1982 - 10/04/1982

This five-part series presents an extended interpretation of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s natal astrological chart led by Anthony Damiani, with significant contributions from students. The series discusses Emerson’s horoscope as a window into the philosophical and spiritual constitution of a great soul.

The series begins with preparatory work largely conducted by the students: establishing which of two proposed birth times to use, grouping Emerson’s Chaldean planets by aspect patterns, and providing a biographical overview of his life from early education through his resignation from the ministry, his European travels, and his mature career as essayist and lecturer. The Sabian symbols for the Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus—along with their opposite degrees—are then introduced and interpreted in a discussion that also takes up the aspects among these planets, particularly the Mercury-Jupiter square as the signature of a “living philosophy” and the Venus-Jupiter quincunx as reflecting the ongoing strain of attempting to live one’s ideals while remaining spiritually independent.

The second class (September 13) continues reading Sabian symbols from Emerson’s chart—the Sun, Moon, Mars, and Saturn, along with their opposites—with students offering prepared interpretations, which are then discussed. Damiani enters the discussion to elaborate key points, particularly on the Sun as the light and life of the Dragon and a planet on a degree as indicating both a subjective functioning and its objective manifestation.

The third class (September 20) opens with a discussion led by Damiani, using his own Saturn as an example, to clarify the relationship between a planet’s degree and its opposite, and a planet’s house and its opposite house. This framework is then applied to Emerson’s Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter, with Mars and Saturn touched on more briefly, and Damiani reflecting throughout on the unusual quality of Emerson’s Chaldean planets as a whole—the chart, he suggests, of a man in whom the rational soul was practically incarnate.

The fourth class (September 27), drawn from student notes taken in Damiani’s absence, examines Emerson’s trans-Saturnian planets with special attention to the “Finger of God” configuration, with Pluto at its apex in the fifth house. The class traces how Pluto aspects correlated with key deaths and moral turning points in Emerson’s life, driving him toward an ever-freer willing of the Good.

The final class (October 4), led primarily by the students with Damiani present, opens with Tim Smith reading prepared notes on the Sabian symbols for Emerson’s three trans-Saturnian planets and an interpretive framework for how each operates—Uranus as spiritual knowing, Neptune as spiritual feeling, Pluto as spiritual will. The bulk of the class is then devoted to tracing Uranus transits to most of the Chaldean planets, as well as to the Dragon’s Head and Tail, with the students presenting each conjunction as an episode of detachment or disidentification from the planetary function being transited. Journal passages from Emerson are read alongside the transits to test these interpretations. Near the end, Damiani critiques the discussion: Uranus was not primarily concerned with detachment but with bringing the forces of the higher self into the actual life Emerson was living—it brought an enlivening, a vitalizing of the Chaldean functions. The class closes with Damiani raising the question of whether the alternate birth time might be correct, prompting a lively discussion of what the resulting chart would say about Emerson.

Classes and documents available in this series