The death of Davy Jones on February 29 has unleashed an outpouring of grief and memories with a collective, uniting nature that could not have happened at any earlier time. I have been participating in it myself, and the longer it plays out, the more I see Neptune and Chiron at work.
Neptune rules glamour, illusion and many of the forms that they can take — music, theater, the silver screen and the hype of a publicity machine. Davy rode the highest currents of all of those, first as a child actor on the long-running British soap-like series Coronation Street, and the Tony-nominated originator of the role of The Artful Dodger in Oliver!, and then as the heartthrob of The Monkees, a made-for-TV band that evolved into a phenomenon of its own right and merit. Davy’s eyes would graphically twinkle with stars when his character fell for a new lady love. At least two generations of fans returned the favor, because of the waves in which the show was broadcast: in prime time during 1966-1968, then on Saturday mornings, and again in the mid 80s when MTV launched. And for girls who missed out on that show, Davy’s iconic appearance on The Brady Bunch in the 70s provided a tenacious hook.
“He’s dreamy,” Marcia Brady sighed, and millions agreed. In his chart, dream-maker Neptune is in a direct current to his Sun, which equipped him for the role of teen idol and all the projections that go with that. (No surprise that the name of his signature song “Daydream Believer” encapsulates two Neptune concepts, fantasy and faith.) Part of his appeal, too, was a sweetness that came from him and not merely the scripts, shown in his birth chart by Mars in nurturing Cancer trining Moon in Scorpio, a combination that created a boyish but palpable sex appeal. His launch into television game got a boost from expansive Jupiter, which was on his Mars when the series premiered, escalating the planet’s tendencies to maximum power. Now that sweetness, and the familial/tribal vibe of Cancer, have been coursing across the globe since the end of February and working a very different, but nonetheless Neptunian, magic.
Word spread of his death within hours thanks to social media — which was birthed during the journey Neptune has just completed through futuristic, community-oriented Aquarius — and so did expressions of grief, gratitude, condolences and memories that fit the bittersweet, interconnecting and therapeutic currents of Neptune and Chiron in Pisces. The process very quickly put fans in direct contact with the other members of the band. Once they were shielded behind a studio publicity wall; now they were speaking directly to — and hearing directly from — us. Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork immediately released statements to their Facebook pages, statements that expressed both palpable emotion and the distinctive personality of each of them. Davy’s daughters wrote a thank-you to fans that was posted on his Facebook page. They have since requested that fans who wish to honor him send feed, apples and carrots to his horses in Florida, whom he was visiting the morning of his death.
The conversation is still flowing. Fans have posted memories and condolences on all the Monkees’ Facebook pages. Appropriately, much of it has dominated Peter Tork’s wall. A collective vibe comes naturally to him as the Aquarian of the group, so it was fitting that his page opened a chat function the weekend after Davy’s death, where fans could communicate directly during the Monkees marathon that ran on Antenna TV.
I’m seeing several currents of magic and healing in the flood of messages. Fans have been consoling not just each other, but also Davy’s family and his longtime band mates. We know their faces from the TV screen and teen magazines, their voices from records and radio, but now the interaction is more human to human, rather than fan to idol. This befits and expresses the universality of Pisces. It’s also a decidedly Chironic experience.
Chiron represents mastering physicality. Davy’s passing has brought him and his cohorts from the misty realms of celebrity into flesh and blood people with deeply affected hearts. (One noteworthy example: Peter’s appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show, in which interviewer and interviewee alike got to meet a person s/he had greatly admired from afar.) Neptune was sextiling Davy’s Capricorn Venus at his death, setting off the media machine again as well as offering him transcendence. (Bountiful Jupiter in down-to-earth Taurus was greasing the way, too, by making a beneficial contact to his Capricorn Sun; an active Jupiter is a hallmark of a quick and easy transition.) Chiron was sextiling his Venus and Sun, opening a doorway to healing and, at least in the eyes of his fans, becoming fully human. The memories of fans who met him once or twice, and of people who knew and worked with him, are spotlighting and fleshing out the man behind the image, by all accounts a generous-hearted man with a huge laugh and wicked sense of humor (Mercury in Sagittarius opposing Uranus in Gemini) who loved his horses, cats and fans and mingled openly in his hometowns in Pennsylvania and Florida.
Social media also birthed two memorial events. One fan used Facebook to organize a service in Beavertown, PA, where Davy has lived for some 20 years. Aware of and concerned about the impact on others (Neptune + Chiron in Pisces again), the organizer set up a fund to reimburse the town of only 950 for whatever this short-notice influx of visitors might do. Peter and Micky honored this event by sending letters that were read aloud to the gathering. Another fan announced a 24-hour candlelight vigil on the day of that memorial, so that fans who could not travel to Pennsylvania could join together in listening to music and pay respects to Davy. In another marvelous breaking of barriers between fan and performer, his representatives gave their approval to the online vigil.
It has been one vast ocean of emotion, love, tenderness, pain, nostalgia, music (lots of music), humanizing and comfort. Why so intense? An explanation that resonates with me is Rachel Maddow’s observation, “The show is embedded in my American cultural DNA.” Still, the impact is not only on Americans. A chapter has closed, and a worldwide community has come together to mourn it. Yes, there’s more than a little romanticizing. Neptune does that. But there’s also a higher expression of love, and enlightened perspectives on reality and passing (from Peter and Mike in particular) and, of course, the sharing, blending and healing that comes from Neptune and Chiron in Pisces.
The chapter closing is in Davy’s chart. Pluto, lord of the underworld, has been sitting atop his Sun and in the flow of the current from Neptune. Jupiter has joined them, in an easy and amplifying link to Pluto and an adjustment angle to Neptune, both with physical ramifications. The lunar eclipse of December 2010 was right on top of Davy’s north node, representing his mission or destiny, at the very last degree of Gemini. His life path was international to the max, but ultimately meant to communicate with countless people. The 2010 eclipse was a culminating event in that path, which had, not coincidentally, been redirected by the same eclipse cycle in the early 70s, when the band broke up and he started a solo career. Another culminating event happened just months ago, when the lunar eclipse of last December took place on his Uranus in Gemini. Time for a big change, and a big retrospective, and exactly that has been happening online and in the media, with “little” voices outnumbering the official ones. They won’t go silent soon. The lunar eclipse coming this June will oppose his Uranus and bring other revelations, information and developments.
On a not unrelated note: another iconic figure passed a week after Davy, Peter Bergman of the Firesign Theatre, whose recordings provided the centerpiece for many a toke-filled college dorm room and beyond in the 60s and 70s. His final words on Radio Free Oz March 6 unwittingly capture the current astrological atmosphere. Neptune and Chiron in Pisces are the grounding point in the energy that is flowing through the three earth signs, the grand trine between Venus and Jupiter in Taurus, Mars in Virgo, and Pluto in Capricorn. “Don’t let depression darken the glass through which you look,” he urged. “This is a garden in which we live, a garden seeded with unconditional love, and …the tears…will spring those seeds.” Listen to his full message here; read the text here.
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