George Harrison: The Astrology of a Beatle
by Jackie Taylor
An ardent Beatles fan examines the life and times of the
‘Quiet One’ and his two birth charts (one rectified – thanks
to his interest in astrology). Among other things, can we tell from his
appearance and behaviour which was his likely rising sign – Libra or
Scorpio?
The first issue that must be addressed here is birthday
data, because George Harrison well and truly muddied the waters on this
subject.
Since the age of 10 (I’m nailing my colours to the mast at the outset here, as a lifelong Beatles fan), I understood from the ‘Fab Fact sheets’ that George’s birthday was 25 February 1943, along with other profound nuggets of information such as his liking of blondes, Chuck Berry and Chet Atkins. Then suddenly it wasn’t 25 February; it became 24 February. Apparently, in the wake of his overwhelming interest in all things mystical, he found an interest in astrology, and he asked an astrologer (whose name I haven’t found) to check that his details were correct. It seems that they were not. He had previously given birth clock-time as 00.10 a.m. for 25 February, but the astrologer rectified the chart and moved the birth time back to 23:42 p.m. for the 24th. Not just a different day; far more significantly, this gave a different Ascendant.
It should be noted that George’s sister Louise, twelve years his senior, has disputed this new time. She says that she has a birth record in their mother’s hand-writing giving the time as 00.10 a.m. on the 25th and that her mother was awake and aware. It was a home birth, no digital clocks around in wartime, lots of confusion and clearing up and, sadly, no awareness of the crucial importance of a birth time! Astro-Databank at astro.com has accepted the given birthdate and given it a Rodden Rating of A. The alternative birthdate has no rating and is viewed as ‘rectified’. At this distance in time, it is perhaps impossible to establish for sure, yet for the purposes of writing a piece about it, it is a question that needs to be addressed.
The Fab Fact sheet’s version of 25 February gives an Ascendant
of 3.14 Scorpio. (See chart below)
The rectified chart of 24 February gives an Ascendant of 28.27 Libra.
(See chart further below)
Did George look and behave like a Scorpio Ascendant?
One source describes Scorpio rising as
being “all about the eyes”. A piercing, direct gaze, often
beautiful eyes; direct eye contact. Sharp features, prominent cheekbones.
This is certainly a description of George: many of his friends comment on
the compelling eyes, focused intently on the companion during intense
(Scorpio) and engrossingdiscussions. Did George behave like a Scorpio
Ascendant? Here the matter is confused by the fact that in both charts
his Moon is in Scorpio, and in both charts, it falls right on the
Ascendant and is there for the world to see. Thus, his famed need for
privacy and hatred of the negative effects of the Beatles’
off-the-scale fame could as easily be ascribed to the Moon as to the
Ascendant.
An anecdote from his very early childhood has him telling his mother not to collect him from infants’ school and not to tell the nosy mothers anything about him. Pure Scorpio; but it could have as easily been his Moon, especially given his age. A child will more readily live through his Moon.
The 25 February chart gives the ruling planet as Mars in Capricorn in the 3rd house widely opposite Jupiter in the 9th. This Mars, enhanced by Jupiter, his Sun’s ruler, could well describe his hell-for-leather approach to every enthusiasm in his passions-filled life.
He discovered the guitar at age 13, when transiting Neptune hit his Moon, and transiting Uranus was giving a nudge to his 10th house cusp and approaching MC to remind it that it was in performance-themed Leo. From then on music and the guitar were the all-embracing passions of his life. He sat up until all hours, practising his guitar until his fingers bled, unstoppably determined (Capricorn Mars) to master the instrument. (Incidentally, he was wholeheartedly supported in his music by his mother (Moon), the only Beatle parent to truly back the group all through their slow and painful journey towards success.)
In the late 1960s he embraced Indian music, culture and religion with the same zealous passion, preaching his new-found obsession to anyone who would listen and to quite a few who didn’t (Mercury in Aquarius opposite Pluto wanted to convert everyone to his truths). His friend Klaus Voormann has said that George was a person of extremes in everything he did, be it drugs, meditation or indeed, womanising. And Mars-opposite-Jupiter perfectly captures George’s approach to driving. George was a lifelong petrol-head: from his first car (a Ford Anglia bought in 1962), speed was of the foremost importance.
With Beatle success he graduated to an E Type Jag and kept going from there until, with a garage already full of Ferraris, Maseratis and Jags, he commissioned in 1990 a McLaren F1. To quote the designer, Gordon Murray, “It is a pretty frightening experience to drive one: 630 horsepower with no ABS, no power brakes, no power steering, no traction control. He loved that. And he loved the noise it made as well”. By all accounts of driving with George Harrison, whether on the motorway or to the local chip shop and back (when he ended up in the shrubbery and instructed his passenger not to tell anyone), it was invariably a white knuckle and sick-making experience. Unlike his various passengers, he knew no fear.
When he moved into Friar Park in Henley, a 120-room
Victorian near-derelict mansion, the passion became gardening. George
Harrison’s version of gardening did not consist of pottering around
the borders and mowing the lawn on a Sunday. The property’s 62
acres had become completely neglected, and George devoted himself to
restoring them. He did employ a team of gardeners which included his two
older brothers, but the inspiration and a lot of the physical work was
his. He would garden until midnight, squinting through the moonlight at
the shadows and contours and occasionally moving a hill from one side of
the park to the other. He planted hundreds of trees himself, he kept
local nurseries in business, and his son reports that for the first few
years of his life he only ever saw his father in wellies covered in mud.
He didn’t know he ever did anything else.
Needless to say, Mercury in Aquarius (in the 4th!) informed anyone and everyone at exhaustive length about all the physical and spiritual benefits of gardening.
The need for speed also took a very literal turn in the early 60s: from the Beatles’ earliest days in the Hamburg clubs right up to the end in 1966 of their crazy and nightmarishly pressured touring days, all the Beatles were dependent on amphetamines to keep going, to function at all. Addiction was irrelevant – they couldn’t have done the job without them.
A Libra Ascendant, possibly?
So, Mars might be his ruling planet (in his ‘official’ birth chart). But has George Harrison a Libra Ascendant (as indicated in his rectified chart)?
Physical characteristics of a Libra
rising are said to include a round or oval face, a tendency to put on
weight in the latter part of life, but always looking young and good.
Fine hair, outstanding clothes sense. I think it’s fair to say that
none of these details applied to George! (Strange patterned sweaters
marred his later years.) However, there is quote after quote to support
some Libra characteristics from those who knew him. His
son Dhani Harrison has said, “My dad hated it when people
weren’t happy. He didn’t like to see people upset”. His
second wife, Olivia, said, “He liked everyone to be happy, as happy
as they could be”. There are many accounts from his friends
describing a man who paid endless attention to the welfare of those he
came into personal contact with, none of which sounds necessarily
Scorpionic in nature.
In addition, a Libra Ascendant gives Venus as the ruling planet; and it is my conclusion that his Venus in Pisces opposite Neptune in the 11th house (present in both charts) is the key to his extraordinary life, with all its glories and contradictions.
The principal contradiction in question was that of the ‘spiritual versus the material’, and it was a contradiction with which George Harrison struggled constantly from around 1967 when he became immersed in and fascinated by Indian music and its culture and religion. He was consciously and painfully aware of the conflict. The lyrics of his song ‘Hear Me Lord’, from his All Things Must Pass album in 1970, express the passion which consumed him from then to the end of his life: “Help me Lord, please/To rise a little higher/Help me Lord, please/ To burn out the desire”. The problem was clear: how to fully embrace the spiritual whilst being a multi-millionaire ex-Beatle for whom every temptation effortlessly manifested as reality. Neptune opposite Venus (the former trine, the latter sextile) Saturn played out their battle in this uneducated bus driver’s son until his untimely death in 2001.
The Neptune-Venus opposition is out-of-sign (Libra-Pisces), adding a discordant, harsh and salt-in-the-wound irritation to the struggle.
Neptune in the 11th house (both charts)
Harrison had many, many friends. Eric Clapton astonishingly and apparently remained a good mate despite his having ‘stolen’ George’s wife Pattie Boyd (to the musical accompaniment of ‘Layla’). Clapton expressed a rueful surprise at the number of people who attended the memorial ‘Concert for George’ he staged in November 2002, a year after George’s death. Clapton had thought that he was George’s ‘special’ friend, but the cast of thousands on stage at the Royal Albert Hall that evening showed him just how many called George a friend.
His friends expressed their relationship with him in
Neptunian terms. Formula 1 racing driver star Jackie Stewart spoke of
their “extraordinary closeness”. Eric Idle, of Monty Python
fame, delivered the eulogy at Concert For George: he described the
discreet sobbing and red eyes at the event, and said, “Was ever a
man so loved?” He added that that being with George had a feel-good
factor never to be found with anyone else. Harrison’s circle talked
of their relationship with him not in terms of friendship but of love:
these bonds ‘broke’ down their barriers. Eric Idle spoke of
“opening his heart to him as he has to no man before or
since”. His old friend Klaus Voormann, the bass player,
Revolver psychedelic cover artist and a close ally since the
Hamburg days, has told of the time in his life when he was going through
acute grief and George walked with him in the beautiful Friar Park
grounds, waited with him and drew out reflections which Klaus would share
with no-one else. Neptune dissolves boundaries and in the 11th house took
friendship to a higher level.
Neptune in the 11th (groups) opposes Venus, his values. George was in a group. George was in the group, and that was where he wanted to be. All he ever wanted to do, from his mid-teens onwards, was to play guitar in a group. Not for him the ego-exercising twenty-minute guitar solos – his guitar work was created purely and simply to complement and accompany the group. Not for him the front-man attention – he left that to John and Paul, and he just stood at the back, approaching the mic only to harmonise or to shake his head and sing “Ooh”. There came a time, publicly revealed in the agonising Let It Be film, when the group stifled him, and he had to get out. Yet his famous and gloriously successful solo triple album All Things Must Pass was not in fact a solo effort: George invited all his friends into the studio to play with him, and this was the way he worked until the end.
Percussionist Ray Cooper, who played on many of George’s works, said that George “loved collaboration”, and went on to say that after the Beatles dissolution, George “missed his mates”.
This contrasts with the difficulty Paul McCartney had in retaining members of his band Wings because of his meticulous demands, even after having almost turned the Beatles into his backing group. George was always surrounded by eager and loving musicians. He formed and recorded with The Travelling Wilburys comprising Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynn (then mainly of ELO fame) and Mr. Bob Dylan, whom only George could drag out of reclusiveness for the ‘Concert for Bangladesh’. The Wilburys were not for money or glory but just for fun and nothing else (Venus in the 5th).
His wife Olivia is quoted as saying that all of his important relationships were conducted through music. That is Neptune in the 11th speaking.
Neptune also spoke through the gardening described above. George transformed those grounds because he enjoyed the work. He’d always liked plants (Venus in the 5th). But in doing so he created a landscape of extraordinary beauty, Neptunian in its scale and sublimity.In addition, Neptune is trine Saturn and what George was doing, absolutely consciously, was making the material world spiritual. He was leaving the world a spiritual gift.
Trespassers in Harrison’s secretive world
How did a working-class apprentice electrician from drab, post-War 1950s Liverpool get catapulted into such indescribable and global celebrity? George’s own answer to that question was that it was karma. He said, “…So for certain things there’s no way out. There’s no way I wasn’t going to be in The Beatles, even though I didn’t know. In retrospect that’s what it was, a set-up”.
It was indeed a set-up, according to his chart. His North Node in august and lofty Leo in the 10th house, MC in Leo, conjunct powerful and transformative Pluto; there was no escape. It didn’t mean he had to like it, however. The Beatles had worked hard and long for their success, honing their craft in small clubs from the late 1950s, undergoing an apprenticeship by fire in Hamburg in 1960, playing every club and ballroom in the Liverpool area and endlessly searching for the recording break they needed.
Interestingly, even during those tiring and frustrating months, George experienced a conviction that it would happen for them, that they were especially good and that they would make it. Even then, the Leo North Node was calling. And when they did get that contract and released ‘Love Me Do’ in 1962 and then Please Please Me in early 1963, they did indeed enjoy every minute of their fame. For a lusty and energetic 20-year-old lad, what’s not to like about unlimited cars, clothes, booze and girls? But then came Beatlemania, and after about two relentless years the gloss quickly wore off.
His Scorpio Moon detested the complete destruction of his privacy. It
also despised the frustration of dealing with the never-ending inane and
superficial questions at every press conference. His Aquarius Mercury
chafed against the imprisonment in hotels and cars and planes from the
perpetual siege by the fans, and to an extent against the insistence of
manager Brian Epstein that ‘the boys’ retain at all times
their wholesome mop-top image. The Beatles all grumbled; yet Pluto
squaring his Scorpio Moon rendered George’s emotions deep, intense
and overwhelming. He was the first of the four to talk of ending the
exhausting round of touring, and only gradually did the other three join
him, resulting in their downing tools after the Candlestick Park
performance in 1966. That angular Pluto formed an inconjunct with his Sun
in the 4th house, his privacy, his safe place. Public life never sat
easily with him. Yes, his fame was a set-up, but Chiron closely conjunct
that Leo North Node made sure that the fulfilling of his fate was often a
painful one.
His natal Pluto on the MC also accounted for his continually changing public image. In contrast certainly with Paul and Ringo, who largely retained their initial public personas, and even John, who began and ended as a rebel, George arguably changed the most of the four, moving from lovable mop-top, to peacock hippie, to devotee, to fanatical preacher, to angry recluse, to film producer and finally, in his last years, to settled husband, father, musician and, of course, gardener. It was often said that his was the longest journey. He would reply that that was the whole point of life.
Throughout that journey, his struggle was to strive towards union with the Lord despite his attraction towards the very earthly and carnal. His struggle was to follow Neptune whilst being dragged back by Venus in the 5th house of fun. Every biography of George Harrison makes reference to his apparently inexhaustible appetite for women, fuelled by their apparently inexhaustible attraction to him. Venus was, after all, in Pisces, the sign which knows no boundaries, and he was by many accounts extraordinarily charming. In the Martin Scorsese 2011 documentary of him (George Harrison: Living in the Material World) where whitewashing especially by his wife might be expected, even she had to touch on the fact that “he liked women”, and that this was a problem, one which could apparently only be solved by putting up with it. His first wife, model Pattie, certainly had the same problem to deal with and this contributed to the ending of the marriage. It was understood that whilst the Beatles were on tour, whatever happened stayed behind the closed doors of their hotel rooms. But the cessation of touring didn’t seem to bring an end to the trail of women.
Equally, Neptune-opposition-Venus denotes George’s drug and alcohol use, always heavy, but pushed to the extreme when transiting Pluto was just finishing with his Neptune-Venus opposition. Transiting Pluto stationed on Neptune in 1973, bringing an end to his marriage to Pattie and catapulting him into what he termed “a bit of a bender”: bottles of brandy, copious cocaine, non-stop cannabis, even more women now that his wife was no longer with him, and physical collapse into hepatitis. It was a low spot in his life. And all this whilst George preached to the world about the importance of reaching for God and denying the temptations of the world. It wasn’t hypocrisy exactly; it was an unhappy combination of wishful thinking and desperation – and even he came close to losing his faith.
Prior to this low spot, George Harrison’s life had seemed to follow a steady trajectory, as he was pulled inexorably towards the solo and personal spotlight which he had never craved. Beatlemania carried him forward in his position as third man in the group, one solo per live show, one composition per Beatles album – these contributions regarded by record producer George Martin, as well to an extent by John and Paul, as an also-ran. Songs were submitted but rejected, and George worked on perfecting his musicianship.
His personal life kept him happy, as transiting Venus had moved into his 7th house in early March 1964 and brought his first serious relationship, with Pattie Boyd, whom he married in January 1966; he and Pattie soon became the epitome of Swinging Sixties life. Yet he was nudged out bit-by-bit from this familiar though sometimes frustrating position.
Evolving away from The Beatles
In late 1965 George had become intrigued by the sitar. In 1967, he discovered Transcendental Meditation and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. As with any new enthusiasm within Beatles’ circles, be it moustaches, photography or painted cars, all four-plus wives joined the game and went to sit at the feet of the Maharishi, first in Bangor in Wales and then in Rishikesh in Northern India.
For George, however, it was not a game. His study of the
sitar had led him to a man who became his lifelong friend, guru and
mentor, Ravi Shankar. It was Ravi who showed him that serious study of
the sitar necessitated the embrace and understanding of its spiritual
context. As one by one the other Beatles abandoned their newly found
spiritual path, George followed that path on his own, never to turn back.
In September 1967 his compliant Pisces Sun progressed into assertive Aries, and from here George unknowingly had to start to go on his own way. The world was witness to his struggle to break free from the dominance of his accepted place in the world’s most successful group and by the world’s most successful song-writing partnership. Filming of the painful Let It Be started in February 1968 and, when the film was finally shown, we all saw George finally having enough of Paul McCartney’s dominant behaviour. A row on screen was followed by George’s abrupt walking out of the studio and out of the group. He stormed home and wrote the song ‘Wah-Wah’, a blistering and violent expression of all his pent-up frustrations. The lyrics make his feelings clear, including the refrain “And I know how sweet life could be/If I keep myself free…”. Physically, he returned to the group. Emotionally, he never did.
February 1968 (around the time filming of Let It Be began) also saw George’s progressed Full Moon. He’d got there. From early teens he had worked his way towards this point, he had served his apprenticeship and now it was time to come up with all the goods he’d been accumulating. In October 1968 transiting Uranus moved to sit on his natal Neptune, intensifying his devotion to the Hindu path, and thus his professional and spiritual lives moved forward in accord. The Beatles as an existing entity limped onward until the spring of 1970, and from there George was on his own. Not potentially a comfortable place for the man who only wanted to play guitar in a group. But by this time, he had years of accumulated creativity within him which at last could break free. George himself delicately described it as the explosion following a period of constipation.
In September 1970 transiting Uranus in Libra moved to trine his natal Mercury in Aquarius, the latter conjunct IC, and at last his voice was freed. The result was the release in November 1970 of the extraordinary, wildly original and chart-topping triple album All Things Must Pass, accompanied by the brave (for him) statement of ‘My Sweet Lord’, no less a glorious single for the subsequent “unconscious plagiarism” verdict. Song after song which had previously been rejected for recording during Beatles sessions were lauded by the world. John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s solo albums were swept aside. This was George’s moment in the sun.
In 1971 he was thrust even further into the limelight when his friend Ravi Shankar asked if, in view of his status and fame, there was anything he could do to help the starving victims of the Bangladesh civil war. Mars in Capricorn opposite Jupiter wasn’t content just to reach into his pocket for a donation. After a month solidly on the phone to his many, many celebrity friends, George took the lead in the first-ever pop music benefit concert, an event which paved the way for Live Aid and all subsequent pop-rock fundraising shows. Two concerts in all, it was staged on 1 August 1970, the only day on which Madison Square Garden was free. And then the sun shone on the degree of his Leo MC. It was agony for George Harrison, the third Beatle, the Quiet One, and he was terrified, but he forced himself on stage along with a crowd of rock stars; and both shows were a major triumph.
Even the reclusive and reluctant Bob Dylan hugged George at the end, saying he wished they could have done three shows.
Decline and a comeback
After the glories of the Bangladesh concert, George’s career slowly but surely sank, as his overt devotion and perceived sanctimony annoyed the music buying public. He emphatically rejected contemporary music and became an old fogey at the age of 40. His Dark Horse tour in 1974 (his voice completely shot due to accumulated stress and overwork) brought him widespread and savage criticism, and George gradually withdrew from the limelight. Albums were released but not promoted and George sank from public view, preferring his gardening, his new son, his new wife and his film production with Handmade Films. Only when transiting North Node opposed his music-making Neptune in 1987 did he decide that he wanted another go at success. With Jeff Lynn as producer and a new-found energy for promotion, the Cloud Nine album became his comeback. George regained respectability and the love of the masses.
His wariness of that public, especially acute after the
shooting of John Lennon in December 1980 (which saw Pluto rising in
George’s chart) became horribly and graphically justified at about
3.00 a.m. on 31 December 1999 when a deranged man broke into Friar Park
and attempted to kill him. George was stabbed multiple times, the blade
miraculously missing his heart and vital arteries, and he was saved by
the desperate assistance of his wife Olivia who finally stopped the
madman in his tracks by smashing a lamp over his head. Transiting North
Node had reached George’s natal Pluto and MC. Despite all his
measures to protect himself, this terrible attack seems fated. He
survived, he continued, but the shock and horror of it did without doubt
take years off his life.
It was rare to see a photo of George (apart from when he was performing) without a cigarette in his hand. His lifelong very heavy smoking habit finally caught up with him. In the summer of 1997, he discovered a lump in his neck whilst gardening in his beloved Friar Park. The lump was quickly removed, and he later received two bouts of radiation therapy for throat cancer. He recovered, he was well; and then the madman broke into his house and tried to kill him. The stress and grief proved too much. He lived the rest of his life living in his beautiful homes in Hawaii and Australia, he made music, he enjoyed the love of his son and his wife, and he gardened. The disease returned, they battled against it, but it proved too much.
The end
George Harrison died at age 58 in Los Angeles at 1:30 p.m. PST on 29 November 2001. Initial reports claimed that death occurred in a house owned by Paul McCartney. But in a BBC report, McCartney denied owning a property in California – so could not have offered the use of a house there. Nonetheless, at death Harrison’s progressed Mars was on his natal Sun, within two minutes of arc; his possible ruling planet drove his soul onwards on its journey. Progressed Venus, the planet that had dictated much of his life, was close to both transiting and birth Saturn in the 8th house – traditional place of death: he had accumulated the discipline to follow his values. Also, transiting Moon was on the cusp of his 8th house. Returning Jupiter carried his soul to freedom – in the 9th. Transiting Neptune was approaching his IC, taking him home. His wife Olivia said that at the moment of his passing, the room was filled with such light that, had you been trying to film it, you wouldn’t have needed camera lights.
George was ready to go.
By the time the news of Harrison’s death was broken to the world, Olivia and Dhani were already on their way to India to scatter his ashes on the waters of the Ganges, in accordance with his profound faith.
God bless you, George. I hope you’ve reached the end of your journey.
Note:
John Etherington has also written an article on George Harrison’s
astrology, which can be found in The Astrological Journal, Volume 49
Number 1, January/February 2007. I’d refer you to this for further
information on the transits to George’s chart.
Image sources:
Chart data: AstroDatabank at www.astro.com
George Harrison: David Hume Kennerly [Public domain]
Friar Park: don cload, CC BY-SA 2.0
Harrison and Clapton: Steve Mathieson [CC BY-SA 2.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]
Beatles on tour: United Press International, photographer unknown
Friar Park garden: Public domain
Guitar: Florian Weingarten [CC BY 2.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]
First published by: The Astrological Journal, May/Jun 2019
Author:
Jackie
Taylor began studying astrology in 1994 and “has been
working with it on one level or another since then”. She embarked
on a certificate course at the Faculty of Astrological Studies and is a
member of the Oxford Astrology Group. She feels “privileged to have
the opportunity to learn from all the people she meets within the
astrological community”.
© Jackie Taylor 2019
