ASTROLOGY- Summer Newsletter, 2000

Michael J. Fox

No, he's not running for office, but he is running for his life. Fox has just retired from a very successful TV show, Spin City,, due to Parkinson’s disease, an illness he contracted in 1991 when a finger on his right hand began to shake. Parkinson’s is a brain disease in which the nerve cells die that normally produce dopamine, a brain messenger chemical that plays a key role in controlling movement. Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about this disease because several celebrities are sick with it. In addition to Fox, Pope John Paul II, Mohammed Ali, Billy Graham, and Dudley Moore (who has a cousin of this disease) have all gone public about their condition. An interesting group of people, don’t you think? Since I happen to have all their horror-scopes I thought this might be a much more interesting area than another ho-hum political race. Space constraints prevent me from showing all of their charts so I picked Fox’s because he has some interesting transits going on now.

Two things that they all have in common is, 1) at least 1 planet in the 12th house of illness and prison, and, 2) they all have an adversely aspected Moon with a strong emphasis on Pluto. Since the Moon symbolizes one’s body in health astrology, these two factors would seem to indicate physical problems. Pluto can indicate problems with/ the DNA as well as traumatic situations that might cause deterioration in the body.

Apparently there are 2 types of Parkinson’s: hereditary and environmental. These 6 charts I am viewing demonstrate that, since several of the charts have adverse aspects to the Moon from Neptune indicating toxic influences. All have stress aspects to their Mars, the planet that rules movement as well as the brain; 4 of the charts, including Fox’s, have Mars in adverse relationship to Uranus indicating uneven rhythms in movement, thus the shakes or palsy, while the Pope’s and Ali’s Mars have a Pluto problem. Ali supposedly got the disease because of head injuries while boxing; could Graham have had an accident to his head?

In medical astrology this disease is due to a trauma (but whose? The person or those who came before him?) that the body interprets as needing to be "in park." All of these people have worked hard and long from an early age. Maybe an obsession, or mother trauma (Moon & Pluto) causes overwork or over use of the body which then rebels forcing the ego to slow down. Most of them, if not all, are professed to be religious (or get that way from confronting the disease), which could indicate problems of guilt, denial or delusion (Moon & Neptune).

What is interesting about Fox’s current transits is the number 18 which is the degree of the big August ’99 eclipse and which finds itself in Fox’s chart 3 times- the Ascendant, the Sun and Mars. Thus as transiting Uranus conjoins, opposes and trines those areas Fox unexpectedly leaves his show and starts a foundation to find the cure for the disease. In 1991 when his first symptom began, Pluto was also at 18 degrees, in Scorpio creating a T-Square and an inconjunct, not unusual indicators of disease. n