Point Thirteen

THE VOCATION

Man's characteristic vocation or avocation represents his practical orientation in the general economy of which he is a part. The conditions of this necessary adjustment in the world about him, enabling him to take the best advantage of the opportunities at every hand or to put his skills and personal endowment to the greatest possible use, are shown in the horoscope by four principal vocational considerations.

First is the testimony provided by the PLANET in ORIENTAL APPEARANCE. It is that one of Mercury, Venus, Mars or the moon that lies closest to the sun on the clockwise side, and so rises in the east most immediately in advance of the solar body. In the rare case it may be found nearly all the way around the zodiacal circle, but its distance from the GREATER LIGHT is never significant in this connection. What is revealed is the everyday or superficial instrumentation of the WILL, or the basic and undifferentiated act-of-being, through the NATIVE'S self-specialization as a working member of society. The four types of potentially remunerative effort identified by these PLANETS of EFFICIENCY and VITALITY are the fundamental expression of the individual as responsible to the larger group, where a division of labor is necessary for the common welfare. His ultimate and separate identity has no appreciable manifestation of its own on the level of [392] essentially co-operative relationships, and as a result it has to be mediated through the ramifying human matrix where any actuality of personal existence takes the vocational form. The sun thus has another PLANET for its agent, and the horoscopic direction of agency is the clockwise turning of the earth on its axis to create the immediacy of these practical relationships as already pointed out. Of the four SIGNIFICATORS Mercury is most likely to have ORIENTAL APPEARANCE because it never can get farther away from the sun than 28° on either side, and Venus is next in frequency because it only can reach 46° of separation. Mars follows, with the moon least frequent.

MERCURY IN ORIENTAL APPEARANCE indicates an underlying capacity for a direct and uninhibited co-operation with the necessities of the immediate situation, and the vocational potential builds on the ease with which the NATIVE is able to carry on his work or pursue his hobbies more or less unquestioningly in some established groove. Here can be an almost naïve conformity to the rules, such as fits the average person for most unskilled or partially skilled forms of employment. Under this INDICATION an individual gains a simple satisfaction in moving or adjusting things, whether these are tangible objects or such intangibles as ideas, information, tokens of value or anything else dealing in any way with reports, records, the organization of effort and the like, and too whether on lower and uninspiring or higher and extraordinarily exacting levels. He enjoys routine of one sort or the other, and usually can fabricate virtually anything or supervise any process of fabrication. Lowly chores are not unpleasant for him, if all the contributing factors are as they [393] should be, and the highest of responsibilities are particularly welcome if the procedures of administration are well established. Intellectual occupation fits into the signification, as does routine writing or teaching and all repetitive phases of the commercial arts. In epitome the NATIVE here is the messenger or the producer, and he gains his fulfillment as he is permitted to perfect the ways of doing things or to contribute to some particular efficiency of the doing. His ideal of greatest achievement is fundamentally the development of technique. An example is found in the horoscope of Prince Charles. The extent of his concern over the ordering of life's superficialities, and the perfecting of his own skill in handling them and bringing them ever more efficiently to his service, has been stressed on the basis of the many other and confirmatory testimonies.

VENUS IN ORIENTAL APPEARANCE indicates a capacity for an underlying constancy of intimate interest in whatever is to be done, and the vocational potential builds on the need for an immediate and at times almost extravagant concern over the excellencies envisioned in the effort and the appreciation they should have. There must be a marked individual stake and properly a quite private touch in the self-expenditure, and this often takes the aesthetic form that permits the personality to place its own indelible stamp on each separate object and occasion. The response to a given need or situation by a NATIVE under this INDICATION is likely to be quite inhibited through some sense of inability to rise to the ideal or conditioned by the unnecessary acceptance of standards of no actual pertinency, and the resulting overconscientiousness can [394] become very annoying to whoever is forced to deal with it. The worker may come to feel that he owns the work and so become an obstructionist, and in that defeat all progress for himself by impeding the efforts of others around him. It is necessary when Venus is in ORIENTAL APPEARANCE to make a free contribution of plussage in every detail of vocational or avocational effort, but this should always be directed towards others and not brought back to self reflexively for the self's benefit. What becomes of major importance are the tangible graces and the supernumerary satisfactions of life, and there often is a great leaning to the creative side of even the most routine of everyday living as in cookery and preparing clothes and homemaking generally. This in larger dimension is community betterment, and indeed every phase of refinement in the everyday business of existence from cosmetics to the administration of protocol. In epitome the NATIVE of this category is the artist, who in a sense must put all of himself into everything he attempts to do. An illustration is provided by the chart of Franklin Roosevelt, and in his case the certain élan he brought to his high office when the country had desperate need for an over-all esprit de corps was possibly his greatest contribution of all.

MARS IN ORIENTAL APPEARANCE indicates an underlying capacity for complete self-dedication to a task or project, perhaps even to the point of a self-abnegation through which the personality becomes wholly subordinated to the work to be done or the goal to be achieved. The concentration on ends can become almost amoral, and there are rebellious and destructive ways in which individuals [395] under this INDICATION play havoc with life. In the usual instance however there is a gift for a constancy of attention to all pertinent detail, and it is on such inherent steadiness that the vocational potential always builds most importantly. The NATIVE is most at home in mechanization and the organizing of effort, and especially when the working out of problems demands unbroken and conscious concentration. Under less industrialized circumstances he is the explorer and pioneer, whose very life depends on his alertness in one unfamiliar situation after another. In modern business he is the advertising and financial genius, and as such he is able to conjure up every artificial consideration by which to exploit the world in any or every particular. Ideas are his tools and science his servant, and he often is a wizard in the manipulation of people through catering to their prejudices. At his best he is the inventor, the architect, the engineer and the genuine builder. In epitome he is the promoter. An example is to be seen in the nativity of Herbert Hoover, who in this connection is not to be viewed so much as the country's chief executive where he was at particular disadvantage but as the engineer and public-spirited citizen of wide and frequently pioneering achievement.

THE MOON IN ORIENTAL APPEARANCE indicates an underlying capacity for a dramatic assimilation of the self into the collective ideal or aspirations of the people at large in any given area of experience, and the vocational potential builds on the ability to provide some actual and personal representation of the values and virtues in which others like to mirror themselves. The greatest asset can be no more than an unimpeachable morality or integrity, [396] even if this ends up as a mere self-consistency in a wholly mediocre self-expression. At times the illimitable assimilation of self to others can be a self-debasement or a degeneration of individual endowment that becomes a veritable outrage to human nature, but generally the NATIVE tends to keep his sights high. He usually knows that he never need shrink from becoming an issue among his fellows, since at his best he is dramatizing them to themselves. Actually his work proves to be more valuable as he quickens great partisanship, either as admiration or repugnance. His role in life is to stimulate others to the effort from which both these others and he himself may profit, rather than to carry some particular enterprise on to success through his own devices. He frequently dignifies human estate by the exaltation of lowly service, and he can give easy and effective attention to trivialities. He is the ideal tutor or coach, and is unsurpassed as a handler of athletes and actors or in general as inspiration or guidance from behind the scenes. He experiments on himself, and often it is his unappreciated groundwork that permits those who come after him to soar to the heights. In epitome he is the prophet. An illustration is presented by Abraham Lincoln, whose life and martyrdom endowed the American people with a fresh and very much deeper realization of their national destiny.

Second of the four principal considerations of vocational or avocational potentials in the horoscope is the NATIVE'S public self-establishment in CIRCUMSTANCES. This is shown by the TENTH HOUSE as INDICATOR of HONOR. It rules the employer and all people of superior authority, and reveals the general nature of the milieu in which the [397] individual must give proof-at-large of himself as a responsible member of society. Thus there is testimony here to the actual or potential acceptance of his skills, and to what appreciation there may be for his accomplishments. It already has been seen that the personal relationships with the mother, or the close-linked parent who at least in early childhood must mediate the world to the NATIVE, are DELINEATED from this midheaven angle. As the point of highest elevation in the astrological wheel it provides a general estimation of his practical or everyday place in life, as a matter either of individual supremacy or lack of proper self-representation in the total society or culture of which he is a part.

Any special linking of the HOUSE of HONOR or the TENTH with the HOUSE of DUTY or the SIXTH becomes of considerable importance in the analysis of vocation, and this always is indicated when their LORDS are in CONJUNCTION, SQUARE or OPPOSITION with each other or when the same planet rules both HOUSES. In these cases the NATIVE is very likely to find some sort of compulsion of CIRCUMSTANCES interfering seriously with his efforts and his judgment, as he seeks to establish his place for himself, either by contributing to unfortunate vacillation of action and reaction or to equally unhappy confusion in mind such as leads him to recognize or accept various unsolvable conflicts in his affairs. It is necessary for him to establish a rigid dual discipline in the psychological and social application of his energies, so that the two forms of his self-expression are each clear-cut in its own right. An example of CONJUNCTION of the LORDS of the TENTH and SIXTH is provided by Adolf Hitler, who at root was ever [398] the individual completely at discord within himself, and whose inner distortions well reveal the stark EMPHASIS type of ASPECT. The SQUARE of the LORDS measures the practical aspect of warring considerations in the psychological make-up of Earl Browder. Their OPPOSITION reveals the imbalance of SENSITIVENESS shown by that ASPECT in the chart of Calvin Coolidge, under whose presidency the American economy climbed up towards the peak of its mad inflation preceding its dizzy tailspin. In the NATIVITY of Madame Blavatsky the TWO HOUSES are ruled by the same PLANET, and while she made her epochal contribution to modern occultism she ended her days heartbroken over her virtual ostracism from the society she had founded.

Another important detail of the analysis of the NATIVE'S economic orientation in his general CIRCUMSTANCES is the balance of his private and public personality as shown by the EASTERN ANGLES of his horoscope. If both the TENTH and FIRST HOUSES contain PLANETS he is shown as likely to have little difficulty in synchronizing his personal desires and his business or professional concerns. This is the case with Prince Charles, and also with Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. It is the dynamic normality of vocational or avocational slanting. If neither of these ANGLES contains PLANETS the usual problems of general private and public interrelation are of no appreciable significance to the individual, and this is illustrated interestingly in the life of the elder John D. Rockefeller. He began his celebrated frugalities from early childhood and by a strange and essentially piecemeal or almost drifting process of accretion, such as the ultimately notorious [399] rebates and every manner of collecting minor tribute in passing from the intermediary details of the chaotic oil business, he made possible the pyramiding of an immeasurable wealth and the spread of the Standard Oil colossus all over the globe. Here is the negative dynamic.

Vocational problems may arise when the TENTH HOUSE is emphasized over the FIRST by containing PLANETS when the first does not. This is INDICATION of a life stress that tends to relatively continuous and very tangible involvements in the everyday business of the community, or the social group embracing the NATIVE'S particular interests at any given time, and in consequence his affairs are shaped very largely by the compulsions of CIRCUMSTANCES. Examples are Henry Ford in industry and Grover Cleveland in the political arena. In the reverse horoscopic situation, where the FIRST HOUSE contains PLANETS and the TENTH does not, the NATIVE in all probability will be caught up quite consistently in complex reactions stemming from his own basic conditioning and essential makeup. In consequence he is likely to find the demands of life unnecessarily personal, or even irritatingly rigid and limiting. Illustrative cases are William Randolph Hearst in business and Mary Baker G. Eddy in religious realms.

It should be noted that the emphasis of either the ASCENDANT or midheaven over each other by the presence of a single PLANET in one and none in the other, or of any of the ANGLES by a clustering of the PLANETS, is an important detail of FOCAL DETERMINATION by DIGNITY to which attention already has been given. The prior consideration was of a personal adjustment broader than in this matter of vocational or avocational potentiality. [400]

Third of the four principal considerations of vocational or avocational potentials in the horoscope is the testimony of the moon as SIGNIFICATOR of a NATIVE'S psychological relationship with other people. This reveals his facility of approach to his fellows, and also his assets and handicaps in his public justification of himself whether in his immediate milieu or in the world at large. In any general DELINEATION the relations with others are (1) the concern of point two of the sixteen-point analysis, or (2) they have an equivalent and proper place in any other ordering of the stellar art, but whenever the astrologer is consulted in special matters of business or profession an equally thorough examination of the moon's INDICATION is vital.

Fourth of the four principal considerations of vocational or avocational potentials in the horoscope is the DYNAMIC APTNESS. This is the single ASPECT that reveals the NATIVE'S most characteristic approach to the immediate social or economic group in which he wishes to labor or express himself at any given moment of reality. His identification at this point is not so much of himself in his self-specialization as a working member of society as it is of himself as the functioning participant in a total complex that rewards, tolerates or perhaps rejects his consistency or lack of consistency of performance. The INDICATION is through the OPPOSITION or SQUARE that is closest to exact, and the precise SIGNIFICATION comes from (1) the nature of the ASPECT as whether it is the one or the other, (2) the departmental relationship between the two PLANETS that form it, and (3) the significance of each of the two bodies according to the distinction between them as APPLYING and SEPARATING. [401]

When the ASPECT of DYNAMIC APTNESS is a SQUARE the vocational effectiveness depends on a direct and frank concern over everything to which any individual turns his hand, and when it is an OPPOSITION he must lean more to the indirect approach or to an employment of intangibles with a very particular care in keeping his own counsel. When the two PLANETS belong to the same department the participation in the total complex of experience tends to be self-centered to an extent that may be a great asset but equally well can be an exceptional handicap. At times this also will be an accentuated emphasis of the LINE OF SELF-DETERMINATION as explained in Chapter Three, but the two points of view will confirm each other and need not be confused. When the two PLANETS belong to departments that are (1) personal or impersonal, (2) objective or subjective or (3) conjunctive or disjunctive, the vocational or avocational orientation in the general scheme of things a NATIVE shares with his fellows is of necessity a potential of CIRCUMSTANCES, FUNCTION or ACTIVITY as the case may be. The APPLYING PLANET, taken in HIGH-FOCUS significance, reveals the manner of self-organization that is most likely to bring success. The SEPARATING PLANET DELINEATES the area of experience in which effort can be employed most efficiently in achieving the desired ends. Examples of the hundred and sixty-eight possible combinations here are of course beyond the scope of the present text, but some illustrations may be given.

Returning to the sixteen-point horoscopic analysis of Prince Charles, the PLANET of ORIENTAL APPEARANCE is Mercury as already noted. In the case of his TENTH HOUSE the balance with the FIRST is normal and needs no [402] attention, and there is no special linking with the SIXTH such as would require consideration. The TENTH contains the moon and dragon's head. The testimony of the node to a marked spiritual courage has been brought out. The LESSER LIGHT, as a heavenly body with gravitational mass, reveals much more important trends and potentials here, as always follows in any area of experience shown by HOUSES that contain PLANETARY significators. Because it is CUTTING PLANET in the LOCOMOTIVE pattern it shows the HONOR or sustained outer exaltation of the self to be an exceptional issue of the life in every eventuality. The LORD of the TENTH is in the FIFTH, and in consequence the centering of personal experience on some one or another exalted level must serve the self-expression primarily, or help the everyday realization of the NATIVE to the ultimate transcendence of petty considerations that has been seen to be a necessity of his destiny in the royal line.

The CUSP of the TENTH HOUSE lies in the SIGN of ASPIRATION and a degree symbolized by a serpent coiling near a man and a woman. Thus the HONOR of the life in terms of FUNCTION ever strains upward, and in the practical details of every passing or recurring focus of the moment it requires some manifestation of the healing or serpent power such as transforms men and women into genuinely spiritualized individuals. Thus the NATIVE in whatever he does will realize that the eye of the cosmos is upon him.

The DYNAMIC APTNESS in the chart of the prince is revealed in the OPPOSITION formed by Jupiter APPLYING to Uranus. It is exact within two minutes of arc, to show exceptional strength, and in consequence his vocational [403] potentiality is seen to be of as spectacular emphasis as anything in the chart. This is added and perhaps consummative testimony to the unusual role he might play in life. As shown by the OPPOSITION the first secret of success for him, in accomplishing what he wishes, is the indirect approach or a principal employment of intangibles and a care in keeping his own counsel. This means that he accepts and utilizes the basically symbolical nature of his royal office, or remembers that he possesses no executive power such as a prime minister or an American president. As a result he is little likely to encounter the difficulties of his granduncle, who mounted the throne under the necessity of striving for his ends under the type of DYNAMIC APTNESS revealed by Mars in sharp SQUARE with the sun or of acting and reacting with a direct and wholly objective concern over the problems of his public life. With Prince Charles the manner of self-organization for success is through the paternalism of the myth figure that he must develop under the genius of his horoscopic pattern, and it must express itself in the total INDEPENDENCE of external compulsions to which his chart testifies in so many ways. The Duke of Windsor's manner of self-organization for success by contrast is dependent on the indomitability that he directed towards the fulfillment of his romance rather than the furtherance of the idealism he brought to his public service, and the area of this effort for self-establishment as a working member of society had to be defined by his WILL or the sustaining ego for which the crown offered no place.

An example of DYNAMIC APTNESS framed in ACTIVITY rather than FUNCTION is provided in the horoscope of [404] Adolph Hitler by the triggering SQUARE of Saturn to Mars. Thus vocational or avocational effectiveness for this NATIVE results from taking life as a game or an adventure, but treating every eventuality in a very practical fashion. His approach to the details of anything he attempts must be direct or down on earth, and it is necessary for his interest to be wholly disjunctive or essentially analytical. To the extent his self-organization is shrewd, and the area of major self-expression one in which genuine INITIATIVE is possible, his chances for accomplishment tend to be excellent. Another example in a frame of ACTIVITY, but with the interest effective in a conjunctive tendency, is found in the NATIVITY of Sarah Bernhardt. Her career must be a game or an adventure under the INDICATION of her OPPOSITION of the sun and Uranus, but her attack on the various problems of her artistic effort in contrast with the Nazi leader must be indirect or through the subtlety that of course is the very spirit of the theater. She is called to develop mastery in playing her roles, and to cultivate it in an area of INDEPENDENCE as far as permitting any appreciable outside dictation is concerned.

The charts of Mohandas Gandhi and George Sand are interesting illustrations of the DYNAMIC APTNESS framed in CIRCUMSTANCES. Both of these NATIVES were essentially a product of their time and place, as in distinction from the two representatives of the House of Windsor who were born to face a special FUNCTION in life and also from the actor in the political area and the actress on the literal stage who were under necessity to consider their existence a game and create whatever significance life might have for them. The SQUARE of Jupiter to the moon, as [405] INDICATION of the Hindu leader's vocational or avocational potentiality, shows that he must make a very direct attack on the issues confronting him as opportunities at hand permit and that in every move he must enter the consideration very personally himself. His natal wheel reveals his marked paternalism in his self-ordering as a principal factor in his achievement with his FEELING bringing every area of India into the purview of his interest and compassion. The French novelist's OPPOSITION of Mars to Neptune requires the indomitable outreach towards her goal to be indirect through the medium of her fictional dramatizations. The astrological testimony is to a success won in areas of experience where on the one hand she can feel an OBLIGATION to some cause or condition and where on the other she can respond to the succession of definite episodes brought into her tempestuous life by the drift of events.

A case of DYNAMIC APTNESS where the two SIGNIFICATORS belong to the same department is found in the horoscope of General Gordon, and the CONFIGURATION already has had attention in connection with the LINE OF SELF-DETERMINATION. Here his career is revealed as without particular framing in FUNCTION, ACTIVITY or CIRCUMSTANCES. The OPPOSITION of Jupiter and Saturn in vocational INDICATION requires the indirection that was marked in his particular genius for handling foreign soldiers. This successful gift can be understood in more specific fashion as the result of his paternalistic self-adequacy, under conditions where his SENSITIVENESS could help him establish and maintain his intangible rapport with his men of so different a culture than his own.