Reply To: Doing Readings Questions & Discussions

[CoVianna Young]

Hi Sebastian,

Here is some feedback for you.

Sebastian Urrea – Hwk 6 Ernest Hemingway: This is a good analysis, however, you’ve written about Mars and Mercury being in Hemingway’s 10th house from the Moon when they are in the 9th House from his Moon. So he is only receiving support in  7th House ways. That Venus there is with Ketu, so it definitely counts. He would have a sense of knowing well how Venus interactions work though still having a blind spot there with the Ketu Karmic knot. This could, in his case, be a judgemental reaction to females and flipping them when he sees them not coming up to the standards his Ketu insists on.

You could mention that SaturnR rules the 6th House and 7th House in his chart though you did indeed mention those qualities in your analysis. Saturn can also be punishing and cruel in a lower expression, hence the cruelty involved in bull fighting and hunting.

There is something I found interesting in researching Hemingway when I did this assignment (I too, knew little about him nor read any of his books). I hope you will indulge me in sharing what I found though a little long winded. The Moon is how we feel about ourselves and colours how we feel about others. As it also refers to our childhood and the part of us that is most impressionable and innocent – we can see how strongly that Saturn Retrograde abuse by authority was running his internal emotional environment particularly as it is in the 12th sign from his Moon.

Let me explain: Until the age of six years (considered the most formative), Hemingway’s mother dressed him as a girl with curls – and his sister as a boy with cropped hair. This set up an intense hatred of his mother, even though she gave him quality time as an older boy when taking just him on holidays to Nantucket Sound. Here, Hemingway gravitated toward Macho Male adult figures to emulate – Venus/Ketu seven houses from the Moon. Though not part of Moon Yogas analysis, it is interesting to note that from birth to this period he had Venus MahaDasa activating his Karma. He enters Sun MahaDasa just as he begins High School.

While I can’t comment on the content of his books (haven’t read any) he was known for his writing style as you mentioned; which was using short sentences, short first paragraphs and vigorous English which I see as demonstrating the Saturn boundaries and determination to be influencing the writing style of his time. All this time he was being the Macho Male attempting to slough off the childhood imprinted female persona, being known for his hunting exploits from teenage years into adulthood, killing lots of big game, coming back from several aeroplane crashes and being able to influence the males of his generation (because of his writing success) of his strong external male persona. I feel that ‘persona’ is partly driven by his Sun in the 12th house of his Rasi in Feminine Cancer, conflicting with that Ketu expectation of the male/female behaviours in Venus relationships.

The problem was though, that children will often express what the parent represses. And Ernest’s son Gregory was caught at age 10 cross-dressing  in his step-mothers silk stockings and dress. Gregory as an adult was calling himself Gloria in private and even had gender re-assignment surgery later in his life. But an incident in 1951, I believe, triggered the depression that eventually took Ernest to commit suicide. Ernest had great conflict with his son over cross-dressing as it flew in the face of the elder Hemingway’s drive of being Macho, a man who got what he wanted, the biggest Game, the prettiest wife. Gregory had got into trouble with the law, and Ernest’s Moon/Rahu lashed out viciously at his ex: Pauline Pfeiffer (Gregory’s mother) blaming her for their son’s cross-dressing expression. The stress caused a deadly surge of Adrenaline in her, and, as she had an undiagnosed rare adrenal tumour – she was dead within hours. Ernest blamed young Gregory for his mother’s death, traumatising the son who never saw his father again.

But this internal uneasiness and inability to integrate the emotions into the heart (no planets in the second house from the Moon), I believe was behind Ernest’s alcoholism and depression. It took Gregory ten years (late 1960) to pen a bitter letter to his father, presenting the medical details (Gregory was now an MD) and blaming Ernest for Gregory’s mother’s untimely death. I feel this tipped Ernest over the edge, and at the same time, the Cuban crisis meant he had to leave Cuba, and his home “Finca Vigia” was taken possession of by the Cuban Government.

And so July 2nd, 1961 the internally emotionally defeated and thoroughly depressed Ernest Hemingway took a shotgun and used it very effectively on himself. Though not part of a Moon Yogas commentary, the Dasa’s also show this.

Onwards and Upwards – CoVianna