the aquarian writer: toni morrison
Hi all,
Today, we are discussing one of the writers whose careers I am most obsessed with and whose charts I am also most obsessed with, Toni Morrison. Let’s get into it!
Xx
Jeanna
Aquarians are known for innovating on the structures that we develop in Capricorn season; ruled by both responsible Saturn and rebellious Uranus, Aquarius is the rebel with a cause, the person who thoughtfully learns all the rules so they know how to better break them. An air sign, Aquarius traffics in ideas. Many of our most beloved genre-breaking, inventive writers are Aquarians. Langston Hughes, Virginia Woolf, Audre Lorde, Colette, Gertrude Stein, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Lord Byron: all of them were born under the sign of the water bearer.
But none embodies Aquarius energy quite so fully as Toni Morrison - at least, to my mind. Of Morrison’s relationship to Aquarius energy, I once wrote (while she was still with us),
Unsurprisingly, many writers associated with changing tides are Aquarians, but none embody the phrase “living legend” quite as fully as Toni Morrison. Initially an editor at Random House, Morrison was immediately focused on nurturing young black writers (like her fellow Aquarian Angela Davis), committed to a new vision for black writers in the late 20th century. Morrison herself did not publish her first novel, The Bluest Eye, until she was 39. Her second novel, Sula, was nominated for a National Book Award; Beloved, her fifth, won the Pulitzer. And while Morrison eventually stopped editing, she did keep teaching the next generation even as her work became the standard for 20th and 21st century American literature: over and over, Morrison has demonstrated a deeply Aquarian commitment to furthering the community most important to her — which, since her time as an editor, has been other black writers. Lifting up black voices.
It’s common to hear words like “humanitarian” or “group-oriented” associated with Aquarius; those are easy words for the hard work of being the individual advocating on behalf of a community, or tasked (consensually or otherwise) with representing a community. Aquarius is the person imagining the next stage, the next change. When others ask, where do we go from here, Aquarians like Toni Morrison answer.
Morrison is an Aquarius sun with a Pisces moon and a Taurus rising; her chart ruler (the planet that rules the sign of the rising, or Ascendant) is Venus, so we pay particular attention to how it’s working.
Your sun is the core of who you are - your purpose in this lifetime, if you will. The emphasis on sun signs over other parts of the chart in recent years is new; you can see from even a casual, unstudied glance at a birth chart that it’s made up of many components, of which the sun is just one.
But the big three: the sun is the purpose, the moon is what emotionally feeds you, and your rising is your operating system - how you “do” your chart.
So what do we make of Toni Morrison, a living legend in her lifetime, and beyond?
Before The Writing
When we talk about writers who debut at or after 40, Morrison is almost always included, on the technicality that The Bluest Eye, her first novel, debuted in late 1970 when she was a scant few months from her 40th birthday. She was a divorced single mom of two sons who proceeded to build one of the most extraordinary careers in American literature, redefining what it meant to be part of the canon. Inspirational is a word that doesn’t quite cut it.
But it’s vital to look at what happened up until then. Morrison’s first Saturn Return - that first major, challenging transit that asks us to redefine our relationship to work, responsibility, and career goals - came when she was teaching at Howard University. Morrison was already professionally invested in words, in literature, in education; she has summarized that period in her life as, “I got married, had my sons, and got divorced.” Sounds like an intense Saturn Return, a major reshuffling of life priorities. The alignment of work would follow. Shortly after, she took a position as an editor at L.W. Singer Company in Syracuse, which would eventually be acquired at Random House. There is a doing the work quality to her life (and her chart) that is deeply evident in her life - and in her chart.
Morrison’s work has been defined by an overarching interest in education and publishing, which astrologers generally agree fall under the purview of the ninth house. This happens to be where Venus, the planet of value and Morrison’s chart ruler, is located. Venus is beauty, art, style, culture, the divine feminine; in Capricorn, it’s all about making art that endures, art that is concerned with cultural legacy, with social structure. As a Random House editor, Morrison acquired and cultivated the work of writers like Angela Davis, Lucille Clifton, Toni Cade Bombara, Gayl Jones. “You needed a record. It would be my job to publish the voices, the books, the ideas of African-Americans, and that would last,” she said. (Her work like 1974’s The Black Book speaks to this.)
It’s important to notice that Saturn (that powerful, responsible taskmaster) is at home in super-structured Capricorn in Morrison’s ninth house, as well, right there next to Venus, speaking to her work ethic and ability to bring lasting cultural impact into the worlds of publishing and higher education.
What was happening during those early books?
The Bluest Eye, 1970 (one of the most banned books in America)
In the year leading up to its publication, Morrison was having North Node eclipses in Aquarius (so, in her zone of career and public image), and on her sun - meaning, increase, hunger, opportunity.
Morrison also had Jupiter, the planet of expansion and increase, in her house of committed partnership, which also includes long-term business partnerships. She published The Bluest Eye sort of secretly, unbeknownst to Random House (her employer); after it came out, her friend Robert Gottlieb, the head of Knopf (a division at Random), would become the editor for the rest of her career.
Sula, 1973 (nominated for the National Book Award)
When Sula was released, she was having a major Jupiter transit in Aquarius, in her house of career and public image. See a pattern? Talk about using transits to your benefit. But again: something we haven’t talked about a lot is that she’s a Taurus rising (again, ruled by that Venus in Capricorn!) and she knows how to work. Morrison’s career is very much evidence of: reap what you sow.
Beloved, 1987 (won the Pulitzer)
This book came on the heels of a series of major eclipses in her sixth and twelfth houses, or, our zones of daily work and spirituality and the subconscious. The north node eclipses (where we see increase, hunger, nurturing) were in the spiritual, subconscious: that is some deep internal work that was happening in the few years leading up to Beloved’s publication.
The Nobel Prize for Literature, for the Beloved Trilogy, 1993
This year, structured Saturn was in Aquarius, transiting (you guessed it) her house of career, this time altering her public image in a major way: she won the fucking Nobel Prize!
Centering Blackness
“I have had reviews in the past that have accused me of not writing about white people,” Morrison once said in her now famous 1998 interview with Charlie Rose. “I have spent my entire writing life trying to make sure that the white gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books.”
Morrison has that Aquarius sun and idea-driven Mercury very prominently drawing attention in her house of career and public image; this is the chart of someone who will draw attention for their intellectual endeavors through language. But then, there is also this profoundly unradical (and yet radical) Aquarianness to her work and her positioning of her work, the way she refuses to center whiteness, that she refuses to appeal to whiteness, that she retains the language and asides and references that the audience she is writing for will understand. They do not need an explanation; she will not provide one, and everyone else can look it up. There is that Piscean moon empathy and intuition here, and also the deepest of commitments to her vision for what the work can and should be.
I’m a white lesbian who reads Toni Morrison in the way that I watch Beyoncé’s Lemonade, with complete admiration of their genius and the knowledge that I’m not the primary audience, that there are things I am missing, and that that’s correct. Morrison’s chart is perhaps best summarized in her own words in The Pieces I Am: “I didn’t want to speak for Black people, I wanted to speak to and to be among.”
“There is freedom in her language,” Dr. David Carrasco has said. Can’t say it any better.
P.S. A quick bit of housekeeping: the monthly newsletter will now go out on New Moons, and the additional subscriber-only newsletter will go out on Full Moons. Look for it then!