From the Venus Rx in Gemini Files: Brigham Young

Here’s our second installment of the Venus Rx in Gemini Files: Brigham Young. [You can read the first installment here.] He has a very prominent Venus retrograde in his chart, and an extremely interesting personal life to match. As president of the Mormon Church he led its followers to what became Utah (becoming its first governor), and was famous for having 17 wives — or possibly 55. But let’s back up a little.

Brigham Young was born June 1, 1801 in Whitingham, Vermont to a farming family and first worked as a blacksmith and carpenter. His denomination of origin is not mentioned in his Wiki page, but he converted to Methodism in 1823, married in 1824, and later converted to Mormonism in 1832. After his first wife died later that year, he joined Mormon missionaries forming a community in Ohio, where he was ordained and took on a high-level leadership role a few years later.

Young assumed the presidency of the Mormon Church, after a ‘succession crisis’ following the murder of church president Joseph Smith by an angry mob, in 1847. The years of Young’s church presidency – which spanned an impressive 29 years – occurred during the time of westward pioneer expansion in the U.S. He moved the Mormon Church to unsettled territory, where they established the city of Salt Lake.

It was a time of inter-territory skirmishes, and in fact one of the controversies surrounding Young is that allegedly he was unable to get word to other Mormon settlements in time to let immigrants from Arkansas pass through the area “unmolested.” As a result, 120 men, women and children died in the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857 – despite Young’s promise, as governor of the territory to the federal government, to let settlers pass through.

Amidst all this, as governor, Young established Mormon settlements in other states, directed the building of roads and bridges, and organized a militia – in addition to the Mormon Tabernacle and the precursor to the University of Utah.

Now, what about those wives?

Historians disagree whether Smith or Young first established and taught the practice of polygamy, among Mormons, anyway. It’s certainly all over the Old Testament. Scholars also disagree on what constitutes a ‘wife’, due in part to the ways in which ‘wife’ could be identified by Mormon society. In any case, Young was ‘sealed’ to 55 women in his lifetime, some ‘for eternity’ and some ‘for time only’, and of those, 16 bore him a total of 56 children.

Whew. Now for the astrology (you can see his full size chart here), beginning with Venus:

Young’s retrograde Venus occupies the second degree of Gemini -– and as such, it’s the most elevated planet in his chart, just past his midheaven. That gives it emphasis as a kind of defining idea. Gemini points to two of whatever, and in Young’s case, two or more women.

The Sun is now crossing that degree and there was a solar eclipse very close to his Venus on Sunday evening. (Mormonism is in the news — there is a currently an extremely rare Mormon presidential candidate.)

From there, Venus (with Mercury) opposes Chiron in Sagittarius in the 4th (also retrograde). Could we say this reflects an inner split in how Young viewed the polygamous aspect of his career/calling? Apparently, Young stated that upon being taught about plural marriage, “It was the first time in my life that I desired the grave,” according to a WGBH program quoted by Wikipedia. Were all those marriages some kind of attempt to reconcile a greater spiritual wound as represented by Chiron in Sag? Or were they the reflection of his multifaceted psyche, indicated by many planets in Gemini (including Venus, which describes his relationship to women and his inner female)?

Well, what else is aspecting that Venus?

The tightest aspects come from an opposition of Jupiter in Leo and Eris in Aquarius, which sextile and trine Venus, respectively. All three planets are in the exact degree, signifying a tight conversation.

Eris in Aquarius describes his relationships to groups (an Aquarius theme). He had a group marriage, and one that was clearly not orderly. In the 5th house, we have more evidence that pertains to his multiple sexual partners, his many children (both 5th house themes) –- as well as, perhaps, the various varieties of risks he took, forging his identity as a religious and political leader. Clearly, he was good at the game.

This placement points to what seems like a rather chaotic or split nature of Young’s feminine side, which plays out in group dynamics. The family is the most important early group in our lives.

Jupiter in Leo -– in the 11th but very close to that 12th house cusp -– makes things BIG. It gives Young’s expansive tendencies and ego a real boost, and it describes his role as a religious leader (Jupiter often is connected to religion). In the 11th house, the group theme is emphasized again and it illustrates his many varied and big roles in his community. But that close to the 12th, it seems perhaps he had no idea where it was all coming from, making it easy for him to ascribe his ambitions and accomplishments as ‘God’s will’.

Venus is also trine and sextile the lunar nodes in Libra and Aries. Again, this underscores the role of his Venus in channeling his karma and dharma. With his North Node (dharma) conjunct Vesta in the 8th, is it any wonder he seemed to get over his initial reaction to polygamy and father 56 children? Can we call that devotion to polygamy?

Young’s Pluto is sitting on his 7th house cusp in Pisces, square his retrograde Venus in Gemini. Pluto there guaranteed his relationships would be evolutionary (or deep, or painful) in some way, a bit more ‘creative’ than most, and according to Isabel Hickey, colored by past lifetimes of rampant greed and lust to be worked through.

Speaking of which: check out his Pholus-Nessus conjunction in Aries, in the 8th house of orgasm, death and commitments. Once that bottle o’ conjugal, religiously mandated sex got uncorked, nothing was going to stop it back up. Pholus adds its ‘small cause, big effect’ flavor to the ‘potentially inappropriate sexual contact’ of Nessus, and we get the most famous polygamist in American history. ‘Westward expansion’, indeed.

Mars and Juno are in a tight conjunction in Cancer in the 11th, and as we’re seeing, Young was a man whose drive and libido were married to his community – literally and figuratively. In Cancer, the sign of the home, it’s no wonder the sprawling houses he built to accommodate his family (“Lion House” – he was called the “Lion of the Lord” by followers — and “Beehive House”) still stand today as Salt Lake City landmarks.

With all of this sex all over Young’s chart, what does Scorpio hold? Why, Neptune, of course! Quite a fantasy life! And it happens to be square his Aquarius Moon and his Saturn in Leo. His emotional side and inner child were a little detached (which must have helped with all those wives). Meanwhile, his sense of things too large for most of us to comprehend (12th house) was actually quite structured, and it blazed out in a way that captivated thousands of people. The configuration suggests that the detached Moon and 12th-house Saturn – lacking the grounding of a Taurus planet to fill in a grand cross – leaned on that Neptune in a way that was at times creative, and at times imbalanced toward the foggier conceptions of sex and death in Mormon culture.

Finally, let’s end with Young’s Sun. It’s at the top of the chart in Gemini, conjunct his Mercury in its home sign (not far from that Venus, and opposite Chiron). Here is Young’s presence on the pulpit, his ability to communicate. His was a mind well aware of his stature, reputation and power – and that his achievements would stem from his very presence as much as his words and actions.