In the context of the current conversation about values and making conscious decisions based on them, prompted by tomorrow’s eclipse, what do we make of a young man who decided to become an openly-traded IPO and sell shares of himself? Especially on the eve of a New Moon in Taurus that echoes his own natal New Moon in Taurus?
By Amanda Painter
What’s it like to live your life like it’s a live-action sci-fi novel?
Ask Mike Merrill — a young man who, in 2008, decided to put himself up for sale on the stock market. The idea is not entirely new — David Bowie and a few pro athletes have sold shares of their future earnings. But those investors were not granted the power to decide some of the most significant facets of anyone’s personal life.
Mike Merrill, however, has basically turned himself into a one-person corporation governed by his shareholders. In this age of Citizens United, this either makes perfect, bizarro-world sense, or it’s unnerving and possibly tragic in a classical, Greek-hubris sort of way.
However you see it, ultimately, his story is the story of Pluto in Capricorn.
Here are the basics: on January 26, 2008, then 30-year-old Mike divided himself into 100,000 shares to be sold on the open market, and over the course of a week and a half, a dozen friends bought 929 shares. Mike kept the remaining 99.1% of his shares, promising that he would not have voting power. Those who bought shares would earn returns on any profit he made outside of his day job in Portland, Oregon.
Merrill says he did not originally intend to give shareholders a say in his personal life. But at least one friend-shareholder objected to his decision to move in with his girlfriend — proposing that spending more time with her could limit time spent on projects important to investors. Merrill then opened much more of his life to their oversight.
“I figured they’d make good decisions for me, since they had money on the line and wanted to see their investment appreciate,” says Merrill.
Not surprisingly, Merrill’s girlfriend at the time felt differently — and she was infuriated and embarrassed when he decided to let shareholders vote on whether he should get a vasectomy. She won that vote by lobbying another investor for help. Ultimately, it wasn’t enough to save the relationship as McCormick felt more and more like she was jockeying for influence over a corporate entity in a hostile business environment — not engaging in an intimate relationship.
A Wired.com story details the bizarre twists resulting from Merrill’s decision. But what does the astrology say about Mike Merrill’s decision to live life as the IPO KmikeyM?
For one, the emphasis on putting his personal worth into a tangible, material form comes from a cluster of planets in Taurus — including a Sun-Moon conjunction (a Taurus New Moon, just 5-7 degrees from this Thursday’s New Moon eclipse), and a Mercury-Chiron conjunction. (When contacted, Merrill did not know his exact birth time, but said it was “very close to noon.”)
So we know he likes nice things, indulges his senses (he has long planned to form a whiskey-tasting group) and might get a little stubborn about his ideas. Chiron conjunct that Mercury, however, indicates that his ideas about how much value things have, and how that is expressed, may get worked over when that conjunction is transited. And the experience may feel like a crisis before it bears any fruitful insights, Chiron-style.
Merrill also has some fire in his chart keeping those earth planets on their toes. Most notably, he has an exact conjunction of Venus and Mars in Aries, with Eris right there within one degree.
This should sound familiar: the Aries New Moon on April 10 involved a Venus-Mars-Eris conjunction. With such synchronistic astrology (there’s even more, actually) accompanying the breaking of Merrill’s story in Wired last month and also on The Today Show, it’s no wonder people keep asking about his personal relationships and sense of identity.
Is this an image of unity between Merrill’s male and female sides, or a picture of self-absorbed self-assertion? Has he figured out a way to forge a new approach to relationships? (His current girlfriend was approved by shareholders, and seems to enjoy playing the boyfriend-as-IPO game so far.)
Or does Eris, goddess of discord and identity chaos, point to a life of feeling fragmented internally, potentially exacerbated by letting a committee steer his relationships? Pluto in Libra, loosely opposite this triple conjunction, suggests that Merrill’s relationships may always be subject to upheaval and evolution.
Speaking of Pluto: At the beginning of this piece, I mentioned that Merrill’s story of becoming an IPO is the story of Pluto in Capricorn. As Len Wallick noted in late 2008, Pluto in Capricorn is about “what’s good for business” — possibly at all costs.
I asked Len if any of the dates mentioned in the Wired story showed anything interesting. You can see those dates (which all seem to have something to do with Pluto) at this link, with his chart at the bottom of the page.
There are a number of ways out of this scheme (described by commenters on Wired.com) should Merrill decide he wants full control of his life back. But the whole scenario is a bit Faustian, and one has to wonder where Merrill hopes all the attention and trading will get him (just financially comfortable, or is he hoping for power? Or…?). How does one negotiate living with an intimate partner who ‘owns’ part of you in a literal sense like that? Does it make things easier or harder to put expectations of relational possession into a business agreement?
If Merrill’s Chiron conjunct his Mercury in Taurus says something about a ‘healing crisis’ surrounding his mental health, sense of worth and his material expression in the world, one has to wonder about the price that ‘healing crisis’ might exact.
I hope that if Merrill has a therapist (or engages one in the future), he pays him or her in cash — definitely not stock options. And I’d definitely be curious to know if the astrology in this first week of May 2013 catalyzes a dramatic change of mind — or whether he will reinforce his current values with a deeper financial commitment to his business model.
Re: ceding one’s life to others for a price — well, we’re doing that already, aren’t we?
I saw this piece by Amanda as satire.
The menu is not the meal. You can’t eat a symbol. Money is trickster business. Sounds like Gemini to me.
What’s good for business? I think this is an idea about Capricorn that’s saturated with expectations from the culture devouring the Earth. The sea goat has its tail in the ocean. To me this represents the connection life on the lofty peaks has with life in the sea. When Capricorn thinks the merely human affairs of business are the bottom line of life on Earth the goat poisons her own tail and dies lonely on a deserted mountain. If our businesses had something like a 7 human generations consideration for their actions they may be more worthy of the archetype of Capricorn than a mere goat head on display in some lofty corporate office wall. Capricorn is an Earth sign, not a money sign.
Something in me deeply recoils at the thought of ceding control of one’s life, especially one’s personal life, to others for any price. Maybe it’s just because I’m older, or maybe it has to do with having had to struggle for many years to emerge from the control of my earth-sign parents (I’m a Sagg), but I can’t fathom this.
I’ve been watching Pluto in Capricorn in my chart, of course, but also in the chart for Canada. It’s near the midheaven, & the country seems to be turning into a “business” where all resources are for sale, with the rules tailored accordingly, regardless of social or environmental consequences. On the plus side, instances of corruption & mismanagement seem to be surfacing more often, & one can only hope that Pluto will reveal more hidden truth before it moves on.
Interesting post, Amanda, and thought-provoking. Thank-you.
Thank you, Amanda, for investing the time, thought, and hard work of bringing this piece together as an illustration of how astrology works in our time. A lot tho think about. A lot to marvel at.