Mary Poppins Astrological Aspects 1

Astrological Aspects in Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964) premiered on August 27, 1964 at Graumann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood at 8:30 pm [link to chart]. The time portrayed in Mary Poppins is the late turn of the Twentieth Century, the spring of 1910. We know it is spring because the cherry trees are in bloom on Cherry Tree Lane, which according to London’s Kew Gardens (2005, online) would be between April and May. As with the other cultural pieces, we are mainly going to focus on premiere date, and only secondarily discuss the astrological aspects of time portrayed. In this section, I will first briefly describe the sky at these times, and then we will look at the planetary archetypal complex that has the lead role—Uranus-Pluto, and then examine the other supporting archetypes of interest. After we have our archetypal bearings, so to speak, we will quickly turn to the movie itself, and also to culture and depth psychology and take a look at how these planetary archetypal complexes show up at these times.

Astrological Aspects in Mary Poppins

Reiteration of Starring Planetary Players
Featured Planetary Archetypal Complexes
Archetypal Aspects at Play in Mary Poppins
Cultural Correspondences in the 1960s
Depth Psychology’s Archetypal Agreement

When Mary Poppins premiered, Pluto and Uranus were conjunct (next to each other) in Virgo, both opposite to Saturn in Pisces. In this section, we will be looking mostly at the Uranus-Pluto planetary archetypal complex and also at the Uranus-Saturn dynamic. We will not be focusing on the Saturn-Pluto dynamic since we explored that dynamic at play in Chicago (Marshall, 2002).

Hand (1978) relates that Pluto in Virgo is associated with new ideas regarding work, duty, and methods of healing which are not orthodox, and Uranus in Virgo relates to new ways of working. We can see these themes elegantly expressed in Mary Poppins. Neptune was the only outer planetary player that was not involved in the dance, but Neptune was in Scorpio, in the eighth house. Scorpio and the 8^th house are both ruled by Pluto, and so we can see that the movie’s themes of using nonordinary states, the imagination, and art (Neptune) to reveal the truth in service of transformation (Pluto), are evident in this planetary archetypal placement. Hand (2001) explicates that love, and individual regeneration through the occult and physical and psychological techniques are also highlighted by this Neptune in Scorpio placement.

I will use the date of April 16, 1910, as Mary Poppins’s time of portrayal because the cherry trees would be in bloom, and April 16 would fall on a Saturday, the most likely day for George to be interviewing nannies. I will assume that Mary came into the Banks’s lives on that day, and will use 8:00 am as the time in calculating the astrological chart for the time of portrayal. [link to chart]

On this day, April 16, 1910, Uranus was in Capricorn opposite Neptune in Cancer, the same planetary archetypal complex that we discussed at length in the "Introduction to the Kaleidoscope of Culture" chapter. This Uranus-Neptune planetary archetypal complex was also the major player in the Disneyland chapter. In April of 1910, Saturn was in Aries square to Neptune in Cancer, and Saturn was also square to Uranus in Capricorn. Pluto was in Gemini and was inconjunct or 150° from Uranus. Hand (2001) says that this inconjunct or quincunx aspect (as it is also called) represents “a situation that seems to arise spontaneously in the environment and that forces one to make a fateful change that affects one’s later life” (p. 29). As we will see in Mary Poppins, this is exactly what happens on several occasions during the movie to George Banks. On this particular day, the sun was conjunct Saturn in Aries, and the Moon was conjunct Neptune in Cancer. Jupiter was in Libra. Astrologer and therapist, Lisa Dale Miller (personal communication, March 5, 2005) notes that these planetary archetypal dynamics mirror the dynamics between the four major characters in the movie. She also points out that in the spring of 1910 there was a grand cross configuration in the sky, involving Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter, and Uranus. These planets were all in the cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn, respectively, and were all approximately 90 degrees from each other.

L, D. Miller explains that George Banks is the unrelational male [Saturn in Aries] and his suffragette wife Winifred [Uranus in Capricorn] represents the future. George Banks is opposed to Winifred, since she represents a fear of a loss of power for him. George is also at cross purposes with Mary Poppins, who represents the idealized mother and unconditional love; also Mary’s nonordinary play focuses on the heart [Neptune in Cancer] while Bert, representing the archetypal good father is the fully relational joyful male [Jupiter in Libra]. Bert and George are almost opposites, and the planets that represent them Jupiter in Libra, and Saturn in Aries are opposite to each other in the heavens. Pluto, being inconjunct to Uranus is the fateful chaos that Mary engineers through her imaginal pilgrimage to the cathedral in the “Feed the Birds” lullaby. This awakening of consciousness in the children changes everything, causing the upset and chaos at the bank, out of which a new order is born, with George’s transformation.

Reiteration of Starring Planetary Players

Let us look closer at these different archetypal players individually, focusing on Pluto and Uranus. This time we will get a little help from Robert Hand who discusses Pluto and from Lawrence Hillman who discusses Uranus. Hand (2001) explains:

the nature of Pluto is similar to that of the Hindu god Shiva, the creator and destroyer. Pluto usually begins by breaking down a structure; then it creates a new one in its place. This entire cycle of death, destruction, and renovation is accompanied by tremendous powers, for Pluto is not a mild or even very subtle planetary influence . . . . Decay at one level or another followed by new life from the old is the typical Plutonian process . . . . Often a Pluto transit will signify the arrival of a person who transforms your life, either for good or evil. [emphasis added] Or it can symbolize an event or circumstance that has the same effect. Pluto also rules those energies inside you that lead inexorably to change. It rules the death and regeneration of the self, as old aspects of your life pass away and are replaced by new ones that could not otherwise have come into being. Pluto does not signify death in the literal sense; instead it refers to a metaphorical death, something that ceases to be . . . . It is extremely important that you recognize the inevitability of Plutonian change, which is built into the very structure of things and cannot be prevented. And you should not try to prevent it, because it is a necessary stage in your evolution. All that you will do is force the energies to build up until they are explosive. Then the inevitable changes come about disastrously. (p. 477)

As we will see in the movie, George Banks resists this kind of change and as a result, his career is almost jeopardized.

Here is Lawrence Hillman’s (1999, online) description of Uranus, which also is characteristic of Mary Poppins herself:

The planet of our time is Uranus. He is unpredictable, electric, magic, eccentric, bohemian, utopian, a breaker of traditions, futuristic, humanitarian, and rules the occult. He rules space exploration, satellite communication, computers, medical, scientific, and technological breakthroughs, and anything global, and anything belonging to groups. The concept of a digital universe, reducing music, pictures, and text to bits of electricity that are either “on” or “off,” . . . Uranus shakes up, rattles the status quo, and while a breath of fresh air to some, is a frightening reality to many. Uranus’s nature is to revolutionize, break up, and change whatever it touches. Uranian people make great inventors, communicators and often revolutionize the world that they inhabit. A great image of the Uranian/Aquarian principle is that of Ben Franklin standing in a storm with his kite in the sky and like Prometheus bringing light from the heavens to the people.

Tarnas, in Prometheus the Awakener (1995) relates that Uranus is regarded as signifying the individualist, the genius, and the rebel (pp. 11-12), he also explicates Uranus's trickster nature, and shows how this archetypal energy often serves to upset the established ego order of the psyche, in the service of the awakening of consciousness. This is exactly the dynamic that occurs in the movie between Mary Poppins [Uranus] and George Banks [Saturn]:

The transits of Uranus are notoriously unpredictable; and indeed this is the very nature of Prometheus the Trickster. For those who resist the Promethean energy, these transits act as intensely disturbing disruptions. They “make things crazy.” In such cases the individuals are psychologically siding with the other side of the Promethean gestalt: Zeus and the status quo (this is Zeus in his Saturnian aspect, as stern ruler and punisher—“ I am a jealous God). When the ego is so rigid that it fearfully resists all change, it will act like Zeus and be enraged, even panicked, by this unforeseen trickery of events, this unexpected challenge to his monolithic authority over the flow of life—over his own unconscious. (p. 108)

Thus Prometheus begins his task as the Trickster—by the little accident that disrupts the reign of the status quo, by the neurotic symptom that upsets the ego’s hold on things, by the bits of information that an orthodox scientific paradigm is uncomfortably unable to account for, and this Knight Errant, this Robin Hood in the eye of the establishment, completes his task as the Awakener, who serves as the initiator into archetypal awareness, the enlightener of his culture, and the vehicle of our liberation. (Tarnas, 1995, p. 114)

Featured Planetary Archetypal Complexes

During the mid-1960s when Saturn was opposite the Uranus-Pluto conjunction, there were two very different dynamics at play on which we will focus: Uranus interacting with Pluto, and Uranus interacting with Saturn. As previously mentioned, Saturn was aslo square to Pluto, but since we explored that dynmic extensively in the Chicago chapter, it will not be a focus here. We will first turn to the Uranus-Pluto interplay.

With the various planetary archetypal complexes, Tarnas (2006) notes that we often see two different vectors. In the Uranus Pluto archetypal complex we see Pluto acting on Uranus (Pluto—> Uranus) and Uranus acting on Pluto (Uranus—> Pluto). With the Pluto—> Uranus vector, there is compelling, intensification and empowerment, often on a massive or titanic scale, which can be profoundly transformative (Pluto) of the energies of Uranus: freedom, innovation, technology, rebellion, originality, science, exploration, and the future. Whereas with the Uranus—> Pluto vector we can see the awakening, inspiring, disrupting, or liberating (Uranus) of elemental libidinal forces, sexuality, erotic, Dionysian elements, as well as violence, transformation and rebirth (Pluto).

The Uranus- Pluto conjunction of the 1960s was paradigmatic of both of these vectors and the decade of the 1960s is the Uranus-Pluto poster child: “The 1960s was the most conspicuous and potently Promethean of the century. I believe no other archetype better expresses and comprehends the character of that era with its impassioned demand for freedom and titanic quest for new horizons:” (Tarnas, 1995, p. 26); we have Pluto to thank for this empowerment of the Prometheus archetype. Tarnas also said that no other decade was more Plutonic than the 1960s and we can thank the awakening influence of Uranus for that.

Some of the adjectives that Tarnas (2006) uses to describe this potent planetary archetypal complex are: upheaval and intensified emancipatory impulses, radical cultural innovation, profound transformation, and “unusually rapid technological advance, an underlying spirit of restless experiment, drive for innovation, urge for freedom in many realms, revolt against oppression, embrace of radical political philosophies, and intensified collective will to bring forth a new world” (p. 144)

The Uranus-Pluto conjunction of 1964 was the only time in the Twentieth Century that these two planets were in a conjunction. At the turn of the Twentieth Century they had been in an opposition (180 degrees apart), from 1896-1907 as previously discussed in the “Introduction to the Kaleidoscope of Culture” chapter. Many of the themes that began at that time were also in evidence during the 1960s, especially revolutionary movements and scientific achievements.

As noted before, Saturn was opposite both Uranus and Pluto in the 1960s from 1964-1967, and this dynamic can be seen between George, representing Saturn, and Mary representing Uranus. This Saturn-Uranus dynamic will be discussed in the upcoming "Neoteny" excursion in the ongoing themes section. Tarnas (1995) explains that the interplay between Saturn and Uranus:

represents a fundamental source of all dialectical tension and conflict in the universe: between Prometheus as the principle of change and Saturn as the principle of resistance to change, between rebellion and authority, freedom and control, innovation and tradition, revolution and structure. (p. 95)

Saturn-Uranus transits, in hard aspect often correspond with times of extreme psychological tensions and breakdowns: the sudden collapse of ego structures, psychotic breaks, dark awakenings—the unexpected “return of the repressed.” (p. 98)

In Cosmos and Psyche, Tarnas (2006) also notes that:

Especially frequent with this cycle were crises and the sudden collapse of structures, crashes and accidents, grim awakenings, and sudden breakdowns whether political, economic, or psychological. (pp. 222-223)

Now let us look at these planetary archetypal dynamics at play in the movie. We saw these same archetypal players in Chicago (Marshall, 2002), but they had a much different feel, which shows the versatility of these players and the multivalency of these different archetypal complexes and the richness of their expression.

Continued on page 2