Saints And Serial Killers
The Green River Killer Sun Report
Here I will delineate The Green River Killer’s Sun and it’s aspect using astrology and also tarot cards.
It’s all these harsh aspects in his chart that made Gary’s chart a great chart for demonstration purposes. Gary is, just, such a mess. He’s the perfect storm of a mess, and what fascinated me as I went through his chart with the cards, is I found a willfulness and a willingness. I don’t believe people are that fucked up just because the Universe wants to be mean to us and create bad people. People choose evil.
I definitely believe in past lives, and that is not uncommon amongst astrologers. When you look at an astrology chart, it shows the state of the soul as it originally arrived at birth. We show up with our problems, strengths and entanglements with us. Astrology charts show past developments pretty clearly. Astrologers say the conditions in the childhood are either repetitions or rewards. If you haven’t solved a problem in the past, it’s not going to go away. You will bring it will you, and you will be born into it again. If we have solved the complexes and puzzles that were inherent in our characters, we will be offered lives filled with opportunities to develop further and learn more.
When I see look at the chart of someone who has caused alot of harm during their time here, I usually see the causes of that. I see bad dynamics. When I first started learning about astrology, I thought why would someone be made that way? Over time I’ve come to see the messed up emotional dynamics and bad belief systems as essentially personal choices. If people refuse to work through their problems, the problems simply accrue. Most of the bad things people do seem to be things they’re are doing to adapt to their own problems, rather than solving them. There seems to be a process whereby people choose… over and over… to turn away from our warm, simple, human animal life… and become some other. Over time their behavior becomes more and more extreme as they continue to try to adapt to the worsening and deepening fault lines in their psyche. This is what I think is happening in Gary Ridgeway’s chart. He has so many problems.
Not that I don’t have some pity for them but…. I don’t want to touch the damned. Though I will review their souls sympathetically, I am not their friend. They have chosen to stand outside of us, the human race, in their arrogance. They are for the Gods to do with.
I want to state again that these are my opinions here. I am not claiming to be conveying the judgements and opinions of the universe. I believe, as a human, I do not know enough about the full picture to be able to judge as perfectly as the gods. So… this is all just hearsay.
So, once I’ve had a look over the chart as a whole, which I did thoroughly in my first post about Gary Ridgeway, it’s time to get down to the details and start combing through and analyzing these dynamics. I’ll use my astrological knowledge to build up a picture of how the planets in the chart operate, and then I like to consult my tarot cards to get more information. In this post I’ll be focusing on Gary Ridgeway’s Sun.
When I start a chart, I always start with the Sun. It is central, and has the necessary weight to keep the all the parts of the Self in relation to a whole. You can see The Sun down there on left side of the chart, just below center. It’s astrological symbol is a circle with another circle inside it.
In our culture, the Sun is basically considered masculine. I find that western culture has overdetermined the Sun as masculine, straining in the 18th century to make determinism and rationalism the central and overwhelming style of being and of valuing. I feel the important archetypes can appear or erupt in many forms and sexes. The Sun in the chart seems to represent the spiritual hero or heroine archetype, the part of ourselves that is always moving forward, not toward a material goal, but towards something essential that defines us. The Sun has to do with our continuing process of becoming more unique as time goes on.
Once I’m getting down to business, I like to make a list of the aspects in order of strength. This helps me keep organized. Half the business of reading a chart is sorting through and picking out the pertinent information. You need to be able to control the layers of information and build a functional storyline.
This is another reason to use the Astrodienst website, so handy with the information about the astrology. Below their charts, they include a chart displaying all the aspects. This makes it super easy to scan through and start looking for the most potent aspects in the chart.
Then I list them as so. Just focusing on one planet at a time helps you narrow down what aspects to learn about first.
Aquarius Sun 29* 1st house
Opposite Saturn Virgo 7th house 3*applying
Conjunct Mars Pisces 1st house 6*applying
Mars opposite Saturn 2*separating
T-square Sun/ Mars & Saturn square Chiron
Trine Uranus Gemini 4th house 3*separating
Trine Libra South Node 8th house 2*separating
I usually put all this at the top of the report. That way I can roll back up and see what my next topic will be as I work along.
When two planets form a precise measurable angle to each other, we figure that these two planets are in relation to each other. They are effecting each other, their “personalities” blend in some way. Any planet strongly contacting one of the Lights is going to strongly impact the personality and then the life. When one planet acts, the connected planet is also triggered. Their forces are blended. You can see how this is a big deal when one of the “planets” is one of the Lights, the Sun (The Mission) or the Moon (our emotional body).
When I begin to look at aspects, I try to arrange them in order of importance. I look at what the aspecting planet is, and then the condition of the aspect. A lot of people’s problems seem to be that they’re doing a poor job of handling their own energies. I look at the difficulties presented by a particular aspect. But I always make sure to find out what the positive, or gift of the aspect was, because there is always some usefulness to be found. The universe will force us to bare our burdens, but they will never force us to be evil. That is our choice.
There are different methods by which to judge which aspects are the most important. One of which is aspect strength. The smaller degree, the more perfect the angle. When I look at a chart, I generally change the settings so that I only see the strongest aspects. We want to focus on where the energy is coiling and highly charged, or flowing with great pressure, for these are the issues that will be most compelling to the chart-holder.
The strongest aspects to Gary’s Sun are the conjunction with Mars, the opposite Saturn, and the trines with Uranus and the south node.
Another way to judge aspects is by ascertaining whether they are waxing or waning aspects. It’s just the same as we view the moon’s cycles. Each day the planets continue on their orbits. Because the planets are different sizes and going different speeds, their position to each other is always changing. Each day they move a step closer together, or a degree further apart. Aspects that are approaching perfection are considered to be waxing, and growing stronger, like right before the full moon. Then the angle comes to exact, which is a moment of much tension and energy. After the peak of the aspect, it continues to influence, but is becoming weaker and weaker until it’s being becomes too faint, and then the aspect has passed and is no more.
When I think about waxing or waning aspects, I consider the aspect represent problems, or gifts, and knowing the age of the aspect tells us where we are with the problem.
A waxing aspect shows that we are still in the stubborn phase, trying to bull through with our will, and we are mostly unconscious with the complex the aspect is showing. At the peak we are fully enthralled in the struggle in the aspect. At the waning, we have mastered the problem, we have had the realization, and are struggling now to adjust ourselves to this new truth. These powerful issues can be carried with us over many lifetimes.
The aspects themselves have different properties and represent different ways energies can relate to each other. Some aspects are stronger than other, or more dynamic. You’re going to react to the effects of a strong square more than a strong sextile. If you study astrology, you’ll figure all this out, if not, you’ll have to take my word for it.
The Sun In Aquarius 1st House
When we consider the Sun, we must first take into account the sign, and then the placement of the Sun. After that you would look at what major aspects are being made to the sun.
His Sun is in Aquarius, in the last degree of Aquarius.
Over time I have come to pay more attention to the degree of the sign. In the 29th degree of Aquarius, it’s like saying he’s mastered the Aquarius energy. At this point in time, his spirit is very comfortable in that style and with those beliefs. Planets in the 29th degree seem to be prepping for a period of transition. You know when you get really good at something, and then as soon as you do, it’s over? It’s like that. He’s a master Aquarius but is probably heading into new territory, as an entity. I would probably think about this more when I started working on the Nodes of the Moon, as this seems like it would fit in with information about the past and future for the soul.
Because I’m analyzing someone who exhibited extreme and bad behavior, I would say that he excelled at the bad traits of Aquarius, mainly the dissociating and detaching.
Aquarius is generally a very good sign I think. These people tend to be highly principled. Because of their principles, they often try, or at least want to, help the world. Aquarius seems to have an innate understanding of what the proper structure of society should look like. Idealistic, yet shrewd, they often seem less fond of people than their interest in people having happy lives would indicate. But they are rigorous on fairness and equality, and that puts their belief system very near perfect alignment with perfect ethics. Their ability to see that structure that exists, not quite in our world, but is somehow really integral to our world, kind of takes them out of the ordinary human world.
Strong Aquarius personalities are not comfortable with the messy, dirty, cuddly piggy side of human life. If they loose those strong principles, things can go terribly, terribly wrong. Air signs are good thinkers… they’re problem solvers…. but that can be a vast icy gulf they’re standing out in…
Air signs are very rational, and seem to think be able to think calmly. They enjoy this. In fact, they enjoy thinking in this calm and cool manner, that they start to believe that they are thinking calmly and cooly all the time. Air signs can slip into the habit of believing that whatever ever they think up is rational, and that whatever they think up is right. Being human is being messy, and that can be easy for an air sign to loose touch with how our errors insidiously sneak in. They claim they don’t care what you do, but Aquarius always seems to have a lot of rules that they make up and enforce.
Granted, the Sun is in Aquarius on the cusp of Pisces. These are not very high-ego signs. Aquarius and Pisces are not strong signs for the Sun, which is more “sunny” in say a fire sign. Aquarius is not a very egotistical sign, but is extremely willful. Aquarius won’t make it about them, they aren’t fascinated with themselves, but they are going to do what they are going to do and no one’s going to stop them.
Having his Sun that close to Pisces and conjunct a planet in Pisces adds a strong Pisces influence to the Sun as well. I find that signs alongside each other seem to have sympathy for each other. Aquarius and Pisces have extremely different operating systems. Aquarius is comfortable taking the podium at the committee meeting…or the bar… and Pisces is this little naked wet thing. But both of them know there’s such a thing as right and wrong, and so they can respect each other.
Although Pisces can be a sweet, endurant, compassionate sign, it can also be quite escapist. The Pisces layer could have added just that extra bit of permissiveness and self-coddling that allowed these murders to occur. And weakness. Bad Pisces can allow itself terrible weaknesses.
After thinking about what sign the Sun is in, I like to look at what house and sector of the chart the Sun is in. The Sun is rising, it’s in the first house and coming up to the ascendant. Gary was born in the hour before dawn, when you see the light but not the source.
The Ascendant in our chart represents the horizon, it’s where planets and stars are dawning throughout the night, and during the day, even though we can’t see them. The Ascendant is one of the sensitive points in the chart, and planets there command our attention.
Sun is rising, and usually that would give a lift to the Sun, and therefore, Gary’s identity. If you look at his chart, you can practically see the Sun pushing up boisterously, with Mars muscling up under to give it a shove. It’s a powerful position for the Sun, and gives a cardinal feeling of spring flooding, flowers pushing up and light opening over the horizon.
Although I’m trying just to focus on the Sun itself, it’s hard for the eye not to slide across that red line. You look across and see there’s Saturn positioned just perfectly above the horizon line, catching the Sun before it can spread it’s ray and turning them inwards. It’s hard to consider the Sun in this chart without seeing Saturn as well.
To have your Sun in the first house of the chart, below the horizon, makes life intensely personal for Gary. He wouldn’t have that much detachment from himself, an awkward position for cool Aquarius Sun. He isn’t here to set up programs to help people or write novels everyone will love or be the manager at work. He is pretty much here about himself.
To have the Sun rising would to make that principle highlighted. This is going to add to the tension and significance of that Sun/Saturn opposition.
One gets a sense of tension and passive aggressiveness. If the Sun was less provocatively posed, then maybe the Saturn opposition wouldn’t be so hard to deal with.
This Sun position, with the Rising, the last degree of Aquarius, and a conjunction to Mars all bringing attention to the Sun, yet the close opposition with Saturn completely suppresses this highlighted principle. It paints a picture of someone who craves a lot of attention, but at the same time is too weak and timid to openly reach for that spotlight. Gary wanted attention, but he’s underhanded about it. The tension must have been tremendous, with all that power rising up, that’s just doomed from the start. The light has a heavy stone wall around it.
Now that I understand astrologically the Sun, I would then ask my cards for further insight.
In my mind, this Sun in the first house conjunct Mars promotes the idea that Gary was ambitious, and wanted to be noticed, and wants attention. At the same time the opposition from Saturn creates terrible isolation. Let’s see what the cards say about
the Hermit His Sun is numb and detached. He doesn’t have anything to say for himself. His persona is borrowed from Saturn in Virgo, he’s critical and serious, selecting each detail slowly and going over it in his mind.
He does not want to be responsible for his existence, he’s an automaton. He keeps his inner world from us. He’s dumb. He seems to reject his individuality.
But also he is powerful. He seems to have tapped into some endless source of energy here, how he floats alone so endlessly. He’s up to something but he won’t speak of it.
This to me seems like it could be a really accurate perspective. It’s like the beams of Saturn are bending the rays of the Sun back, pushing them back till the Sun turns inside out and goes inside. But still potent.
It seems like in this case, the planet Saturn has overmastered the Sun and Mars. He is refusing to step and be a real person.
Aspects to the Sun
After looking over the portion of the Sun and it’s styles, then next thing we analyze is the aspects. Aspects are very, very important. They’re the reason one Aquarius Sun is different from another. Aspects show us powerful emotional dynamics we hold within us.
The first two aspects I want to analyze are both strong, and important, dynamic aspects. The opposition from Saturn is 3 degrees applying, a sharp waxing aspect. The cards are already begining to talk about it, it’s unescapable when considering the Sun.
The conjunction from Mars is only six degrees, also applying.
Usually I like to look at each aspect in turn, but I find that really hard to do in Gary’s chart. The Sun, Saturn and Mars are so waded together it’s hard to pars them out.
The opposition between Sun and Saturn is the strongest, and the Hermit card I drew about the Sun itself seemed to reference Saturn, so I will start there.
Sun Opposite Saturn
Saturn can be a fearful planet, and was considered one of the malefics back in the day. Saturn seems to be a planet that only has negatives to offer. It has to do with restriction, reality rather than the fanciful, responsibility, repercussions and anything that slows and limits things down. Like concrete. Like aging. It’s metal is lead. Where Saturn is in our chart shows where we are inherently awkward, stiff, uncomfortable and unnatural. Our little awkward spot that life likes to poke. Saturn speaks of fear.
The flip side is that the rewards of Saturn area also real and long lasting. Saturn is the task-master. When you start with your learning-what-Saturn-will-teach-you-in-life, you are awkward and terrible at the things you’re terrible at. But if you are diligent, and learn, and practice and humbly restrain yourself to the realities of the situation, you will become better at the subject matter at hand. As you become proficient at Saturn’s lesson, you will eventually reap the rewards, and become most excellent where once you lacked. Saturn’s rewards can be wealth, good reputation, self-respect, competence, good credit and security. Saturn can give the long lasting relationships upon which good lives are built. Generally, you become more balanced and mature and stable if you bend yourself to what it required of you, as a real adult must.
And it’s not really that Saturn is so bad. We just have to learn. And we don’t want to. We want to be lazy and catered too and special and princesses. It’s only natural. But somehow life doesn’t work that way it seems.
So when I see someone who has a tight contact between Saturn and their Sun, I feel like I’m seeing someone who is irresponsible with their sense of identity. They do not have the correct persepctive on how important they are in the scheme of things. Gary acted like a docile adult male primarily, but inside himself, he felt entitled to take his feelings out on other people, to the extent of feeling free to repeatedly take people’s lives. Instead of owning his anger and disappointment with life, and working on himself and restraining himself, he childishly took his feeling out on others. And now he’s in jail, and has a horrible reputation with most of the rest of his fellow humans. We all think Gary is the lowest of the low, and rightly so.
Saturn also rules temptation. I learned this from the Devil card in the tarot decks. All the old gods are like coins…they have the one side, and then they have the other. One side of the Saturn coin is about being upstanding and doing your part of the work that makes the world. The other side of Saturn’s coin is the devil side. I call him The Prince of the World. He’s the one waiting for that hot flare of desire to spurt up from our hearts. Desire and ego can make us behave very irresponsibly indeed, and the Prince of the world is always waiting in the wings to test our sense of perspective about ourselves, and to see if we can control ourselves when faced with something we truly long for. I submit that Gary’s Sun opposite Saturn meant he was vulnerable to temptation. That part of what he was here to do was to learn to control his desires, rather than letting them control him.
When we read through Gary’s biography, we can see that he was something of a sex addict. His whole life story is littered in sexual escapades. He got married before going oversea with the military. There he visited prostitutes and was treated by the army doctors for a venereal disease. When he returned to the Seattle area, he chose to purchase a home near the strip in Tacoma. He spent lots and lots of driving around, viewing the women and going on “dates.” Even after he married he still frequented the strip, and his wives report that he would request sex several times a day. He liked to have sex outside and in somewhat public places with his wives. Most horrifically, he returned to corpses of the women that he killed for sex. He brought his wives to place near where he stashed the bodies, the corpse gardens he kept for outside sex. The would play with the bodies, posing them, putting little things inside them. The police would find little rocks in the skeleton’s pelvises. He was as prolific as a duck, he seems to have very low impulse control, for him thinking it was doing it. I think this is where that Mars conjunction really works with that Saturn opposition to create the motive and energy for all this horrible effort, all that frustration and containment.
The keywords for Saturn in Virgo in the 7th… someone who’s perfectionism and pickiness inhibited one on one relationship, while simultaneously making him long for absolutely perfect partners. It’s a contradiction in itself to have Saturn in the 7th house. Gary would have been instinctively inhibited in, and anxious about dealing with people, having one on one relationships and partnering. These are his downfall. But the thing with Saturn is, we can’t just be like, oh I suck at that but it’s fine, easy breezy. Someone with such a sharp Saturn aspect like this would have Saturn hanging on them every moment.
Saturn in Virgo just sounds hard to bare. I don’t think people give some of the signs credit for how hard things can be for them. Put Saturn in one of these harsh, perfectionist earth signs, like Virgo or Capricorn, and it can create an unbearable amount of nervous tension.
The key words for Sun in Aquarius are idealism, principles and humanity, but can also bring eccentric behavior for the purpose of attention seeking.
I asked my tarot deck specifically about the Sun Saturn opposition in Mr. Ridgeway’s astrology chart.
the hanged man On one level, he couldn’t participate in life, he stood outside the stream of life, only watching as everyone goes by laughing, and loving and crying and working… Gary has no agency there, in the natural human world. Like some shambling, underworld monster, he is outside of the boundaries.
All his participation in normal life activities is just adaption, and he allowed his obsession to taint and leak into what normal life he did have. One psychologist-on- the-TV-Murder-Show summed it up perfectly. He’s just so emotionally unhealthy.
I want to point out again, although I may take on a gossipy and frankly, bossy tone, my intent is humble before the chart itself. We’re telling the story of a soul when we read a chart. I don’t presume to question the work of the gods in their workings with us.
We explore our charts to learn more details about our inner workings. No one has to be doomed. There’s always some gift to be had from some difficult dynamic. Usually the problem can be resolved or at least alleviated by learned the lesson or doing the work that the troublesome planet is demanding. Ordinarily I would advise the chart holder to focus on this Saturn position and what can be done to appease Saturn, and what are the gifts waiting here. After analyzing the situation, I always pull a card to ask what the gain is from the aspect, or what can balance or remedy the internal tensions. The Green River Killer seems to have had alot of tension with life itself.
the lovers Gary will feel far less alienated if he focuses on being close to a partner. And he did, in fact, know this himself. During his third marriage, he said he felt really close to his wife, and he killed much less. He began to stage the bodies farther away from his home to help himself feel less tempted to return to them for sex. (Gary had ongoing concerns about gas prices that he factored into his activities as well.)
He said himself, if he had a nice woman to come to home too, instead of a bitch, maybe he wouldn’t have killed so much. The fact that Saturn is in Virgo makes me think the way for him would be to focus much on the details of relating, rather than the big sweeping emotions, which me might not have been able to appreciate as an Aquarius. For him, quiet moments of closeness and the small things, like remembering what kind of tea his wife preferred, would be an antidote to his wild predatory behavior.
The equality of a good relationship would have been really healing for him. He needs practice being with someone and being the positive focus of another person’s life energies and attention.
It’s interesting because neither Saturn or the Sun are relationship planets, particularly, but Saturn is in the 7th house. The 7th house correlates with the sign Libra and the planet Venus. It has to do with relationships, partnerships, marriage, balance, diplomacy, and the whole realm of our relating to others. Saturn speaks of responsibility.
Gary was not responsible in his one on one relationships, he cheated on his wives frequently with prostitutes and their poor corpses. He once took his son with him one time for an escapade that ended with the death of a woman. He really did pick up a prostitute with his son, take her out to a rural area, have sex with her and kill her, and then get back in the car with his kid. He son asked where the lady went, and Gary told his child that the lady decided to walk home.
Saturn really wants him to grow up, come home, and start being a thoughtful mate for someone. This behavior of his, this having your cake and eating it to, being the family man, but also having this crazy sex life, is going to be pushed to the extreme until his life explodes. I’ve learned that from watching transits happen. The malifics don’t solve problems. They magnify problems until the system or life breaks down to the point that everything else must stop, and the problem must be attented to, before things can continue.
Sun conjunct Mars
Mars is conjunct the Sun by six degrees. It’s a waxing aspect, just taking on it’s concentration. It’s not as strong of an aspect as it the three degree opposition with Saturn, or the two degree opposition between Mars and Saturn. But the Sun is the leading light of the chart, it’s very important. Mars is a powerful personal planet. So even if it’s not the strongest aspect, in this case I would consider it pretty influential.
Mars is emphasized in Gary’s chart. It’s in the first house. Being in the first house highlights any planet. The first house is our first step into life, it’s the things we bring to life. When people meet us, they experience the first house and what’s going on around the Ascendant.
Mars is an important inner planet, Mars is the desire planet. Mars represents our drive, and the things that describe Mars in the chart are things we return to again and again. Drive doesn’t go away, it may wear out, but it will gather strength and come rising up again.
Mars is also important because it is the ruler of Gary’s North Node. This means this was the planet that was supposed to help his soul find it’s way forward.
But Mars isn’t in such a happy position here. It’s in the first house and rising, not enough to conjunct the Ascendant, but still it’s prominent. And yet Mars is sort of drowning in Pisces. Pisces is in the first house here, but it’s not even touching any house cusps. Pisces, with Mars in it, is intercepted in the first house. It’s just kind of washing around holding all that Mars power in dense oceanic mist. And of course the binding and flattening rays of Saturn are there, always there.
A full powered Sun Mars conjunction would be willful, directed and ferocious. The fact that this conjunction straddles Aquarius/Pisces does lower the ego energies a bit. Which could make the person softer and more agreeable, or just very passive aggressive, which is what I think we have here.
He’s somehow not up to the task of defending the identity from Saturn in Virgo.
Then I ask the cards about that position.
the seven of cups He knew, inside himself, that there was one relationship that he would always win. When it came to just him and his victim, who he loved, that then, he would be the winner, always. So I guess they’re saying that in a world where everyone is everyone else’s punching bag, he knew he would have his victims too. And that’s what makes him happy. Gary is a subscriber to the shit-rolls-downhill theory I suppose. His Saturn/Mars opposition has him interested in pursuing violence. He is always going to be a fighter, and he liked to pick fights he could win.
I wanted to find more information out about this, so I asked in particular about Sun in Aquarius conjunct Mars in Pisces… those two have a really different style, Aquarius and Pisces.
the knight of swords He was good at creating a fantasy cloud around himself. On some level he sees himself as sweet, innocent and harmless… a tender cloud that he clothed himself in…
He would have used this mask of sweetness on the prostitutes themselves. Gary had a long career, during which the street ladies became aware that they were being targeted. Gary tried to appear meek, emphasized with them that the killer must be a strong, big guy. He also carried pictures of his son with him to show the girls. Gary was adapt at “masking nice” which is definitely a Pisces trait. Pisces are very sweet, but are also capable to using their own sweetness to manipulate, which is bad, bad, very bad.
I feel like this Mars in Pisces conjunct the Sun meant he was very adaptive.
Mars Opposite Saturn
We have to take into account the fact that Mars is also opposite Saturn. This is a terrible aspect too, I see terrible frustration here. He’s almost frantically bottled up. It’s a two degree separating or waning aspect, so it’s pretty strong, and it’s old. This has been the way things are for him for a long time.
To have the planet of restriction bearing down on the planet of action just underscores feelings of helplessness. He always felt blocked, he must have always felt that there wasn’t anything he could do to reasonably change his situation.
It’s a shame. When I look at Mars in Pisces rising in the first house, I think, what a little jolt of fun that is. Pisces is opening to everything, has the openness and wideness of the Pacific. In the first house, it would make the world your playground. You have everything to offer, and life has everything to offer back. What a happy, fun position for Mars, rising forever, bursting out on the foam of the sea.
Although Mars in Pisces can be… you know… really moody, it’s a graceful position. It might not be the most traditionally masculine, but who cares? The world needs sensitive, graceful, moody men too.
But alas, Mars in Pisces didn’t get much of a chance to breathe with Saturn bearing down on it, and the Sun blaring away, concealing misty Mars beneath the rigid beams of Aquarius Sun.
It’s a pretty strong opposition too, only two degrees past being perfect. It is a waning aspect, so it does make me think he’s already been with this problem for awhile. Perhaps the lesson has been learned but he’s not yet ready to relinquish his maladaptive behavior. Or the realization that its’ all going to be over is making him more frantic and extreme.
Mars has emphasized significance in Gary’s chart because it is the ruler of Aries North Node. The North Node is a super important part of the chart, and it’s one of the first things I look at when I look at someone’s chart.
The North Node is a Node of the Moon. The Moon’s Nodes are the positions in space where the Moon crosses the Earth’s elliptic. It’s some kind of weird fate magic, but it works and I have found studying the Nodes to be very valuable in unlocking someone’s story. I included them both in Gary’s chart, above, they look like squat little vase things, on above in Libra, the North Node is below in Aries.
The Nodes come in a pair, the North and the South. The South Node gives us information about our soul’s past. The North Node gives us information about the direction our soul is supposed to be evolving in. This is an important thing to know. If you fail at your North Node, your life is going to be a mess! Almost like, guaranteed, a mess.
When you look at the Nodes, you look of course at the sign it’s in, and the house it’s in.That’s how you get most of your information about what sort of behavior or philosophy we need to progress. To refine that information, you look to the rulers of the sign.
Gary’s North Node is in Aries in the second house. That means, for Gary, his life direction was to have bravery, impulsiveness and freshness as personal resources. His Mars in Pisces in the 1st house would have shown him the way to make that happen. Mars in Pisces in the first house would have showed him how to be. But he cut all that off, and he went another way.
I guess some could argue that he was following his North Node. You could say his murders were in the Aries spirit, brave, or bold and impulsive. But I don’t think it was like that.
It wasn’t fresh and brave what he was doing. He was hunting, hunting for those weaker than himself. He was being compulsive and emotionally clotted, repeating his acts. Not breaking free, not moving forward.
I believe he was staying with his South Node in Libra, being diplomatic, and self-less with his partner. I believe the true partner was the mother. She wound him up like her little doll and set him on the world. To get our attention and to show her horrid power over us. Isn’t that the first thing you think when you hear about a new serial killer guy? Oh, one of those creepy, messed up guys is loose, what was up with his mother? His mother. The thrills.
When I look at that Mars Saturn opposition, I can see the rage frothing up and spilling over that red line. Frustration compounded into diamonds of rage.
It seems so immoveable and stuck.
Understanding it astrologically, I decided to ask the cards for insight.
Death He’s real sincere. His anger is so great, he’s afraid of it. It’s monstrous, much larger than he. He dances ahead of it all the time, but it catches up with him from time to time. He’s so mad, he just wants to kill things. Malicious feelings. He throws the bodies behind him on the path, and his murderous anger stays to lavish them, and that’s how he stays ahead. His escapist dance.
That way he can stay all sweet and innocent and go to church with his family. And clean. He would get all cleaned up after his dirty work. Meticulous. And perfected for the moment.
In researching for this article, I read a book called Serial Killers, The Methods and Madness of Monsters, by Peter Vronsky. In the book, he suggests that killing may be part of a therapeutic process. That after enough victims, some of them seem to work through their problem, and they just stop.
Everyone is at a different point in their evolution.Each of us has a long, unique history and a unique development. We’re all just souls, struggling with themselves, struggling with life. Time and time again, the cards have emphasized that that is a very important feature, our absolute uniqueness.
Some are caught in the easy pleasures of repeating familiar activities, not changing and staying nestled down into their toxins and rot. Staying with problems.
But our souls are of a vibrant substance, and the urge to grow and develop and become more unique and individual is very strong.
I asked the cards if Gary Ridgeway would be punished for his activities. They said no. They said that the underworld doesn’t punish. Their concern is with helping souls move through learning processes. They said that society was to blame for his actions, and that’s where the blame would fall.
They said that since Gary had not learned his lesson, he would be sent back to the same situation. Trapped. With the same people, acting all the same ways, having to put up with it all over again. In their opinion, this was worse than any punishment could be. There is no suffering like a stagnating soul. The soul really wants to grow and change, and the stink of soul trapped in a stagnant life is the whiff of hell rising up constantly.
When you encounter people who just…are creeps and have a really weird vibe… that’s their souls rotting, that’s what you’re sensing.
Gary seemed to have some grasp of his problems. He at one time remarked that maybe he wouldn’t have killed so many women if he had a nice woman to come home to instead of a bitch. He’s still shifting the blame here, but it is true, that in his third and happier marriage, his killing became very infrequent. He even began to stage the corpses farther from his home to make it harder for him to give into the temptation to visit them.
Gary seems to have been trying to work through his issues when the police, and his issues, finally caught up with him. Maybe his soul can find peace, and next time he come back, he can be more of a lover and less of a monster.
I wanted to ask what the good of this aspect would have been, if it’s challenges had been met and its strengths assumed. What could be the good of Mars opposite Saturn.
Temperance If he had worked through his emotional stuck-ness, which would have taken some time, and some effort, he would have unlocked his gift of patience. This would have been the hard-won gift of Mars opposite Saturn.
He had inside himself the gift of infinite patience. That would have perfectly rounded out his reserved character and truly given him the sweetness that he desired and tried to ape.
He missed out on sharing his patience with us and that’s a shame.
The Sun, Mars, Saturn and Chiron T-Square
A T-square aspect pattern is a relationship between three planets. Two planets are opposite from one another, positioned on opposite sides of the zodiac. Here we have Saturn in Virgo in the 7th house, opposite Sun and Mars in Pisces. You can see Saturn there looking like an uncomfortable chair in the 7th house, on the right hand side of the chart. If you follow the red line coming from Saturn across the chart to the left hand side, you can see Sun and Mars together in the 1st house. The Sun symbol is the circle with the belly-button and Mars is the traditional symbol for male, right there below it.
To make an opposition in a T-square, a third planet must be in the position of squaring, or being 90* from each of the opposing planets. If you look at his chart, you can see the angry red lines coming up from Saturn on the right side and Sun/Mars on the left. Here all the lines converge on small planet Chiron, who’s symbol looks like a key. You can see it at the top of his chart in Sagittarius, closely conjunct the MC. This is the so problematic T-Square.
T-square is considered a really dynamic and somewhat harsh aspect pattern, tending to give rise to the “type A” personality type. Basically the opposition creates a great tension in the psyche, and the squaring planets show the adaptation the individual has developed to deal with the internal tensions. The energy has to break out somewhere.
Really, aspects and aspect patterns refer to what psychology would call complexes. They show the dynamics between different parts of our psyches. We have different belief systems, needs and motivations that form little fractal selves inside ourselves. The planets and their aspects can also illustrate how we will deal with different features common to all lives, such as how we interact with aging and responsibility, or how our belief systems interact with the larger belief systems of our time period.
A T-square is the trace pattern of tension, and is a very motivating dynamic. A lot of people who have a big impact on the world around them, for good or bad, have T-squares. They might be running away from the themselves, but they’re putting out alot of energy to do it.Gary actually has two separate T-squares in his chart, making me think he is a driven and powerful person who would be really successful. Kinda he was? Too bad he did use his powers to do something useful for us all, instead of handing us all this crap that he did.
This Sun T-square is a stunner, a real piece of bad work. This opposition between Saturn and the Sun butts up into focal point Chiron on the MC. Gary is SUCH a mess. Chiron and Saturn are two planets, or solar system entities that really carry points of pain, injury and self-doubt or awkwardness in the chart. They are both contacting his Sun and show terrible impacts to his identity and his ability to be himself.
The other thing about this this aspect pattern is that it must implicate Gary’s father, as it captures all the “male” planets in the chart. This is his “daddy issues” T-square. The Venus, Moon, Pluto t-square, that he also has, is for his “mommy-issues.”
It looks to me like Gary’s father was dismissive of him, and critical to a high degree, or in a very persistent way. Or at least this was Gary’s main perception of him. Something about the way that Saturn is elevated up above the horizon, above Gary’s dowdy Sun/Mars conjunction, gives me bad feelings about their relationship.
This T-square makes me think that the father saw himself as successfully a man, with broad knowledge and a clear understanding of the way things are, and that he thought his son was a wimp, and a weirdo. Maybe he didn’t think he’d amount to much of a man. The father musing if his son will even be able to get a women, and pass on the seed… And he didn’t care to hide his opinion, I guess thinking that somehow that would make Gary a better man, to let him constantly know what a shitty man his dad thought he would turn out to be? From the looks of his chart, Gary living in a hail of bad prognosis about his future. Someone was putting alot of pressure on him.
His murders may have been subconsciously an attempt to “prove himself to daddy.” Look what a man I am now Dad, sorting out and controlling these wayward women. And he did say something like this to police. When they finally had him and were beginning to interview him, Gary Ridgeway shocked police by suggesting that he was giving them a hand, helping to control these wayward women of the streets.
Chiron
Allow me to introduce astroid Chiron, the focal planet of the T-square.
Chiron probably isn’t that popular outside of astrology circles. It’s kind of half-assed, little space body with no roots in our history, wizzing around somewhere in the gulf between Saturn and Uranus. It’s actually kind weird little thing, considered half astroid, half comet. It’s pretty far out, so it’s hard to see, but I guess it has the mass of an astroid, the behavior of a comet and might have rings that come and go. They think that eventually Jupiter will pull it into it’s orbit, but for now, it’s flying free. And erratic. It is unique.
It was discovered too recently to have alot of cultural history attached to it, so it’s doesn’t have a sign or house or ruler or any of that. It has been assigned the astrology of the master healer centaur Chiron by modern astronomers and astrologers, and that seems to fit.
But for all that it’s “new” and it’s astrologically theoretical, I’ve come to respect it in charts. I always look at Chiron because Chiron gives a lot of information about the most interesting thing of all, where someone is allll fucked up.
Chiron seems to be something given by fate. It’s one of those problems you have that you just can’t get a grasp on. Even if you understand very well what you’re doing that is flawed, you still seem powerless to change it.
Chiron is our fated wound dealt by the universe, an unhealable wound, our profound baggage.
I feel like part of the Chiron issue is to let us know, that no matter what we do, we’re not ever going to be the complete titts. We human still, subjected to fate, flaws and universal powers. Oh, think your hot shit? Bam, Chiron reaches out and gives you some hideous crippling flaw that only you can see, but that is with you always and makes you occasionally act all weird and wimpy in front of your friends.
Basically, any planet that has contact with Chiron is wounded, and it’s going to act that way. Think of having an injury on your foot. You are still going to want to walk around, but you aren’t able to just lay your foot flat and have a normal gait. You’re going to be limping. We have to awkwardly adapt to ourselves if we’re going to move forward. I don’t think any human can be completely graceful.
Chiron Conjunct the Midheaven
Now the M.C. is a very important part of our charts. It has to do with what part of the day it was when you were born, and where the various planets were in relation to you at that moment of birth. The M.C. is our high noon. The Medium Coeli records what part of the sky was the most exactly above at the moment you were born.
And generally it is good to have planets on the angles. It’s where we intersect with life, where the energies inside of us can make contact with the world. People with no planets on their angles can have that spinning-their-wheels feel in their life. Gary has good contact with this very close aspect, Chiron is conjunct the M.C. by 1 degree and it’s a waxing aspect. Any planet that close to the MC is going to have big impact on the life, but Chiron isn’t the most useable energy, like Saturn or Mars might be. Of course it’s awkward as hell, in line with the other things in his chart.
The M.C. deals with and describes how the world sees us. It describes our career or calling, and how things work out with all that. We all feel pressure to get up and deal with the world in some way or the other. Some individuals are ready to leap on the world and conquer, some have difficulty and struggle just to get by, some run away and try and make the world chase them. Everyone is so individual and we each have to deal with the world with our own efforts at some point. The M.C. and the 10th house describe how we go abouts.
Dealing with the world must have been painful for Gary, as indicated by Chiron, the unhealable wound closely conjunct the M.C.
People did take note of how much Gary was picked on by his mother. Traditionally, we take The Sun, Mars and Saturn, and I guess Chiron too, to be “masculine” planets. I think in this day and age we’ve become flexible enough to be able to consider the idea that these ancient archetypes are very fluid in the variety of ways they can manifest themselves in our lives. That is part of the fascination of the gods, that they can continually appear to us in fresh way. They experiment and evolve. Either his mother is represented by that oppressive Saturn in Libra in the 7th house, or his dad also put negative pressure on his identity. Either way he seems to have grown up feeling inferior and insufficient due to being constantly picked on and harassed. Someone was on hand to pick at his shortcomings at every moment, so I can imagine his quivering, exquisitely painful nerves, his Mars in Pisces nerves, when it’s finally time for him to get up and make his own way in the world.
And in fact, Gary did aim low in his professional efforts. After a brief stint in the military, he got a job as a truck painter at a local factory and kept that job the rest of his free life.
When I look at this, and try and imagine a positive to Chiron on the M.C., I can picture him living so adventurous and brave. Like, I’m a bit sensitive, but I’m just going to get out there and have adventures every moment, and if some of them hurt, I’m just going to have to deal with it. We really get points from the universe living with that kind of openness and unflinching acceptance of life’s realness and painfulness. Life does not love a coward.
But I find something else in the place of courage and openness in this powerful aspect.
the three of pentacles I found this to be an extremely interesting card. Most of the cards I pull involve mundane, ordinary situations, like about someone is butthurt because what’s-his-face said whatever. And other times I pull a card and it’s like the veil is pulled back momentarily, and I can see into the Underworld. I felt like this card was giving me information about the time between lives, when Mr. Ridgeway was in the place between lives and he was making choices pertaining to the next life he was going to live.
I see two things… one, Mr. Ridgeway is an extremely hard worker. He went through some sort of extreme circumstance in regards to working. He was a slave, or near to it, working so much that it consumed his life.
The other thing is, for his hard work, he earned the right, or built up the power to be able to choose a gift, any gift he wanted for his next time.
Gary choose the gift of invisibility. He choose the power to be nondescript, to drift undetected…He choose being an outrider, to slip his activities outside the stream of the normal day world.
This is why the bodies were so hard to find and why he was so hard to catch. His “career” spanned almost twenty years.
The sheriff in charge of the investigation spoke about the difficulties involving in investigating Gary’s activities. Most of the bodies were found by locals, men out fishing the river and boys crawling around in the undergrowth. Gary dragged the bodies into the thick thickets of undergrowth on heavily wooden slopes around the Green River. In fact, the King’s County Sheriff’s Office pioneered new techniques of collecting evidence in outdoor crime scenes. Investigators were surprised again and again at the inaccessibility of the dumping locations, where he usually stashed a few bodies in the same general location. Gary is tough and he’s a hard worker. I connect this with the fact that he used strangulation as his method of killing. There was no stabbing or shooting. Just brute power with an arm across the throat.
And he was invisible, for years and years, the gift was real. He was on their list, and police had interacted with him as a suspect, to the point where his coworkers at the plant called him “Green River Gary”. But until DNA technology came available in the early 90’s, they just couldn’t pin him.
He was even invisible to the women he interacted with on the streets. Police later discovered that he had numerous conversations with prostitutes about the Green River Killer. They were afraid and wanted to talk about it with prospective dates. The prostitutes would say, he must be a big strong man, if he was a little guy, the girls would be able to fight him off. And Gary would go right along with this line of thought, agreeing that the killer must be huge, and he himself was small and mousey and no real threat. They couldn’t see him.
The card tells me he happily chose the power to do all this even though he knew that it would bring him a long cycle of terrible ups and downs… and that it would turn his soul’s path away from the stream of the rest of the human family. There is a great clarity in the underworld, there are no lies and no illusions there. He knew what he was picking.
When I get powerful cards like this one, I learn alot. They have explained to me, again and again, that object is never punishment. That is not a goal, for us to be punished. It doesn’t make any progress towards the goal of educating our souls in the proper way to live life and be ourselves. They say that the deeply ingrained expectation of punishment is a cultural bias and a reflection of our human ego’s vindictiveness. The Universe and the Gods are better than us, or they don’t have that ego to deal with. Their goal is teaching, and so they will make elaborate arrangements to make you have experiences that will make you understand how your actions effect others. Down to the last drop. For us to learn, we have to be able to try out all our ideas about life, and see if they work out or not.
When you do outrageous things, you just give them alot to teach you. They have all the time in the world to mess with your soul.
So I guess what we’re seeing here is Chiron conjunct the M.C. acting as a signifier of fate. This was a card I learned alot from, as I feel it taught me things about how we form our lives, how the choices we make before we’re born shape things.
It sounds like Gary had built up some power and would have had something to show for himself if he hadn’t directed all his energies into that dirty underground stream.
I had to ask what would have happened if he had struggled with him self and tried to use his powers for good. What would be the results of this powerful aspect, Chiron conjunct the M.C.
The Emperor He really would have been a bad ass… There is so much power running through this connection, he could have done whatever he wanted, and he would have been awesome at it. Maybe not a brain surgeon, but some combination of using his physicality and his lack of fear of danger together, he would have been awesome at race car driving, being a fireman, a commercial fisherman or even a stuntman, a construction worker who deals with heights. Anything that the rest of considered terrifying and is dangerous would have been his forte.
And then he would have had a satisfying life, for that sort of thing attracts money and women. The dangerous industries tend to pay well, and that in its self attract ladies. It’s well known that the ladies love crazy guys. Then his mother would have had to eat crow as his life turned out awesome even if he didn’t have an advanced degree. But he would have had an advanced degree in not putting up with her shit. Hiya!
Too bad, he took the easy ways and wasted all of that.
Sun Mars Saturn Chiron T-Square: Mars Square Chiron
To explore this T-square further, we will have to examine the Mars square Chiron aspect. Of the three planets contacting Chiron, Mars has the strongest contact. The aspect is three degrees and applying, which means that the aspect Mars square Chiron was approaching its greatest intensity when Gary was born.
This is another vulnerable by potent aspect. The quick keywords definition is that when Gary took action in the world there was wounding and injury. But it could have also been the case that this aspect could be used to incredible acts of healing.
When I look at that red lines streaking down from Chiron to Mars, I see it quivering with exquisite sensitively. He is easily wounded, singing with pain. Sometimes Chiron contacting important identity planet can give us that chip-on-the-shoulder energy. They’re just so easily offended, their emotions are delicate and easily torn. I don’t think he could get around his pain and awkwardness in his everyday interactions. I think he was waiting around for something to offend him and piss him off. Being easily offended with the square to Chiron and holding grudges with the opposition to Saturn.
I don’t think life wants us to be like that. Life wants to flow, it don’t want it’s power damned up by petty things. Power damned up and used in vicious ways. It wants us to be open and aware and except life’s pain, rather than turning away and hiding or numbing, closing our eyes. It’s takes a lot of courage and power to be able to accept lives pain. To be with difficult feelings and sensations.
Since we’ve already learned that Chiron has to do with fate, I think he already carried that pain inside him when he arrived. He was not prepared to give life a chance and see what life had to offer. His cup of pain is already so full, it’s starting to spill over and swamp the rest of his life.
There’s alot of Neptune being implicated with the Mars in Pisces getting so much action. Mars is making seven aspects to other planets in the chart, that’s alot.
When I first started looking at the astrology charts of depraved people, I thought I was going to see alot of Pluto contacts with personal planets. And Gary does have that, his Moon is in Scorpio, and in contact to Pluto. Pluto is about power and control. It fosters dominion, penetration, and annihilating extremes. Sounds really serial-killery right? But I found that Neptune is frequently a big player in these fucked up astrology charts. The power of fantasy can run high or low in our nature. We all have to indulge in some fantasy. It’s part of how we operate, no one can be up against pure reality all the time. But if fantasy becomes too powerful, it can take over the life, and remove contact with normal living. These powerful fantasies slowly and cozily insinuate themselves with dream tentacles between us and life.
I think Gary was very prone to drifting away from his pain and sensitivity, rather than turning his attention to dealing with it some way. He preferred to be in his fantasy world. That’s what life induced in him, was a strong desire to escape into fantasy. That Mars in Pisces, with Pisces intercepted in the 1st house, Neptune exactly square Venus and the trines from the Sun to Uranus and the South Node gives evidence of his tendency to dissociate and go into a fantasizing mode, escaping reality. I think that Mars square Chiron is part of this tendency.
Let’s see what the cards say about Mars square Chiron.
The Chariot He is very adventurous, he has a huge sense of adventure. But no boundaries. For some reason he doesn’t understand that people belong to their own selves. It’s like he thinks he can just come right in, into your life, into your personal space, into your body.
If he’s interested in someone, he gets up close till he is inside of them. You can’t escape his dispassionate interest. It would be fun if he wasn’t so intent and there wasn’t so much death in his eyes. He was tender and loving towards those he would kill…so interested…
This seems highly unnatural. His discarding of boundaries in this fashion just seems like naked criminality to me. That’s bad. We all know that’s bad.
It’s interesting that this card is suggesting that Mars square Chiron can indicate poor boundaries. When I look at that aspect, it does seem to cut across the Ascendant. It’s a weird contact, because all the rest of the aspects indicate a pulling away, such terrible misfunction that he’s almost out of the world. But here he is bounding in our faces like a puppy. Freaky puppy.
That’s what’s so interesting about studying people’s charts in depth. Once you look at all the details, the complexity of the human really comes alive.
I guess I have to ask what the positive of this would have been. I don’t want to stay in this world, with his avid gleams.
the two of wands They just say that he should have judged the danger his mother presented to her, and he should have resisted her.
I keep seeing traces of this, they suggest that he was in collusion with his neurotic, verbally-abusive and power hungry mother. That instead of pushing away and keeping clean, he willing entered into her games with her. He comes from her. The gods demand he step away and forge his own singular life, but so far he refuses. Pity.
Mars square Chiron would have provided the nerves and animal instincts he needed to resist her. And then he would have won a great prize.
This is something I see in charts where there’s alot of difficult aspects, and I see alot of bad and aberrant behavior. These folks can be really, really set in their ways. Like they’re just crusted into these pattern with centuries of bad choices, and trauma and loss and repetitive mistakes. Changing seems unthinkable. But there’s also these huge energy potentials hidden in there.
If one of these fucked-up souls breaks free and choses to change and start being real human beings, it releases like, an atom bomb’s worth of energy. A soul choosing, after much suffering, to love life, is like breaking the atom. It’s huge. And they win just awesome things. It’s all there, just under the surface. It’s almost like some of the worst people hold some of the biggest gifts. You can’t have the darkness without the light.
Sun Mars Saturn Chiron T-square: Saturn Square Chiron
Saturn square Chiron is the other leg of the t-square of doom. Saturn square Chiron is one of those aspects I look at, and think, what the fuck. How am I supposed to know what that means. It’s nothing human. Both planets far out into our solar system, which means huge orbits and moving slowly around our Sun. These are aspects an entire generation will share. Gary is going to be an expression of this aspect, because his Sun and Mars and M.C. are tying into it. It’s like he “saves” the energy of the aspect and brings it forward, or along on human society’s journey.
So, I have to do some research to learn about this aspect. I go over to Cafe Astrology.com, one of my favorite astrology resources.
In the Natal Chart:
With Saturn square Chiron in your natal chart, you can feel somewhat intolerant of your vulnerable side, preferring to keep it at bay as a form of self-protection. Of course, if you don’t connect with this very real, very human side of yourself, you’re also blocking a profound source of wisdom. Allowing yourself to be “weak” from time to time can help you build up with determination to make improvements.
The tendency can be to ignore your feelings repeatedly until they come out in disruptive ways and you feel the need to blow up. Combatting this self-destructive pattern involves setting aside time to acknowledge and connect with your personal suffering or pain. Keep in mind that anger is a defense mechanism designed to avoid feelings of sadness, loss, or rejection. – Astrologer Annie
She’s so smart. So this sounds like it fits in exactly with Gary Ridgeway’s behavior patterns, and even his M.O. I think he used his build up of negative emotions as fuel, to fuel his escapades, to pleasure himself. Having wounded masculinity led to overemphasize his masculinity and he was too stoic with his feelings and harsh with himself… but all with a naughty gleam in his eye.
the 7 of swords: This seems like the proliferation of torture. It’s the freshness of meat and the senselessness of being entangled in meat. The proliferation of the meaningless sex, meat banging. It’s the joker aspect of violence… Human kind’s endless capacity for violence, wandering down those echoing halls. The world of pain is one of the Otherworlds. This aspect represents Gary’s interest and ability to be part of this world, the pain world.
Here there is an archetypal difference between the natural injury or accident and humans inflicting on each other. The human body in pain is part of nature. Humans torturing each other is another realm.
This makes sense really, if you look at possible keywords for the planets involved. If you take Saturn to mean physicality, the lead of the body, and Chiron to mean pain and wounding, then you could see how that could signify torture.
If being part of the pain world, or the pain world itself is signified by Chiron square Saturn, then we can see that this other world is heavily tied into Gary’s life, with this T-square including his Sun and pointing into important first, seventh and tenth houses. I wonder what the gift would have been.
the Hierophant He would have had magic powers in his relationships, with that Chiron streaming into the 7th house. He would have been perfectly in tune with the flow of feeling and energy in a relationship. He would have been highly intuitive into the nature of his partner, and where they are in their life. He would have been able to watch her soul develop over time. He could have been exceptionally present in relationship. He would have had a sense of humor.
The Sun Mars Saturn and Chiron T-Square
To have both these wounding planets, Saturn and Chiron, at sharp angles to the Sun is to say that Gary was uncomfortable just existing. Just being himself felt a bad trip, and to deal with the constant oppression, he unleashed his pain on to the world. The focal planet of the T-square is where we release the tensions of the opposition. To deal with his extreme sense of inferiority, he hurt people.
With Chiron conditioning the response of Sun, Saturn, and Mars, I say it’s safe to say that Gary has quite a horrible wound to his masculine identity.
the eight of wands His involvement in the pain world gave him freedom from the world we live in. Gary lived at the circus. He remained so immersed in the traumatic psychic conditions of his childhood that he never came back out of that realm.
In astrology, the tenth house is taken to signify the mother. She’s the one. She trained him to torture, to dominate and humiliate.
All this focus and uproar heightens the supremacy of the masculine. Men were so important to her, they were her focus. To demonstrate perfect service to the masculine and uphold it as the highest standard and most important party, this lavish bootlicking goes hand in hand with the scorning and undervaluing of those that don’t live up to this high standard.
She had her kid on blast so intently that it became permanent…he’s a walking sore spot, permanently self-conscious and uncomfortable. The potency of his masculinity is the clown club she’s always hitting him over the head with.
His mother brought the lasciviousness and it seems like he brought in his own cold little twist with the Saturn in Virgo. His fussiness. He killed a woman because she wanted a ride back to where he had picked her up from. Gas is expensive! He was so put out that she wanted a ride back to First Street that he strangled her although he wasn’t planning to, and brought it up to the police later. He also mentioned trying to get the women to go pee before he killed them at his house, so they wouldn’t make a mess on his bed.
Our souls are unique, like the ancient bonsai… but maybe also like the most horrible living rotting shambling monster. A perfect storm of darkness.
I’ve asked the cards why the Universe would let us choose such horrible things. They always say it’s because we have to learn.
This is why life is inherently unpredictable and uncontrollable, because human beings are constantly producing unpredictable behavior.
Hanna Ahrent spoke of how governments deal with this aspect of human nature. Some styles of government, such as democracy, foster human beings making their unique contributions… good and bad. When you get toward the tyrant end of the spectrum, the state begins to put more ad more energy into suppressing the unique actions of most in favor of promoting the well-being of the few. I like the way were we all are free to manifest our different patterns. It does make America crazy… but life is crazy so, it makes sense.
Gary Ridgeway’s life choices are unacceptable in any form of human society, and demonstrate that human being have free choice is very central to how our world is designed. The cards tell me the universe has really different values than us, because it’s only interested in teaching us. We learn a lot from the horrible things that happen to us and around us. They say they need the destroyer people around to create learning situations for others.
We are in the vale of learning.
Uranus Trine Sun
This Sun and Uranus trine kinda freaks me out. I guess I’m getting biased.
Uranus is the ruler of the sign Aquarius, so this will boost that Aquarius energy and make it sharper. Uranus is a brilliant and harsh planet. Associated with masculine thinking and cutting rationality, it is also a signifier of accidents, electrocution and alacrity, cuts, separations and shock. Brilliant but erratic behavior. This signifies dissociation.
I feel like this Sun trine Uranus aspect made it easier, more comfortable, for him to be a person who does freaky things. And it is true that he did kill a lot of women in his home, Uranus is in the fourth house here, which signifies the home, usually your childhood home.
I look at this and think he must not have felt very safe in his childhood home. Gemini multiplies the harsh shine coming from Uranus into a thousand little sharpnesses. Unpredictable little cuts coming from endless angles.
If I look at all the angles involved, I can see that blue grand trine. Sun is trine Uranus, and both Uranus and the Sun are trine the South Node. It seems so easy, underneath the red lines of the t-squares, humming with it’s quiet flow. The South Node is problematic. It’s our past, the behaviors we’re oh so comfortable, our familiar terrority. The whole was our lives are set up is to propel us away from that South Node. We’re supposed to grow, and develop and move forward. He’s sneaking back to his old candy bag, sly as a dog sucking eggs.
the page of cups He was too stubborn. He always thought whatever he was doing was right, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone tell him anything. He’s self-righteous even. Everyone else is to blame. He’s a bit too good for the others around him. No one can tell him he’s wrong.
That Aquarius energy is really strong. Aquarius is principled and humanitarian, but that strong idealistic energy can take them out of this world. I think the Saturn in Virgo and the strong Aquarius vibe combined to give him a fussy, picky personality, that contrasts weirdly with his avid sexual appetite.
This could be part of his blame shifting tendency.
He seemed to like to feel superior to the women he had sex with. He angrily blamed the prostitutes for the gonorreah he got and still went on raw dogging it.
Seems like he used the opposition from Saturn and the trine from Uranus to be easily offended and the Mars opposite Saturn to hold the grudge.
Grand Air Trine with South Node
It’s a tight air trine with the South Node, Sun and Uranus all in air signs. He just so much more comfortable standing in his fortress of the past than he is living with us.
the 9 of swords He’s absolutely locked up in his fortress. If he comes out the monster will finally get him. He just refuses to come out. It’s unthinkable.
The thing about this is it’s probably not as bad as he’s making it. He’s barricaded, but it’s just himself he has to face. He stays attached to delusional or simplistic thinking. He is the king and also the monster. He’s imprisoned, refusing to let the psychological processes of renewal to occur.
Like in the fairy tales, eventually Snow White becomes the evil queen.
Our psyches are designed to renew themselves periodically. Even the ego needs to be renewed, which can be quite a struggle. The ego fears death and dissolution just like anything else.
The fairytale castle is the strong hold of the ego. When the King of Queen get to hold, they must die and replaced by the new hero or heroine. When the young marriage takes place, the whole kingdom is renewed and the countryside runs with milk and wine.
When the old King or Queen refuses to go and tries to keep control of the life force, that’s when the trouble starts. The castle is haunted by the demonic bull, life can’t move forward and sterility hangs in the air. The only outlet is violence.
In our world, he abdicated the throne of the self, but inside, he nourishes a monster.
The End
He could have been a nice guy, without a persona or shield. Truly empathetic and good human being, naked and totally real, unmoved by the jeering or wonder of others. He could have been one of those people that is simple and perfect and good for children. An example to children of how to be brave and real, a simple hero. Could have been, could have been something good.
He could have led with that Chiron on the M.C. living with the vulnerability, being brave about it…
Instead he’s a blue collar nightmare, traditional masculine values twisted all out of wack.
So it seems like that three of pentacles card was showing me a crossroad of the soul. He had built up enough energy to choose a powerful gift. But then he kind of blew it. He used it up senselessly, sneakily murdering women. By the time they rounded him up, even he was tired of the game.
He was all tuckered out, giving his energy away for nothing. He even explained how his last murder was kind of soft and squishy and easy. The police were surprised she was one of his victims, because it didn’t fit his M.O. It was a women, a clothed women, left out in plain view. The police found her laying alongside the fence of a junk yard. He said he had picked her up in a fit of restlessness, an alcoholic homeless woman who gave it up too easily. He said he got mad when she just let him have her, and didn’t seem to care. He said that he got mad and went to strangle her, and she died just like that, almost as soon as he put his thumbs to her throat. Maybe he was starting to realize that he wasn’t killing powerful, wild, wanton women, but society’s victims. People that had been abused, molested and made powerless their whole lives. He was just taking advantage of a broken and unfair world that produced easy victims. All of it just pouring out of his hands. He’s not making anything.
After you blow it like that you have start all over again building up your personal power. They don’t just give you free power… unless they’re trying to trick you into misusing it so they can teach you a lesson.
He’s going to have to go and learn the meaning of those women’s and girl’s lives. Feel what it feels like to be unable to defend yourself, and all the things that leads to being in that position. And then he’s going to have to learn what it feels like to have someone take the ultimate advantage of your weakened state.
If he survives all that intact, he’s going to have to go through the process of healing and stabilizing first, before he can begin to build up power again. I mean, hard to say, there’s necessity, but there is grace, we can be released from our lessons if we learn them sincerely. But. He probably blew it.
In my next post I’ll be talking about his Venus/Moon/Pluto T-square and how his mother is implicated in his killings.
The books I used in my research.
The Gift Of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence Gavin De Becker
Serial Killers: The Methods and Madness of Monsters Peter Vronsky
Chasing the Devil: My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer David Reichert
Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives Michael Newton
Re-Visioning Psychology James Hillman
The Interpretation Of Fairytales Marie Louise Von Fran
