Happy Birthday to American jazz singer and songwriter Bobby McFerrin. Thought by many to possess a brilliant scatting ability, McFerrin is best known (humorously, to any astrologer who considers the Mercury Saturn opposition on his MC/IC, as well as his natal Moon square debilitated ascendant ruler Mars) for his No. 1, 1988 pop hit "Don't Worry, Be Happy" :)

Geeta Jha, a spiritual healer and astrologer in India says that a debilitated planet should never be mistaken for the functional nature of the planet.

Jeremy Neal has this article on Dignity and Debility
https://chirotic.com/2009/03/29/dignity ... re-making/
He says
"To use an analogy, it is rather like the difference between buying a table and buying a bag of tools and some wood to make a table. The individual whose astrology is characterised by dignity has bought the table. They get to go home, plonk the new item of furniture in the middle of the kitchen and start enjoying the benefits right away. There’s no problem with that of course, and indeed it’s expedient, easy and uncomplicated. The debilitated type however has to get busy. He has to carry all this stuff home, and start to fashion the furniture himself out of the rather more crude raw materials. He might have little experience or skill with making tables too, or with using the tools, and it could even transpire that his table is a disaster: it wobbles or worse, it breaks! Then he has to try again to make a functional table. As you can perhaps see, there are certainly disadvantages to being debilitated, but also, there is the potential of a great benefit too."
The advantage is that you can aim for mastery and craftsmanship.

He also mentions Stephen Arroyo with Sun in Libra, Venus in Scorpio and Saturn in Leo.
Less functional? No, different than people around you.
Charlie Chaplin Moon in Scorpio opp Mars in Taurus Angular!
He always bumped into people in his movies but it makes him more human.

In his bio, they say of McFerrin he had spent six years developing his musical style, the first two years of which he attempted not to listen to other singers at all, in order to avoid sounding like they sounded. Typical of his debilitated Mercury in Pisces. Crafting his art!

I remember a period in my astrological journey when I did many charts of the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in Capricorn generation in early 60's over a short period of time.
With Jupiter in Fall what came up is that this generation must learn to be patient with growth. They are tailored to reach the pinnacle slowly, patiently, mastering the art of craftmanship on the side road, not from the fast lane.

Thank you for sharing Jason!

mcferrin is a brilliant and original voice in the jazz and broader music world.. maybe the time is quite good given the close biquintile of uranus to ascendant degree…. sun in a trine to ascendant is also very creative. too.. some midpoints help also.. venus mercury midpoint is jupiter…. that is the confidence inside a musical and artistic voice…. jupiter sun midpoint is mercury.. this is also. the magic of his creative energies manifest in his unique ideas expressed via his voice.. he makes all sorts of playful and original sounds!

there is an interesting astro book called planetary containments.. it bundles up. 3 planet combos. as they land in the chart.. an interesting line up in mcferrins chart is all the benifics inside his sun to moon relationship, and also as the lower hemisphere doesn’t include the malefics mars and saturn..the trilogies would be. venus~jupiter~mercury, or moon~venus~jupiter, or jupiter~mercury~sun.. . the book would read these line ups in such a way which would put a great deal of positives down in the lower half of this chart, regardless of the positives from the specific midpoints i mentioned already…. it’s a novel approach to reading a chart but i liked the unorthodox nature of it..

if i was at home, i’d look at the 5th harmonic chart for what, if anything, showed up.. thanks for sharing his chart jason! did you see the repair shop documentary video. that i believe won an oscar for best short documentary just the past day or two.. you can watch this 40 minute video for free on youtube.. one of the producers is also a 34 year old musician who has written the musical score for this documentary and clearly a very talented and gifted artist as well.. i think his name is kris bowers.. it would be nice if we had an astro chart for him.. check it out!

james_m wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2024 5:19 pm did you see the repair shop documentary video. that i believe won an oscar for best short documentary just the past day or two.. you can watch this 40 minute video for free on youtube.. one of the producers is also a 34 year old musician who has written the musical score for this documentary and clearly a very talented and gifted artist as well.. i think his name is kris bowers.. it would be nice if we had an astro chart for him.. check it out!

Haven't seen it James, but just looked it up and it sounds right up my alley so I'll def check it out. Thanks for the tip!