October 31, 2005
ROSA PARKS: In Memoriam
What Gave Her the Courage?

Yesterday and today Rosa Parks lay in the Capitol Rotunda to honor her role as the "mother of the Civil Rights Movement". On December 1, 1955, in segregated Montgomery, Alabama, she refused to relinquish her seat in the bus to a white man. This was an act of defiance.

Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1914 in Tuskegee, Alabama (time unknown) (view chart). Her chart is predominantly "Aquarian".

Rosa Parks had five planets in AQUARIUS: the SUN, MERCURY, VENUS, JUPITER and URANUS. Seven out of ten of her planets were in AIR, 5 in Aquarius plus SATURN and PLUTO. AQUARIUS is a FIXED AIR sign, the fixity showing determination and the air element showing her orientation towards social life and communication.

Her gentle and courteous SUN-VENUS conjunction in positive aspect to stabilizing SATURN showed her steadfastness. Her MERCURY in AQUARIUS in positive aspect to PLUTO showed the capacity to transform her ideas. Her break-through behavior on December 15, 1955, showed the capacity to take sudden (URANUS) action based on her beliefs (JUPITER) in the arena of broad social relations (AQUARIUS).

In December of 1955, Rosa Parks was experiencing her URANUS-URANUS opposition. That's the period of time in all of our lives, around the age of forty, when we feel like making a change, often a drastic one. She had just "had it" with living in a segregated society where a tired seamstress had to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. And as a FIXED sign person, she took action by just staying put, in her seat.

It is fifty-five years now since Rosa Parks act of courage and defiance. Our nation has come a long way towards greater social justice, but we still have a long way to go, especially as our population becomes increasingly diverse.

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