Newsmakers

Chandra Ann Levy

Smart, outgoing, and on the fast track to success, Chandra Levy, the beautiful 24 year-old brunette, was a woman who had it made. Her goal? Land a position with the FBI. She'd trained for it. Pined for it. In high school, Chandra was in the explorer program sponsored by the Modesto Police Department. She was street-wise from her "cop" training; careful; circumspect and guarded with strangers. This is the girl who wouldn't let her landlord into her D.C. apartment when he had papers for her to sign. Graphic courtesy of Modesto Bee, Chandra's hometown Newspaper. -- July 18, 2001, Starcats.

To Protect & To Serve:

Pisces Moon conjunct Mars: 7th house.

Interesting biographical patterns: Mars is the traditional ruler of Scorpio, and one of the associations is with the medical profession. The sign on the cusp of Chandra's 4th house (the father) is Scorpio. Neptune at 15 Sagittarius (retrograde) is also posited in the 4th house. Chandra's father is a doctor (Mars), specifically an oncologist (a Cancer specialist), with Neptune (Chemotherapy medications) in square to Chandra's natal Moon (13 Pisces/Neptune ruler) and Mars.
Chandra's 10th house cusp, 15 Taurus, is the house associated with the mother (7th house from the 4th house = the father's wife). Chandra's natal Venus (11 Aries retrograde) in the 8th house shows a dynamic mother who "backs off" (retrograde Venus) and defers to her husband. Venus' opposition to Chandra's natal Pluto (retrograde) indicates a parental relationship where, perhaps, both husband and wife "backed off" rather than openly confront issues of power.
It would appear that Chandra's natal Moon/Mars in Pisces in her 7th house of relationships in square to idealizing Neptune is hooked into who she perceived may have ultimately weilded the power. Chandra wanted to "protect and serve." No one with strong Pisces in the natal chart can escape the necessity for grappling with service equals power. How one serves and how one negotiates power is caught up with the victim-artist-savior underpinnings of Neptune whose clarion call is "To be or not to be." While suicide (Hamlet's extreme consideration), the ultimate "conscious choice not be be," is the extreme manifestation of Neptunian dissolution (as is alcoholism/Dionysian frenzy), Chandra's Neptune-Moon-Mars becomes a double-edged sword: To protect and serve in hopes of being protected and served. The downside of an unintegrated Pisces/Virgo axis can turn into service at a price. That is, one "serves" in hopes that the one being served will become savior or redeemer.
Chandra has Leo rising with an Aries Sun as the Ascendant ruler. She is Queen, and Queens demand loyalty from their subjects. However, 22° Leo is a critical degree of the sign.¹
Fast-forward to May 1, 2001, the day D.C. police disclosed the hour of Chandra's last computer transaction, the transiting Moon had conjoined her natal Ascendant and reached 23 degrees Leo in opposition to disruptive, shocking Uranus at 24 Aquarius (retrograde) in her 7th house of "the other." Since aspects tend to manifest before it is exact, the mystery remains: what happened? What decision did Chandra take that led her to not putting her best interest forward? We will explore those possibilities in subsequent articles.

The Key To Her Chart Is the Yod
Moon sextile Mercury in quincunx to Pluto
The YOD is unusual. At the midpoint between the Moon-Mercury sextile is Venus retrograde in the 8th house of trauma. Venus' opposition to Pluto, quincunxed by Moon-Mercury, creates a boomerang where transit hits to Moon and Mercury set off the YOD then "boomerang" back and forth between Pluto and Venus. A quincunx indicates that something is out of joint (Moon/Mercury) and that constant adjustment is necessary if one is not to fall hopelessly on one side of the quincunx or the other. Usually the person tries working out the quincunx through the sextile foregoing the real issue: the release planet of the YOD.

In this case, it is Chandra's Pluto in Libra in her second house of self-esteem.

The dispositors of the YOD draw together cores issues in Chandra's identity quest:

Aries Venus is disposited by Pisces Mars
Libra Pluto is disposited by Aries Venus.
Taurus Mercury is disposited by Aries Venus
Pisces Mars (and Moon) is disposited by Sagittarius Neptune [in tense square to Moon and Mars].
Sagittarius Neptune² is disposited by Libra Pluto.

Venus opposite Pluto, or the myth of Persephone's abduction by Pluto is this:

Chandra's Neptune paints it like this:

Mercury (13 Taurus) squares Chandra's 12th house Saturn (9 Leo). Her Aries Sun ruled by Mars in Pisces is dispositor of Leo Saturn. What is not conscious: "Daddy's girl." Both Chandra's Sun and Saturn are in Yang signs: Aries/Leo. Mars in in a Yin sign: Pisces. Connecting Neptune in Yang Sagittarius to Yin Mars, the dispositor pattern is this: Neptune to Mars; Mars to Sun; and Sun to Saturn. Houses 4 (father) 7 ("the other") and 12 (the unconsicous). The connections between the aforementioned rulerships and Chandra's YOD paint the portrait of a woman, age 24, who had not yet learned to work with the dynamic, challenging energy patterns of her natal chart. If Chandra had survived to her first Saturn Return at age 29 1/2, she would have had a chance to grapple with these issues. Chandra, at that time, would have confronted the necessity to make conscious her own driving ambition with the possibility of learning to separate that from the need to let "the other" (older man) "be" Saturn for her.

July 18-19, 2001, Starcats.

Footnotes

¹ Tony Louis in his extraordinary "Horary Astrology Plain & Simple," [Llwellyn Books, 1998] has this to say about 22 degrees Leo:

"22° Leo is apparently a malefic dgree, not a fixed star, which signifies putting one's worst foot forward and being unable to work in one's own best interest. Since most of us do this quite well without celestial assistance, I question whether a degree of the zodiac needs to be set aside for this purpose. On the other hand, my natal Mercury is near this degree and my wife tells me I have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth, so maybe there is something to it." [pg. 164.]

[Louis also states in "About the Author," that his natal Sun, 11 Virgo, conjoins a traditional astrological degree. My natal Ascendant is 11 Virgo. -- Starcats.]

² Liz Smith

"THE N.Y.C.-BASED astrologer Shelley Ackerman has this to tell us about the missing Washington intern Chandra Levy.
"Based on Chandra's horoscope (she was born April 14, 1977, at 1:46 p.m. in Cleveland), there are indications of someone who plays with fire and loses." Ackerman claims Chandra's chart bears an eerie resemblance to that of Marilyn Monroe, suggesting involvement with powerful, unavailable men as well as a likelihood of foul play. Both women had Leo rising, Venus in Aries and Mars in Pisces."
Ackerman continues: "I hope I'm wrong, but the planetary placements involved indicate a fatal misplaced trust, disappearing, possible poisoning and drowning. I would direct the investigators to the Atlantic Ocean or the Potomac River."
She adds that Congressman Gary Condit's chart indicates someone who will eventually break down and reveal what he knows. "The stress to his chart will not let up."
Ackerman is teaching this summer at Skidmore College and the International Women's Writer's Guild.
SPEAKING OF Rep. Condit, the other day the Washington Post's excellent Lloyd Grove showed us exactly who should play him in the coming inevitable movie. He suggests the actor William H. Macy. And boy, oh boy, do these two ever look alike? (A marvelous actor Mr. Macy; remember him in the movie hit "Fargo"?)
Reporter Grove delved further into Condit's movie world. He reminds us that the California Congressman once appeared in a fight scene in a pizza parlor in the B cult movie "Return of the Killer Tomatoes." He was a pal of the producer, Steve Peace.

Thanks to Karen McCauley for forwarding Liz Smith's column to me.