An inspirational tale as an antidote to complaining about personal woes comes from Melanie Reid, a Times columnist who has been tetraplegic since a riding accident in 2010. She writes with humour and angst about the travails of a seriously disabled life. This week she talks about Martha Lane Fox, entrepreneur founder of the website Last Minute during the 2000s dotcom boom and now a digital expert in the House of Lords. She had a car accident in Morocco in 2004 in which she broke 28 bones, had a stroke and spent almost two years in hospital, enduring 47 operations suffering multiple orthopaedic and neurological trauma.
Despite continued health crises and constant pain, she pushed herself to walk again, using poles. Recently she walked up Ben Nevis, the last of a personal three peaks challenge (after Snowdon and Scafell Pike) to raise money for four after-trauma charities. Her mother who made it halfway up, says she has no idea where her daughter gets her unbelievable drive from.
Melanie Reid, 13 April 1957, no birth time, is a Sun Venus in Aries in a determined trine to Pluto in Leo; with Saturn in Sagittarius. Planets in all three Fire signs will undoubtedly help to give her optimism even in the face of extreme difficulty. Her Saturn is opposition Mars which is accident prone and her Solar Arc Sun Venus were colliding with that opposition when she had her accident.
Martha Lane Fox, 10 February 1973, is a Sun Aquarius in an inventive trine to Uranus widely sextile Mars in Sagittarius. With an Air Grand Trine of Pluto trine Saturn trine Venus, formed into a Kite by Saturn opposition Neptune – making Neptune the driving planet. Her Mars is on the opposite side of the zodiac to her Saturn, too wide to be an opposition but hints of the same. Her Mars is also in an out of element square to her Mars which will give her do-or-die- determination.
Around the time of her accident a tr Mars Saturn conjunction was square her Pluto; but what was most noticeably was tr Uranus square her leading-planet Neptune – and tr Neptune heading to conjunct her Sun in the aftermath.
Intriguing that her Neptune is so strong.
From a previous post July 9 2022 on Neptune’s extraordinary powers:
Ranulph Fiennes, the transglobe explorer accomplished superhuman feats in the coldest and highest regions of the earth; and after a heart attack in his late fifties ran seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. He’s a fascinating example of magical Neptune at work, not normally a planet associated with extreme endurance, but it is frequently highlighted in the charts of top level athletes who can cope with punishing training schedules.
In a new film on his life Explorer, he talks of ‘inviting the ghosts’ of his father and grandfather into his head whenever he’s at a difficult spot. ‘Those times that I really wanted to give up, I [chose not to] because of the thought of shaming my father and grandfather. I would imagine them walking beside me, particularly when I had bad frostbite and was on my own.’
What is extraordinary (or maybe not) is he never knew his father who died four months before he was born, from wounds inflicted by a mine in Italy during World War 11; or his grandfather who died in the Battle of Arras in 1917. Yet the image of them lives in his head as his guiding star.
He was born 7 March 1944 12.30pm Windsor, and has a 10th house Pisces Sun like other explorers, Sir Richard Burton, David Livingstone and Amerigo Vespucci. His Sun is square a 12th house Mars Saturn in Gemini which would help with grit, courage, military discipline and the ability to withstand deprivation. He has a confident Jupiter Moon in Leo in his 3rd which would also help in keeping his enthusiasm up; and his Pluto is exactly conjunct a ‘leadership’ North Node.
But what has always intrigued me is his 4th house Neptune which is sextile Pluto North Node and trine Uranus. Many years ago I interviewed him for a media piece and explained the standard meanings of Neptune in the 4th to which he took great exception. As he showed me out he said it was the one thing that was absolutely wrong so it always stuck in my head. A friend who had served with him in the army later told me Ranulph could never cope with the thought of his father dying in hospital from wounds. He wanted a father who had a glorious battlefield death.
His father the war hero, was based on fact but in his absence became embellished with Neptune’s striving for the divine ideal into a mythical almost supernatural presence in his life.
I connected this to a story about Black Elk, the Lakota medicine man, who fought at Little Bighorn and survived the Wounded Knee Massacre, who was a Sun Sagittarius trine Neptune, 1 Dec 1863. During an illness aged nine he had a vision in which he was visited by Thunder Beings, figures like wise grandfathers, which marked him out as a shaman and healer. He said when he rode into battle in later years he kept his vision in his mind and emerged unscathed. The one time he let his vision slip a bullet got him in the shoulder.
Neptune, when it isn’t dissolving into a puddle of indecision, drowning its sorrows in the bottom of a bottle or running a con, can create a fantasy of such potency it makes the impossible possible (sometimes).
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” T.E. Lawrence – had Neptune Pluto in the 10th.
Dreamers of the day like Barack Obama have Neptune on the point of a T Square.
Major film stars often have marked Neptune – both Anthony Hopkins and Sean Connery have/had it in the 8th. Projecting a powerful aura.
Neptune is more kaleidoscopic and multi-faceted than most planets in its range of outcomes reflecting its dream spinner, shape-shifter energy.
The post Martha Lane Fox – Neptune’s superpower drive first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
