Elizabeth Holmes: South Node conjunct Uranus
Re-published article with extra commentary
I have decided to republish some birth chart analyses that originally appeared on my website plutoastrology.net. I had a period when I published a lot of chart analyses, some of them quite advanced. I am going to republish them here roughly in the same order I first wrote them. You will notice that the first one I wrotes were also the simplest, while the latter ones (Barack Obama and J. K. Rowling in particular) were longer, more technical and more detailed. The analysis of Elizabeth Holmes, the very first one which is attached to this article, is so simple it merely analyzes the south node by sign and still manages to glean very significant information out of that.
As I re-read some of my old writings, I realize that some of it was never very accessible to people who haven’t studied EA in general or Michael De Baker’s EA School Online modules in particular. I always want my presentations to be pedagogical and personal, but I am painfully aware that I don’t always reach that goal. Nevertheless, I think that if you read the analyses in the order I will publish them here, you will get an introduction to this interpretative paradigm that is as good as any.
Originally published on January 4th, 2022
Elizabeth Holmes, founder of biotech company Theranos which had promised a revolution in blood-testing technology, was found guilty today of several cases of fraud. She had been described as the next Steve Jobs and the expectations placed on her company were enormous. Today it has collapsed like a house of cards - behind the big words there was nothing of substance to deliver.
I became curious about her life, especially after I read the following paragraph from an article in the Guardian:
Holmes had set her sights on becoming an inventor at an early age. She hoped to emulate her great-great-great-grandfather, who co-founded Fleischmann’s Yeast, which revolutionised the breadmaking industry in the late 1800s. At the age of nine, she told her father that what she “really want[s] out of life is to discover something new, something that mankind didn’t know was possible to do”.
As an evolutionary astrologer, what I ask myself is this - why was she so certain of what she wanted to do with her life from such a young age? No doubt there are things in her current life that have influenced her, but could it also be that she has had similar ideas in past lives which she picked up yet again in the current life?
Sometimes when this is the case, it can be seen in planetary conjunctions to the south node of the Moon. Such a planet represents something which have had a great influence on past lives and which the person will have a hard time freeing themselves from in the current life. And since it is the south node we are talking about, the planet represents a dynamic that has reached the end of the road; nothing wrong with wanting to become an inventor, but in this case it was a dynamic which no longer served her, something that becomes a hindrance to evolution rather than a way forward.
I decided to check. I don't know which time she was born, so we don't know her house positions, but in this case that is not really a problem.
With the birth time set to 12PM, her Uranus is little more than one degree from the south node.* Even if she was born 12 hours before or after this, Uranus only moves a couple of minutes in either direction. Both Uranus and the south node are located in the sign of Sagittarius, which can signify optimism, expansive visions, but also, since we are talking about the south node, a person who has problems with truth and truthfulness.
Uranus of course is the radical innovator who wants to break all boundaries and create something radically new, but in this case it just falls flat.
Who knows why Holmes had these strong attachments to becoming an inventor - perhaps she really was a brilliant scientist in a number of past lives? Perhaps the inventor's path really did help her soul to evolve and grow for many incarnations? Whatever the case, it seems that she simply had to try one more time and go as far as she could, even while bending the truth, before reality caught up with her. It is an example of what Jeffrey Green termed cataclysmic evolution - you resist change with all your might until circumstances force it upon you.
You can see for yourself in this video how Holmes' Sagittarian rhetoric changed over time.
*I am using the true nodes here - if you prefer to use the mean nodes, Uranus is exactly conjunct the south node, not just to the degree but to the minute!
Well, that was short, wasn’t it? Don’t worry, the coming articles will have more meat on them. Let me just add a couple of observations on Holmes’s chart:
I don’t usually analyze charts by sign placements alone, but it seems accurate as far as it goes. The Sun in Aquarius (“What I really want out of life is to discover something new”) along with four placements in Capricorn can easily point to an entrepreneur. The Moon in Pisces fits well with the way she wanted to present herself and her enterprise - as a selfless, inspiring, humanitarian person simply wanting to help people. Alas, that same Moon was acting in service to her South Node conjunct Uranus in Sagittarius: A “genius” glossing over all facts, actively working to cover up the truth.
Particularly striking is Saturn in Scorpio, because Saturn is that structuring force within consciousness that seeks to establish something in the world. The company she established was working to extract bodily fluids (Scorpio) in the form of blood (conjunct Mars). Such a conjunction in Scorpio can of course also point to a strong, persistent determination in general.
The mesmerizing effect she had on her audience would not have been the same without the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction in Capricorn. Everyone wanted to believe in her: “Wow, she is the youngest self-made female billionaire ever, she is going to be the next Steve Jobs!” And please note: This conjunction is in sextile with the “selfless, inspiring” Moon in Pisces that we already touched upon. The three planets almost act as a single unit, the Pisces Moon being fuelled by grandiose Jupiter and dreamy Neptune. All the worse, then, when her image in the public eye began to change: the Moon in Pisces now turns into an image of a lost person, fuelled by deception and lies.
That is enough for Elizabeth Holmes. In the other birth charts, you will see more in-depth analyses including house placements.