Leonard Cohen, anyone know his time of birth?

[sulis]

I have a horoscope in front of me drawn for 21st September 1934 in Montreal, Canada, at "dawn", for which I took a guess of 6.30am, giving the Sun rising, approximately, Ascendant about 25 to 28 degrees of Virgo?


To any astrologers on this forum, look at the solstice points, such as Mercury solstice point conjunct Moon and opposite the exact Venus Neptune conjunction. Also Pluto solstice point 4 degrees Gemini 15 minutes squaring that Moon Mercury (s.p.) conjunction.

Apologies to non astrologers, I love Leonard's music as much as any of you and am not trying (as if I could if I wanted to) to astroanalyse his genius out of existence. Just trying to understand a particularly beautiful star in the universe using the only thing I am any good at.

[Tony]

I read somewhere, a long time ago, that he was at one point interested in astrology. I don't know if it was true or not. Also some birth certificates have the time of birth, although I am not sure if this is the case in Canada. Maybe you could draw up a chart by rectification but one could not be certain if it was completely accurate.

[sulis]

Tony, thanks. That t square in Leonard's chart seems interesting, ie Venus conjunct Neptune in Virgo opposition Moon conjunct Mercury's solstice point in Pisces, square Pluto's solstice point in 4 degrees Gemini 12 minutes, and Phaethon 9 degrees Gemini, and Chiron in 10 degrees Gemini.

Carl Gustave Jung had Pluto conjunct Phaethon, and Moon, just to put Phaethon in perspective.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... F8&s=books

The above is a link to the book, "Dark Stars", which describes Phaethon and has an ephemeris in the back, Phaethon is the lost binary Sun whose remains are now the asteroid belt.

"I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere"

[tomsakic]

You have date of birth in Prophet of Heart biography, I believe. Anyhow I am sure that authors of that book spent ten pages discussing Leonard's horoscope in light of Jewish tradition (he was born on Friday, what's important, then his name begins with a L, etc.) It sounds little to hagiographical, but it's interesting reading if you're interested in such matters.

[Dem]

sulis:

Please,tell us more of what you see on his horoscope.

Dem[/b]

[Nutsie]

Hi - Good to know that there are others as rapt in Leonard Cohen as I am - not just the artist but the man inside.

In relation to his birth time I have just done a rectification (correction) of Cohen's birth time as part of my Final Project Papers for my Diploma at the Mayo School of astrology in London (by correspondence of course since I live in Australia). You can read it at my website under etherinform.com

I have his time as 6.28 am and its pretty important in regard to his progressing Sun which will be over his IC in September 2020 indicating (along with a number of other significators) that its time he shuffled off to a place of ultimate retreat - which is not necesarily terminal but I guess he will be 86 going on 87 by then.

Interesting how this corrected time (as I mentioned in my article) fits in with Joni Mitchells and Herbie Handcocks natal charts - they must get along so very well as indicated by Cohen's contribution to Handcock's - River: The Joni Letters.

Cheers, Nutsie

[lizzytysh]

This is very interesting reading. I hope all of you will continue with it and that John Etherington will join in, as well.

Welcome to the Forum, Nutsie . Your paper for your Diploma sounds very interesting and it sure seems a good observation about Leonard, Joni, and Herbie.

[John Etherington]

Hi Sulis,

I wrote to Leonard about his birth time, while he was on Mount Baldy. In his reply, he told me that he believes that he was born in the early morning, as his mother always used to say that the doctor was wearing his pyjamas! Earlier, he had told another astrologer that he thinks he was born around daybreak, and based on this, the chart that was used in the Canadian book of charts listed him as being born at 6.45 am (this is also the chart used on AstroDataBank). When I questioned which hospital Leonard was born in, he said "I believe that I was born in the Montreal Homoepathic hospital. I'm not sure if it still exists". I thought that he might be joking, but I found there was indeed such a hospital, and it does no longer exist.

Not wishing to be defeated, I did an imaginative rectification for Leonard using Sabian symbols and astro*carto*graphy. I don't claim any infallibilty with rectification, but I did manage to correctly rectify the charts of Nick Drake and Ted Hughes (whose birth times later came to light). The time I came up with for Leonard was 4.29 am, which gives him an ascendant of 2.17 Virgo, and a midheaven of 25.33 Taurus. Part of my reasoning was that I thought he would more likely have a Taurus midheaven than Gemini (though these days, one may well think the opposite!). Anyway, using my rectified time, I wrote a long article called "Leonard Cohen's Secret Chart" which was published in the first issue of the Centre for the Psychological Astrology's "Apollon" journal in October 1998. While mentioning the assumed house positions, I put my main focus on the planetary apects, and the planets positions by sign. I sent Leonard a draft of the article, and he gave me permission to publish it . The rectified chart works well with transits and progressions, but the 6.45 time seems to work better with solar returns. However, one thing of which we can be sure is that Leonard has Virgo rising. His main astrological significator, the Venus-Neptune conjunction is remarkably tight with the two planets being within 6 minutes of arc.

All good things, John E

P.S. Tom - Please could you let me know the pages in "Prophet of the Heart" where Leonard's chart is discussed? I've read it, but don't remember this, and the book doesn't have an index.

[John Etherington]

A few more thoughts on Leonard's birth-time...because of the slow ascension of the sign of Virgo, rectified birth times for Leonard may show a range of house positions, which will also differ according to the house system used. For instance, my 4.29 am time using Placidus puts Leonard's natal Sun in the second house, while the 6.28/6.30 6.45am times put his Sun in the twelfth. There's an argument for both - one could argue that Leonard as monk was clearly a twelfth house Sun, while Leonard who was "running for the money and the flesh" was more obviously a second house sun. Furthermore, if you take my speculative 4.29 am time, using Robert Hand's favoured whole sign houses, then Leonard's natal Sun would be in the first house. The only way I can reconcile this dilemma is to keep the thought that "spiritual masters" have been said to have two accepted charts, which include a sunrise one.

P.S. I've just noticed that most of this thread is five years old!

[lizzytysh]

That's okay, John... it was revived by Nutsie.