Greta Thunberg, One of the Wise Children
Greta Thunberg — born on the New Moon in Capricorn, and giving the Capricorn look. (Wikicommons)
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.”
On Children– Kahlil Gibran
Sometimes — indeed often — an actor walks on to the world stage who embodies an archetype quite distinctly. In politics, we have several “tricksters” currently prestidigitating. The Queen of England is the archetypal “wise old woman” — a Saturnian archetype.
In CG Jung’s thinking, archetypes are characters, events or ideas that are already within the collective unconscious. These would be, for example, the flood, birth, marriage, the mentor, the trickster.
With her babyface and the clarity of her ideas, eco-activist Greta Thunberg currently embodies the archetype of the “wise child”. There are other recent examples: Malala Yousoufzai, the survivors of the Parkland shooting. Perhaps, wise adolescent might be more accurate.
No birth time. This is a sunrise chart.
So Thunberg’s chart has a signature associated with “wise children” — those who are old before their time. This is the Moon in Capricorn. You often find this in the charts of people who have looked after others when they were children, who have had to shoulder a lot of responsibility.
We don’t have her birth-time, but she was born on the day of the New Moon, and this is part of a strong stellium in Capricorn. The New Moon can give a person a kind of innocence, the kind necessary for courage — and a clarity of vision, but in Capricorn, this is never going to be a foolish innocence, but something wiser and deeper.
Her Sun is in a close conjunction with Chiron — the wounded healer — and without doubt she has taken on an enormous responsibility to try to heal the relationship between humans and Mother Nature.
The other element of the Capricorn stellium is that stubborn Mercury Retrograde. You can guarantee her ideas are her own, reached through her own cogitation — and therefore held most firmly.
Her Chiron and her Sun were right in the crosshairs of the brutal Uranus-Pluto square that dominated the years 2012-2015. She must have experienced a kind of transformative awakening at that time. At the age of 11, in 2012, she “became depressed and stopped speaking for a while”, according to Wikipedia. She’d been hearing about climate change for three years, but no one seemed to be doing anything about it — depressing.
In fact, it was not until 2018 that Thunberg started to take action. This would have been around the time Uranus squared her Mercury Retrograde. By progression, her natal Mercury Rx makes a conjunction with her natal Chiron for the next four years. There’s a voice for the wounded earth.
Her Mars in Scorpio is, at home, as it should be for a fighter. Mars in Scorpio is brave and strong, but does not expend its energy unwisely.
Thunberg’s mission is simple: to make the grown-ups stop climate change. She’s doing this by refusing to carry on as if everything’s normal. I write this just after an Easter weekend that was dreamlike in its awesome beauty, a beauty created by global warming — and London was occupied by grown-up climate change protestors galvanised by Greta.
Greta’s method is also simple: state the obvious: “You are stealing our future”. With Saturn in Gemini, she’s a student of facts, an organiser of information. She’s one of the Aquarians – the generation with Uranus and Neptune in the sign of the water bearer – the true digital natives, of course, but also many of this generation have an easy grasp of science; for them, the idea of disputing climate change is just stupid, especially considering predictions so far have turned out to be horribly accurate. In her case, the goddess of wisdom, Pallas, is also in Aquarius.
This latter is very interesting, as Pallas can be visionary, a Joan of Arc, a Cassandra. She has taken it upon herself to speak for her generation — perfect for Pallas conjunct Uranus. She sees the pattern of the future unfolding. Her Pallas also makes a tight trine to Saturn in Gemini, and squares her Venus in Scorpio. That latter is another warrior aspect — a woman who wears armour.
Her blunt simple, language — Mercury Rx in Cap qq Saturn in Gemini opp Pluto — is really powerful. With the North Node in Gemini, she is fulfilling her destiny as a spokesperson. It’s so interesting to see how important the voice is for Thunberg — from her elective muteness to today, when she is talking to political leaders in Britain. But this language is making the future seem real, it’s bringing the future more sharply into focus. This may be a gift of that Aquarian generation.
It was on 20 August 2018 that Thunberg decided not to go to school, but to protest outside the Swedish parliament instead. Mars Rx was exactly on that Mercury Rx — both at 28° Capricorn. She dug in her heels.
Saturn had just begun his two year and a half year journey through Capricorn — a period of great personal growth for her. Today, Saturn (Father Time) is at 20° Capricorn making a conjunction to the South Node (the Waste Disposer). These two powerful astrological points will be together the whole summer — and they are probably somewhere around Thunberg’s Moon.
And that is her message: time is running out.
I’ve just posted & seen that there’s some kerfuffle about Thunberg’s Aspergers. I think she’s an example of how neurodiversity is essential for communal survival. We need all kinds of people. In this case, being less distracted is helpful. Also, classic Generation Aquarius… unique, uncompromising, and hard for conformists to swallow.
Fabulous piece Cristina.
That level gaze too, it’s quite something.
That composure. She has a sophisticated way of expressing herself for her age. It’s blunt but her conceptualising is very maturely expressed.
She reminds me of the parable about the Emperor’s new clothes.
That Vesta/Ceres opposition has to be significant. Also that Lilith – is it sextile Mercury? (I’m a bit brain foggy.)
Lilith squares Mercury — but you’re right it’s important. It’s in brave Aries, telling the unvarnished truth.
As for the Vesta, it’s making aspects to the nodes. It’s about legacy and inheritance, of course, and being in Libra, about what’s fair.
Its opposition to Ceres jumped out at me — the image I see is of Greta feeding (Ceres) the fire (Vesta.)
Nice one.
Square – of course, thank you.
She was born in 2003?! So young. 🙂 There was a heatwave that year that killed loads of people in France. We had an unusually mild January, spring came early, and it just got warmer from there.
She might have Aspergers or be autistic or whatever, but her people skills are leagues ahead of Theresa May’s. Sometimes I do wonder about these diagnoses. Not saying it’s incorrect, just you know, makes you wonder.
I’m so glad you’ve written about her. I’ve been thinking about her and these children from a spiritual perspective and keeping an eye out for what others are saying. I am curious (NN Gemini) I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong, I’m just listening and thinking. There’s one idea that keeps coming up about the earth’s vibration, Schumann’s Resonance, and how we’re evolving to adapt to it, which is changing our DNA or something. I’m not a scientist and I don’t know how anyone would prove it. But anyway, they’re saying that it’s us adults who are having to adapt, children don’t have to, they’re already born evolved.
I was also thinking about how there are so many different thoughts on what’s happening spiritually, and I thought maybe because it’s going to take all sorts to tackle what’s ahead. We can’t all be the same. So that’s everything from how we’re evolving as a humanity to twin flames and everything in between. They’re all trying to describe what’s happening, if we look beyond the labels. What they’re all talking about is a mass awakening.
So that’s an interesting thought and puts a different perspective on why these children see things in a new way that perhaps some of us saw before but were blocked from taking action. But then we’re in a different time, we have social media now, we are no longer controlled by state propaganda, power is in our hands. (thanks to uranus in Aries)
Her sun and moon conjunct my IC and fall in my 4th house. Awww 🙂 Yes, the uranus/pluto years were brutal. It was a kind of death and reawakening. Her Vesta is exactly conjunct my AC. The activist. 🙂 It’s square her sun and chiron. Her north node is conjunct mine too. I love the way she speaks.
Children and young people used to be referred to as ‘tomorrow’s leaders’, but now, with change having accelerated so much, there’s no time, they are leaders now. It’s our job as adults to protect them. It’s incredibly important to protect them from attacks from the extreme far right who don’t want change, who deny climate change, who can’t see beyond the end of their nose. I wasn’t surprised Theresa May wasn’t invited to today’s talks, she is extreme far right and hateful.
Thanks, Christina! Great post. 🙂
“her people skills are leagues ahead of Theresa May’s” — indeed, of almost all U.S. politicians as well, except Alexandria Ocasio Cortes and maybe Bernie Sanders…
I got a questionnaire from the Democratic National Party in the mail. They asked, “which of these individual subjects is most important to you?” I nearly tore it up on the spot. I’ve been waiting to calm down enough to articulate the idea that THIS IS THE PROBLEM: IT’S ALL ONE PROBLEM!!!!! It’s not possible to address healthcare, education, or living wages without dealing with the corporate/1% ethos that drives the mad rate of this climate change. Choosing between those 4 issues is a false choice. They are all one issue: do we live and make a bearable future, or do we collude in our total destruction as a society and, maybe, as a species?
It’s not a choice between rich and poor. The rich can’t survive the world they’re creating either. It’s simply a choice between worldwide change or worldwide genocide.
Of course, it’s easy to die. It’s hard to change. I get that. But really… /sigh/
What do you think of Elizabeth Warren?
There was a time she was a great hope. A Sanders/Warren ticket was my highest hope in the last elections. However, during the DNC shenanigans, she suddenly went quiet for a few weeks, and when she came back on the air, she had shifted her tune about corporate status and foreign wars (two things Rodham Clinton was very much on the wrong side of history with.) It wasn’t a total about-face, but Warren’s messaging was so larded with doublespeak and caginess, where her “signature tune” had formerly been straight-up accuracy and precision, I faded on her. She’s clearly not trustworthy and is probably bought, and we can’t afford those kind of mistakes any more.
In my VERY humble opinion 😉
Yes that Ceres in Aries is perfect – eco warrior. Defending the earth and bravely taking on power (Pluto) and greed ( Jupiter) In aspect with the Sun – Ceres is definitely part of her calling
I’m a capricorn born on the new moon too. This is impressive.
Following on from a harrowing post about Capricorn yesterday (the one about a flat share, and a Capricorn being turned down for being a Capricorn) what a nice reminder of all the things we love about Capricorn. That ability to be a voice crying in the wilderness, the determined goat who is able and willing to climb that tricky mountain and share a singular view from the top.
and able to take a position of leadership when called.
I’ve always thought The Lorax was a Capricorn. He is grouchy and pissed off for a very good reason and he speaks for the trees
Really a lovely piece.Hoped you had not stopped
Yourself…
Greta’s mother gave up her opera career( that voice!) because she did not want to fly anymore.
Climate Changes…
Thank You, Christina!
Aquarius Stellium
We just found on this past weekend what Uranus in Taurus is bringing. Rebellion against climate change.
Have to say that it’s been a classic symbolism of Taurus. Protestors FIXING themselves with glue to each other (possessive) and to the surroundings. “We will not be moved”. No aggressive actions or fighting like an Aries would, just passive-aggressive getting in the way!
(On a second positive note, I read that surgeons are going to be implanting hearing aids into the skulls of profoundly deaf children – revolutionary technology helping the ears which are a taurus body part)
Like many visionaries she is able to see beyond the conditioning of the times. She has separated herself from the mass mind in her youth, and how is that autistic? I cringe at psychological labels used to explain someone who can stand outside the twisted norm and articulate patterns that the world at large can’t see? Hers is a saintly cause, not known to the lingo of psychological labels. Although her chart is a convincing argument for her precocious understanding of a world threat, she has something extra. Many children share her chart, yet she is the one who has spoken and acted. I think she is a saint, and beyond human means of measure.
The other visionary with a Pallas-Uranus conjunction in Aquarius? Joan of Arc.
Thank you for this. She is so impressive and somehow ‘otherworldly’. That fish’s tail on the Goat of Capricorn is dipping into the oceans of the world’s troubled unconscious. And I was wondering how her chart might connect with Taurean David Attenborough’s planets? Youth and Old Age both speaking for the Earth. Makes all the squabbling about Brexit etc etc look so very pitiful. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns!
Her Sun exactly antiscion Pluto in Sag contra antiscion Saturn in Gemini , She feels it her mission
to prevent {fear factor of Saturn in mutable gemini …prevent change,Pluto in Sag feeling a divine right in trying to transform the change}She is probably projecting issues to do with her parents on climate change the determined look in her eyes is showing a wounding has already taken place in her early years.
She has the asteroid Child at Capricorn 13.24
Capricorn stellium and Neptune/Jupiter for brainwash into climate hoax religion, by the bankers who are in deep need of a financial fix for derivitives. Climate credits would be traded on Wall St.
How stupid are the left to play these dangerous games? pretty darn stupid Virginia.
How many readers of this post could get behind a birth time that would assign her a Pisces Ascendant? Reason I volunteer this is two items, her full cheeks and her large, protruding eyes with the convex underside.
Well, it would put tr.Jupiter (ruling planet) on her MC — and there’s got to be something like that going on.
Here’s another one of the wise children — https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/autumn-peltier-un-water-activist-united-nations-1.4584871?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar
Wouldn’t she have been 9 in 2012? My son was born a month after Greta and in 2013 lost both his paternal grandparents in 3 months. The Uranus Pluto square caught my eye. It was certainly the first big family moment in his life.
@Julie — yes, to me it’s a particularly interesting cohort. My daughter was born in 2003 also and would be in the same school year as Greta. There have been an unusual number of family tragedies, especially early on. For example, Madeleine McCann was born in May that year.