Ben Franklin Boldly Lived His Chart

Ok I promised I would look at Ben Franklin’s chart and, as usual, Ben does not disappoint. In fact, his chart is so easy it explains itself! Look at his Aries ascendant with Neptune in the first – Aries, the sign of the leader combined with Neptune the dreamer. How many of Ben’s dreams that he used his Aries leadership energy to invent do we still use? The Franklin Stove, the postal service, bifocals and the lightening rod, to name a few.


More fascinating is his second house. He has Saturn, the Part of Fortune and his South Node in Taurus all in the second house, the house of self worth and possessions. (Taurus vibrates to the second house – so this is a double whammy of Taurian power here.) The first thing that jumps out is that Ben had very good karma in that area from his past lives. Taurus South Node – this is someone who dealt with money and goods in his past life- and he did a good, honest job of it because he was able to retire from his printing job at thirty years old and live quite well. The Part of Fortune is where we receive benefit from others. It is clear that he was able to receive a great deal of good will from others from the treatment he gave them in prior lives.

When you add the task master Saturn in Taurus to the second house you see someone who applies the stubbornness of Taurus and the methodical thinking of Saturn to amass a nice fortune for himself and his family.

Ah speaking of family! Look at this 5th house, the house of creativity and the ultimate creative act, having children. We see the trickster Uranus there – the one sudden change and just a deep level of quirkiness. We know that Franklin blamed himself his entire life for the loss of his young daughter from small pox because he didn’t give her the new vaccine. In addition, his son was illegitimate although raised by his wife as her own. His son became governor of the State of New Jersey and remained loyal to the Crown. The kicker here is that Franklin and his son suddenly and irrevocably split at the beginning of the Revolutionary war yet, Franklin would raise his son’s son – who by the way was also illegitimate.

Franklin was estranged from his own father and ran away from the printing shop of his older brother. Did I say Uranus makes things quirky?

I have to smile when I see his Sun in Capricorn in the 10th house – the house of career status and the structures that keep society whole – and his Venus also Capricorn 10 but sitting right on the Mid Heaven. The Mid Heaven is the vibration for our career. Can you see how it was easy for Ben to charm the pants (perhaps literally) off of French society as he tried to get them to side with the Colonies? He imported coon skin hats – something he never wore back home – but which furthered the image of the wild Colonist which the French just loved. He was the toast of France. (Much to the chagrin of the dour John Adams who despised Franklin. Ut oh. I see a synastry chart of these two in my near future.)

Why did he spend so much time overseas? Between London, Paris and Amsterdam, Franklin spent more than thirty years in Europe. Take a look at his 9th house, the house of seeking beyond our borders – of seeking and learning the ways of other cultures and other religions to find our own truth. He has Mars in its ruling sign of Aries, Pallas Athena, the warrior/healing goddess and Vesta, the goddess of the burning heart’s desire also in Aries in the 9th. If this was a chart of someone who didn’t have the Taurus and Pisces influences his does, we could be seeing the chart of an invading military authority. Franklin is more nuanced that that. Yes it was a time of war and he was there doing the bidding of country at war but he used the more placid aspects of his chart to finesse out of these countries what was needed for battle.

He also has Chiron, the sacred wound indicator in the 9th. He was born with a fear of not knowing he could connect to the sacred, or would not find his own truth. He didn’t shirk from this fear however. I believe his alms giving to different religions was really part of his search.

His wife, by the way, never left America and spent most of their marriage managing his affairs here as he charmed his way through Europe. In fact, he didn’t even return when he was told she was sick and then died. Remember the shadow of Aquarius (which is in his 5th) is the inability to get close to people – a very impersonal touch. The 5th vibrates to creativity and also has an influence in finding marriage partners. His marriage was tinged with co-dependence. He has Juno, the goddess consort in Libra in the 7th, the house of partnership. Libra rules his 7th house. Libra is all about the other person. Someone embodying the positive effects of Libra would be very caring toward the partner. With his Jupiter opposite dreamy Neptune – he was off shooting the Moon and having quite the co-dependent relationship with Debra, who remained behind, raising the kids and keeping the house.

See his Moon in Pisces in the 11th house? He was using this very spiritual Moon in the house of group friendship and group activities that help the public good – to work his Venus charm to forge a new nation! His Moon also explains another aspect of his personality. Franklin was a vegetarian who believed in reincarnation who gave money to pretty much every church in the Philadelphia area. While he was not a person who believed in organized religions, he had a strong Piscean belief that we all must find a connection to the universal god-source. At his funeral, representatives from every church marched in the procession.

I don’t think there is much doubt that Franklin embodied and lived his North Node in Scorpio in the 8th house – that is the sign and the house of personal power and transformation. His North Node is conjunct the goddess asteroid Ceres (which is now considered a mini-planet). Ceres was the Roman name for what we call Mother Nature and was the ultimate nurturer. By using his personal power and transforming himself from printer to inventor to diplomat to statesman, Franklin nurtured an imprinted a new nation as no other “Founding Father” did.

Next time, Thomas Jefferson. In this day of hatred, religious intolerance and a total lack of knowledge by some of our Constitution and the ideals of those “Founding Fathers”, it is important to look at this Father who kept a Koran in his home and held an Iftar in the White House.