In this new appointment of the column "Every soul is a star" we analyze astrologically the birth chart of Franco Battiato (1945-2021) through his biographical elements and the verses of his wisdom poetry.
di Flavio Margotti
review: marco maculotti
βAnd I awoke in the spring.β
βI hope the era of the white boar returns soon.β
Born on 23 March 1945 at 14 pm in Catania, Franco Battiato Γ¨ Leo ascendant Aries: a regal character (generous and ferocious), an active being with respect to life, an impulsiveness and a passionate expansiveness linked to an ego perceived as courageous, self-confident and in one's abilities. Those born under these stars have many radical goals and ambitions: the native presents himself as a sunny, central individual. In fact, the Sun in Aries is exalted, and Leo is the sign associated with the Sun: both fire signs, they conceive a vital personality that faces experiences with will and joy.
This first observation on the general personality gives way, together with other aspects, to denote a fort fiery character. Battiato has in fact a Sun in the XNUMXth house: here the ego tries to confront a philosophical reality, an attempt to be present to existential questions. The most propitious falling house is a said house metacosmion, "between the worlds", associated with the search for inspiration and connection to broader principles, with travelling. The symbol of physical and cultural travel it is in fact central to Battiato's life, "from Venice to Istanbul", from the land of Arabia with the Sufis to the East with its gurus:
βLoad the trains that come from Albania
They bring so many foreigners to Siberia
Ancient Indian merchant carpets
They set up homes between Russia and China
Streets of the East.
Driven by the Turks and the Iraqis
Here Mustafa Mullah Barazani fielded
Eastern roads of immense horizons
Persian-speaking hidden cities
Hence the End.
They tell stories of Princesses
Closed in castles for too much beauty
Gorgeous lotus flower gardens
And Leningrad today
Streets of the East.
It can still happen to you at night
To hear breathless harmonium sounds
And old Kurds who for a thousand years
They offer the breast to Noveneβ¦β
Franco Battiato was a great scholar of religious, philosophical, artistic-literary themes, a musical composer who channeled various knowledge components and cultural references within his songs, as if to create associations of thought which, seen together, form a single sound body and which make one meaning rather than another emerge in the listener according to the evolutionary transition in which he finds himself in that particular temporal juncture.
This unless listening to Battiato has asphalted the barrier of the mind to reach the fuse of illumination: in fact the IX house tells us about inspire, exalt others, guide them through one's knowledge and one's figure perceived as invested with a task, faithful to one's ideas. This is why he is associated on a more immediate level with studies, culture, religion and with confidence in one's own individual position. The recognition of this "mission" makes inspiration arise around him, warms with his own light those we meet in life, and this leads us to connect this fire with the voice, and above all with singing, knowing how to excite others through own soul:
βSinging is Power.
It gets wet like a meadow,
climbs trees,
makes the gyroscope move,
break all deceit,
has the strength of eleven eagles,
makes Pharaoh's heart move."βIn the voice of a singer the sun is reflected, every beloved every lover.β
All this is underlined by the presence in the XNUMXth house as well as the Sun also of a Mercury in Aries, that is, a communication, an intellect, an impulsive, audacious, disruptive ingenuity, which makes itself suitable for making the passion and will of a native so connected to the fire element communicable.
To uninhibit this will even more and to increase this expansive tendency of the ego there is Neptune opposite the Sun: an aspect that makes visionaries. Even social actions are alternated by idealistic aspirations, the person alternates between moments in which he does not feel understood and moments in which he redeems himself by taking charge of the collective shortcomings, becoming the martyr, the homeless, the founder of charities and above all in this case the artist. It can be said that the opposition of these two bodies leads to alternating personal trends with altered visions of reality, a practical surrealism very visible in the person of Battiato.
Furthermore, this Neptune, being in the XNUMXrd house, is connected to an imaginary full of ideas, capable of making itself light and common to many, and to the ability to make laughter and communication profound as well as professional performance. Let us remember that the Battiato man is a master of irony, of humility despite his great experience, and capable of making certain radical observations on life usable even through jokes. Battiato is known for having crossed the "depths" with the lightness of pop sounds and at the same time for the courage to have shown dystopian views with many of his productions and in some cases (typical of artists) to have been able to contain an unaware prophetic finality through his captivating deeds and words: βWinds of prophecy speak of advancing gods.β
Avoiding bringing up useless political discussions (which Battiato himself has always rejected) we refer to a Dostoevskian verse that can instead give rise to a bitter smile: βWe are becoming like insects; like insects". We talk about an innovator who has entered the void of modern times like a beacon among the chasms of the storm to guide the rafts of shipwrecks advancing towards their destiny, dazzled by the menacing flashes of a social storm that is unleashed in the modern world between the most unbridled consumption and impending nihilistic mortification.
In fact we know that Battiato is one that made itself, and appears to us as a vehicle of silent forces unleashed in bourgeois culture through the hazards of a young Sicilian nineteen year old who has just arrived in Milan, leaving like a sea dog the southern oases still mixed with ancient values, reverberations of tradition, to face the waves of the fog of an industrial Italy and at the time an important progressive and youthful experimental bed. He only had money to live on for a month and initially managed to support himself by singing Sicilian songs in a club, making them pass the baroque auditions. This biographical reference can take us back to Neptune, connected to the ability to know how to let oneself go to fate, to melt away in the moment of action.
The very nature of this opposition shows us the complementary duality of this natal chart: a luminous, visible, central, positive and active component typical of the pop singer-songwriter with record successes and the choice of decisive, winning sounds and another component, decidedly more complex, profound and visceral, typical instead of the composer with "chaotic" references and with encrypted contents, more observable in the experimental, prog and electronic period, with transmuting sound elements that he has always integrated even in the most brilliant albums. This interpolation between interior parts and stylistic phases shows us the iconic and historical character beyond ambiguity, a hero who subjugates contemporary myths through a sort of mystical dadaism.
This abysmal component which we have mentioned above, in addition to being conferred by the personal tension given by the opposition of Neptune to the Sun, is more intimately connected to other aspects, first among which is the Luna, which even if it is in Lion (which on a more immediate level should strengthen the fiery element in the native) is found in house XII and moreover conjoined to Pluto, aspects that make it radically less luminous for being in Leo. The Moon in Leo through its sensitivity incites will and personal strength, proudly leading to the affirmation of one's positivity. The mind is actively connected to the person, to his image and to his power, but in the XNUMXth house the conditions for this are not the most favorable. A Moon in the XNUMXth house is a very signifying aspect for the individual.
More than all celestial bodies, the Moon is our most personal part, being our mind and our emotions, the water that composes our own body and allows the experimentation of life and even dreams, and in this house it leads to having a mind disconnected from the ego that satisfies its emotions through something outside the person, which is why this aspect leads a strong dose of dissociationbut conferring simultaneously a high imagination. There is a strong need for solitude, to maintain frequent relationships with one's natural and spontaneous introversion. The house XII like the arcana XII is "the unborn", the dying Osiris whose body parts are scattered in the Nile. Stability and emotional functioning are linked to things that are mostly disconnected from reality: what one seeks is different and often one cannot communicate it, or it is not wants to to communicate.
There may be dissatisfaction experienced in childhood and there is ambiguity and complexity, even disinterest in mother and family. Let us remember that the native soon left the family and therefore from the land of origin, the homeland to which he returned definitively after a consolidated career as if to indicate an intangible and intimate comparison with the homeland or rather with the Moon, an archetype that radically determines the subconscious of the native:
βIn 1998 I returned to Sicily. I must say that this land has literally dragged me, it was right to return with a strong enough experience. Going back to the roots seems commonplace but it's a real thing. The atmosphere of my land determined me making me leave for other nests.β
These dynamics often lead to desolation and to a growing awareness of not being able to truly fill this emotional void. This in very many cases leads the native to deal with spiritual and often esoteric interests because these sensations which torment the native, rather than being rationally deduced from personal psychological events or questions, are felt as βbirthmarksβ, convictions or initiations (even from a philosophical and traditional point of view things are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary). This is because it is a house of water (i.e. of dissolution and reintegration) and the house where the (ascending) personality is blind, like the opposite brow of a Janus, like a perception that originates not from the conscious personality but from factors dislocated from the rationality.
This house is a sort of superego, an antechamber of the personality, and for this reason the solar element is avoided to orbit in themes connected with Saturn (in fact the XII house is called cacodaimon) and not to Jupiter, associating the house to the sign of Pisces (the association of the houses to the corresponding signs is limiting and this house is among those that most demonstrate the limits of these associations): in fact the XII house is connected to solitude, to restriction, to "imprisonment", toincubation in Binah's womb:
"Let's not forget that prisons are interesting too, not when you're forced into them by an institution, but when you decide that one room is the universe for you."
It is as if the mind actually disconnected from the ego to perceive more realities and to dwell in more parallel worlds:
"I hadn't slept for three nights, I was perhaps on an astral journey, but above all in a story as if straddling things that take you back to the future, to the past... I felt like a Greek, a Latin, as if I was going backwards."
βI have arrived at certain things after many years of study and research, I have had experiences. Afterwards, it wasn't easy to reintroduce myself, I had difficulty recognizing human beings while I was on the street, or on the tram... it was strange: I didn't understand if I was crazy or a mystic. But I understood that the journey to this planet is crucial. You have to escape the rules of the universe.β
It must be said that the "abysmal" conditions of this Moon do not end here: as we said before, in fact, the Moon in Leo is conjunct Pluto (not as in Cuccurucu where he had βthe moon and Uranus in the hoursβ) and the obsessive cynical strategist Pluto holds back many of the native's emotions, tends to eradicate many feelings considered useless, to debase what is not needed to achieve one's goals. This positively brings magnetism to the sensitivity of the native (so much so that he manages to decrypt reality in his own way, "physiognomically") and negatively it brings a paradoxical alternation of pessimism and volcanic explosive will.
This transmutation voltage bring the native to "destroy" itself several times through ever more radical changes in order to emerge ever more fortified, independent, free. This aspect brings rebellion and leads to reducing social, political, ethical and family and sentimental values ββ(lunar issues) and making them their own (Plutonian individualism), to destroy them to shape more authentic ones: an evolutionary tension that in the same production is observed through the experimentation of new ideas and the reintegration of past ones, in the name of a primordial nucleus to be extracted once all the shells of the personality have been removed, a want βfinding the dawn in the darkβ e "the shadow of light". Battiato's life testifies better to his own words:
βThe crisis in the human being is decisive, otherwise it is a useless existence. I took refuge in what is called metaphysics because I am one who believes that human beings are immortal.β
"Too bad I can't fly,
but the dark falls in the dark
they taught me to ascend.ββIn obsessive rhythms the key
Of tribal rites
Realms of shamans
And rebellious gypsy players.β
We can also extrapolate from this aspect a great magnetism exerted by the mother figure (when it died Battiato suffered a lot) and then projected into woman figure (see the many collaborations with female singers and artists) with whom he has had ruthless, raw, real, visceral and profound relationships, but without ever harming the person's autonomy. In fact, Battiato has always "plutoned" his love by not declaring public relations and addressing the question of love in a radical, direct way, without moralism, idealism or superficiality:
βTake it easy to talk about love, because loving means expecting nothing back. If one expects one thing it is no longer love. Love is that giving without even realizing it."
"I've had many women in my life,
and in each room I left some of my energy.
How many children of love have I wasted,
enclosed in four walls,
by now they will be trash.
If a child should notice that by chance,
was born among thousands of occasions,
would understand all the dreams that life gives,
with joy he would live all the illusions.ββI make an auto da fe
Of my loves (oh)
A car da fe
I want to practice sex without feelings,
Without feelings."
And finally from Fetus, a work that symbolically connects most of all to this conjunction between the infant Moon and the dying Pluto:
βI wasn't born yet
That I already felt the heart
That my life
He was born without love
I was crawling slowly
Inside the human body
Already for the veins
To my destiny."
Having concluded the discussion on the luminaries, let us now proceed to address the question of the planets, the best located of all, starting from a Venus domiciled (Taurus) standing conjoined to the MC. Here the body connected to social entertainment speaks to us of personal knowledge linked to a great professional development (in addition to his great fame, at the beginning of his career he had decisive knowledge for his debut, knowledge that could be said to be providential) and spiritual (having faced inwardly very high themes through equally worthy thinkers, and the knowledge of masters and true colleagues, right collaborations, see acquaintance with the artist Alejandro Jodorowsky and the philosopher Manlio Sgalambro); moreover great women will meet in their own realization path, collaborations with extraordinary singers such as Giuni Russo, Maria Ilva Biolcati (Milva), Carla Bissi (Alice):
βI limited myself to being a tailor: I took the measurements.β
Being Venus in Taurus, the native will experience a strong connection with the and gentle cosmetics, animals, with the idea of ββa golden bucolic peace, all typical elements of Taurus:
βI am a contemplative by nature, I like to observe nature, feel its rhythms.β
βEvery morning in the place where I live, the already scent of roses with jasmine, for me they are the language of existence, of the primordial.β
A respect for nature that led him to be vegetarian:
βI have been a convinced vegetarian for many years, I don't even remember how many. Even as a child I refused meat, I really didn't like it. [β¦] Over time, being a vegetarian has become an existential necessity. I can no longer feed on something that is close to human sensitivity. And one day now far away I realized that mine was an irreversible choice. [...] Also because I see the results on my health and my mental state. Since I banned meat and fish, I have more beautiful dreams and I know for sure that it depends on the food I eat.β
A Venus in Taurus being in the domicile favors all the arts, and the artistic element in Battiato's natal chart is strengthened by a Mars in Aquarius in the XNUMXth house, which unites art with contracts and with society, and leads the native to the attempt to embody a disruptive and at the same time universal and positive figure, also bringing a content of justice and ethics into his art. This aspect increases the sense of autonomy, especially towards marriage. Also this Mars is connected to the rebellion in the artistic field through experimentation: in fact, Aquarius is the sign most connected with innovation and can be associated with the same scientific progress and electronic operations:
βOnce a concert was ferocious: the audience smashed the chairs, a thousand people remained outside, such power had never been seen, having bought two synthesizers the music was deafening, and people went crazy as if they were freed from demons. β
This Mars in the field of art gives the explosive charge to many of his songs, such as Shock in my town, in whose text Battiato appears dressed as a samurai:
βI heard (I heard, shock in my town) cries of fury
Of generations, with no more past (Velvet Underground)
Of neo-primitives
Rude cybernetics, lords of the rings
Pride of asylums.β
Another aspect very connected to his art is a Saturn with favorable aspects, in Cancer (emotional maturation and mastery of using emotions) in the XI house. With this aspect, the native feels a strong responsibility in interacting with the social reality (defined as the "house of friends") and in embodying a deep, serious, radical and at the same time detached role within it. This aspect leads to the embodiment of the archetype of Saturn in society, which is observable even only by the austere seriousness with which Battiato speaks in interviews, programs, documentaries, and this despite the empathy and uninhibited poses typical of a pop singer β the detachment with his audience despite the compassion or even just some symbolic choices of clothing, the jackets even the raincoat on TV:
"Some people wear sunglasses to have more charisma and symptomatic mystery": in fact, the native concentrates on understanding the historical reality in which he lives and, on the basis of the values ββthat are individually considered more just, tries to correct society itself through his own figure and his own initiatives:
βThe sickle no longer suggests wheat
and wheat, on the other hand, makes you think of money.ββYou build the barricades in the square on behalf of the bourgeoisie,
which creates false myths of progress.ββThe more everything becomes useless
and the more you believe it to be true.
And the day of the end,
you won't need English.ββIn this age of low intelligence and high involution,
some fool still believes we come from monkeys,
and the sun is just a ball of fire,
and they didn't realize that it's a stage of a form of energy,
Adam plucked fruit from the Tree of Knowledge,
then the last apple fell on Newton's head causing a hematoma.β
In this process of personal transvaluation of the world it is the esoteric truth (Saturn) that emerges in one's personal journey. These processes coincide with the independent and autonomous spirituality of the native, observable through Jupiter who, being unaspected, is not held back, increasing his power (negatively it can be unpredictable and ambiguous, but let us remember that Jupiter is the greatest "beneficial"). Furthermore Jupiter is in the II house ("jovial house") which is the house of "possessions" that are not simply material, i.e. what we have, what determines us, what we manage to create, to make beautiful (they are also the talents). Here Jupiter rejoices, because Jupiter is the body associated with the voice, and leads the native to undertake many studies of a philosophical-religious nature. For example, the native can have many books or, why not, even a temple or an altar, because in this house Jupiter has sacerdotal characteristics:
βAlmost wanting to reveal some Ottoman ancestors, Franco Battiato confuses and transforms his Mediterranean nature into that of a priest devoted to esotericism.β
With this aspect there is a strong connection with spirituality, also transmitted through artistic talent. For example, see some titles: The king of the world (inspired by GuΓ©non's Shambala), Center of permanent gravity (inspired by Gurdjieff's "Fourth Way") magic shop (its personal Masks and face of contemporary spiritualism). To finish the discussion, these are the words taken from a documentary from the 80s:
βYou know, musicians are often sensitive perhaps to money, to their own personal history, sometimes to women... but some like this strange survivor of an enchanted lineage have an incurable disease: they are sensitive to themselves, i.e. to the mysterious things of this strange planet.β
