When something remarkable happens, the kind of thing everybody talks about, there's a 99% chance that the asteroids have something to say about it too. The big slap during this year's Oscars is a classic.
On March 27th 2022, around 10 PM local time (Los Angeles, USA) American actor Will Smith slapped his colleague Chris
Rock in the face after Rock made a joke about the hairstyle of Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith's wife. Live on tv during the Oscars ceremony.
After the incident, astrologers immediately checked Will Smith's birthchart and they pointed to the difficult transits he's going through. Excellent, but it's not the whole story. How would an asteroid detective handle this case? Activate your inner Sherlock.
After the incident, astrologers immediately checked Will Smith's birthchart and they pointed to the difficult transits he's going through. Excellent, but it's not the whole story. How would an asteroid detective handle this case? Activate your inner Sherlock.
Elementary stuff
We can start by going through the list of thousands of named
asteroids, the asteroid phone-book so to speak. The clues we're looking for are asteroid names that are (somewhat) similar or related to keywords describing the event.
The dramatis personae:
Will Smith, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett, Denzel Washington.
The keywords:
Oscar, joke, hair, bald, alopecia, GI Jane, slap, punch, devil, Dolby (name of the theatre).
Will Smith, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett, Denzel Washington.
The keywords:
Oscar, joke, hair, bald, alopecia, GI Jane, slap, punch, devil, Dolby (name of the theatre).
Oskar = Oscar
Let's start with asteroids that have Oscar in their name. We don't want to be too picky, because altho Oskar isn't exactly the same as Oscar, it turns out that the Universe doesn't care about perfect English spelling. Phonetic or partial name resemblance or association is good enough for asteroids to start resonating. There are only a few asteroids with Oscar in their name:
750 Oskar (A913 HF) was discovered on 28-4-1913 by J. Palisa in Vienna.
105222 Oscarsaa (2000 OS69) was discovered on 31-7-2000 by M. W. Buie at Cerro Tololo. It is named after Oscar Miguel Saa Martinez (1942-2013) who managed telescope operations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory from 1982 to 2010, and kindly mentored generations of observatory staff and astronomers.
12258 Oscarwilde (1989 GN4) was discovered on 3-4-1989 by E. W. Elst at the European Southern Observatory. It is named after the Anglo-Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). According to the JPL Small-Body database, he will always be remembered for his line "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".
59389 Oskarvonmiller (1999 FF21) was discovered on 24-3-1999 by L. Kornov and J. T'oth at Modra. Oskar von Miller (1855-1934) was a German engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum München. He managed and built the then-largest high pressure hydroelectric power station and proposed the world's first projection planetarium.
Right away we notice two interesting oppositions: Oscar Wilde opposite Mars (aggression, slap) and Oscar Saa opposite Mercury (newsworthy, but also conflict or negativity). This is looking good.
'Wild' Wil Smither
Let's move on to Will Smith. There are some actors who've had an asteroid named after them, like Meryl Streep. Will Smith is not one of them. That's why we have to look for names resembling Will or Smith.
Elementary, dear Watson! Wil and Smither conjunct Oskar, Oscar Wilde trining that obvious hotspot, and Smith trine Oskar von Miller. Makes you wonder why people are sceptical about astrology.
There are many asteroids named after people with surname Smith. No need to check them, as we already have the exact match Smith with a nice trine to Oskar von Miller. But it won't hurt to include a few extra names that resemble Will. While this isn't exact science, it seems obvious that besides Wil, we can include Wilke, because of the sextiles to both Oscar Wilde and Wil/Smither, and Wiles for the square to Oscar Wilde. A bit less obvious is Wild (what's in a name, see Oscar Wilde) and perhaps even Wilber, based on name similarity only. In this first phase we try to find everything this chart has to offer. If certain asteroids turn out to be unimportant, like perhaps Wilber, they can always be removed.
Christian Rock 'n Roll
OK, what about Chris Rock? There are lots of asteroid names starting with 'Chris'. To keep it simple, we'll only include Chris-asteroids that are actually first names. These could be either feminine or masculine. Again, as with spelling, the Universe doesn't care about getting every detail right. Association is the name of this game.
We get Christine square Mars (aggression), Christa (nothing yet), Christophe (nothing yet), Christoffel (opposite Center of Galaxy), Chrismith (combination of Chris and Smith, also quintile Wiles) Christy (sextile Oskar and quintile Mercury) and Christian (trine Wild).
Rock-asteroids turn out to be more compelling. We get Roche (conjunct Sun), Roka (square Venus/Saturn and trine Jupiter), Rockholt (exactly conjunct Mercury), Rock 'n Roll (trine Wild and sextile Chrismith), Rock Chic (sextile Mercury/Rockholt, trine Oscar Saa and square Wild) and Rock no War (conjunct Mars, opposite Oscar Wilde, sextile Wil/Smither/Oskar, trine Wilke, square Wiles).
Here's some detail: Christian and Rock 'n Roll almost conjunct (1°10').
Jana 'Balduinus' Pinkham
Yes, the picture is getting a bit crowded. It's almost time to prune these results but we're not done yet. Jada Pinkett Smith and Denzel Washington were also part of the story. And what about the joke that angered Will Smith? It was about baldness (caused by alopecia).
The best match for Jada seems to be Jana (conjunct Oscar Wilde, 1°08'). There are two asteroid-names starting with Pink: Pinkham (opposite Pluto, quintile Wilber) and Pink Floyd (sextile Christa).
There are a few asteroid-names that start with 'bald', like Balduinus (conjunct Mercury), Balder (trine Venus) and Baldwin (quintile Mars/Rock no war, square Pinkham, square Pluto, sextile Christoffel).
Denzen Washingtonia
Denzel Washington played the role of wise old man in this story. The most appropriate asteroids signifying him are Denzen and Washingtonia. Denzen has the most aspects to asteroids already selected: quintile Sun/Roche and quintile Wild, trine Venus/Saturn and Balder (forming a big trine) and square Jupiter. Washingtonia is opposite Christian/Rock 'n Roll and sextile Wild.
OK, deep breath, and the winner is...
(Unfortunately, the name Baldwin is hidden behind Christian and Oskar is hidden behind Wil, but this is more or less complete.)
Interpretation
The Venus/Saturn conjunction is the only remarkable planetary aspect in this chart. This brings us to the content of the joke. Clearly, we have Saturn in the role of a radical coiffeur or even a sharp razor blade, cutting Venus' locks. This aspect lays the foundation and asteroid Balder, trining this conjunction, adds the baldhead theme. Roka (signifying Chris Rock) squares the conjunction with the joke.
The T-square involving Baldwin, Pinkham and Pluto adds aggression to the mix and makes it personal so to speak: how dare you make a joke about Mrs. Pinkett Smith's baldness? Off with your head!
Balduinus conjunct Mercury adds more fuel, and Jana conjunct Oscar Wilde is the smoking gun so to speak. Note that the involvement of Mr. Oscar Wilde, the playwright, is interesting in and of itself. It tells us more about the way asteroids 'work together' or associate.
The triple conjunction Wil, Smither, Oskar sums up a thing that's unique for asteroid astrology: the need for interpretation can sometimes be close to zero. These rocks can speak for themselves. Maybe the conjunction underlines that these Oscars were all about Will Smith, as he also won an Oscar for best actor. (There's actually an asteroid called Actor but it's not playing a big role.)
The Devil is in the details
Denzel Washington said something to Will Smith during the commercial break. Something about the Devil. See if you can figure this one out for yourself...
Layers of asteroid astrology
If we check the transits in Will Smith's birth chart for the asteroids we've looked at in this article, the Oskar/Wil/Smither triple conjunction isn't really in an interesting place. Transiting Oscar Saa conjunct natal Uranus is probably the most salient transit. This tells us that the kind of asteroid astrology we've been doing in this article produces a somewhat autonomous 'layer' of meaning that can be added to the 'popular planetary astrology' layer (or to information we get from any other specialized branch of astrology for that matter).
Note that even in asteroid astrology, we can have different approaches. If we look at the encyclopedic work that was done by Benjamin Adamah, the emphasis is on the deep psychological side of asteroids, especially the Centaurs, Plutino's, SDO's, TNO's etc.
The 'morfological' approach used in this article again produces a different layer of meaning; more situational than psychological. Of course, it's possible to combine these layers of asteroid astrology.