The author’s birth data is April 15th 1843 at 2:00 pm in New York City.
The space ruler of James’ chart is Moon in the 12th degree of Scorpio in the Third House. He had an emotional need to communicate, and his communicated was very subjective (Moon) as well as seductive, indirect, and implacatory as well as covertly intense – all Scorpio traits. The Omega symbol for 12 Scorpio is “A woman with a collection of rocks shaped like hearts.” The heart signifies what we hold dearest – our emotional center. Rocks are dense and hard. James focuses so often on problems of the heart. The woman who is collecting these rocks in the form of hearts is obviously looking for them, looking for a particular shape, a shape that will reflect what is important, significant, dear to one’s heart. This is what James was doing in his writing – searching for meaning and significance in the densities and obstructions (rocks) of human consciousness
His closest square is between Sun and Saturn. Sun is purpose, and Saturn questions it. This is seen, for instance in his story “The Turn of the Screw,” where the governess wonders what the real purpose is in her being hired to take care of the children, and then wonders who the ghosts are, and why there are there. James causes us to wonder if she in fact is even sane, or hallucinating the whole thing. James will never settle for a superficial purpose to things – he’s always looking for the deeper purpose.
Pluto in his chart sits on the Sun/Mercury midpoint so he was obsessive and intense (Pluto) in what he perceived as being important (Sun) to communicate (Mercury). The Sun/Mercury combination is about ones own ideas and own way of thinking, and he certainly manifested great power (Pluto) in this realm.
Jupiter and Neptune are conjunct in the same degree – 22 Aquarius, whose Omega Symbol is “A master healer is gradually restructuring someone’s body.” First of all, he’s doing this subtly (Neptune) and with such an enthusiasm (Jupiter) that he is willing to go to great lengths (Jupiter rules anything big, or long, or in any other way immense) to make this happen. He is a master of showing gradual changes coming about in human consciousness. For instance, in his novel “Wings of the Dove,” he portrays the gradual disintegration of a romance. This is brought about through one person’s indirect goading of the other person to act in ways they consider immoral. The moral issue in question – the marrying of a dying rich woman for the purpose of obtaining her money, when in fact she wishes to give her money to the one marrying her – is confusing and vague with unclear boundaries (Neptune).
The Chandra Symbol for 22 Aquarius is “A woman making lace.” This aptly portrays James extremely delicate description of every little nuance of human thought and the intricate workings
of human communication. It has to go also with his extreme refinement of sensibility.
The Hyperion Symbol for 22 Aquarius is “Stars in a distant galaxy imploding.” This strikes me as particularly apt in describing James’ art, for stars imploding in a distant galaxy would be from earth almost imperceptible, nothing more than a subtle detail of the sky. James deals with these sorts of subtleties all the time – things that have gigantic psychological implications – as the stars are gigantic – but which are, in the context of his story seemingly tiny and insignificant.
The Omega Symbol for his 14 Pisces Venus is, “Unconcerned with how he is going to escape, a man explores an infinite library.” James’ aesthetic (Venus rules aesthetics) has a labyrinthine quality, a feeling of being able to go on forever. Within the finite context of any individual story there is almost always an illusion of vastness of depth created.
The Omega Symbol for James’ North Node is “a photographer hand-coloring a landscape.” The North Node signifies the direction of growth in a person’s life – what they most need to further their evolution. It could be tricky interpreting this symbol in this context, for the symbol could be seen as having a trivial quality. We must try to think of what it could symbolize in the context of soul evolution.
The photographer has produced a realistic replica of something tangible, but is now modifying and beautifying it, adding to it to create another picture, one that combines reality with illusion. This is, of course, exactly what James did in his writing.