Here’s a look back at the chart of just sentenced former Illinois governor and ‘Apprentice’ candidate Blagojevich; we get a reminder of how much better it serves us to carefully balance the Self-image we insist on with the undeniable facets of our reality.

We don’t have an accurate birth time readily available for embattled Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, but we do know reliably that he was born December 10, 1956 in Chicago. The lengths to which he’s willing to go to defend himself, marked by an extreme impetus for denial, even in the face of material evidence, suggests some interesting astrological dynamics at work, and in inspecting his chart, I wasn’t disappointed. The big question for me was, does he genuinely believe he’s done nothing wrong, or is this an ego-driven show designed, like a magician’s sleight-of-hand, to re-direct attention, and leave at least a few of his followers with the ability to maintain the illusion of good character? The principle being that, as long as he continues to insist he did no wrong, some will believe he didn’t.

I went in looking for how he feels about power, and a few things jumped out at me. Of course, I have my own personal ideas about Juno in a man’s chart (please see my Juno book for further explanation), and Blagojevich did not disappoint: he has Juno opposed Uranus involved in a T-square with Neptune. Now, with no angles there’s only so far we can go with this–but do we really need them? This, to me, summed up his personality nicely: the Will to total power, wherein the male incorporates the female as well, making himself, in essence, everything (which is what I believe Juno can, in some men’s charts, indicate) is here opposed to the individuality urge as well as the group (Uranus), and we have some volatile ingredients for a contradictory temperamental dish. His Will to power is at odds with his own uniqueness, as well as with group involvement, and these two features may be constantly at war–he has to stand out, and yet may reject his own separateness, if his goal is empowerment–and no one runs for political office without that goal.

With Neptune squaring this dynamic, the imagination, ideals, and urge to deception are all perpetually in conflict with what has to amount to a basic manifestation of the Beingness–and telling lies could, under the right conditions, become a way of life. Neptune, remember, can also serve us as we attempt to create an image for the consumption of others–and with his Pisces Moon, this would be a natural channel for the emotions to express (this whole set-up could be the mark of a strongly ego-centered artist, as well . . . so nature/ nurture, I guess!)

Juno is also part of a mixed element Grand Trine with the South Node and Jupiter, the latter of which sits at 29 degrees (stress!) of Virgo. This dynamic suggests that the empowerment needs are easily linked to the social realm, and that the social framework within which Blagojevich moves is both a source of personal stress and the forum for expressing the empowerment desires, all guided by the past/ past experience/ where he came from–and he’s made no secret of his exceptionally rough upbringing within the transplanted Serbian culture of his Chicago neighborhood.

Juno sits in wide conjunction with Chiron, uniting the primal wound and the empowerment urge, and these two are widely sextile Saturn, which is in a Grand Trine with Uranus and the Mars/ Ceres conjunction in Aries, bringing in the personal Will to action, to arbitrate, to be the authority in any situation. All this only points up the need to express the Will as absolute, and with Mars and Ceres together in Aries, this individual will not negotiate!

There’s plenty more in the chart that could feed our analysis and give it more dimension, but these components seem so strong, and are currently so prominent in his behavior, that I think they nicely sum up some of the crucial energies at work in the Illinois governor’s psyche. One more point: with ‘the head’ such a strong energy in his chart (Mars in its own sign of Aries), I especially enjoyed this story I heard, and if we give Ceres (as Mother Nature) credit for hair, it makes it even more fun: you all know how the suitcase that travels with the President and holds the codes for nuclear launch is called ‘the football’–well, Blagojevich is said to have his own football (this is what he calls it), the loss or misplacement of which has been known to lead to fiery scoldings (very Arian!) and possibly a firing or two: a particular hairbrush, the only one he believes can tame his thick hair!

My conclusion, gleaned in large part from the above aspect picture, is that Blagojevich doesn’t believe his own patter–but that he stridently expects that others should–and that if they don’t, they must at least pretend to! (Jupiter opposed Mars, Mars quincunx Neptune) His claims that his enemies are cooking up the charges that he was attempting to sell Obama’s vacant Senate seat so they can raise taxes are so silly as to be an embarrassment, as is his attempt to link Obama to this mess by claiming that Oprah was being considered for the seat (implying that this was being pushed for by Obama’s people). Mr. Blagojevich is that most pathetic of individuals, the bold-faced liar who won’t give up, no matter what he’s confronted with, surely the ego (Mars) and the urge to total empowerment (Juno negatively manifest in the male chart) in spectacular overdrive.