The following blog is an extract from my forthcoming book, which sets out to approach specific astrological topics as a series of tangents, often utilising actual real life anecdotes to get the point across.
Let us examine the foundation point angle aka I.C. or nadir. Much of my client work is carried out with newcomers to astrology, and the last thing they want to have to face is a load of Latin gobbledegook. What we are now concerning ourselves with is the opposite end of the Midheaven (M.C.) angle. Because in a birth chart this refers back to our roots, our very beginnings in life, our foundations, I coined the phrase the foundation point, which I believe nicely sums it up. Whereas the Midheaven depicts where we are going in life, our life path, the foundation point refers back to where we came from. For this reason it never takes on the major responsibilities of the Midheaven, unless you happen to have a planet conjunct the FP. A planet's energies here regularly affect the person’s initial upbringing – for good or bad depending largely on the aspects that the planet was making at the time. As well as being centred around the person’s early life and around the birth itself, the general energies associated with a particular planet will prevail throughout their life, because it is their roots.
Saturn on the foundation point can severely delay the birth and/or cause restrictions of some kind. Conversely, Jupiter may make it a wonderful time with joy all around. Venus will make it extremely harmonious, Mars will add a touch of aggression and arguments in some way associated with it. The Moon causes major emotional upset, and so on. The signs need taking into account as well. But in all cases we need to remember the aspects that the said planet was involved with at the time. For example, the sheer wonderment and happiness associated with Jupiter may not necessarily reveal itself if the planet is badly aspected, especially to personal planets such as the Sun, Moon, Mars, etcetera. In these cases the expansiveness associated with Jupiter turns to exaggeration and the negative connections of the inter planetary aspects become over emphasised.
The negative association of Pluto with anything horrific, evil, illegal, connected to death, underground crime, etcetera often reveals itself in charts with Pluto on the foundation point. A case in point involves a young man who came to me for a reading some years back but did not know his birth time. My first question was the obvious “have you asked your mum?” to which came the sombre reply: “I've never known my mum.”
“Oh, “ I replied. “Did she die giving birth to you?”
“No, “ he said. “Worse than that. She disowned me.”
His mother did not want the child, who was born out of wedlock with a father she despised. In her fuddled state she had decided to allow the pregnancy to go all the way but in no way was she prepared to keep the baby, and had nothing to do with him right from the start. As soon as she was well enough she left the area and never returned. She was in occasional contact with her mum – his grandmother – for a few years, never asking about the child, but even that contact eventually waned. The grandmother brought him up as if her were her own, and he has always regarded her as Mum. As soon as he was old enough, she told him the situation, which he accepted without drama, but he admits that it has scarred him for life and he feels a bitter disappointment and resentment that his own mother could have disowned him. Only the evil side of Pluto can be associated with such despicable lows, and as an experiment I cast his chart with Pluto sitting on the FP. I then went through each occupied house, informing him of how the planet residing there would affect things, and he agreed with every single association. The Pluto connection had established his birth time!
Saturn on foundation point
In addition to the birth and early years, planets on the foundation point can make a major mark throughout life, acting almost like a second ascendant. This was first drilled home to me when I was introduced and got to know a friend of an astrology associate of mine. This friend, whom we shall call Tracy, simply oozed Capricorn. Despite being Aries with a Cancer Moon, she came over very serious, sombre, and quite heavy going actually. I asked my associate, whom we shall call Nicola, what the Capricorn connection was with Tracy. None whatsoever, was the reply. I showed my surprise and Nicola admitted to always thinking along the same lines, not understanding where the Capricorn influence was derived from. It was not a temporary situation, brought on by current heavy Saturn transits, Tracy had apparently always been like it. Unlike Nicola, I was not prepared to simply accept this as 'one of those things' and wanted to get to the bottom of it. Tracy did not know her exact time of birth but knew it to within five minutes either way. Together, we all looked at the chart and with no planets being in Capricorn, the rising sign not being possible to be Capricorn either, unless the birth time was dramatically wrong, that left us with Saturn. This was placed in her third house and not making any connections, positive or negative, to any personal planets nor the ascendant. I noticed its proximity to the foundation point. By altering the birth time by six minutes it placed Saturn exactly on this angle. No other house positions were affected by this, so in effect, not changing the chart in any other way. I made the assumption that if the foundation point affects our roots, our very beginnings in life, then surely these root influences will stay with us throughout life. Nicola could see this, as a trainee astrologer, and Tracy accepted the logic. And, in Tracy's case, it would make her very Capricorn, as if she had a Capricorn ascendant. I was on the case, and then sought out clients with planets on their foundation point. The same happened every time, except for a few occasions whereby, for other reasons altogether, a different sign was extremely evident in their outer character. No matter what the planet, it clouded the overall Sun-Moon-ascendant trio of commanding signs, adding a fourth, and often very noticeable one to the equation.
Uranus on foundation point.
A planet on the foundation point will, as described in the Saturn example above, synthesise its energies into the person's overall character, so in the case of Uranus on the foundation point this can lead to total unpredictability at unforeseen moments, often even catching the person out who has this conjunction in their chart, let alone the people around them! Here is an interesting anecdote to illustrate this feature. A lady came to see me and she was absolutely distraught. She told me that her husband had left her out of the blue. As soon as those words 'out of the blue' were mentioned I knew we were talking Uranus. That is exactly how this planet always operates. Apparently they were happily married and she woke up one morning to find him gone, with a note saying “I've had to go away. Can't explain it, something I need to do. Will be in touch.” She was devastated, immediately suspecting an affair. She rang his mobile, he did not reply, but eventually texted her, saying that he had gone into the wilds of the Outer Hebrides for 'as long as it takes.' This made her angry: a) because it increased her suspicion of an affair, and b) due to his seemingly detached attitude to it all. She tried ringing him again over the next few days but always his phone was switched off. Another text eventually came through, claiming he needed time to think things through, as this was obviously a part of his life journey. More anger! What bollocks, she thought!
After a few more days she elected to get a private investigator on the case, who managed to track him down and even spent some convivial time with him. The investigator reported back, saying that her husband was telling the truth, he was not with anyone else, and that he had claimed there was nothing wrong with the marriage, it was just something he needed to do. Well, there was something wrong with the marriage now, the wife exclaimed!
This had all happened a few weeks prior to her consultation with me, during which time she had decided she was not having him back, despite him starting to come round, sending her loving texts, and trying to apologise for his out of character behaviour. Out of character – more Uranus words.
A heavy going Uranus-Venus challenging transit was indeed affecting her birth chart at the time, infamous for bringing about sudden, unexpected turmoil in relationships, but it was his chart I was more interested in. She had his birth time. I knew what was going to be featured before the chart came up on the computer screen. Uranus was exactly on his foundation point, instilling these highly disruptive, unpredictable energies into his otherwise Capricorn nature. The thing with Uranus though in this context, is it is not a permanent feature, but comes and goes at widely spaced, erratic intervals, always catching out the person and whoever is on the receiving end, unawares. They had been together a long time, so I asked her whether this unpredictable, bizarre stuff was typical of his nature, adding from time to time. She agreed that he certainly did exhibit these strange quirks, infrequently (after all he was a Capricorn, making them more out of character) but never anything quite like this. She also agreed that, from what he had told her, his start to life had been very unstable, being moved from pillar to post and with strange goings on taking place, allegedly.
I think it actually helped her to realise that he was every now and then affected by these weird, disruptive Uranian energies. She considered giving him a second chance after all, especially when I told her that not only was Uranus really battering the personal planets of his birth chart of late, but that there was in addition a strong negative Neptune influence to his Moon, making him feel very out of sorts and suffering from illusion and delusion.
