George Harrison: Some Things Are Timeless
A Pisces with a Scorpionic chaser, the "quiet" fab lad was a ticking time bomb of songcraft and renegade mysticism.
“All things swim and glitter.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
GEORGE HARRISON’S 1998 AUTOBIOGRAPHY opens with the dedication “to gardeners everywhere.” There is scant mention of his time in the band that John Lennon decreed “…more popular than Jesus.” But in I, Me, Mine, Harrison couches his years with the Beatles as just one of many curious events within the longer arc of his too-short life.
Are we surprised that a solitude-loving Pisces with a privacy-oriented Scorpio rising would shy away from his gigantic cultural persona and write simply about growing trees (Pisces) or his fondness for racing fast cars (Scorpio)? No.
Studying the historiography of the Beatles, especially while doing concentrated research, one is forced to conclude—if she is an astrologer—that water sign-dominated individuals would possess the fine-tuned psychic skills to secure their place (and maintain permanence) within the Promethean talents of Lennon and McCartney.
And this is exactly what Harrison and fellow water brother Ringo Starr (a Cancer) were able to do throughout the band’s ten-year tenure.
Cultural watermarks are marked off by the 20-year cycle of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. The conjunction of the two planets releases a galvanizing impetus into the collective that rearranges the aftereffects of the former 20-year cycle. This dance between the planets is the backbeat of any social cycle.
John Lennon was born during the exact conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn in Taurus in 1940. And the Beatles began their ascent to rule the world during the next conjunction in Capricorn in 1961. As the conjunction formed again in 1980 the one-two-three punch of the Beatle’s revolutionary arc came to a close with John Lennon’s murder.
Lennon was the driving force that linked himself and his bandmates into the larger cosmic cycle of the Jupiter-Saturn nexus. Tethering his band to an even more monumental Uranus-Pluto conjunction that came to perfection with the Beatles’ dominance of all things revolutionary on the cultural stage.
But with a relationship-driven Sun in the 7th house of ‘other,’ (a complex and contradictory placement for an Aries rising soul) Lennon needed a central object relation in his life, a partner that could match and mirror his genius. When Paul McCartney was recruited into John’s band, he met his complement.
Only a Mercurial magician like Paul, with his Gemini Sun and Virgo rising, could skilfully maneuver (or dodge) Lennon’s contradictive, belligerent and competitive Arian spirit. And continue to find joy and camaraderie as a creative partner.
When Lennon’s relationship with McCartney began to dissolve, Lennon switched allegiances instantly, falling into the tractor-beam presence of Yoko Ono.
To study the synastry between Ono’s horoscope and McCartney’s is to see the personification of a hair-shirt writ large in the stars (Ono’s Saturn in Aquarius riding hard against McCartney’s theretofore unchallenged Leo stellium).
We can thank the watery elements that dominated the charts of bandmates Starr and Harrison for allowing the Beatles to maintain their integrity for close to a decade. Both men developed coping skills to expertly morph and shift to accommodate the larger-than-life egos of Lennon and McCartney.
Ringo, with Cancerian loyalty, and Harrison by keener instincts, his Scorpio ascendant and Mercury-Pluto opposition made him a savvy realist regarding the large amounts of money the Beatles generated. Harrison’s Scorpio influence was akin to the catalytic molecules of the hardener that, when added to an epoxy’s resin, creates a solid bond.
Conversely, Harrison’s prescient Piscean nature initiated the strongest mutations within the band. Beatles producer George Martin credited Harrison with being the most committed of the Beatles in striving for new sounds. And Harrison would also be the solvent that led to the band’s eventual dissolution.
Like kids around the world, I was thrilled at the madcap antics of the Beatles in their first film A Hard Day’s Night. Although, as a pre-teen, I didn’t quite follow the wry double entendres that peppered the film. But the trailer for the movie first captured my imagination regarding George.
My empathetic nature was twanged in the scene where three of the lads are running away from a crazed mob (Paul was hiding somewhere incognito). But in their escape, George takes a gnarly fall, slamming into the sidewalk with his chin taking the brunt of the collision.
From that moment on, he was the Beatle that interested me the most. Was he OK? Did he bleed? Was he taken to the doctor?
A Hard Day’s Night’s pseudo-behind-the-scenes skew gave the impression that we were meeting the Beatle’s true personalities. And of the four, George’s grumpy, sardonic demeanor captured my imagination.
George came the closest to matching what queer royalist Quintin Crisp described as ‘the dark man.’ Of course, at eleven, I had no idea of this notion, but when I hit an age where I could trace my erotic responses to men, I understood my early infatuation.