baby reindeer’s mars in fall …
Being a slightly obsessed student of astrology, I couldn’t help but pull up Richard Gadd’s natal chart for studying after I finished watching mini-series Baby Reindeer that came out on Netflix earlier this year. For those who aren’t familiar with the show, the show is based on a true story about a man named Donny Don (in real life he is Richard Gadd) and his experience of being stalked by a mentally ill woman named Martha in the show. Richard Gadd basically created the show himself and played his own self in the show. His experience of being stalked went on for a period of four years beginning in 2015.
Although his birth time is unknown, I am still able to see the planetary signs and aspects between the planets which can still be quite revelatory without knowing the exact house positions of each planet.
In traditional astrology, there is a term called essential dignities that categorise planets according to their strength and weakness. For example, moon is in fall (meaning it is weak) in the sign of Scorpio, while it is in exaltation (meaning it is strong!) in the sign of Taurus. Similarly, Mars, the planet to do with self-assertion and one’s sexual prowess as well as physical vitality, is in fall in the sign of Cancer, while it is in exaltation in the sign of Capricorn. So what exactly does it mean when a planet is in fall?
I’m sharing this because interestingly, the first thing I noticed about Gadd’s chart is that his Mars, the planet of assertiveness and sexuality, is in the sign of Cancer, which means the planet is in fall, or put simply, a sign of relative weak placement. When a planet is so called “weak”, it can imply that whatever area in life the planet represents is where that person have to likely work a harder (than someone who doesn’t have that same planet in “fall”) or have some struggles to overcome; how appropriate to Richard Gadd in relation to what he went through as depicted in Baby Reindeer.
His Cancer Mars is also at a 180 degree opposition to a number of planets including Uranus, Neptune and Saturn, suggesting a cocktail of energies his Mars is up against! To be literal in my interpretation of this, this is someone who must fight, or assert himself (Mars!) against something or someone (in his case) who is unusual, eccentric (Uranus!), confusing, lacking a sense of boundary and perhaps even got a dash of victim mentality (Neptune!) and yes, difficult also (Saturn!). I’m sure there are many other ways we can dice and slice this otherwise significant configuration in Gadd’s birth chart, but let’s leave it as it is for now.
The incident with the stalking occurring between 2015 and 2019 coincided with the time when transiting Pluto was moving over the above planetary configuration, which, in hindsight, makes a lot of sense. For those who aren’t familiar with the astrological term transits, transits are when current planetary movements touch on different parts of one’s natal birth chart. Any transits of the transgenerational planets Uranus, Neptune or Pluto over important parts of one’s chart can bring life transforming incidences or lessons for soul growth (from a spiritual or psychospiritual perspective). I believe such was the case for Baby Reindeer’s Donny Don - in Episode 5, Donny openly expressed his feelings and insights about himself after experiencing rape by his mentor, stalking (by Martha) and challenges of remaining in a relationship with the person he loved at that time. He mentioned a lack of self-confidence and being filled with self-hate to be culprits for the struggles he was going through at that time.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that having planets in fall does not necessarily spell doom and gloom, in fact, quite the contrary may be true - it is where you may have a chance of becoming totally enlightened. But was he enlightened? I see self-awareness as first time to enlightenment, so perhaps he was indeed, at least in the right direction..
Like wine that comes of age, planets in fall have an opportunity to come of age in ways planets in exaltation may never.
Personally my moon is in fall (ouch!) in the sign of Scorpio, I have indeed endured quite a number of emotional crises throughout my life. My emotional life has had its major swings of high and low, but over the years of riding through such extremities I probably understand emotions better than the average person.
