George Lucas: House 8 in Vedic Astrology
This is how Lucas was able to tap into the deeper psychology of audiences worldwide through his films.
House 8 can be a place of unknowns, sudden breaks and unexpected changes. If you can work with this house well, this area of life can bring about transformation and deeper psychological equanimity. For Lucas, House 8 was a place to tap into the mysterious and where he learned how to transform. Let’s explore House 8 for Lucas in Sagittarius.
Note: For a number of the astrological charts and tables that this post references, please check back to the first post in this series.
House 8: Sagittarius
In House 8 are the experiences of longevity, psychological wellbeing, hidden resources, sudden breaks and changes, and transformation. This is a house of battles, chronic illnesses, misfortunes and sexual desires. Occult matters, controversial subjects, psychic attunement and intuition are 8th house matters. It’s a Dusthana house, functionally neutral and belongs to the Moksha quadrant.
The sign of Sagittarius overlays Lucas’ House 8. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, a dual sign, masculine, sattvic, Kshatriya caste and is of the fire element. This field represents higher knowledge, education, ideals, philosophy, religion, law, spirituality and beliefs. Here there’s commitment to something bigger than oneself. Sagittarius is symbolized by an arrow being pulled back in a bow with powerful potential, aiming towards a goal. If the goal is unrealistic, there may be a fall.
Combining House 8 of psychological wellbeing and sudden changes with the sign of higher ideals can often lead to a fall, mainly because the person may be trying to appear “perfect” to others. In a positive scenario, one can instigate cultural transformation that has long-lasting effects.
Rasi Aspects to Sagittarius
Saturn aspects Sagittarius. This can represent older authority figures informing Lucas’ cultural ideals. Lucas became a follower (and friend) of Joseph Campbell and integrated Campbell’s “The Power of Myth” into his storytelling. Saturn not only brings in the older influence, but colors Lucas’ 9th sign with myths that have impacted the human psyche for millennia.
Lucas is quoted as saying, “There was no modern mythology to give kids a sense of values, to give them a strong mythological fantasy life. Westerns were the last of that genre for Americans. Nothing was being done for young people with real psychological underpinnings.”
By incorporating ancient psychological wisdom into a modern medium, he was able to tap into rich moral codes for audiences across cultures.
Jupiter’s Function for a Taurus Ascendant
Jupiter stewards Sagittarius and is Lucas’ 8th lord. Jupiter rules over two especially difficult houses for Taurus, with Jupiter also ruling the 11th making it the strongest yoga breaker and the 8th having neutral qualities. Identifying too much with what others think of Taurus can be a precarious inner battle for them.
Like all planets, Jupiter has its positives and negatives. The good parts of Jupiter are grace, faith, joy, seeing the big picture, wisdom, philosophy and creativity. The negatives come from too much of a good thing: over-optimism, relying too much on luck, overindulgence, fanaticism, and enabling destructive behaviors. Jupiter is a benefic planet, masculine, sattvic, in the Brahmin caste and looks in all directions at the same time in order to create context.
Dignity, Avashtas and Shad Bala of Jupiter
In Lucas’ chart, Jupiter is in Great Friend dignity, and in Vriddha and Svapna Avashtas. While not completely asleep, Jupiter is doing fairly well to give grace and fortune to Lucas’ path.
As for its Shad Bala, Jupiter has good standing in everything except Dig Bala and Cheshta Bala. Mercury picks up the slack in Dig Bala and manages life so that he finds purpose. With Jupiter in low Cheshta Bala, this can create situations where he feels like certain knowledge is impossible for him to understand and might easily give up. The main hero that Lucas created in Star Wars, Luke Skywalker, displays this behavior quite blatantly during his initial training with Yoda.
Lajjitaadi Avashtas on House Lord
Jupiter is greatly influenced by its friends Sun and Moon. There are inimical aspects from Mercury and Venus. Saturn is neutral to Jupiter, but may cast some shadows of doubt on this otherwise enthusiastic planet.
Jupiter is aspected by Mercury with 39 points and by Venus with 42 points. Both of these rajasic influences pigeon-hole Jupiter’s wide perspective into a narrower focus. Neither of these decimate Jupiter, but Lucas can feel them. He may over-manage his finances instead of simply enjoying them. At times he may want to find all of his satisfaction in 4th house affairs (where Jupiter is placed) and want “just one more thing” before he’s satiated. It’s possible that having numerous real estate properties is a symptom of this Avashta.
Sun is delighting Jupiter, producing a sense of purpose through more consistency. This enriches his foundation to create. The Moon is also delighting and empowering his 8th lord.
Yogas
Jupiter’s Yoga Judgment points are +4.6 and -9.4. Its Ishta scoring is high at 37.7. In general things don’t look so great for Lucas’ eighth lord, however, it should be noted that Jupiter throughout most of the Vargas is in excellent dignity for him. While some undesirable things may occur, there is a lot of grace happening on subtler levels.
Jupiter rules the 8th and is in Lucas’ 4th. He uses his intuition well and becomes educated in the mysteries. His exposure to Eastern religion, myths and philosophies greatly impacted the stories he wrote.
On the more difficult side of this Bhava Yoga, there were several times in his early life when he felt isolated from others and misunderstood. Another negative part of this yoga is that when growing up, his sisters had to raise him because his mother was frequently ill.
Next to come… House 9 in Capricorn for Lucas! Find out how Ketu in this House and Sign influenced Lucas’ ability to teach through his films.
Really enjoying these!