Our header picture is Mel Colm-Cille Gerard and Robyn Denise Gibson way back in 1981 when they newly married. He seems to favour that look: tall and dark haired, as all three mothers of his cumulative nine children resemble each other.
This is a Midpoint Tree produced by Kepler software. Lots of other software packages do this as well, including the 60.00 WinStar Express first put out by Michael Erlewine’s Matrix software but now bought up by the Cochrane’s, , so this is no deal breaker when searching for a package. To save space I just did the Midpoints that are conjunct for Mr. Gibson, otherwise you can a get listing that is long and overwhelming. That is one of the problems with midpoints, programs can find a lot of them particularly when you add in Fixed Stars, TransNeps or birth points (i.e. Ascendant, Midheaven and Cardinal Points), so it is best to keep this short and easy.
On the listing above, the first column is the Sun and it does not have any valid midpoints that fit the 2 degree orb that was the default, hence I gave it an Orange X. Uranus right below also does not have any midpoints that are conjunct within 2 degrees and it received a similar mark.
Moving along on the top row, we come to the Moon and here we find three midpoints that all have very close orbs i.e.: under a degree, see the 0’37 for the first one. This tells us that this midpoint is basically partile as it is 37 minutes off — that is considered a close and notable aspect. Compare this to the Midpoints of Pluto where the orb is 2 degrees and 11 minutes, which is rather far away and most would toss out that out as not being relevant. As midpoint listings tend to give a lot of data the key is to concentrate on just the closest orbs, similar to reading planetary aspects .
Reading a Midpoint Tree
The Moon’s half sum, which is what Herr Alfred Witte called midpoints, is created by Jupiter’s arc to the Moon and Neptune’s arc to the Moon and then divided by two. Mathematically this is calculated by taking what part of 360 degrees that Jupiter is found in and then adding the part of 360 degrees is found in summing it and dividing. But in reality, the shorthand devised for half-sums is Jupiter/Neptune = the Moon. The fastest planet always is written first then the / which is not a divisor just an relationship operand and then the slowest planet to the planet that they pointing towards. These half-sums, are called planetary pictures not aspects.
Gibson’s Moon has three half-sums and they graphically depicted on the map below with each picture having a unique coloured arrows that meet an apex and all converge onto the Moon.
So the green lines are the planetary picture of Jupiter and Neptune which is “conjunct” as the very close as we previously mentioned. The grey lines show the midpoint of Neptune and now Pluto also conjunct. The final conjunction is between Uranus and Neptune shown by the yellow lines.
As the Moon has three half-sums and none of the other planets do not nearly have as much, the Moon becomes the most sensitive point in Mel Gibson’s chart. Marc Edmund Jones would call this his “focal determinator.” To fully understand this planetary picture, some type of manual is needed to read and learn the planetary pictures just like there are a plethora of manuals to learn how to read aspects like of Saturn conjunct Mars in Scorpio in the fifth house. We recommend Alfred Witte’s Rules for Planetary Pictures, but you may want to contact Penelope Bertucelli and see if another book is a better starting place for you. She is quite helpful.
THE FOCAL POINT
According to Don McBroom, the focal point of the Moon is the mechanism for how Gibson achieves emotional fulfillment by expanding (Jupiter) upon his own intuitive visions (Neptune) and giving them substance either by his acting or directing. McBroom notes that Walt Disney¹ has the same planetary picture in his chart. (Picture Moon=Jup/Nep the green arrows).
McBroom gives some examples in his book, but then like many authors gives keywords for cobbling together your own meanings; he does not give as many modern examples as one would like. Witte’s book on the other-hand is far more inclusive, without of course any modern examples, but using the yellow set for the Moon’s halfsum of Uranus/Saturn we get a “separation in marriage may occur because of sexual tension or another woman.” That definitely works as he and his wife Robin of 30 + years broke up over their lack of conjugacy that made him flee to Russian Oksana Grigorieva and brought him Lucia, daughter number two.
The third and final set in gray reads that the focal point of the Moon=Jup/Nep. Here Witte gives us the picture of “prodigal,” as in the Prodigal Son of the Biblical parable, suggesting that once Mel leaves his home and family of Melbourne Victoria, Australia he becomes the “wild colonial boy” sowing seeds every which way. Alas, also true.
This brief essay should give you some idea of what half-sums and the midpoint tree are, and how they are used. Attached is a list of all of Gibson’s half-suns with their aspect correlation complimentary of New Zealand’s Janus 5.
Lars’s natal and his biwheel with his father are above. Info taken from the People announcement. Lars is going to be a real heart throb with Venus exalted in Pisces bestowing good looks and probably black hair and blue eyes. Neptune also in Pisces gives him like his father a proclivity to alcohol. His preponderance of Piscean planets in the second and third houses show his hereditary gift for horses (his mother is an expert horsewoman but is enrolled in a writing program at Emerson College in Boston) ; Neptune rules horses.
Footnotes:
- McBroom, Donald, Midpoints, Woodbury MN: Llewellyn Press c. 2006.
- Rudolph, Ludwig, Alfred Witte’s Rules for Planetary-Pictures, Hamburg, Germany: Witte-Verlag Press c. 1999.
