Chart Exploration: Louise Hay, Queen of Air & Master of Positive Thoughts

If anyone acts as a poster child for emerging from darkness and mastering positive thinking, Louise Hay fits that bill. With her Libra Sun at 14 degrees (she currently has a transiting Pluto square on her Sun), her life lessons revolved around balance of emotions and acting as a pioneer of the New Thought movement, also known as Religious Science. 

With her Leo Ascendant at 6 degrees, no matter what life tossed her way, she used her creative spirit and sunny personality to pull through. And with her Natal Moon at 0 degrees Scorpio she was going to descend like Persephone into the underworld and through her experiences bring wisdom to teach to the world.

I find Louise Hay's life story and birth chart endlessly fascinating and I could write a book on it. But I will refrain from writing the book now and instead take you through the process of interpreting a birth chart. Then I will include important dates from Louise' biography and match those with outer planet transits to her personal planets. Louise plays many roles from spiritual leader/teacher, to entrepreneur, trend-setter, and fire-starter. She has acted as an inspiration to millions of people around the globe and though we hear about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs more than we do Louise Hay, if more people read Louise' books and listened to her audio workshops, I assure you that we would restore balance on the planet. I guarantee it.

Since Louise has a Leo Ascendant (at 6 degrees which is a sacred geometric number), the Sun is the Ruler of her chart.  The Sun appears in the 3rd House of communication, early education, childhood, thought, and siblings (she didn't have any). Oddly, Venus, the ruler of her Libra Sun also appears in the 3rd House so this is someone who attracts rather than chases after her desires. Like the Human Design Projector, she waits for an invitation which leads her to a successful outcome. With a Scorpio Moon, she might also project her inner darkness or shadows onto others who then turn around and persecute her.

Louise Hay, educational use for photo

Someone with a Scorpio Moon or any luminary or Ascendant in Scorpio has the potential to attract childhood abuse such as molestation and rape. Louise was raped by a neighbor at the age of 5, just as her identity was emerging. Another neighbor was also vying to rape her and then in her teens, her stepfather raped her. Decades later, these rape experiences developed into cervical cancer which Louise healed by digging deep into her subconscious mind and releasing resentment and undergoing a physical detox. The degenerative power of the Scorpio Moon and her strong spiritual center saved her from an early death.

Now a person with a Leo Ascendant is born to shine their light in the world. They often have a sunny personality and motivate and inspire others to act on their own behalf. And having watched Louise on video giving lectures, she has a warm and radiant personality which attracts both the healed and the wounded to her. She also had transiting Pluto in her First House of identity from August 1942 (Louise was 15-16 years of age and had dropped out of high school) until August 1957 in Leo and then Pluto stayed in her First House until Pluto transited to around 6 degrees Virgo. So those were transformational years for Louise' personality. The experiences from that period shaped her destiny we could say.

The Moon's Ruler is Pluto which falls in Louise' 12th House along with the North Node so here we have a destiny of transforming the planet through spirituality. But we don't always have access to planets in the 12th House and people with a Scorpio Moon often try to squelch what they consider taboo topics or darker emotions so it's possible that at some point, Louise glossed over those darker emotions and hid the secrets of her childhood so that people would love and accept her (Libra Sun and Leo Ascendant). She has admitted to burying resentment about her childhood which led to cervical cancer. In her teachings, cancer is caused by deep resentment that eats away at self.

It's also interesting that her North Node and Pluto are conjunct in Cancer which would have been triggered by the current North Node in Libra, Uranus in Aries, and Pluto in Capricorn. In fact, every time we experience planetary transits in the Cardinal Signs, Louise takes another proverbial bite of transformational powers. Behind the scenes, she's still grappling with inner and outer demons or challenges even if she appears unflappable. But we know it isn't that any of us don't face challenges, but it's what we do with those challenges to transform our lives and the planet. In this regard, Louise is masterful.

Having that North Node/Pluto in Cancer in the 12th House would suggests that Louise didn't have nurturing as a child, and probably not in the womb either. Her mother might not have nourished herself and harbored fears during the pregnancy. Since Louise's father left her mother when Louise was 18 months old, trouble was already brewing while Louise grew in the womb as implied by Pluto/North Node in Cancer falling in the natal 12th House. This is also the house of fate/destiny and Louise' fate was to take what was dealt to her and transform it into self-love and not just that, but an entire movement about self-love that she even took into the arena of people with AIDS! Of course, the Scorpio Moon was also involved.

Louise has Moon, Saturn, and Mercury in the 4th House which could suggests problems in the home or even some challenging life lessons presented in the home to revolving around the mother (the moon) and family secrets were suppressed with Saturn and Mercury in this house. This is one of those hard luck childhood aspects. Louise ran away from home at 15 because of her stepfather's treatment of her (rape and sexual abuse) and she dropped out of school (Mercury in Libra, possibly following the same fate as her mother). Now, Mars is in the 10th House of the father/career/public image and Mars can represent male aggression especially if there are also planets in the 8th house which there isn't in this chart.

However, for Louise, Mars in the 10th also represents her courage, boldness, and ambition which allowed her to self-publish books and build a publishing empire with Hay House publishing. This woman, now in her late 80s, is an unstoppable force filled with vitality and a motivational spirit. She has her Mars in Taurus which I believe is a powerful placement for Mars, which in this setting (10th House) brings the image of a powerful emperor to my mind's eye. Could she have played that role in a past life and channeling the spirit from that life time?

Since Louise makes her living in the spiritual realm, I want to look at the placements of Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus. She has Neptune in the 1st House and this is not an easy placement for Neptune which for some folks ends up causing delusions of grandeur or not being real about oneself. Also having Neptune in the 1st House wraps a person in glamour and charisma. Louise worked as a model in the 1950s which bodes well for Neptune in the 1st House of body image and the Libra Sun.

Her Jupiter falls in her 7th House of partnerships so you'd think she would be lucky in love and have many suitable partners. But Jupiter is in Aquarius so it's detached and independent energy. Her partnerships are with many people and her innovations have brought her success, though later in life.  She has Uranus in Pisces falling on the cusps of the 9th House so she came to transform the world through alternative spiritual thought, even controversial thought. But she would achieve worldwide fame doing this work.

Louise has a troublesome yod in her chart involving Uranus, Mercury, and Neptune. So this suggests that she would try different approaches and tools throughout the years and experience more failures than breakthroughs until around the age of 50 where suddenly her life began improving. I say suddenly because because Uranus brings sudden events. It would be as if an event triggered an epiphany that led to a major breakthrough. She got divorced in 1968 and in the early 1970s discovered a church of Religious Science in New York which changed her life.

Now, having Mercury in a natal yod suggests ending an education early and Louise dropped out of school at 15 years of age and most likely thought of herself as dull and unskilled until she reached her 50s because she would have had little access to Mercury which rules our thinking process and education. With Neptune involved in the yod, she would have relied on her looks and charisma to get by. But after she reached middle age, she honed up on her research and study skills thus leading to a career as a spiritual coach/therapist. Uranus suggests that she would forge an alternative path and march to a different drummer--well, she is the pioneer of positive thinking. And she emerged as a leader of positive thinking to change one's life during a time of an economic recession, the emergence of AIDS, and pretty much the decline of Western Civilization.

Just after the Harmonic Conversion of 1987, Louise experienced her breakthrough when her book, You Can Heal Your Life made the New York Times Best Selling list and would stay there. In 1988, she appeared on both the Phil Donohue and Oprah Winfrey shows on the same week. In 1988, Pluto was in Scorpio transiting through Louise' 4th House and she had been working with people with AIDS, and had overcome cancer a decade earlier. She was creating a safe haven for people battling with disease by teaching them that if they could change their thoughts they could change their lives.

So here are key dates:

October 8, 1926 Louise Hay was born in LA. Uranus, Mercury, and Neptune formed a yod. Pluto was in the Cardinal Sign Cancer and 3 years later the Great Depression would start. Neptune was in Leo and Louise was born in a city ruled by Leo and glamour. Uranus was in compassionate Pisces.

1942-43, Louise dropped out of school and headed to Chicago. Pluto was in Leo on the cusps of Louise's 1st House, Neptune was in Libra and Uranus in Gemini. Remember Uranus, and Mercury (ruled by Gemini) and Neptune appear in Louise' yod so she felt compelled to do something during this time.

1950-54 she moved to New York and found work as a fashion model. She attracted the attention of an upper class English man and married. Neptune was around 17 degrees Libra (in conjunction with her natal Sun).

1970s--Louise joined a religious science church and the New Thought movement. Pluto moved into Libra and in 1977 formed an exact conjunction to her Libra Sun as well as a square to natal Pluto/North Node (she has a natal square between Libra Sun and Pluto/North Node which I didn't get into). AIDS began emerging in the late 1970s.

1984-88 Louise experienced a breakthrough with her first book, You Can Heal Your Life and gained support of Phil Donohue and Oprah. Pluto transited into Scorpio and conjunct Louise's natal moon the first time November 1983. And then Pluto remained in Scorpio and Louise' 4th House until January 1995 or thereabouts. Pluto is one of the rulers of Louise' chart and Pluto transits have greatly affected her.

Like I mentioned earlier, I could write reams on this chart, but I'm stopping here. Feel free to explore the chart on your own. You can find the chart at Astro Data Bank and her biography is on Wikipedia.

If you would like me to interpret your natal chart (for a fee), please read the information in the tabs above or visit Metaphysics 4 Everyday Living, then contact me through the contact form on this blog. 

Please note that I wrote this blog post before becoming an affiliate with Hay House Publisher. And any mention of Hay House in any of my posts prior to July 28, 2015, were done so as a free agent. I added the Hay House Affiliate program to my blog because my values align with the publisher and I believe that it is a win-win situation to include the program on this blog since the tools the publisher offers dovetail with the values of Whole Astrology and I have found are helpful with life transitions.