Tom JacobsToday is Mr. Bobbitt’s birthday. While it’s been a long time since I did a karmic birthday profile like this, something told me to look at his chart.
A few things jumped out at me when I did and I’ll explore them below.
First, many people know who he is because of a particular domestic violence incident that saw his penis cut off by his wife and thrown into a field (it was recovered and surgically re-attached). As the back story was unfolded it became known that Mr. Bobbitt was an abusive husband and his wife at the time said she snapped after years of abuse. On the night in question he raped her after coming home drunk. Apparently this was not an uncommon kind of thing to happen in their household.
But I want to look at karmic indicators in the chart (Pluto, South Node (SN), and SN ruler) to get some info on where as a human he’s been in many lives. What, in other words, his soul has him trying to figure out during his human trips. See my books The Soul’s Journey I: Astrology, Reincarnation, and Karma with a Medium and Channel and The Soul’s Journey II: Emotional Archaeology to learn about my approach to karma and past lives in birth charts.
When I analyze charts I begin with Pluto as the marker of what the soul intends its humans figure out in order to be strong, confident, and powerful – these things from the soul’s vantage point being sourced in self-confidence and self-love. Bobbitt’s Pluto is in the 4th house, the house of family and emotion. In the sign of Virgo he is to eventually learn to approach family with responsibility and a sense of duty and service. But Uranus in Virgo is conjunct it, indicating that his journey involves trauma and sudden change. This will be through both emotions and the sense of being emotionally stable as well as family relationships themselves.
The asteroid Lucifer (1930) is conjunct this two, making a stellium in Virgo/4th. Forget the Christian mythos about the devil/Satan and understand that this archetype is about looking for the right size, use, orientation, and direction of ego. It’s about bringing light if we trust our hearts and align our heads with our hearts but along Luciferian journeys we sometimes explore motivations and behaviors that edge toward or dive straight into egotism and selfishness. Each of these three bodies is retrograde, meaning that he has to shed ideas of how they should be expressed and learn to invent his own wheel about these energies.
The stellium is opposing Chiron-Persephone in Pisces and so in many lives this soul’s humans encounter blocks to developing emotional stability and responsibility within family by situations and others that seem out of control. This is happening from the 10th-11th houses and so it’s about forces out in the world that prevent stability and responsibility in his home. In terms of his youth in this life it could be the seductive or life-draining pressures of work that kept adults in his family from being there for him and creating an environment in which he felt safe.
Part of his abusive motivations, I argue, has to do with this setup at home when young that reflects the karmic need for him to learn to create safety and security for himself. His family couldn’t do it and instead of working as an adult to take care of his needs in responsible ways (positive Virgo/4th-house stuff) he acted out and avoided adulthood. It doesn’t matter so much if you’re on your own and abusing yourself but if you’re hurting others, after a while of putting up with it sometimes they lose their shit and cut your dick off.
But the real story about the abuse and rape comes in with the SN and SN ruler including aspects. The SN is in Scorpio/5th, indicating that he is born to families and conditioned when young by situations in which sexuality and how it relates to, engenders, or robs one of power are front and center. We can know from this SN that even if sex and power issues were not overt in the family system when he was young, they were present. But whatever was going on we can also know that the souls of all involved are in cahoots to create for each other the right kinds of karmic incubators for each person involved. Mars is conjunct the SN and retrograde (Rx), meaning that the family is saturated (conjunct SN) with Mars in Scorpio energy and it’s being done in ways that need to be rethought (Rx).
SN ruler Mars (I use traditional rulers these days for this – the only traditional thing I do!) also represents Bobbitt’s role in many lives. In other words he shows up as a retrograde Scorpio/5th-house figure: needing to rethink how he expresses sexuality, navigates conceptions of power, and how power and pleasure intersect. Mars is quincunx Sun-Saturn in Aries/11th. This aspect in the karmic story is always extremely uncomfortable. It’s like the two people can’t be in the same room together. We’re talking about him and powerful, bold, harsh, hard-edged authority figures with a bone to pick with him. It’s not simply a battle of wills but an apocalypse of wills followed by foaming-at-the-mouth violence to try and settle things. Seeing this karmic aspect I would not believe it if someone told me he had not been thoroughly and totally abused in multiple ways when he was young. If it is true it is drawn to him by karmic beliefs he forms in many lives about what it means when others hurt him. For instance if he thinks he’s weak when it happens then he would grow up into someone who presents violence to others to ensure that he would not find himself feeling weak again.
The asteroid Lilith (1181) is Rx and conjunct Mars-SN. This asteroid is about social issues concerning equality in relationships and gender issues (see Lilith: Healing the Wild). It’s conjunct the marker of family (SN) as well as the marker of his role in many lives (SN ruler) and Rx, saying that he and the people he comes from need to grow out of outmoded conceptions of what women are and how they are to be treated. This also indicates that he and his family are living out the global sickness that has to do with the balance between masculine and feminine (see Goddess Past, Present, and Future).
Venus in Taurus conjunct Pallas Athene are conjunct the North Node (NN) in the 11th house. A Venus-ruled NN is about slowing down and learning to calm down. He’s been through a lot of drama and probably abuse in many lives, turning from being hurt to hurting others in order to avoid being hurt again. Pallas is a warrior energy that carries wisdom and is also about loyalty and integrating disparate parts of the self to achieve wholeness (See Living Myth: Exploring Archetypal Journeys). Venus is about choice, values, relationships, and enjoying life. On the NN we can see that this person in many lives is shaped so much by drama that enjoying being alive and having relationships that help him thrive as a person and work toward a chosen future (Venus in the 11th) get left out. He’s running from feeling powerless when it comes to emotions (4th-house Pluto) and feeling strong and special (5th-house SN conjunct Rx Mars as SN ruler) to the point that he has cycled through being abused to abusing. The way to stop the cycle would be to stop whatever is going on – including how relationships are formed and maintained and how sex is approached as a means or route to power – and learn to slow down.
According to biographies online he explored being a porn actor for a time and explored gettin’ religion (among other things). He would have to find out if these things are related to the 5th house whether through staying there (the former) or trying to avoid it (the latter). If he could establish clear and well-planned goals for what he wants his life to look like that are based not in repeating or evading the past, he would grow toward this NN. But in Taurus and conjunct Venus, a major element is clear, grounded, intentional choice. Responding to chaos won’t work for him any more – the Scorpio SN has played itself out.
Tom Jacobs is an Evolutionary Astrologer, Medium, and Channel helping you understand what your soul is here to do and how to make it happen with grace, ease, and joy. Book your private consultation, get a Soul’s Journey Soundbite, and explore intuitive coaching and astrology tutoring by visiting tdjacobs.com. Jacobs offers 12 books including the new The Soul’s Journey II: Emotional Archaeology. The Soul’s Journey radio show airs live each Thursday at 6 pm Pacific on Contact Talk Radio.