Orcus in Leo and the 5th house – a beginning

Here, among other effects, Orcus complicates issues of identity and creativity. Rudyard Kipling, with Orcus conjunct Sun in Capricorn and the 5^th house, squaring Neptune, was perplexed by who he was, where he came from, and what he would become, from the age of 7 and on. It became an obsession to him after he was sent away to England for schooling, leaving his parents behind in India. The woman of the boarding house was a merciless bully who determined that the young Rudyard be “made to read without explanation, under the usual fear of punishment. And on a day that I remember it came to me that ‘reading’ was not ‘the Cat lay on the Mat,’ but a means to everything that would make me happy. So I read all that came within my reach. As soon as my pleasure in this was known, deprivation from reading was added to my punishments.” The simple enjoyment of reading (5^th) became a means of punishment (Orcus). For Thomas Hardy, who shared this placement, demonstrating his erudition in his novels became something of an obsession for a man who was not considered to be of the right class to require a university place. Mary Shelley, another famous writer with Orcus in the 5^th wrote of Frankenstein’s monster, a true rendering of Orcus if ever one existed in all literature. But these examples aside, Orcus in the 5^th is not an easy placement for this uncompromising entity. The all-or-nothing nature of Orcus creates great artists and writers for sure (Leo Tolstoy, Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh all share Orcus in the 5^th), but that obsession with self-expression and too, with leadership can become a great burden to those whose motives are at all egotistical.

Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman all share Orcus in the 5^th. There is this difficult potential that an obsession with being in the spotlight, taking the king role is in the DNA somehow, but with sufficient deepening and authenticity, it is possible for this placement to come good. Leo and the 5^th are not the easiest places for solitary Orcus to operate, Orcus transformed needs no audience after all.

If you enjoyed this post, consider supporting Chirotic Journal, and get access to exclusive content.