An Aquarian Adventure

Patrick Leigh Fermor, an author and a WWII hero, was a classic Aquarius. He had  the  Sun in Aquarius, as well as Mars in Aquarius, conjunct Uranus. I came to learn about him by reading his book A Time of Gifts, which was enchanting.

Fermor was born in London on Feb. 11, 1915,  during WWI. When he was almost one,  Patrick was left in England for his safety. His mother and sister went to India to join Patrick's father who was a geologist. Patrick spent the next four years with a farm family in Northamptonshire. He remembers this time as blissful. In June of 1919, with the war over, his mother and sister came back to England and claimed Patrick back from the only home he had really known.  His Solar Arc Pluto would have been opposite his Venus in Capricorn at this time. And transit Pluto opposed to his Venus. The chart below is a sunrise chart as I don't have a birth time for him. 

Patrick was a very bright child, a polymath really, but had a hard time settling down in school. When he finally found a school that suited him (summer term of 1929 he started at King's School)  he was kicked out for breaking the rules. In this particular case he was off campus holding hands with the pretty daughter of the local greengrocer, but apparently this was the last straw. His final school report noted "He is a dangerous mix of sophistication and recklessness which makes one anxious about this influence on the other boys."

Fermor was a born rule-breaker, with Mars conjunct Uranus in Aquarius. I think the rule breaking was a mix of nature and nurture. In terms of nurture, he was really given free reign on the farm. He did not meet his father till he was six. His father lived in India and only came home for leave every three years.  His parents divorced when he was 11. 

His mother could be loving and friendly, but according to Patrick's older sister, she could also be icy cold and unapproachable. She did not always want Patrick home for the holidays from school, so he spent his holidays with families of friends. 

With a Mercury Jupiter conjunction in Pisces trine Pluto in Cancer, Patrick had a prodigious memory. He got good marks in French, German, Latin, history, He memorized long poems and was good at art. He gave talks on Walter Pater and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and won the divinity prize twice. His passion for religion went well with his love of history, art, architecture, music and poetry. These skills would both serve him well in his travels, and be augmented along the way. Jupiter is expansion and with the conjunction to Mercury he was to be a lifelong learner and reader as well as a writer.  He was also learning Greek.

One option for him after being dismissed from King's College was the military academy at Sandhurst.  Wisely he decided against this. Instead, at the age of 18, in December of 1933, he set out to walk by foot from Holland to Constantinople. His allowance at the time was £1 per week. A friend's father loaned him £20 to start him out with some capital. This seems kind of in sync with Aquarius,  in that it was a friend's father rather than his own family who realized this 18 year old might need some money for his journey. 

The walk is captured in three lyrical books which he wrote later in life:  A time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water and The Broken Road. The last one was put together by friends from his notes after his death.

He had a letter of introduction to two or three families in Germany from a friend of his landlady's back. This ended up being quite a gift. There first few families he visited compounded the gift by continuing to send him forward to friends down the road.   This chain of introductions just kept going. He spent time sleeping outside, in barns, or in castles. His hosts were charmed and in some of the manor houses along the way he would stay for a month, availing himself of their extensive libraries. He had a fascination with languages.  

He ended up in Greece, a country with which he was enchanted. In later life he would build a home there. 

Fermor fought with the resistance in Greece in WWII against the Nazis, capturing a German general in Crete in April of 1944. Transit Jupiter was stationary at 17 Leo then, equal to his Sun/Uranus midpoint. His progressed Moon would likely have been in Aquarius, and Saturn was trine his Sun. It was quite a daring and successful mission for which he was awarded the OBE. He was also thereafter worshipped as a hero in Greece and Crete. The adventure was written up by a comrade as *Ill Met by Moonlight" and later made into a movie.

In late1944 he met Joan Rayner, who was probably the love of his life. Transit Pluto was opposed to his Mars and Uranus was trine his Mars at this time, with the progressed Moon in Aquarius. Without a time of birth I can't be exact. But Venus was also in Aquarius by progression in his chart.

Joan was also a Brit and also an Aquarius.  It's a small world for a certain set in Britain. She had two best friends, one of whom was the model for Lady Cordelia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited, and the other was the model for Fanny, the narrator in Nancy Mitford's the Pursuit of Love. Joan was a beautiful intellectual who loved music. She was also every bit as independent as Patrick. They did not marry until January 11, 1968, although she might have wanted to have married sooner. Mars by transit was conjunct his Jupiter on the day of his wedding, and Jupiter was trine his Venus. They were together until she died in June of 2003. 

Although they never stopped traveling, together they built a beautiful home in Greece, in a town called Kardamyli. It was influenced by all the Cathedrals and castles he had visited over the years. 

If you have an interest in the dying days of the Hapsburg Empire, his travel books are the ones to read.

Sunrise Chart