The transit of Pluto reflects change at a most fundamental level.

The birthday card (May 28) from my stepmother included a postscript, "Your father's at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Bath [New York]." For the first time, I was aware that my bull-strong Taurus father would not live forever -- and that (perhaps) I would never see him again.

His age at 75 was much older than I remembered him (age 69) at his mother's funeral. In the meantime, there were years without any communication, an angry estrangement that began when Pluto was opposing my Sun (via a conjunction with my 10th House stellium).

"Power struggles may be necessary as a way to draw clearer boundaries between the self and the father, and to establish greater autonomy and independence. In some cases, this transit denotes a fairly radical severing of ties with him, a feeling that we need to burn our bridges behind us" (The Gods of Change by Howard Sasportas).

After leaving the Christian Church and becoming a writer, there wasn't enough income for medical insurance or a vacation home. It was an opportunity, or so I hoped, for my father to support who I was and not the conservative minister he imagined. So, I sent him magazine articles from a son he never knew.

Desperate to return home, I inquired about business manager and night watchman jobs. And sent manuscript samples to the Corning Glass Works Foundation and town newspaper. But Pluto in the Fourth House was plumbing the depths of my dysfunctional family in Republican Upstate New York and relating it to 20th century America.

My father's disapproval brought our unresolved anger to the surface and hardened a lifelong determination to communicate my own ideas, my own Self. The Plutonic explosion empowered my self-revelatory writing and disclosure of a legal name change document. Brock Elk Horn was not simply a pen name.

Robert Hand says, "Many issues from childhood will reemerge now, as you begin to understand their consequences to you as an adult. You will no longer be satisfied to just live with them. You want change, and you will be able to change at the most fundamental levels now" (Planets in Transit).

Until the 1990s, I was torn by the love of my family and the need to assert my own identity. Since my mother and grandfather died, there was no one who understood and supported me. At stake was the family mythology, i.e., my father's and his mother's loving devotion to a son named after his late brother. But, their Christian religion resulted in a suffering-servant clergy career, psychotherapy -- and heretical writing.

The rejection by my father, younger siblings (and hometown) left me alone in the basement of another family's home with the karma (and dharma) I was born with. As the months became years, the lonely outsider's dilemma, described by Colin Wilson (The Outsider) and Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) burned in my soul.

Sasportas also says, "If there have been long-standing difficulties with the father, a transit of Pluto to the Sun could alter these circumstances. We have a chance to bring to the surface and work through old problems with the father and improve our relationship to him" (The Gods of Change).

Astrology was helpful in understanding how important Taurus (my father) and Aquarius (my mother) were in my life journey. So, for Christmas, 1995, I sent him a reconciling letter with a magazine article about my mother, the first chapter of a do-it-yourself astrology book; for his May birthday, another letter.

The natal horoscope, with information about my karma (lessons) and dharma (Self fulfillment) supported the philosophy of creating my own reality and not blaming my parents. A study of past transits gave hope for future change. No one is alone in a healing Universe.

After receiving the birthday card, I called my father at the hospital. And, in tears, we both expressed our regret and love for one another. He finally understood how our tragic separation was related to my birth name and his absence during World War II (between ages two and five).

"There was a lot on your mind," he said, including the abuse by his mother. The unresolved grief from losing her other son caused a psychotic devotion to his namesake. My father was unaware of her threats that he would punish me if I didn't obey her Christian morals. It made me not only fear, but hate him. "I've always loved you," he said, "very, very much."

In June, 1996, I was submitting a book (Chikagou, Gaia) to publishers about Chicago's global village persona when the National Basketball Association (NBA) Championship Finals were underway. The Chicago Bulls included players from Croatia, Canada and Australia. African-American Dennis Rodman favorably publicized the gay/lesbian community. Steve Kerr's father died as a foreign diplomat in the Middle East.

Dennis Rodman is a Taurus (ruled by Venus). His tattoos and pugnacious hard work reminded me of my auto mechanic father and his colorful hats. Michael Jordan, an Aquarius, reminded me of my mother who sent messages from the other side. Virgo Phil Jackson (Sacred Hoops) reflected my Ascendant and writing about Eastern religions and Native American spirituality.

The Chicago Bulls were thus related to publicity for a book contract -- and income for moving to my hometown. During the NBA Finals, my heart jumped with every basket. But, I continued writing in an old brick coffeehouse by a railroad depot that reminded me of the New York Central and Erie-Lackawanna.

After he was married, my father worked on the railroad and in the Bath V.A. Hospital. I found myself remembering my parents' love for their oldest and only child -- before my father was drafted into the Navy during World War II. On June 3rd, I walked out of the coffeehouse just as the touring Olympic torch, aflame in a caldron on a railroad flatbed car, was going to Chicago -- and Atlanta. The Universe was sending a message of freedom.

The tie-breaking final NBA playoff game was on Father's Day, June 16, 1996. Too nervous to watch the game, I took the El train to the Chicago Loop where, years earlier, I first arrived on a Greyhound bus, enroute to a suburban seminary. And reminiscing, walked north on LaSalle Street past Jordan's Restaurant.

Returning on the El, I thought of my Aquarius mother, Father's Day and Michael Jordan's father ("What was his name?"). After his father died, Michael retired to baseball and then made a triumphant return to the Chicago Bulls. "Of course," I thought, "James! His father's name was James, the name of my own father." It was a comforting message from the other side, from my mother and Jordan's father.

So, I breathed a sigh of relief, arrived at my apartment just before the Bulls' victory and saw Michael running to the locker room where he prostrated himself on the floor in tears. "This was for my father," he later said. With tears of my own, I walked to Devon Avenue and celebrated among Chicago's cheering fans.

The book contract never came. But my father was discharged from the hospital (for arthritis). Although he never sent an airplane ticket, Father Taurus did say I was included in a substantial inheritance. Our healing journey, which continued with letters and telephone calls, became a theme of The Medicine Bow astrology book. So, I dedicated it "To my father, James Austin Smith, son of Rennie Austin Smith, grandson of Austin Smith -- and father of Robert Austin Smith, aka Brock Elk Horn".

As Pluto opposite the Sun became exact (1997-1998), there were plans to move to Corning and write another book (Countrywestern) relating hometowns, brothers and sisters, fathers and sons to Country-Western music, the Civil War and our 21st century global village.

Watch for Part II - The Sun and The Moon and Part III - The Wheel of Karma.

Brock Elk Horn does clairvoyant readings, astrology and holisticcounseling that facilitates healing of mind, body and spirit. Telephone: (773) 338-3329. For more information, see the ChicagoPulse - Practitioners in this issue of TMA.

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