Considerations XIX: 3
when Mary had a ghastly waking dream in which the core plot of Frankenstein came to her. I thought that the chart of this dream should have powerful Nodal links with Mary’s chart. It did—even more so than I could have hoped. Thus my case study began to come into focus. There is a great deal to say about Mary Shelley. But I will be exploring her life only until the start of her second Nodal cycle, keeping my focus on relationships and events which led to her authorship of Frankenstein.
M
ARY SHELLEY’S l falls in d. To me, this denotes a life path centred round the conceptualising and disseminating of information and ideas. The L in c shows philosophy, education and learning, and the developing of an ethical base for life as well as a desire to proselytise from that base, as a fundament to Mary’s life. Love of learning, a restless, questing, travel-oriented spirit, and an appreciation of the perspective which comes from exposure to different languages, cultures, and a broad knowledge base, all characterised her inherited gifts and the cultured context from which her journey through life began. It also suggests, taking the wide conjunction to the w to back this up, a longing from the beginning for a “grand”, adventurous life—for a life infused with vision and the possessing of a big canvas upon which to paint a vivid picture. Her political and artistic context was the aftermath of the French and American revolutions and the impact they would have on the fabric of her time—and the Romantic movement in art and literature into which her nature fitted so well. Also indicated in this linking of L and w is a distaste for the restrictions of the ordinary and mundane, and the potential for arrogance through conviction of one’s own rightness. Blake’s famous line “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”8 also comes to mind. Playing Big Momma Benefactress to a bunch of gifted but feckless, frequently penurious fellow writers seemed to take up an extraordinary amount of her time and resources throughout her life—one can see her penchant for this role in L in c A w in the 6th House! The l in d conjures up the image of a thrust towards taking the gifts she was given and putting the inspiration provided therefrom into words, getting her ideas out into the world. It also denotes frequent changes of environment whilst attending to this core task—and sibling issues playing an important part in the whole scenario, as indeed they did with her step-sister Jane/Clare/Claire Clairmont (who liked changing her name!) dogging Mary’s footsteps for much of her life. Restless movement and frequent change were very much part of Mary’s and Shelley’s life— perhaps the l in d demanded this as a way of shaking free her ideas. 8
From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake.
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