Jane Goodall - Legendary Human Queen of a Primate World

By Jill Amery

Jane Goodall at TEDGlobal in 2007
Source: Erik (HASH) Hersman from Orlando, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Jane Goodall, birth chart, 3rd April 1934, 11:30 PM, Hampstead (London), England
Source: Astrodatabank

British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 45-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare issues.

So reads the introduction to Jane Goodall’s biographical note in Astrodatabank,(1) probably the best source of reliable celebrity birth data online. They record her data as 3rd April 1934 at 11.30pm in Hampstead (London), England, with 6.15 Sagittarius rising at the Ascendant.

Her methods of studying animals in the wild, which emphasized patient observation over long periods of time of both social groups and individual animals, changed not only how chimpanzees as a species are understood, but also how studies of many different kinds of animals are carried out. At her current age of 84 she remains one of the world’s leading animal and conservation advocates.

Her work with chimpanzees was and still is, unprecedented (American Diane Fossey, two years older than Jane, worked with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Africa and made unprecedented bonds with them). Jane was able to blend herself into the chimpanzees’ communities and adapt herself totally, in order to learn at first hand rather than study them purely from an academic perspective, which she believed was both irrelevant and inappropriate for her work. She is said to be the first and only human to be accepted into a chimpanzee community as one of their own.

When we as astrologers see these extraordinary abilities we can immediately deduce that in her natal horoscope she might have an emphasis on Aries and/or Mars (courage, pioneer potential); a prominent Uranus (the groundbreaker, innovative, the unprecedented; together with Aries-Mars emphasised, a trailblazer); and an emphasised Neptune, suggesting in her case a potential to transmute herself into a part of the animal kingdom and be totally accepted into it.

Sure enough, her natal Sun-Mars conjunction in Aries opposes Jupiter in the 10th house of vocation, suggesting that much driving energy was brought to her work, which became her mission. Natal Sun rules the 9th house of international outreach, and much of her lifetime’s work has been focussed in Africa. Uranus rules the 3rd house of mindset – suggesting unusual, off-the-beaten-track, innovative thinking. Uranus squares Pluto (that pair suggesting the radical reformer) and sesquiquadrates Neptune in 9th – reflecting the steeping of herself in other realms of discovery and experience, in exotic faraway locations.

Chimpanzees
Source: © Kareen Broodryk, Dreamstime.com

She has always had an innate love of animals:

I was born loving animals, it was my passion.

says Jane in a YouTube video. (2) Her need to relate and communicate with the chimpanzees (she was given a toy chimp as a very young child and it remains with her to this day) is reflected in her Venus-Saturn conjunction (relating in a serious, dedicated way) at the 3rd house cusp (mindset) in quindecile aspect (165 degrees – signifying an obsessive, compulsive need, an anchored preoccupation) with Neptune (the fantastical) in the 9th house (far-away destinations).

The signs Virgo and Pisces, the planets Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune in certain placements and combinations, and the 6th and 12th houses emphasised in the horoscope, can have a great affinity with the animal world. Here, Mercury in Pisces (opposed Neptune in Virgo) in the mindset 3rd house rules the 7th house of relating to others, and Venus rules the 6th house, symbolic of small animals. Jupiter in the 10th house of vocation makes a dynamic opposition with her “life force” Aries Sun-Mars conjunction, rules her travel and discovery-orientated Sagittarian Ascendant, and disposits her Sagittarian Moon, with the last two conjunct each other and squaring Neptune (co-ruler of 3rd) in the 9th house. These are further indicators that the most significant relationships, for her, were probably with the exotic and extraordinary primate animal kingdom whose world she entered and attempted to communicate with and understand, first-hand. They further reflect a need for exploration, discovery and analysis, as well as a need for educational dissemination of discoveries made.

Her communication and writing skills are enhanced by Mercury in Pisces in 3rd in mutual reception and opposition with Neptune in Virgo in 9th, with Mercury ruling the 7th house of the public, as well as co-ruling the 9th house of international, and publishing, potential. Her Sun rules the 9th house too, and these combinations supported her prolific authoring of books, including books for children, about her adventurous experiences of studying and living in empathetic company with wild animals. She’s also a fluent, highly evocative, natural poet. In her autobiographical book “Reason for Hope” she often bursts into very moving poetry which relates her acutely sensitive observations about life, humanity and the natural world.

As a young girl she dreamed about going to Africa – it was an anchored preoccupation, a burning point of focus, for her – these are quindecile symbolisms, echoing her Venus-Saturn conjunction on the 3rd house cusp, quindecile Neptune in 9th:

When I was 10 years old, I loved books, and I used to haunt the secondhand bookshop. And I found a little book I could just afford, and I bought it, and I took it home. And I climbed up my favourite tree, and I read that book from cover to cover. And that was Tarzan of the Apes. I immediately fell in love with Tarzan. (3)

At age 10, transit Neptune conjoined her MC (a vision was born); by Solar Arc (SA) the MC-IC axis aligned with her natal Sun-Mars conjunction; and the SA Sun-Mars conjunction itself was activating the natal Uranus-Pluto square – all energising the vision of her path ahead in SA Jupiter (natally in 10th, ruling her Ascendant) was by then quindecile natal Sun, ruler of the 9th house – further setting off an obsession around discovery and learning, in faraway exotic destinations.

Jane Goodall finally went to Africa when she was twenty three years old. In April 1957 she sailed to Mombasa on the east African coast, where she met anthropologist Louis Leakey, who would become her mentor. In Africa, Leakey and his wife, Mary, had discovered what were at that time, the oldest known human remains. These discoveries supported Leakey’s claim that the origins of the human species were in Africa, not in Asia or Europe as many had believed.

Chimpanzees had been thought to be violent, aggressive animals with crude social arrangements. Researchers had given chimps numbers rather than names and had ignored the differences in personality, intelligence, and social skills that Goodall’s studies revealed. Chimpanzees, Goodall showed, organized themselves in groups that had complex social structures. They were often loving and careful parents and also formed attachments to their peers. They hunted and ate meat. And they used simple tools—twigs or grasses that they stripped of leaves and used to get termites out of termite mounds. This discovery helped force scientists to give up their definition of human beings as the only animals that use tools. (4)

Jane said:

I got to Africa. I got the opportunity to go and learn, not about any animal, but chimpanzees. I was living in my dream world, the forest in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. (5)

Triwheel birth chart, solar arcs, and transits, 15 April 1957

By April 1957 transit Saturn had recently conjoined her Moon-Ascendant, and was squaring her 9th-house Neptune – her dream (Neptune) was realised (Saturn). SA MC-IC was then aligned with natal Uranus in 4th (change of home); with SA Jupiter quindecile Uranus (upset and upheaval; complete change and separation from her home environment to a foreign one, but with a feeling of “optimism, a lucky chance, a blissful realisation” (Ebertin on the Jupiter Uranus combination).

Leakey hoped that studies of the primate species most closely related to human beings - chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans - would shed light on the behaviour of the human being’s ancestors. He chose Jane Goodall for this work because he believed that as a woman she would be more patient and careful than a male observer, and that as someone with little formal training she would be more likely to describe what she saw, rather than what she thought she should be seeing. (6)

To assist her work, in 1958, Leakey sent Jane to London to study primate behaviour and primate anatomy with two world authorities on the subject, just as by Solar Arc (SA), Neptune was conjoining her Midheaven (her dream coming to further realisation). Later, on 14th July 1960, as transit Pluto in her 9th house squared her Sagittarian Moon-Ascendant and SA Vertex was aligned with her Lunar Nodal Axis (both suggesting further deeply significant change, of a fated (Vertex) nature, and working with others (Lunar Node); Jane, accompanied by her mother as chaperone – as the British authorities were resistant to the idea of a lone woman living among wild animals - returned to Gombe to study chimpanzees at a deeper research and academic level.

In 1962 she was accepted into Cambridge University for a PhD programme, one of very few accepted there who have no prior degree. Also in 1962 the National Geographic magazine sent wildlife photographer Hugo von Lawick to Africa to document her work. SA Mercury (ruler of the 7th house of partnership, and co-ruler of the 9th house of higher education) was conjunct natal Sun, and transit Jupiter (ruler of higher education) conjoined her natal Node-Saturn-Venus stellium (serious studies together with others); followed by transit Jupiter squaring her Moon-Ascendant (expansion of her hopes) that same year, reflected her life developments at that time.

Jane married Hugo on 28th March 1964, with transit Uranus square her Ascendant-Descendant axis; SA Mercury (Mercury rules the 7th house of partnership) conjunct Mars; and SA Lunar Node conjunct Mercury, 7th house ruler.

In 1965 she earned her PhD in Ethology (the study of animals), her work titled “Behaviour of Free-living Chimpanzees”), detailing her first five years of study at the Gombe Reserve. Transit Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto formed a t-square with her natal Mercury (in 3rd, ruler of 9th) – reflecting a sense of reward and empowerment in her consolidation of a research/study effort at the highest level (Cambridge University).

In 1974, she and her husband Hugo (with whom she had a son) divorced amicably (SA Saturn conjunct 4th house cusp; transit Pluto conjunct MC – both signifying loss) and in 1975 she married probably the love of her life, apart from the animal kingdom: Derek Bryceson (a member of Tanzania’s parliament and the director of that country’s national parks), with SA Uranus conjunct her Descendant (change/reversal of partnership status) and transit Jupiter conjunct her Sun-Mars conjunction (energetic optimism, enterprise, a feeling of success potential in her teamwork with him). Sadly he died from cancer in October 1980.

Dr. Jane Goodall went into the forest to study the remarkable lives of chimpanzees, but had to come out of the forest to save them. When she discovered that the survival of their species was threatened by habitat destruction and illegal trafficking, she developed a breakthrough approach to species conservation that improves the lives of people, animals and the environment by honouring their connectedness to each other.

Triwheel birth chart, solar arcs, and transits, 03 May 1977

So in 1977 she founded the Jane Goodall Institute (a global wildlife and environmental conservation organisation that has offices in more than twenty-five countries around the world) to ensure that her vision and life’s work continue to mobilise action to save the natural world. In that timeframe, transit Jupiter crossed her Descendant; transit Pluto opposed her natal SunMars conjunction (much energetic effort was put into the establishment of her institute); SA MC = Uranus/ Ascendant (personal breakthrough in a career pioneering effort) and SA MC = Lunar Node: “being recognised” (Tyl). The SA Ascendant-Descendant axis begins to square her natal Jupiter in the 10th house: expansion in personal and career terms (Jupiter rules her Ascendant).

In 1991, its global youth programme, “Roots and Shoots” began, leading to local chapters in over 140 countries with over 8,000 local groups worldwide that involve nearly 150,000 youth. Its curriculum is a learning programme for teachers and other community leaders to use with students and young people to help them develop a sense of service and leadership in environmental, conservationist and humanitarian programs to improve their communities. At this time, the transit Uranus-Neptune conjunction of 1991 was activating by square Dr Jane’s pioneering Sun-Mars conjunction in Aries, triggering for her, further energetic creativity.

In April 2002 she was recognized as a United Nations Messenger of Peace: SA Node = Pluto: “new associations of significance and importance” (Tyl); SA MC = Neptune (in 9th!): her vocation recognised internationally – another realisation of her dream; and transit Uranus conjunct natal Venus, ruler of her MC (new status in life as an international ambassador for her mission).

On 20th February 2004 she was made Dame Commander of the British Empire – the DBE being the highest recognition a civilian can receive, in her country of birth. SA Pluto = Aries Point (recognition on a large scale – becomes even more well-known in the public’s eye; sense of personal empowerment); transit Uranus squares Moon; SA Jupiter trines Uranus; and transit Jupiter opposes Mercury (all are opportunity and expansion-related).

2017 - 2018: At the age of 84 this year, Jane Goodall has experienced her Uranus (change-orientated) return, but is still unstoppable as a constantly travelling ambassador for her own Jane Goodall Institute and her youth-focussed organisation, Roots and Shoots. She’s very committed to inspiring hope and motivating others in practical ways, and is extremely supportive of the sustainability ethic.

There is so much left to do.

... she says. Jane has some natal midpoint pictures often featured in the horoscopes of resourceful and successful people (all the following interpretations are by Noel Tyl, who re-wrote midpoint interpretations of “The Combination of Stellar Influences” (by Reinhold Ebertin) for modern times):

• Ascendant = Jupiter/Pluto: “being known as an organiser and special achiever”
• Moon = Mars/Pluto: “daring, taking a chance, playing the powerful hunch, self-belief, publicity”
• Mars = Sun/Jupiter: “successful application of will power; zeal; enthusiasm that catches on”
• Also a mystical one: Midheaven = Uranus/Neptune: “supernatural concerns come into play; guidance is sought from other realms or never-before tapped resources”

References:
1 www.astro.com/astro-databank/
2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48mxaQtbUdU
3 https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/jane_goodall
4 https://www.notablebiographies.com/Gi-He/Goodall-Jane.html
5 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/jane_goodall_649190
6 https://www.notablebiographies.com/Gi-He/Goodall-Jane.html#ixzz5Ez7vrE9M
Also, Dr Jane Goodall’s autobiography “Reason for Hope”; first published by Warner Books and Thorsons in 1999 – a delightful read!

First published in: FAA Journal, December 2018.

Author:
Jill Amery studied with the Faculty of Astrological Studies in London, UK from 1988 – 1994, and was awarded their Certificate. She then took Noel Tyl’s Master’s Certification course and graduated with honours in 2000. She has been manager and moderator of his international e-group of students and graduates since then. Her primary interests in astrology are humanistic and geopolitical, the forecasting potential in both, and rectification. She has an astrological practice in Adelaide, SA.

All articles at a glance