A planetary cycle historically associated with revolution and upheaval was forming in the heavens when a 28-year old French woman recently went into a branch of the world-famous Louvre Museum in Lens, France with mayhem on her mind.
The unidentified woman was arrested after defacing Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, an iconic painting commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 in France.
According to American astrologer Ray Grasse this is the painting said to have inspired Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the French sculptor who created the Statue of Liberty that was gifted to the United States in 1870.
It’s also the painting that was featured on the pre-euro, 100-franc French banknote.
The unidentified woman, described by police as “unstable,” scrawled a 12-inch graffito on the bottom of the painting before she could be restrained by a museum guard. The incident occurred on February 8.
“Fortunately the woman took a pen, not a knife, to the painting. Museum officials say the canvas should be easily restored,” Grasse said.
Considering the revolutionary nature of world politics today this particular incident may seem little more than a minor footnote in a turbulent historical era. But Grasse believes the symbolism of the painting’s iconic imagery coming back into consciousness at this time is “very synchronistic.”
Grasse is author of The Waking Dream: Unlocking the Symbolic Language of Our Lives and Signs of the Times; Unlocking the Symbolic Language of World Events. He provides this astrological explanation:
Delacroix painted Liberty Leading the People in the fall of 1830. The exact date the painting was finished isn’t known but at about this time the planet Pluto was transiting the astrological sign of Aries and was either in or near the eighth degree of the sign.
When the painting was defaced earlier this year the planet Uranus was at about the same degree of Aries and applying a challenging aspect to Pluto 90 degrees away in the sign of Capricorn.
“From an astrological perspective, the sensitive degree placement and angular relationship between Pluto and Uranus might reasonably be expected to trigger the famous painting’s birth chart or horoscope quite strongly,” he said.
Although astronomers have downgraded Pluto to minor planet status astrologers hold a contrary opinion. Grasse says the icy planet is viewed as the powerful, transformational archetype that empowers, overwhelms, destroys and resurrects the universal life force at every layer of existence.
Uranus represents the principle of change, freedom, rebellion and revolution and is identified with unexpected developments of all kinds. When dynamically paired with Pluto the combination has been linked to upheaval and change throughout human history, he noted.
