Leaky Louvre

By Alex Miller

It’s been a difficult autumn for the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum, hosting up to 10 million guests annually.  In October, brazen thieves used subterfuge to rob the museum in broad daylight, making away with $102 million in French Crown Jewels.  Now, the Louvre has sprung a leak, quite literally.

On November 26^th, employees found a flood had damaged hundreds of books in the Egyptian Department.  The leak stemmed from mistakenly turning on a valve in a defunct plumbing system due for replacement next year, and while no heritage artefacts were damaged, a library of Egyptology reference works, some dating from the 19^th century, became a sodden, soggy mess.

A pairing of Venus (24 Scorpio) and a retrograde Mercury (21 Scorpio) signaled a potential for news (Mercury) related to the art world (Venus), and asteroid input pointed directly to a water-based tragedy at the Louvre.  The former royal palace, which first opened to the public as a museum on the eve of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror in 1793, has an asteroid named in its honor, which fell in square (90 degrees) to the Venus/Mercury pairing (from 20 Leo).  Opposed (180 degrees) Louvre is a conjunction of Damocles (29 Aquarius), representing an impending doom hanging unseen overhead, about to descend at any moment; and asteroid Leakey (27 Aquarius), named for British paleoanthropologist and archaeologist Louis Leakey, but acting here as its homophone, “leaky.” 

Together, these points form a T-Square (1) with Venus/Mercury, with Venus ruling museums and fine arts, and Mercury also ruling books and plumbing.  The celestial shorthand here translates to an unseen (Damocles) plumbing (Mercury) leak (Leakey) which threatens (Damocles) art-related (Venus) books (Mercury) at the Louvre (Louvre).

The Louvre’s current woes can be traced to activation of its “birth” chart, set for its opening as a museum on 10 August 1793.  The Sun (18 Leo) in that chart has been under stress from the recent Saturn/Neptune conjunction, still in effect.  When this duo came to their retrograde stations (2) in July, they did so in sesquiquadrate (135 degrees) to the natal Sun, an aspect denoting difficulty and challenge.  Further, Saturn (1 Aries) indicates loss, while Neptune (2 Aries) represents both thievery and floods, neatly encapsulating the two major challenges faced by the museum this year.  This duo also squares the Louvre’s natal Venus (2 Cancer), further imperiling its artwork.

As well, the Louvre’s natal asteroid Louvre (15 Gemini) was hit by a T-Square from the Lunar Eclipse of 7 September (at 15 Pisces/Virgo), adding further stress and highlighting the museum on the world stage for the ensuing six months.  The eclipse also opposed natal Mercury (14 Virgo), pointing to books and plumbing as especially vulnerable.

In a strange twist of timing, the leak occurred under a conjunction of the transit Sun (4 Sagittarius) with asteroid Nemesis (2 Sagittarius), noted as the bringer of destruction and ruin, with the pair opposed transit Uranus, which rules antiquities.  Oddly, the museum was undergoing a precise Return of Nemesis to its natal place, reinforcing its innate potential to do serious damage.

A vulnerability to flooding from a leak is displayed in the natal conjunction of Neptune (29 Libra) with asteroid Leakey (22 Libra), recently activated by transit Jupiter’s station (25 Cancer) in square.  Jupiter increases and exacerbates whatever it touches, also bringing publicity in its wake.

The Louvre’s problems don’t end here.  Workers have voted to go on strike December 15^th, due to severe issues like poor working conditions, understaffing, security failures (highlighted by the recent jewel heist and water leak damage), and inadequate building maintenance, threatening closures during the busy holiday season as they demand better resources and management.

Notes:  (1) A T-Square is a dynamic pattern composed of two or more planets in opposition (180 degrees), each squared (90 degrees) a third.  It represents stress and conflict, with the fulcrum point (at the square) offering a possibility of resolution.

(2) Stations are periods when, from our perspective on Earth, a planet appears to slow its movement, come to a standstill, and reverse course.  This is an optical illusion created by the triangulation between the sun, Earth, and any third celestial body; astrologically, it represents a focusing of the energies associated with that point, and often coincides with major life events or a radical recalibration of how that point has functioned previously.

Sources: reporting from BBC News; Louvre Museum founding data from Wikipedia; chart data from serennu.com; graphic image by author

Title Image Credit:  drawn by ChatGPT