Da Vinci’s Astrological Zodiac Secret in his ‘Last Supper’ Masterpiece

By Milky Way Maid

Probably everyone has seen or heard something about da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper supposedly providing proof that Mary Magdalene was his wife. While I am not going to get into that discussion right now, I would like to point out an unexpected proof that that the fifth Apostle from the left really is Mary Magdalene, and it involves astrology.

First go to this web page and copy the image of the painting that appears there: www.LisaShea.com/hobbies/art/images/lastsuppernames.jpg  Keep it handy for reference.

That image is of the Last Supper with the names of the Apostles above each one, plus Jesus.

Now, you may not know that you can read the Zodiac in the painting from left to right, skipping over Jesus; start with Bartholomew (Aries)  on the left and end with Simon Pisces) on the right. 

It is interesting that some of the saints are associated with, or are in some kind of pose, that in some way evokes that sign of the zodiac.

The third Apostle from the left is Andrew, representing Gemini. He is in a pose with his hands up, palms forward. Gemini rules the hands.

The fourth Apostle is Judas (going by where the head is, not the body), who represents Cancer. He holds a bag of silver, and Cancer is associated with acquisitiveness and saving money.

Fifth is Peter, as Leo. Leo is often a boss in the office setting, like Peter was boss of the Apostles after Jesus departed.

Now here’s the surprise – Sixth is Virgo, which happens to be the only female in the zodiac. So the Apostle, supposedly John the Beloved, is really Mary Magdalene after all.

Seventh is James Major, representing Libra, the Scales. His arms are outstretched to either side like the arms on a balance.

Eighth is Thomas, whose finger is pointing up like the stinger on the Scorpion.

Tenth is Matthew, whose former occupation was as a tax collector. Matthew is the patron saint of civil servants, among other things, and Capricorn is the sign of government.

Last is Simon the Zealot, representing Pisces. Simon is sometimes identified with two fish. Also one tradition about him says he was martyred by being sawn in half lengthwise.

This article is just the result of a quick bit of research after finding a reference to the apostles representing the signs of the zodiac, and that da Vinci incorporated that information into his famous painting. Sorry I did not find specific links between all of the apostles to every sign. But perhaps at the time it was painted, there were associations between the signs and certain careers or attributes that have fallen by the wayside. For example, the second Apostle was James Minor, who had been a fuller before joining up with Jesus. (A fuller is someone who softens and sometimes dyes cloth.) Perhaps Taurus was once thought to rule clothing or haberdashers.

Some of the oldest Christian churches had representations of the zodiac with the apostles going around a central image of Jesus, with Jesus sometimes represented as Sol Invictus (the Sun). Very rarely, Jesus as the Sun was accompanied by Mary Magdalene as the Moon. For the former, see images of the Beit Alpha church (mistakenly called a synagogue) and the church at Hamat Tiberius in Galilee.  For the latter, check out images of the central panel in the church of “Our Lady Mary” in Galilee, Israel.

Tags- Mary Magdalene, early Christian churches, zodiac, apostles

Notes on Natal and Solar Return Charts for Katharine Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post

By Milky Way Maid

(I started this article several weeks ago and finally hurried up to finish and post it now, in August. Well, now the movie is rather old news, but I thought it’d be fun to look at the main character, Mrs. Graham.)

I have been enjoying repeated viewings of the new film “The Post” starring Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradley. Probably because the film covered a pivotal year in the lives of Graham and the newspaper, I decided to run a natal chart for Graham plus a solar return chart for the year 1971, when the issues surrounding the hunt for and publishing of the Pentagon Papers determined whether the Washington Post would grow or shut down.

Lacking an exact time of birth, I ran a noon chart for Graham. Her birth data is on record as June 16, 1917 in New York, New York. I ran a Placidus chart.

NATAL CHART	ASPECT	SOLAR RETURN CHART
Mars-Mercury at 1-2 deg. Gemini	Conjunct Opposite	Venus at 5 deg. Gemini Neptune at 1 deg. Sagittarius
Sun at 24 Gemini (trine Uranus at 23 Aquarius)	Trine (conjunct)	Mars at 18 Aquarius
Jupiter at 27 Taurus	Conjunct Opposite Trine	Saturn  at 29 Taurus Jupiter at 28 Scorpio Pluto at 29 Virgo
Saturn at 29 Cancer	Sextile Trine Conjunct	Saturn  at 29 Taurus Jupiter at 28 Scorpio Juno at 26 Cancer
North Node at 10 Capricorn (opp. Venus at 8 Cancer)	Square Square	Uranus at 9 Libra

If you have read my article on late degrees, you will quickly recognize the placement of the planet Saturn in late Cancer as an indicator of a family business, inherited by the subject. In this case, Graham’s father Eugene Meyer owned the Washington Post and handed over the business to Graham’s husband, Philip Graham. Not until Philip’s untimely death did Katharine take over the business that really was rightfully her – and which in my opinion she was born to run.

[By the way, Eugene Meyer bought the newspaper in a bankruptcy auction in 1933. The presence of Jupiter in late Taurus might be a family signature of a benefit from a bankruptcy action, which winning the auction certainly was. ]

The film portrays Katharine as having great difficulty speaking up for herself until when amid the pressures not to publish the Pentagon Papers, she finally finds her own voice in time to order their publication. So it is a bit surprising to see an argumentative Mars-Mercury conjunction (in Gemini) in her natal chart!! Perhaps that energy was channeled into her early reporting career. The conjunction is opposed by Neptune, which makes me suspect that Neptune might be near her Ascendant. Neptune placed near the Ascendant can make one very quiet, nearly mute, especially in childhood.

• The solar return Venus and Neptune activate issues of expanding (Neptune) the financial support of a more aggressive and active journalistic presence (Mars conjunct Mercury).  
• Solar Return Mars trined Katharine’s Sun, making her dig in her heels in the legal fight to print the Pentagon Papers. This became more exact with the later controversy over the Watergate investigation.
• Solar Return Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto all aspected Katharine’s natal Jupiter, expanding the paper’s influence nationally and greatly raising its prominence. 
• Solar Return Saturn, Jupiter and Juno all aspected her natal Saturn, which also tended to give her the ambition (Saturn) to invest in and assign the many man-hours of investigative work to cover the stories that begged to be told. 
• And Solar Return Uranus helped throw light on those stories in unexpected way, helping the paper (and Katharine) grow into the major voice that it became in national news.

The movie “The Post” is not only a good film about journalism history; it also shows a pivotal slice of time in the personal and professional growth of one brave lady, Katharine Graham.