When Mata Hari faced the firing squad, on the 17th of October 1917, Mars was transiting over her natal Uranus and transiting Uranus was opposing it. She was 41.

It would be her last performance, and it would be a good one. She refused to be blindfolded. To the man who wanted to tie up her at the stake, she said: ‘This will not be necessary’. Impressed, the soldier said to his comrades: ‘The Lady knows how to die!’

She had dressed up for the occasion. She wore a pear grey dress and fancy buttoned shoes… When the guns were raised, she blew a kiss, smiled… One of the soldiers fainted. She got 11 bullets instead of 12.

You’ve noticed the Leo stellium and Scorpio Rising indeed. What a stellium! Featuring the Sun, king in all charts, Mars, ruler of her Ascendant, Mercury ruler of her South Node, and, last but not least, Uranus, big transpersonal weight. All that in Leo.

Uranus becomes a major player thanks to this conjunction with the personal energies. It’s a generational planet: she becomes a channel for collective energies. She expressed what her time was brewing, leading an outrageous lifestyle and an artistic revolution.

Her Leo stellium is squarely squared by, on our right hand side, Pluto, the infamous God of the Underworld, and on our left hand side, the Master of making everything bigger, Jupiter. And it is in Scorpio and the first house.

No need to be a very subtle astrologer to expect drama.

Neptune is also important, mostly because it conjuncts an angle of the chart, and her Moon is in Pisces. She does more than shattering conventions. She brought something the collective sensitivity was willing to adore.

She was an exotic dancer and a courtesan. She invented strip-tease. She loved sex. She got a lot of money from men and spent it lavishly. She was an international star. It was the ‘Belle Epoque’. Paris was all art and decadence.

Then came the war and she dabbled in espionage. A free and famous woman, native of a country that was neutral, she was able to keep travelling. She had many connections everywhere. She could only attract the attention of the secret services of all the warring countries.

The Germans approached her first. She took money from them, because taking money from men was what she did for a living, but she had no intention to feed them anything more than gossip in return. Still, for them she was agent H21.

She forgot to mention this when she met the French head of secret services. She was offered to spy for the French. It may have been a trap. She was promised a lot of money. She accepted. She was sent on a mission. But for all her skill at seducing men, she was a terrible spy and playing a very dangerous game.

Spy hunting was witch hunting at the time. She would end up facing the firing squad, at dawn, as is customary. ‘Mata Hari’ means ‘The eye of dawn’ in Malay by the way. She was the Sun.

She was a legend and would remain one. All the details about her life may not be true. Some are. Historians can keep debating.

Other than Mars and Uranus transiting, you may notice Saturn squaring the Ascendant on the fatal day. It was 5: 47am, the Moon was very old. Libra was Rising.

There should be something interesting happening around the time of the previous eclipse season. Let’s check.

There had been two solar eclipses and a lunar one at the beginning of summer.

The first solar eclipse happened on the 19th of June 1917, at 28 degree Gemini. At the time, Uranus was squaring her natal Pluto.

(The whole spying business had started when transiting Uranus opposed her natal Sun, the first in line in the Leo stellium.)

Two days after this eclipse, on the 21st of June, Mata Hari admitted to her interrogators that she had received money from the Germans.

This confession was the fatal mistake that led to her execution. Since her arrest in February (the 13th), she had denied it - and they had no formal proof.

The Lunar eclipse of the 4th of July 1917 was the highlight of this eclipse season: it was a total lunar eclipse and visible from Paris. It fell exactly on her natal Venus-Black Moon Lilith opposition.

I’ve made a legitimate big fuss of her Leo Stellium, but we can notice how her natal Venus and Moon tightly trine her Ascendant.

Trines are powerful aspects, second only to conjunctions in bringing energies together. The Venus-Black Moon Lilith - Moon - Ascendant connection certainly describes her very much as well.

She was a detonating mix of Fire and Water.

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