What would you say, if you saw this chart without knowing it’s Saint Charles de Foucauld?

He was called ‘Marabout’ (Holy Man) by the Tuaregs, even though they were Muslims and he was Christian. Not a single one converted though. They had their faith. He didn’t think of himself as a missionary. He wanted the ‘last place’. He wanted to be poor amongst the poor, to follow in the steps of Jesus of Nazareth, and abandon himself completely to God.

If I didn’t know whose chart that was, I would think… Someone in a psychiatric hospital maybe?

Two grand crosses, if you include aspects with Chiron. No sextiles, no trines, unless you include Chiron. Only tensions. Neptune all over the place, Aquarius Rising with Uranus unaspected and Venus ringing the bells of heartache.

When he was five, his mother died of a misscarriage. (It was the 13th of March 1864). A few months later, his father died of tuberculosis. The father had mental health issues. The mother may have died of exhaustion actually.

The same year, Clothilde de Foucauld, his grandmother, who had taken him and his little sister Marie with her, died in front of them. She was anxious that a herd of cows would trample on the children. It upset her so much that her heart failed.

He and his sister would then live with his maternal grandfather. He was warm and loving. He would die when Charles was 20 years old. He left him a tremendous fortune. At the time, Charles was attending a military school to become a cavalry officer.

He was obese. He was called Fatty Foucauld. He was said to have absolutely no sense of duty, no discipline. He organised huge parties, champagne, foie gras and so on. He spent so much that his aunt obtained judicial control of his finances. And, what a scandal, he had a mistress, a woman of low birth and ill repute, an actress and courtesan, ‘Mimi’. He was called a libertine. I’m pretty sure his reputation went far beyond what he was actually doing.

He would stay two years with Mimi. When he was sent to Algier, he took her with him. He tried to pass her off as his legitimate spouse in receptions. The scandal was huge. The social elite of the 19th century was not ready for rock and roll. His superiors ordered him to send her back to France. He refused. He was suspended.

Back to France with Mimi, he learned that his regiment was sent to fight in Tunisia. He wouldn’t let his comrades face danger and stay behind. He left Mimi and went to fight. He proved himself to be a good soldier after all.

With Venus in Scorpio, opposite Pluto, square Saturn and Chiron I wouldn’t expect him to find it easy to get girls and easy to let them go.

When grief has nested in your heart, parting is painful.

He would resign from the army the next year, learn Hebrew and Arabic and explore Morocco disguised as a rabbi. He would have been executed as a spy if he had been identified as French. He would take notes in a tiny book hidden in the palm of his hand, record ethnologic observations and chart the territory.

He would get a gold medal from the French Geographical Society for this work. Sagittarius and Virgo working well together here!

After this, was it love that he was feeling? Or needing to find an anchor? She was called Marie Titre. He met her in Algiers. Her father was a French army officer and a geographer. He seriously considered marrying her, but… Charles’ family was dead set against it. He was a Vicomte, and she had no title of nobility.

Under pressure he would renounce… Later, he would write to his cousin, Marie de Bondy:

‘I needed to be saved from this marriage, and you saved me’.

Since his teenage years, Charles had declared himself an agnostic. When exploring Morocco, the deep faith and contentment with life of the people he met struck him.

He came to utter a strange prayer. "My God, if You exist, make Yourself known to me."

The 30th of October 1886 is the (most probable) date of his dramatic conversion, provoked by his encounter with a charismatic priest.

From then on, this tormented man had found a radical path to match the radical demands of his radical chart….

There would be much more to tell, but not now. I was wondering about his life story ‘before’ he became a monk and a priest living in the desert.

He died on the 16th of November 1916 killed by rebels in Tamanrasset, Algeria.

He is remembered as a saint, but he could also be remembered as a fantastic linguist. He translated thousands of Tuareg poems and produced a massive Tuareg-French dictionary.

He was quite ahead of his time: he valued the culture of the people he met, and the people themselves, instead of trying to impose, with a colonial and missionary mindset typical of his days, his own culture and beliefs.

In Aquarius style, he wanted everyone—Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others—to regard him as "their brother, the universal brother”.

The last words are from Neptune, from the heart of an orphan, the ‘prayer of abandonment’.

Father,

I abandon myself into your hands;

do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do,

I thank you.

I am ready for all, I accept all...

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