Harvey Milk - The Move To San Francisco

The last Sunday in June is the Pride celebration in San Francisco, and I often find myself pondering the life of the late San Francisco Supervisor, Harvey Milk during this time of year. I looked to see if I could find out exactly when he moved to San Francisco. All I could find was that he moved from New York to San Francisco during the later part of 1972. One of the biographical sites stated that Harvey was bored with his life in New York, and so he decided to move to San Francisco. According to Astrodienst, Harvey was born on May 22, 1930 at 1:30 AM in Woodmere, New York.

Relocating to a city across the country is one of those major life events that we should have astrological signals or transits/aspects (if you will) indicating such an event. To do that, we look at the fourth house in a natal chart, the IC (cusp of the fourth house), planets in the fourth house, the Moon, and the ruler of the fourth house. Harvey Milk had a number of transits and aspects to his natal chart along with his progressed chart which makes Harvey’s move to San Francisco appear to make a great deal of sense astrologically. I will list of few of those signifiers below. This is not intended to be a complete chart analysis. The chart(s) are at the bottom of this report if you’d like to review them.

First off, Neptune had been transiting Harvey’s ninth house of distant matters. This is sort of an “over the rainbow” type of transit. This transit was also validated by his own natal Moon in Pisces. He probably found himself dreaming of beautiful distant places filled with beautiful people - a sort of utopia. Perhaps, that’s what he saw in San Francisco or imagined it to be - he would not have been the first to do so or the last.

Harvey’s natal Jupiter and natal Venus are located in his fourth house. His home would have needed to be a place of adventure and he would have needed to feel comfortable having his type of a romantic relationship (a gay relationship) there. In 1972, Saturn was transiting Gemini and his fourth house of home. In the later part of the year, it would have conjoined his natal Jupiter and squared his natal Moon (in Pisces). This transit would have signified his boredom with where he was, and it might have even depressed him a bit emotionally. With Saturn transiting one’s fourth house, the native is to focus on strengthening one’s home and making it secure and a place one would want to live. If there are problems in that regard, it’s understandable that the native might want to move to a place more personally acceptable. This must have been part of Harvey’s thinking at that time.

Transiting Uranus was in opposition to Harvey’s natal Uranus (an important astrological event we have when we turn 40-42). He probably felt like the first part of his life had passed, and that he’d better get busy and achieve those things that would make his life more personally fulfilling. In addition, transiting Uranus was in a square aspect to his natal Pluto (in the fifth house) and had opposed his natal Mars (in the second). These types of aspects would normally make one almost desperate to make some needed changes in one’s life. It’s likely that he felt an intense urge to make some transformative and even revolutionary changes. Transiting Uranus was also in a trine aspect to his natal Jupiter in the fourth house of home, indicating that he could probably make this change fairly suddenly and fairly smoothly.

Prolific Astrologer Robert Hand writes this about transiting Uranus in opposition to natal Uranus in his book, “Planets In Transit”:

This is one of the most important transits of your life. This is the crisis of middle age when you have to come to terms with a number of realizations that may not all be pleasant. For example, even though you are not very old, you are no longer young. Have you accomplished or begun to accomplish what you wanted when you were younger? If you have, was it an appropriate accomplishment for you? Are you happy with your close relationships, your marriage, your work?

What about Harvey’s progressed chart in later 1972? His progressed Moon had just opposed his natal Uranus, and transiting Uranus was passing back and forth over his progressed Moon. His progressed IC had moved to about 18 Cancer and conjunct his natal Pluto; and, with transiting Uranus and his progressed Moon squaring that point. His home life was due for some major transformation and change. In addition, a total solar eclipse hit his progressed IC on July 10, 1972. That eclipse was activated around November 1, 1972. My guess is that’s about the date that he moved.

So, Harvey Milk almost had to make some major changes in late 1972, and one of them was very likely to be a relocation and a new home. Happy Pride, everyone!