Hi Franklin,
The first thing I noticed in your father's chart is that he was entering the last phase of his Saturn return. Transiting Saturn had already passed directly over his birth Saturn in February 1989 and through retrogradation passed over it again in June 1989. Saturn returned direct at 7° Capricorn 18' in September, but had not reached exact conjunction with its natal place, which would have happened on November 21.
The second Saturn return brings to the forefront the questions of aging: what does aging mean to me? Am I ready to become an elder? Is the public ready for me to be an elder? What does it mean to be an elder? Can I face what it means to be an elder in American society? How much fear do I have around being "old" in a youth oriented culture? What have I sacrificed of myself to have the public status I have? What does my public status mean to me? How has society nurtured and squelched me to this point? How do I reclaim me from my public face? These are just a few of the questions the Saturn return was bringing up on its own without "a little help from its friends" in either the birth or death charts. And it was getting a whole lot of help there.
Natally, he had Venus and Uranus conjunct in Aries within 31 minutes of a perfect square to his natal Saturn. On the day of his death, this conjunction became the focal point of a T-Square formed by Jupiter in Cancer opposing his natal Saturn.
The Venus-Uranus conjunction is in his second house due to Aquarius being intercepted in the first in Placidus (Leo is intercepted in the 7th). Venus is the natural ruler of the second house and always had him examining his own values, his self-worth and how he obtained and used his resouces at the personal unconscious level (Uranus). Uranus would tend to make conscious the issues that were in the greatest dissonance with his personal view of himself and make him work on them, whether he liked it or not.
The transiting Jupiter-Saturn return opposition was doing a push-pull dance with each other, Jupiter trying to expand the higher learning that the Venus-Uranus conjunction was trying to provide your father where the Saturn return was trying to contract the learning so much to make it as socially acceptable (and to his persona since the natal ACS was Capricorn) as possible.
The other feature of this T-square was that transiting Neptune was also conjunct his natal Saturn. (Transiting Uranus was not close enough in orb for conjunction status, but he was probably feeling some input from it from his natal Uranus.) Neptune was pulling off the blinders, so to speak, and making your father face the life he had formed (Saturn) with no illusions about it. He wasn't going to be able to hide from his soul anymore and Neptune was going to have him excavate in the depths of the collective unconscious to make him understand what he had "bought into" over the years about how he was to be in public.
Some may say that transiting Mars in Libra created a grand cross configuration. The orb is a little too wide for my taste and I won't discuss it here. However, just think of Mars being in one of the signs that Venus rules in opposition to Venus, which is in the sign Mars rules, and you'll get some flavor of the dynamic that would be taking place.
Transiting Capricorn Uranus, however, was squaring his Aries Sun. The natural instinctive self was being challenged to come public with the personal unconscious aspects that would make him more of an individual within the social context. Aries is the most instinctual sign in the Zodiac and Uranus was wanting to integrate the instincts with the soul energy that was trying to enter the public world. This frightened the Aries Sun energy in your father because it was a challenge to the authority Sun energy carries with it.
Emotionally, the transiting Aquarian Moon was weakly sextiled to his natal Sagittarian Moon. Detached emotional traveling between the 11th and 1st house realms to bring forth a higher learning that can be applied humanely to the self.
The transiting Aquarian midheaven was also squared his natal Scorpio midheaven. What does it mean to be out in public in a humanely detached way that respects the need to go deeper into the transformative and transmutational space of the twilight of consciousness and instinctualness is what is being dealt with here. Scorpio is both instinct and consciousness and yet neither. Instinct needs to transform and transmute so it can become integrated with consciousness. It is through this one can begin to transverse the personal unconscious and bring forth the talents and skills that can benefit humanity (as well as the self) into the public consciousness.
Most of this work was probably not visible to even the closest members of his family. He was going to do this work on his own, thanks to his Aries Sun and Capricorn ASC. It would difficult for him to even share any of this with others because he was forever weighing what of this journey could be shared without affecting his standing in his mini-public (4th house family) and the actual public. He did not want to appear that he was going crazy, although I would bet he felt like he was.
Think of it this way: reverse the last scene of "2001: A Space Odyssey." You have the embryo of the star child looking down on a very old, enfeebled Dave and probably wondering "is this all there really is to life?" The embryo does not see the journey Dave has taken to reach this point, all it sees is the end-point and it does not like what it sees. The T-square between your father's birth and death chart has that quality to it: The Aries sun energy, full of life and all possibilities, is looking at its old age and death through the Saturn return T-Square and does not like what it sees. It can't bring a balanced, higher perspecitve (Libra in the 9th) that will provide it the wisdom to negotiate eldership with grace and harmony. It is almost like the Aries sun energy is saying "if I can't have eternal youth, I don't want to have any more life."
The stress and strain of the exploration and readjustment through the T-square became too much for your father and he decided unconsciously to leave behind the struggle via dying. It may have appeared sudden to his family and friends, yet for him it was the culmination of a no-win situation while he still had his perceived youth and vigor which transiting Neptune was trying to make him face as an illusion.
I hope this helps. Take what fits and discard the rest.
I have also brought up the link to your brother's chart. Would you like any observations on it?
