Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)

A Prophet of Compassion silenced by the Cold War

Pearl Buck’s horoscope offers another compelling example of Jupiter in Cancer at work—not by direct placement of the planet, but through the Moon and Venus both located in Cancer and within the bound of Jupiter, while Jupiter in Aries overcomes them from the 10th sign. This configuration underlies Buck’s emotional identification with the forgotten and the displaced—especially children—and her moral courage to speak out against political illusions. The Moon-Venus pairing in Cancer expresses protective, maternal, and deeply intuitive energies, in stark contrast to the public, performative Moon in Leo conjunct the Ascendant in Henry Luce’s chart, which I examined last week. Where Luce mythologized power, Buck saw through it, and aligned herself with the voiceless. Her Moon’s configuration—with its dignified void-of-course motion after separating from Venus—signals a life marked by emotional solitude and profound ethical clarity, undistracted by worldly approval.

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) was an American writer, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate best known for her vivid depictions of Chinese peasant life in her landmark novel The Good Earth (1931). Born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia, Buck spent most of her early life in China, where her parents served as Presbyterian missionaries. Her bilingual, bicultural upbringing shaped her deep empathy for Chinese rural society and provided the foundation for her literary career. After attending Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia and later earning a Master’s degree from Cornell, she returned to China, where she lived through political unrest and personal tragedy, including the death of her mother and the difficulties of raising a developmentally disabled daughter.

Buck's breakthrough came with The Good Earth, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and contributed to her being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938—the first American woman to receive the honor. Her writing brought Chinese culture to a Western audience with unprecedented intimacy and compassion, though later critics would challenge her portrayal as orientalist or oversimplified. Buck eventually broke with missionary ideology and became an outspoken critic of racial prejudice, colonialism, and patriarchy. Her advocacy extended to adoption reform, particularly for children of mixed-race parentage born during and after the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 1949, she co-founded Welcome House, the first international, interracial adoption agency in the United States.

Despite her prominence in the 1930s and 40s, Buck's public influence waned during the Cold War. Her vocal opposition to American foreign policy, especially her refusal to support Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists—whom she considered corrupt—put her at odds with powerful figures like Henry Luce and his wife Clare Boothe Luce, who championed Chiang as a Christian ally. Luce’s Time magazine effectively blacklisted Buck, contributing to a sharp decline in her literary reputation. Further controversy followed her later-life relationship with Theodore Harris, her personal secretary and a man decades her junior, derided in the press as “the dancing master." Though dismissed by critics, Buck remained a prolific writer and compassionate voice for human dignity until her death on March 6, 1973, in Danby, Vermont. Today, she is remembered as a cultural bridge between East and West, and as a moral force who refused to retreat from her convictions.

ADB Rodden Rating A, From memory, 12:30 AM, ASC 11AR40

Proposed rectification: 11:23:57 PM, ASC 14PI28’55”

Rectification details available in excel workbook (Paid subscriber member benefit)

Victor Model factors favoring Jupiter in Aries

• Sign ruler of ASC and MC

• Bound ruler of ASC, Moon, and Lot of Spirit

• Co-present with Lot of Spirit

• Oriental approaching waxing square to Sun

• Mutual reception by exaltation with Sun in Cancer

• Mutual reception by bound with Mars in Aquarius

Physigonomy model factors favoring Aries, Cancer and Pisces

• Face: photos from a very young age show the bony ovate of Aries, later filled out to the round ovate common to other cardinal signs in Willner’s facial shape model. There is no evidence of the ‘small’ ovate for Willner’s Cancer model.

• Torso: Buck’s torso is large and fleshy which I assign to Pisces as the rising sign

Moon’s Configuration: Moon separates from Venus and applies to Mars

The aspect sequence is as follows:

1. Moon in Cancer: separates from the conjunction of Venus

2. Moon is void of course and makes an out-of-sign aspect to Mars

3. Moon in Leo: applies to the opposition of Mars

Moon in Cancer — Maternal Heartache

The Moon in Cancer in the 5th House symbolizes Pearl Buck’s deeply personal connection to themes of motherhood, creation, and the emotional cost of care. As ruler of the sign, the Moon is dignified in Cancer and especially potent when placed in a house associated with children and artistic legacy. Buck’s own motherhood was marked by profound sorrow. Her first child, Carol, was developmentally disabled—a source of private grief and public silence for decades. Buck herself underwent a sterilizing operation at an early age, rendering the question of motherhood one not only of loss but of existential rupture. The Moon in this placement is not only creative and nurturing—it is wounded, reflective, and, ultimately, redemptive in its channeling of sorrow into global humanitarian work.

Phase I — Moon Separates from Venus (Cancer, 5th House)

The first phase of the Moon’s configuration describes a direct and intimate emotional pattern: the Moon separates from Venus retrograde in Cancer, suggesting that Buck’s life is rooted in a deep and unresolved attachment to femininity, care, and scandal. Venus retrograde in Cancer, itself signifying social reversal and discomfort in the traditional roles of womanhood and motherhood, expresses itself poignantly through the life of Pearl Buck. Her personal struggle with infertility, combined with the emotional burden of raising a mentally disabled daughter in an era of stigma, created a matrix of maternal pain. This pain, however, did not remain static. Venus continues forward after the Moon’s departure and immediately applies to a partile sextile with Saturn in Virgo.

Saturn rules the 11th and 12th houses in Buck’s horoscope. Its role in this configuration is dual: first, it symbolizes institutionalization and isolation, themes realized in the lifelong placement of her daughter Carol in a care facility. Second, Saturn’s rulership over the 11th house reveals an important political and social consequence—exclusion from ideological and political collectives. Buck’s open criticism of Chiang Kai-shek and Cold War foreign policy estranged her from establishment figures. In a particularly revealing moment, she was excluded by Richard Nixon’s team from the official American delegation to China in 1972, despite being a recognized American voice on Chinese life. This is a textbook expression of Saturn’s 11th-house rulership: formal exclusion from alliances or causes, even those closely aligned with one's life work.

Importantly, Saturn’s placement in the 7th House of marriage and partnerships reflects the coldness and rigidity of both her father and her first husband, Lossing Buck—a parallel that deeply influenced her emotional life. The combination of Carol’s disability and the emotional unavailability of Lossing created a strained and painful family dynamic, one that eventually led Buck to seek a more supportive relationship in her second marriage. The Saturnian chill here is not only institutional—it is domestic and deeply wounding.

Following Saturn, Venus applies to a square with Jupiter, suggesting both expansion and tension. This aspect coincides with Buck’s public activism for adoption reform, especially for mixed-race children fathered by American soldiers in Asia. These efforts—pioneering and humane—were also considered scandalous by prevailing mid-century norms. A retrograde Venus here again shows how Buck took what was hidden or socially taboo and made it her cause. The square to Jupiter expands the mission but also reflects the criticism, suspicion, and moral unease surrounding her proposals.

Phase II — The Void-of-Course Moon — Functional Delay

Following its separation from Venus, the Moon is technically void of course for an extended period. Traditionally, this would indicate delay, uncertainty, or a lack of clear outcome. However, William Lilly’s aphorism offers a nuanced corrective: a Moon void in Cancer, her own sign, may still "perform somewhat" due to her essential dignity. This exception fits Buck’s case precisely. Though the Moon does not immediately form another aspect, Venus—having just parted from the Moon—drives forward through Saturn and Jupiter, sustaining the story of Buck’s life. Her maternal sorrow evolved into institutional and political exclusions, and from those exclusions grew her global advocacy. The apparent stillness of the Moon belies a current moved forward by the very planet it just left.

Phase III — Moon Applies to Mars (Aquarius, 12th House)

Eventually, the Moon leaves Cancer and applies to Mars in Aquarius in the 12th House. Though the aspect is long delayed, its symbolic force still resonates in Buck’s later life. Mars in the 12th house signifies hidden enmity, ideological repression, and systemic attacks—qualities clearly embodied in the Cold War marginalization of Buck’s voice. After once being a Nobel and Pulitzer laureate, her public reputation was diminished through subtle and overt means, most notably by Henry Luce and Time magazine, who aligned with anti-communist sentiment and only reluctantly allowed publication of Pearl’s “A Warning about China” on 10-May-1943 in Time. This Mars aspect reflects a slow, inexorable drift into public exile—not from scandal, but from opposition by those in power.

Impact of Sect of Moon’s Configuration

Figure is nocturnal making Moon the sect light, Venus the in-sect benefit, and Mars the in-sect benefic. Sect bonifies the Moon’s configuration. Enlarges the scope of her Cancerian concerns for children among the wider public. Lessens the harshness of Mars-signifies secret enemies.

Lunar Phase

Figure is conjunctional, Pearl Buck was born during the Moon’s waxing phase. While New Moon horoscopes are a debility, the Moon is separating from the Sun by 20 degrees 45 minutes which means the Moon is no longer combust mitigating the worst case delineations for New Moon horoscopes. Conjunctional figures manifest their main focus during early years. By 1932, the midpoint of Buck’s 80 years of longevity, she had written her best selling book The Good Earth and had received the Pulitzer Prize. The balance of her life was a variation on themes developed during her early years in China. This supports the ‘early bloomer’ thesis for conjunctional nativities.