Through The Eye Of The Muse is a photographic exhibition that ran this summer in London. It was the first UK show for Pattie Boyd and included images of sixties and seventies rock stars as well as landscapes from around the world.
Pattie Boyd has led an extraordinary life. She began her career the other side of the lens as a sixties model. Aged 19 she met Beatle George Harrison on the set of the film Hard Days' Night. They married in 1966 while the Beatles were a global rock phenomenon and lived in a multi-coloured house in Surrey, where guests would paint their signatures on the walls. Pattie was forced by her traditional minded husband to sacrifice her rising modelling career and become a housewife. In 1969 they were both fined for possession of cannabis, which only enhanced their glamorous image as two of the beautiful people of the sixties, martyred by the oppressive establishment. Turning from drugs to meditation, it was she who led the Beatles to India to meet the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an experience that helped shape George’s lifelong spiritual journey and love of Indian music. Famously she inspired her husband to write Something, the only Beatles hit not written by Lennon and McCartney and once described by Frank Sinatra as the greatest love song of the century.
As their marriage became a Hard Day’s Night (George’s numerous affairs were partly to blame), she returned to her modelling career. While she was still Mrs Harrison, Pattie was passionately wooed by George’s friend, Cream guitarist Eric Clapton, who wrote two of his most enduring and haunting love ballads, Layla and Wonderful Tonight while in thrall to her. They wed in 1979, but Pattie’s fairytale marriage to Eric soon went sour as well. The same old 'be a housewife' routine repeated itself with Clapton, and without a career, Pattie became depressed. He was a heroin addict who later became an alcoholic and her own alcoholism worsened when Eric’s extramarital affairs became more and more apparent. He had two children with other women, which is what ultimately drove the two apart. Pattie was unable to have children, a fact that devastated her and in 1985 they separated.
Pattie now works as a professional photographer in her own right. With this exhibition she is finally, at the age of 62, displaying her own creative work and no longer has to live her artistry through others.
When I heard this story I wondered two things. This woman must have a strong Neptune as she's done it all ways; fairytale romance, drugs, sex, rock and roll, glamour, celebrity, photography, film, alcohol, meditation, spiritual seeking, deceptive husbands, sacrifice, martyrdom. She'd inspired musical artists but had been denied her own creative career until later in life. I also wanted to know what kind of Venus made her a beautiful superstar of the sixties, had her marry into rock royalty not once but twice and be the muse behind three love songs that have become twentieth century classics?
Pattie was born on 17th March 1944 in Taunton in Somerset. Her Venus is exalted in Pisces and interestingly squares Uranus, which shows her need for freedom to meet all kinds of people and have some ‘space’ to be herself within a relationship. As expected, the Neptune themes are strong. She has Sun, Mercury and Venus in Neptune ruled Pisces and all three planets aspect Neptune, as does Mars. The relationship between Venus and Neptune is a tense quincunx. Twice her marriages caused her separation from her career, and the probable erosion of her self esteem. On the positive side she photographed celebrities who were friends or lovers and so captured images that were far more relaxed, spontaneous and intimate than those revealed to public cameras.
Her birth time is unknown but one might conjecture that her Neptune is in the 7th house as she lived it both positively and negatively through her husbands. Now she has claimed it for herself, standing in her own spotlight (North node in Leo conjunct Pluto, Jupiter in Leo) to display a selection of her lifetime collection of pictures. That Saturn- Neptune square has manifested as the professional photographer.
The midday chart shows Saturn conjunct Mars and opposed to the Moon which tells the story of two husbands who both restricted her to the home upon marriage. Underpinning this is a strong Neptunian theme of sacrifice for love. The Saturn/ Moon may also show her inability to be a mother and her depression. With Pluto in Leo conjunct the north node she learned the dark side of celebrity. When she became involved with George, some Beatles fans did not take kindly to her. They would kick and swear at her, even stalk her and send her threatening letters. The drugs that led to her bust in 1969 were probably planted by the police.
Her photographs feature her rock musician friends, but also her considerable travels (Moon in Sagittarius). Ethereally, there’s something about the way she moves and brushes her long blonde hair that had one man attracted to her like no other lover and another on his knees in song. However, she was her own muse as well and now the world can see it, empowered perhaps by her recent Pluto transits (natal Pluto conjunct north node in Leo). It’s good to be reminded (especially for myself right now!) that Pluto brings up the light shadow as well as the dark, hidden treasure as well as the s**t!