Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay)

Muhammad Ali, the most famous boxing world champion of all times, was born in Louisville (Kentucky - USA) at 06:35 p.m. on January 17th, 1942.

His heliocentric chart is shown here:

Let's see how the chart shows Muhammad has what it takes to become a very successful boxing champion.

Boxing requires fighting skills, swiftness and dexterity. The planets primarily involved are Mars (fighting) and Mercury (swiftness, dexterity). The signs ruled by Mars are Aries and Scorpio, however Aries is open fighting (where Scorpio is undercover fighting).

Of the signs ruled by Mercury, we would prefer Gemini, as Gemini specifically rules movement, speed and general dexterity (while Virgo rules manual dexterity).

To sum it up, the strength of Mars and or Mercury and involvement of the signs Aries and or Gemini would be a bonus in boxing.

Muhammad Ali has all four of these factors prominently interconnected in his chart: Mercury is in Aries and Mars is in Gemini. This is a mutual reception (in vedic astrology it is called a parivartana yoga), as Mercury is in Mars' sign and Mars is in Mercury's sign. A mutual reception is always powerful and acts as a conjunction.

Mercury and Mars are both also strong due to powerful aspects they receive.

Mercury receives a trine (a fifth house trine, therefore a 'creative product' trine) from Pluto. This kind of aspect gives a lot of self-confidence, as the mind (Mercury) finds a capacity for continuous renewal (Pluto) in its creative process (Pluto in the 5th aspect from Mercury).

Mars benefits from a conjunction with Jupiter: the aggressive energies identify with the capacity to expand (the conjunction acts like a first house placement).

Mars, let's not forget, is also Mercury's dispositor, so Jupiter's effect extends to Mercury. In Muhammad's case, this effect is religious (Jupiter as belief systems).

In summation, we may say that Muhammad Ali's mindset is strongly bent towards action, is very confident, and is influenced by religious beliefs.

The Earth is the primary significator for the body in heliocentric astrology and is an important factor to examine in the chart of a sports champion. Muhammad Ali's Earth receives some very important aspects from other planets:

a sextile from Saturn: this is a helper aspect (Saturn is in the 11th sign from Earth) and may be interpreted as being strict (Saturn) with the body (Earth). This aspect gives both physical endurance and discipline with the body

a sextile from Uranus: another helper aspect, with Uranus helping the body being at the right time and place: good reflexes

a sextile from Neptune: this sextile is different from the previous, as it originates from the 3rd sign from the Earth. Neptune's meaning of 'taking things to another level' (transcend) is applied to the body through movement (one of the possible ways of interpreting a 3rd sign aspect).

The Earth in Cancer conjunct Venus is an indicator of his tendency to self-indulgence. One famous quote from Muhammad Ali exemplifies the effect of Venus associated with the body: "I'm so pretty" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali).

Venus in Cancer explains his love for family life, especially children - he has nine children - and would also be at the root of his commitment towards hunger and poverty relief in the Third World.

Jupiter's semi-sextile to Venus, although with a rather large orb of nearly 2 degrees, is very interesting. It occurs from the 12th sign from Venus: his religious beliefs (Jupiter) take away (12th aspect) from his relationships. Muhammad Ali married four times and religious issues appear to have played a part in this.

Another way to interpret this semi-sextile is to see it from Jupiter's point of view: the things he is attracted to (Venus) build on (2nd aspect) religious beliefs (Jupiter).