November 2018: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Born: March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, NY (birth time unknown: run as 8pm): Emotional Generator with 3/5 Profile

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

What a varied and busy life Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had thus far! At 85 years old, she’s still going quite strong, thank you very much! Not one to brag about her past successes, you’d have to do the research or watch the new documentaries on her life to understand the full breadth of what she’s accomplished. Born in 1933, she has lived at the forefront of the changes that many women have seen from the sidelines. While we all can appreciate the women’s rights she fought for, it’s hard to believe that she was involved in so many of those fateful decisions – arguing six gender equality issue cases in front of the Supreme Court during the 1970’s and winning five of them – all as a fierce and passionate advocate for most of her life. The very body that she would one day be appointed to played a major role in her successes prior to becoming an Associate Justice in 1993.

Joan Ruth Bader was born on March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, NY, to parents of Russian heritage. At school, they decided to call her “Ruth”, and her mother encouraged her studies from an early age, as she was unable to receive the full education she desired. Diligent and bright, Ruth excelled at her studies and was accepted at Cornell for college. There, she met and married Martin Ginsburg, they had a child and after his military service, started Harvard Law School as a couple. Sounds rosy, but it wasn’t. She had many adversaries in her quest for the same education that men were allowed, but also had a number of personal tragedies.

She was a survivor from the beginning! A number of things happened in her young life that would have thrown others off course completely. Ginsburg not only survived; she thrived. As a toddler, her sister died of meningitis; the day before her high school graduation, her mother died of cancer; at Harvard Law, her husband developed cancer, so that she was mother to her own toddler, caretaker of her husband, and taking notes in class for both of them, all while being elected as the first female on the Harvard Law Review. She was tough and didn’t back down when her professors, peers and even the Deans wondered why she was taking a spot that a “qualified man” could take in class – where she was one of nine females in a class of 500. But she persisted and was at the top of her class at Harvard, and again at Columbia Law School, where she spent her last year after transferring to New York City because of her husband’s first job.

HD Chart for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

As talented as Ruth was, she had trouble finding a job as a young female lawyer. She eventually got a job as a clerk for a judge, and then moved onto the Columbia Law Project, where she focused on civil procedure. For most of her career prior to the bench, she was focused on women’s rights, sex discrimination and the gender rights issues for the ACLU, for which she argued at the Supreme Court. During those years, she was also a professor of law first at Rutgers and then at Columbia. After being appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals by President Carter in 1980, she was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by a vote of 96-3. She hasn’t missed a day of oral arguments in all her years on the bench, not even when she was undergoing treatment for two cancers or the day after her husband died in 2010. She’s a trooper, a survivor and the Energizer Bunny all rolled into one!

And here’s what her chart shows about all this energy to thrive in the face of adversity. She’s an Emotional Generator with a 3/5 Profile (using an 8pm birth time). She’s got the stamina of the Generator Sacral to go and go, the willpower of the Will Center and a brilliant and creative mind with the defined Head and Ajna. She is emotional but has two relatively mild emotional waves, and a completely open Spleen, which can point to someone who is completely fear-less (or the opposite).

With her defined Head and Ajna, she has the Channel of Abstraction (Gates 64-47), which allows her to think in an abstract way and outside the box, and the Channel of Acceptance (Gates 17-62) allows her to have opinions that will bring acceptance because she is so meticulous with the details of the case or the brief or the argument. She also has the gates of Ideas (11) and the gate of Suspicion, both of which are in the Logical Circuit, so she could be both creative and logical, which probably antagonized her opponents in court. While creative and brilliant, she was always cautious not to color too far outside the lines with her demeanor, taunts or condescension of lesser rivals, as she also had the Gate of Caution (12). She was always careful of her reputation and her family’s. She was also cautious in her court stance with each case, where she would not leap too far in any one case. She preferred to take a more strategic long-term approach and winning rights step by step. That strategy proved very effective.

With the defined Sacral, Will and Emotional Solar Plexus, she likely listens to her gut response in any situation, and then wills herself to carry through with her decision. But she likely also waits out her emotional wave for the big decisions, so that she’s not jumping into something spontaneously. She has the Channel of Community (or Agreements 37-40) which means that contracts and agreements are very important to her, and she does not like to see them broken. That seems like a good one for the Justice to have! And she has the Channel of Mating (59-46), which is very Tribal and family-oriented but also very creative (and not just pro-creation). So she’s loyal to her own family, of course, but also will watch out for the families of all she feels responsible for. Those are some big shoulders on a very petite lady!

Finally, I’ll mention that the story of her life, or Incarnation Cross, is “The Right Angle Cross of Eden”. This is one theme that we find a lot in public defenders and it fits Justice Ginsburg quite well. As a woman, she was always on the side of women’s rights and equality for all, including all who were discriminated against in any way – even when men were slighted so that “the weaker sex” could benefit. Many of her decisions were just that: ways to better the treatment of any down-trodden groups. Her public advocacy was passionate, creative, protective and cautious.

It’s this combination of stamina, willpower and brilliance which she used at full force that allows her friends and foes alike to admire her as a force to reckon with and to be seen as a “symbol of public resistance, private resilience and justice”. We can all be thankful for the public servant that Justice Ginsburg has been for over 25 years!