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The Astrology Of Lil Bub: In Memoriam

By any reasonable standard, Lil Bub should not have lasted. She was the runt of the litter, born to a feral mother, and was loaded with genetic mutations. Her lower jaw was so short that her tongue perpetually hung out. She couldn’t walk so much as shuffle, like an Army recruit crawling under barbed wire on his belly. The sounds she produced weren’t particularly cat-like. She had to be fed a specialized liquidized diet, and she grunted and slurped at it with hog-like sounds.

Frankly, she was weird looking. That didn’t stop her from being beautiful.

Lil Bub became an international Internet celebrity. She was loved by millions. Perhaps more importantly, she led to many donations to various animal rescue groups. All this, despite being sickly and needing some sort of medical care all the time.

Bub was born June 21st, 2011, time unknown, Bloomington Indiana. There are two bits of astrological symbolism here that we should note. One of them is obvious, the other one is not — but is probably a lot more important.

Lil Bub had a Moon-Chiron-Neptune conjunction. If one wanted to engage in some (potentially sloppy) symbolism about how this meant that her defects were part of her charm, one could do so. I prefer to focus on the “healing” part of the “wounded healer” cliche in this. Lil Bub inadvertently made life better for many other shelter animals, and lightened the mood of millions of fans around the world, simply by being herself. In an age that celebrates “beauty,” she was her very own sort of beautiful

More importantly though? When she left us early in the morning of December 1st, she did so as Jupiter was transitioning from Sagittarius into Capricorn — closely opposite her Sun in the last degree of Gemini. I think we should take this as a sign that we should take the optimism and good will of Jupiter in Sagittarius and apply it in the next year to the firm but caring nature of Jupiter in Capricorn.

In the next year, maybe more than ever, we should remind ourselves to truly see the light in others as we squabble and bicker incessantly on the Internet over our petty differences. It’s easy enough to be a jerk to someone who’s being a jerk to you over some foolish philosophical difference, and then dismiss them with a contemptuous “namaste.” It’s much harder to truly salute The light within someone we’re disagreeing with — or with someone whose beliefs we find distasteful or ugly.

Instead of “liking” and “sharing” the latest gossip or venom, we should try harder to like each other more, and to share our common humanity.

That, I think, could be the real lesson of Lil Bub and Jupiter in Capricorn.

Godspeed Lil Bub. May your time with us here on Earth translate into us all being better people.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'”
-Matthew 25:40