Barbara Hammer was born into the film industry of Hollywood, California, because her grandfather was a cook for the director, D. W. Griffith. She got a bachelor’s degree in psychology at University of California Los Angeles and then a master’s degree in English literature.  After walking out on her husband, Hammer realized her calling and studied film at San Francisco State University and got inspired to do a photologue of her personal development and love affairs as a lesbian.  You can see many of them here.  Our header image is of Ms. Hammer from “Superdyke meets Madame X,” one of her shorts.

You can download her chart here: Barbara Hammer

                           Working with Hammer

We have rectified Ms. Hammer birth chart from the stated 12:45 to forty five minutes later, giving her the ascendant of 21 Virgo that has the Hyperion meaning of “healing messages left at a temple of the future.”  McClung writes that this symbol is one of accepting the spiritual rite of healing  and the patience to wait for the certain time until its arrival heralds a dawn of all-potentiality with a keyword of “Foresight.”  Conjunct  her first house cusp is Neptune; it is also exact her ascendant showing the strong masculine urges in her that needs to be let free and unfettered.

Neptune is then opposite her Jupiter which begins  a plethora of planets in Aries and Taurus starting in the seventh house and ending only at ninth but conjunct her Midheaven, showing how her exploration of her sexuality and individuality was an extension of her love, her beliefs and the intense animation of herself on film.  Watching on film, one senses enthusiastic appreciation of the partnerships she encounters and the various opportunities these partnerings give her.  (Jupiter at 0 Aries in the seventh house of Pisces).

Her Grand Trine is made of her Neptune, Mars and Sun a strong trinity of masculine planets found in predominantly feminine signs (Taurus, Scorpio, Capricorn) integrating her sexuality fully.

Ms. Hammer is a locomotive temperament type with her greatest open area in the West, highlighting how leadership was thrust upon her even when it was unexpected.  In her early films she bemoans how her films are eclipsing her painting, now that she is 78 years old, her films are her art and her painting is something she does with the lens not the brush.  Like most locomotives, she prefers to get involved with her partners totally and in SuperDyke, Madame X notes that she is alive only for the camera and X worries that she is being manipulated for the film.  If so, she would not be the first muse to be so…nor probably the last.

Ms. Hammer lives in  Kerhonkson, New York in the Catskills.  Her website is here.