George Harrison

George Harrison's birth time is one of the small mysteries of astrology. His sister Louise kept a record in their mother's handwriting saying he was born at 12:10 a.m. on February 25, 1943, at the family home on Arnold Grove in Liverpool, and that is the time used here. But in 1992 Harrison said he had learned that his birth had actually been about half an hour earlier, on the evening of February 24. Either way the Sun is in Pisces, and for a man who became the most spiritual of the Beatles, that may be the most important fact in the chart.

Pisces is the sign of devotion, mysticism and the longing for something beyond ordinary life. Harrison was the youngest Beatle, joining the band as a teenager, and for years he was the quiet one, overshadowed as a songwriter by Lennon and McCartney. Then, in the mid-1960s, he discovered Indian music and the sitar, began studying with Ravi Shankar, and brought Indian instruments and ideas into the Beatles' sound. He became a lifelong follower of Hindu spiritual practice, and his faith ran through his music for the rest of his life.

On the 12:10 chart, the Sun falls in the fourth house, the area of home, roots and private life, alongside Venus at the end of Pisces in the fifth. A Pisces Sun in the fourth suggests someone whose spiritual life was lived at home rather than on stage. In later years Harrison spent much of his time at Friar Park, his Victorian estate in Oxfordshire, where he devoted himself to its enormous gardens.

By the end of the Beatles he had come into his own as a writer, with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun." His first post-Beatles album, All Things Must Pass, released in 1970, was a triple record full of songs that had been squeezed out of the band, and its lead single, "My Sweet Lord," became a worldwide hit. In 1971 he organized the Concert for Bangladesh, one of the first large-scale charity concerts in rock.

Mercury in Aquarius and Mars in Capricorn sit in the third house of communication and close circles. Aquarius thinks independently, and Capricorn adds practical drive. Harrison had an independent streak in business as well as music: he co-founded HandMade Films to finance Monty Python's Life of Brian when its original backers pulled out, and the company went on to produce other British films of the period. In the late 1980s he formed the Traveling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne.

He died of cancer on November 29, 2001, at the age of 58, with his family around him. His wife, Olivia, and son, Dhani, said in a statement that he left this world "as he lived in it, conscious of God, fearless of death, and at peace."

Whatever the exact minute, the Pisces Sun is not in doubt. It described the Beatle who went looking for something larger, and kept looking.