If Ernesto Guevara, Cuban revolutionary, were alive today, he could be a millionaire. That is if he had embraced the 21st century concept of personal brand identity and charged royalties for all the places where his famous revolutionary silhoutette resides.

In addition to the usual places you’d expect to see the face of a revolutionary – flags, banners, posters, postage stamps, pins and T-shirts, I’ve also seen Guevara on such items as underwear and beads.

I’d like to insert a free image of Guevara here, but I’m a little unclear how that works. Instead I’ll link to this page that describes the iconic photo.

I’ve had a little conspiracy theory about Guevara since I’ve been a teenager (which is even before the prevalence of conspiracy theories). I’m convinced that Fidel (as in Fidel Castro) sent his stunningly handsome right-hand man into harm’s way (Bolivia) to make sure he (Fidel the Leo sun) could enjoy the limelight without a much sexier man (one girl’s opinion) taking the attention.

While in harm’s way trying to ignite revolution in Bolivia in October 1967, Guevara died an untimely death at the age of 39.

And Fidel had a life-long marketing campaign. Guevara is a Revolutionary Marketing Campaign Model. His look defined “revolution.”

Do you know what it normally costs to get a celebrity endorsement?

Fidel stayed at home and is still alive today, thumbing his 86-year-old nose at the US. Fidel has now been in power 54 years.

El Che

Although he fought for Cuban independence, Guevara was from Argentina and had a nickname that referred to the land of his birth – El Che.

Until now, I thought El Che was a Gemini sun. But in searching for his horoscope on Astrotheme, I learned his mother supposedly changed his birthday to hide the fact that he was conceived before his parents were married.

If this is true, Guevara is a Taurus sun / Pisces moon. The original June birthday would be Gemini sun / Taurus moon.

In these types of cases, I assume the birth date and time are approximate. But it’s fun to look and quell some curiosity about a man who left both his country and medical profession to fight “revolutions” in both South America and Africa.

The cigar-smoking Guevara was actually an asthmatic – which is why sun in Gemini, which rules the lungs, was believable. In the Taurus sun chart, Mercury is in Gemini and widely opposing Saturn in Sagittarius.

Beret wearing and cigar smoking evoked images of revolution (beret – France, cigar – Cuba) which led me to believe that Guevara was caught up in ideas and images, as air signs (like Gemini) are wont to do.

If the Astrotheme chart is correct, moon and Mars in Pisces is an impressionable idealist although sun in Taurus is a fixed, steady earth sign. Pisces provides more feeling and compassion than does earth sign Taurus which wants you to clean up your own mess.

Pisces, however, also has this terrible reputation for sacrifice. I’m wondering if El Che believed in the revolution more than its leader, Castro.

We’ll never know, as El Che died suddenly without so much as a blog or memoir or goodbye.

Revolution and Death

As long as we know the approximately month of birth, we can look at some trans-earth planets that would have been in the same sign during the May-June time period in 1928.

In this case, Mars and Jupiter had changed signs but Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would have remained in the same sign during those periods.

Maybe that’s telling about El Che’s life – we know him only through the outer planets, planets that define generations. We’ll never really know about his Mercury (true thoughts), Venus (true loves) and Mars (true motivations).

The date of the Cuban revolution is January 1, 1959. At that time Guevara was experiencing the passing of his Saturn return.

Saturn takes about 29 years to orbit the sun and its cycle is associated with the maturation process, the overcoming of our own personal Achilles heel. In the sign of Sagittarius, Guevara lacked meaning in his early upbringing.

This is where the moon makes a difference. In Pisces square Saturn, I could see martyr images being appealing – which is funny because martyrdom stems from religious sentiment. Glancing at Wikipedia it appears Guevara grew up in a “left leaning” household.

I’m not sure what “left leaning” meant to 1928 Argentina, but I’m suspecting that Guevara had religious urges that were suppressed.

When Guevara died in October 1967, the US west coast had completed a “Summer of Love” with Saturn in Pisces opposite Uranus/Pluto conjunct in Virgo. North Americans were sticking it to the man by dropping acid and making love in a park. There was also a Civil Rights Movement in progress.

South Americans were sticking it to the man by wearing camouflage and playing guerrilla warfare.

This “anti establishment” aspect would have created a strong T-square to Guevara’s natal Saturn in Sagittarius. If his birthday was May, Mercury in Gemini would have created a grand cross.

Mercury – that rules communication. Was El Che assassinated because of his revolution-making ways or because he could reveal something confidential?

Just after El Che’s death the US lost some revolutionary leaders – Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Here’s an interesting, but not morbid, blog on assassinations in 1968.

Was it an age of killing the messengers?

Wikipedia lists several reasons why Guevara’s Bolivian mission wasn’t successful:

“He had expected to remain in radio contact with Havana. The two shortwave transmitters provided to him by Cuba were faulty; thus the guerrillas were unable to communicate and be resupplied, leaving them isolated and stranded.”

Marketing Model or Revolutionary Model?

According to Wikipedia, Castro ended his eulogy of Guevara with:

“If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in Che’s spirit! If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without a single stain on his action, is Che!”