The Zimmerman Who Fell in Love with Iron

A zimmerman, by definition, is a woodworker, a carpenter, but Robert Zimmerman – who masquerades as a fictitious character known as ‘Bob Dylan’, a song and dance man – is having none of that. He is a life-long lover of iron and devotes his spare time to collecting old iron objects and welding them into new and pleasing arrangements. He has a large garage full of old tools, broken machinery, plough shares, engine parts and other found objects, all of iron, and he dons his welding gear every chance he gets, because in his heart of hearts he is an ironworker, not a zimmerman at all. He explains that he has always loved iron and that iron has been a big part of his life. 

He grew up, he explains further, in Hibbing Minnesotta, just a stone’s throw from one of the biggest iron ore deposits in the world. During the Second World War and after the Hibbing mines provided the iron ore needed for the war effort and for industrialization: these were the mines from which modern America was built. And Mr. Zimmerman – always an American patriot - is proud of this fact. The mines of Hibbing formed the background to some of the early songs of his alter ego, Bob Dylan, such as the haunting heart-felt lament ‘North Country Blues’ – a tale of what becomes of mining families when mines are closed:

Come gather 'round friends and I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran a-plenty
But the cardboard-filled windows and old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty...

But otherwise this passion for things ferric has remained a little known fact. Only in recent times has he decided to exhibit his ironwork, in particular various gates made from found objects, such as the following: 

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What is one to make of a zimmerman who falls in love with iron, who disguises himself as the affable folk persona ‘Bob Dylan’? It might seem inexplicable, counterfactual and out of character, but only because Mr. Zimmerman has never been very straightforward with his public. Indeed, most of his public are not even aware that ‘Bob Dylan’ is merely a character he plays. He’s a self-declared trickster, a jokerman, who conned an entire generation into thinking he was a spokesman for progressive causes when in fact he was, and is, a religious conservative whose primary literary inspiration throughout his life has been the King James Bible.

Searching for clues, the present writer decided to investigate his horoscope. Several posts ago, this writer made a fuss about the virtues of the traditional horoscope as opposed to its modern deviation, and about the evil obscurities of the modern planets as used by contemporary astrologers. As evidence of his traditional approach he offers the horoscope of the devious Mr. Zimmerman. 

What do we find? Lo and behold! When we cast away the modern trans-Saturnian planets and plot only the ancient seven, and render them clearly in the spatial organization of the traditional square chart, we see, as plain as day, the peculiar disconnectedness of the planet of iron, Mars, adrift in Pisces in the Second House. Mr. Zimmerman, as is well known, is a Gemini, and his ruling planet, the mercurial Mercury, is perfectly at home there – the configuration of the trickster poet. This is in the context of a large crowded grouping of planets in the Sixth and Fifth Houses: a stellarium, the configuration of the famous. 

But Mars, the planet of the metal iron, is not part of this stellarium at all. You’d never see this in a modern round horoscope littered with trans-Saturnians and asteroids. Mars is the odd planet out. Mars is the peculiar and unusual feature of this chart. In Pisces it gives the native the will to realize his dreams, but unconnected as it is here, it forms a secret source of strength and in this particular case it leads Mr. Zimmerman to his garage, to put on his welding gear, and to escape from the crowded life of the so-called ‘Bob Dylan’ and into the seemingly incongruous world of rusty ironwork. Only Mars acting as a singleton in a horoscope like this could make a zimmerman into an ironworker.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black