©2004 by Joyce Hoen
It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Tees Reitsma on August 8,
2004. Tees was suffering from lung-emphysema in these last few years and is
now released from the confinements of her ailing body. She leaves behind a
son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren in Toronto, Canada, as well as
the astrological community which she served selflessly since
the time that I have known her, from roughly 1984. She had just
returned to living in Holland at that time after having worked and lived in
the United States, where she studied astrology with the Church of Light. In
Holland she immediately put her American spirit of enterprise to work to
create an astrological group in The Hague ("Astro-Kring") and
published a magazine with the same name. Her aim was always to unify
astrologers without any discrimination.
When the three Conjunctions of Saturn/Uranus, Saturn/Neptune and
Uranus/Neptune were approaching, she was in a very visionary state of mind
and decided to organize three conferences exactly at the dates of these
conjunctions. The Internet had not arrived yet, and Tees wished for astrologers
to meet up more internationally as well.
In January 1986, just a few days before the crash of the
Challenger, she had organized a conference in The Hague, which was a
disaster for astrology. Astrologers were proving their own unique methods
of interpretation and the last thing which was experienced, was unity. The
crash of the Atlantis was another symbol of how Techniques alone will not
save mankind.
Unity in Diversity became the theme of the two very successful
conferences which followed in 1988 and 1989, and finally, the
Uranus/Neptune conference was to take place. Tees however decided all of a
sudden (she was born with Uranus in the 3rd) that the Uranus/Neptune
impulse was spiritual and not material, and decided to publish the Tribute
to Dane Rudhyar instead, which you can find all over the Internet these days.
From roughly 1990-1995 Tees and I also organized weekend workshops with
many American astrologers, such as Donna Cunningham, Mary Devlin, Robert
Hand, Jeffrey Green and Mellie Uyldert from the Netherlands. Shortly after
this, she decided that Astro-Kring's function had been fulfilled.
Having
been in close communication with Marion March/ARC and
Charles Harvey, of
the Urania Trust, she started to collect information on worldwide
events, with the rise of the Internet, information which Richard Nolle
publishes on his website. This was her gift of service to the Astrological
Community. Someone just had to do the work without any self-interest, to
collect all the information and make it available for astrologers around
the world. So that at least we KNOW what is going on everywhere with our
colleagues. It all perfectly portrays her Sun/Neptune conjunction in the
9th house in Virgo.
Tees has been very instrumental in my own development as well with her
wisdom. And yes, the greatest and first gift to me was truly learning about
selflessness, and she continued to expand my mind with the teachings of
Dane Rudhyar (amongst others). Tees never wished to be a 'prominent figure'
in astrology, and always worked selflessly behind the scenes. True
to her Sun/Neptune conjunction she withdrew quietly from this world,
sending out her last weekly astrological event diary on August 6, two days
before she died.
If you wish to pay a last tribute to Tees, please do so in spirit and help
furthering the cause of Unity in Diversity in the Astrological Community.
Janneke Maat, another 9th House Sun, but this time in the sign of Cancer, will continue
Tees'work with the Publication of International events. Those of you who
used to send your information to Tees can now send it to
Janneke.
BIRTH DATA: She was born on September 2, 1933 in The Hague, Netherlands, 4E18; 52N06,
at 15:10 GMT, 4:30 Amsterdam Summer Time, as verified by her. This information was
listed in her AstroDataBank record as A, from memory, as given by Tees in
the Spring, 2001, AFAN newsletter.
Memorials to Other Dutch Astrologers
Memorials A-K
Back to Memorials L-Z
CREDITS: This memorial was created by Donna Cunningham.
Tribute supplied by Joyce Hoen.