When Predictive Astrology Fails and Why It Is Not Proof that Astrology Is Fake

I am not familiar with the astrologer Susan Miller, but apparently, according to a recent article in the New York Times ("Will Coranavirus Kill Astrology?" by Hayley Phelan, 5/9/20), she predicted in January that 2020 was going to be a wonderful year.

Cue mic crash

Oy. Ms. Miller later recanted this prediction on her website in mid-March, when COVID-19 was slamming into New York, her city of residence; this appeased her many disillusioned fans. She held Pluto responsible (a safe gambit, since Pluto is the OG badass of our solar system) and spoke of the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction that was also in effect during the Spanish Influence pandemic of 1918. She also predicted a second wave that would occur this fall and dissipate by mid-December. Her rationale? That with Jupiter and Pluto parting ways by the end of this year, the pandemic would depart for good.

Personally, I disagree with her assessment, as it was precisely with Saturn at the end of Capricorn and the beginning of Aquarius that the tipping point was reached, with much of the world being placed in lockdown mode. We have not even finished with the so-called first wave in most of America. We are learning more about the nature of the virus, but at this point we can't say for sure that antibodies constitute immunity, and that a vaccine or cure is just a matter of when, not if. Many states are currently reopening even as public health officials say that it is still too soon. And with the seemingly far-off Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at 0 Aquarius on the heels of the Winter Solstice, social (or, more accurately, physical) distancing will expand to the point of being normalized during the holiday season. Zoom and other virtual hangout platforms may very well recede when Saturn retrogrades back into Capricorn this summer, but they will return (with added features, perhaps Smell-O-Vision?) with Saturn once again in Aquarius.

Yet even if it turns out that Ms. Miller is correct, in which case I would be very glad to have been incorrect, the point I wish to make here is that it is very risky to be in the predictive astrology business. For even if an astrologer is uncannily accurate in predicting widespread societal events, these events will still affect individuals differently. Not everyone who contracts COVID-19 will die of it or even feel ill; not every person who then catches the virus from the first person will croak or experience symptoms, and so on. Not every person will lose his or her livelihood during the Great Depression II. Not every person will even know someone personally who died of the virus or who became unemployed. Certain individuals, as hard as it may be to fathom, will actually thrive this year by falling in love, or by figuring out how to live their best possible lives when lockdown lifts. Such individuals could have many natal planets forming a trine or sextile aspect to the dreaded Saturn-Pluto and Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions of 2020. Many more individuals will experience both harmonious and challenging aspects to Saturn-Pluto and Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions, so there will be something to cushion the worst-case scenario.

The thing about Capricorn and its ruling planet Saturn is that it is empirical, oriented toward the material world. It is a quantitative sign more comfortable dealing with the five senses than with mystical, airy-fairy mumbo-jumbo. As a Cardinal earth sign, Capricorn is far more at home with doing than with being. It would be unfair to say that Capricorn/Saturn has no inner life, but it would be fair to say that Capricorn/Saturn tends to look to the things of the outer world to define its inner core. So during this Capricorn-oriented time, it is more likely that astrologers, who are after all just people, are tempted to make outer-world predictions rather than inner-world predictions that will be invisible to almost everyone except to the person experiencing a profound psychological shift.

I cannot promise that I will shy away from predictions made by looking at planetary transits this year, but I do promise to study even more closely individuals' progressions, when everything unfolds in its own time. Even for those of us who have been home for the past several weeks, we do not live in a vacuum, but your own cosmic blueprint aka natal chart is something that no pandemic, political unrest, or economic collapse can take away from you.

David Bowie: The Starman Shall Shine On and Rise Like Lazarus

My tribute to David Bowie, assisted by two of my Party Animals: Ursula (the Disco Bear) and Miffy (the Rabbit from Mars and Thin White Bunny).

It's hard to believe that three days ago I posted birthday wishes for two rock legends, one in the past tense (Elvis Presley) and the other in the present (David Bowie), and now the latter has joined the former in that sense.

Except, not really. That's the thing about icons whose artistic, scientific, philosophic, or political creations outlive their physical bodies: they never die, except for the ones who eventually become footnotes.

David Bowie was a gifted performer of many personas, a man who claimed that he was a robot offstage and could only feel emotion while acting out his many roles onstage. Interestingly, he had the same Sun/Ascendant combination (Capricorn and Aquarius, respectively) as another rock legend of the Pluto-in-Leo generation: Janis Joplin. Both were bisexual, although Bowie later called himself "a closet heterosexual." But whereas Joplin's persona of Pearl, adopted during the last year of her tumultuous life, was a grotesque caricature of her party-hearty self, used to shield her extreme vulnerability (Moon and Jupiter in Cancer), David Bowie identified with each of his personas (including the junkie Major Tom, the glammed-out alien Ziggy Stardust, and the self-destructive Thin White Duke) so thoroughly that he often feared for his sanity.

His Moon at 3 degrees of Leo was exactly conjunct his Descendant, as well as trine his Venus and Midheaven at 2 and 3 degrees of Sagittarius; this connection blessed him with the instincts of a creative performer who probably was the most at home in the spotlight and also the ability to give his fans (who tended to be outside the norm in some way) what they wanted (e.g., dystopian fantasies and validation for freakiness) before they even knew what they wanted. When transiting Neptune passed over his Venus and Midheaven in the early 1970s, he became a star -- an exotic, erotic, gender-fluid, shape-shifting star. In all of his public guises, Bowie was a sexy alien or outsider, not the boy next door. A trine from Saturn in Leo to Venus-MC indicates staying power, yet Bowie's Moon was also closely conjunct Saturn, indicating a tendency to emotional isolation and the sort of depression that comes from being perpetually hungry for unconditional love -- the type of starvation that propels many individuals who had cold, isolated, or unloving childhoods toward fame (the title of one of Bowie's biggest hits), which is its own double-edged sword (just as a bowie knife cuts both ways).

His Sun-Mars conjunction in his 12th house, as well as Mercury on the cusp of the 12th closely squaring Neptune, ensured that he had plenty of inner demons and a genuine fear of insanity. Mercury-Neptune contacts often manifest in left-handedness, and Bowie was indeed a southpaw, but Mercury can also point to sibling issues; in this case, the square between Mercury and Neptune is a read of Bowie's half-brother, who was institutionalized and later escaped the mental hospital, committing suicide.

This past weekend, Mars at 3 degrees of Scorpio squared Bowie's Aquarius Ascendant and Leo Moon; the Moon was in Capricorn for most of the weekend, passing over Bowie's Sun-Mars conjunction during the Dark of the Moon, before moving into Aquarius on Sunday. Clearly, the Moon-Mars contacts took him out, with transiting Uranus just a few days away from squaring his Mars for the final time (exact 1/14/16; also occurred in April and December 2015). He had apparently been fighting cancer for 18 months, and in early 2014 transiting Uranus opposed his Neptune, which can result in a weakened immune system. And of course, the transiting Uranus-Pluto square of 2012-15, with its erratic, explosive yet oppressive energy taking a global toll, put Bowie's Sun-Mars conjunction in its line of fire. This aspect was obviously terrible for his physical health, yet in 2013, seemingly out of nowhere, he released a new album, The Next Day, to much acclaim.

Since transiting Pluto in Capricorn will go back and forth over David Bowie's Sun-Mars conjunction this year, his death will bring him even greater fame -- especially since he released an album on his 69th birthday, with the rather Plutonic title Blackstar (and a Plutonically titled song, "Lazarus"), and a concert he planned to give at Carnegie Hall in March, with Pluto just past his Sun, is now turning into a full-fledged memorial.

Back in 1993 or '94, David Bowie showed me that there really was life on Mars. In 1998, he showed me that I could be hero just for one day while Christiane F. and her teen junkie friends cinematically looted a shopping mall in Berlin. And in the summer of 2002, a certain someone whose heart I was breaking quoted this line from "Win" to me: "Someone like you should not be around to start any fires," which made me feel simultaneously ashamed and proud.

Rock on in Peace.

Back to Blogging on the Full Moon

Greetings, my lovelies,

It's been such a long time since I've posted on my site that I will never "catch up," so I will concentrate on the here and now and hope not to be away so long again:

This is an unusually inspiring Full Moon (exact tonight at 10:20 p.m. EDT), as Neptune has been mediating between the Sun and the Moon all day, creating a so-called easy opposition between the luminaries. This Full Moon between Cancer and Capricorn shall therefore illuminate more than the standard Cancer-Capricorn polarities and possible tensions of home vs. the public eye, mother vs. father, family vs. career; with Neptune trining the Sun and sextiling the Moon, this Full Moon instead dreams of a way to have it all -- and this dream could actually turn into a viable waking reality for those of you who want to put your dreams into action.

For me, the perfect symbol of this Full Moon / Sun-Neptune trine day is this pair of vintage eyeglass frames, which arrived in today's mail:

The best-ever birthday present (two weeks early) that I have ever given myself. I associate vintage items with both Cancer and Capricorn (and indeed, both signs are known to be collectors), eyeglasses with Neptune. (The eyes themselves are ruled by Aries, but eyewear itself is far more mysterious and Neptunian in nature.) I knew I was taking a risk ordering these frames from an online vendor (Etsy-cough-Etsy-yay-Etsy), but this vendor gave precise measurements (they are truly complex for eyeglass frames), and I happen to know mine. And as much as I like my current vintage frames, it has been nearly five years since they've been gracing my face. Long story short, these new old frames made my day. And as an added bonus, I got into an astrological conversation with the vendor, which inspired me (Neptune) to post again, after three and a half months of silence.

Stay tuned!

The Thing About Pluto in Capricorn...

The thing about Pluto in Capricorn is that it's really cold.

(For those of you unfamiliar with astrology symbols, the circle with a cross is Pluto, the stylized "V" is Capricorn, and that little thingie that looks like a "69" on it's side is the glyph for Cancer...the sign, not the disease.)

Art image copyright T. C. Gardstein, Pluto Rising Astrology, 2015. All rights (and lefts) totally reserved.

Happy Winter Solstice, Charlie Brown...Oh, Good Grief, Venus Just Turned Retrograde!

Astrology maintains that there is no such thing as "coincidence"...it's more like synchronicity. Astrology is far more of an art than a science...yes, the science exists (astrologers use the exact same ephemeris as astronomers to check planets' positions; the key difference is that astronomers discard the meaning of each zodiac sign), but to attempt to understand the meaning of various changes that come on the heels of each other is to involve, and invoke, the same mind-set as poetry and intuition.

The Winter Solstice occurred today at 12:11 p.m. ET,, when the Sun entered Capricorn. The holiday lights and the sociable celebrations to combat the long, cold nights are peaking -- and at this moment, the birth of winter, summer is also born, for even as the cold strengthens, the days will slowly begin to lengthen. This neatly illustrates a basic lesson of astrology: every sign, and therefore every season, contains a drop of its opposite. Just visualize the yin yang symbol.

Less than five hours after the Solstice, Venus turned retrograde at the end of Capricorn (28 degrees and 59 minutes, to be exact). Venus will remain retrograde till January 31. Venus retrograde will strongly affect love, art (especially the established, validated sort that hangs in museums and can be auctioned off for millions of dollars), beauty, and finances. There may be second thoughts, delays, low energy, and downright problems in all of these areas. We will also revisit issues concerning love, money, and/or art dating from yesterday all the way back to November 21, though these issues may not be resolved in full till February or early March. The three biggest emotional dangers of Venus retrograde in Capricorn are depression, coldheartedness, and putting up unnecessary walls. However, when Venus backs over Mercury on January 7, this could result in an icebreaker in terms of communication -- and on January 11, when Venus backs over the Sun, perhaps things will thaw out even more.

As Capricorn is the sign of government, I am hoping (though not hopeful) that Venus retrograde in Capricorn will undo the mean-spirited message to the long-term unemployed (cutting off EUC benefits just a few days after Christmas is pretty Scrooge-like) and not do further damage to the ACA rollout (enrollment numbers are up, but these last-minute exceptions and changes just keep coming, resulting in much confusion and frustration). Meanwhile, the Fed plans to scale back the stimulus by $10 billion, even though that austerity thing hasn't worked out too well in other countries.

In short, Venus retrograde in Capricorn serves as a challenge to us all not to close our hearts or our wallets, not to be (un)comfortably numb or "penny wise, pound foolish."

One of Those Up Close and Personal Posts that Might Help You

Greetings, lovelies and uglies and all mixed star-gazing bags:

Last night it occurred to me that Pluto was backing over another square to my natal Chiron in Aries. I was not consciously aware of the first square at the end of January, but it. Explains. So. Much. Even more than that helter-skelter aspect that has us all in its collective grip for another couple of years, the Uranus-Pluto square, about which I have pondered and written in this blog extensively.

I don't normally pay much attention to my 7th-house Chiron. It is the lone wolf, the odd duck of my chart: the only planet (more accurately, planetoid) in the fire element, and the only one not involved in my bowl-shaped configuration (which starts with Saturn in Taurus in the 9th house and ends with Neptune in Scorpio in the 3rd house). I run a tight ship, it seems -- but Chiron slipped through its tightly woven sails. Also, except for Neptune, it is my only retrograde point. Hence, ever since water-and-earth me first began studying my own chart over twenty years ago, I have never been able to make head or tail of my poor, retrograde-in-Aries, 7th-house Chiron.

Pluto squaring my Chiron has been one hell of a wake-up call, though I slept through the first alarm on January 31. If Chiron is about healing and self-actualization (interestingly, Chiron was discovered in 1977, the peak of the "human potential movement"), I apparently need to heal my relationships (Chiron in my 7th house) in a major way. Pluto's energy is deep and transformative, and it doesn't always tickle -- in fact it can be fucking painful. And one of the lessons of Pluto is that if you hold on too tightly, even more may be taken away from you.

Pluto has been transiting my 4th house for about seven years now so I should be used to its energy, but it was undeniably "kinder" when still in Sagittarius. It seems that Pluto in Capricorn in my 4th house has increased my fear that due to my unstable financial situation, I will lose my home (in fact, I've moved twice since Pluto entered Capricorn) and that I am generally running out of time (Capricorn) to "prove" myself (Capricorn again) to my family (4th house), to the world (10th house), and to myself (1st house). My time-management skills are being put to the test and it seems they are not at the correct end of the bell curve. My chronic insomnia and freelancer's schedule certainly haven't helped. Up till now, I have attributed this anxiety-producing state of mind to the classic "midlife crisis" aspect -- the Uranus opposition, which fell in my 1st and 7th houses -- but now I realize that Pluto squaring my Chiron plays an equally important role in this disturbing development.

Perhaps my Chiron's placement is why I have always been a "relationship person" despite also being a classic Pluto Rising loner. This is not to say that I have always been in a relationship, though since my late 20s, I have been in a relationship more often than not. It just means that I would make a great hermit as long as I didn't have to do it alone. (Two shows a night, people. Two shows a night.) Seriously, that does not mean I want a crowd; I often feel that I just don't have time for most people, even ones whom I mostly like. I keep thinking that I should be working on my children's book, which I am both writing and illustrating, and which may be my only ticket out of my current existence. I also have my "nothing" quota to fulfill, because doing nothing is doing something. Then, of course, I have to stumble across an article about how having friends is good for one's health and can even prolong one's life.

To which I find myself having a particularly Plutonian response: that I'm not all that sure I want to live a long life -- I'm more about quality than quantity, and although things could be much, much worse, I do not look forward to more of the same when my teeth fall out (see more on this very real worry a little ways down if you have the strength to read on). By most accounts, growing old (i.e., reaching 75, 80) sucks unless you have won both the genetic and financial lotteries, or you don't mind spending most of your waking hours sitting in a doctor's waiting room. Though I suppose all this can be somewhat offset if you're lucky enough to have grandkids (though my relatively recently deceased granny did not give two figs about my little sister and me, she was truly pathological). But I will never fall into that sick-and-poor-yet-still-lucky category; although there are kids in my life, they are not mine.

Sometimes, I do not even feel that my relationship is mine -- that it is "living on borrowed time," to quote from the late great John Lennon, and that it is running a course all its own. This might not be such a bad realization, but the moderate middle path between control-freakdom and devil-may-caredom seems to be eluding me these days. Hello, Pluto-squaring-my-Chiron. I got the memo. I am awake. What to do now?

Okay, so, teeth. Capricorn rules bones and teeth and just a few weeks ago, when I went to my dentist for my six-month cleaning, she informed me that based on my most recent set of X-rays from last December, I have appreciable bone loss and not only had to start flossing religiously, but must return for deep cleanings every three or four months for the rest of my life. I am not sure why my dentist didn't tell me about this bone loss six months ago -- perhaps she was distracted by the presence of my cute little cavity, my first in nearly twenty years and fourth one ever. Of course I was upset to hear this news, and when I thought about how I hadn't been to the dentist in over two years because I tend not to get cavities and much prefer spending money on anything other than a visit to the dentist, I got even more upset. My bone loss was my own damned fault. Sure, if my Freelancers Union insurance covered dental care, I would have gone like clockwork -- and if my old dentist hadn't moved to Florida, I might also not have let so much time elapse between visits -- but it was still my responsibility.

I could go on for another several paragraphs about Pluto-in-the-4th-house family issues, but I am worn out, and if you are still reading this post, I would bet that you are, too. Trying to end this post on a relatively positive note, I would like to think that time (Capricorn) eventually does heal (Chiron) all wounds (Pluto/Scorpio, Mars/Aries), even though time does not seem to wound all heels.

It's Not the End of the World As We Know It (And I Don't Feel Fine)*

*Apologies to R.E.M. for such cynical paraphrasing of one of the finest anthems created by the Pluto-in-Virgo generation.

Were you relieved or disappointed or perhaps a mixture of both emotions when you woke up this morning to discover that the world was still spinning on its axis, that life was still going on?

Bar none, the most annoying question I've had to contend with as an astrologer this year is the end-of-the-world scenario due to occur on December 21, 2012, predicted by those mystical Mayans all those years ago. Never mind that the Mayans themselves have long since put the kibosh on this prediction, which was as out of context as one could get, a literal fragment.

(Next year, winner of Most Annoying Astrology-Related Question will most likely revert back to a tie between "Oh, you seem so smart, how could you believe in astrology?" and "Ha, what exactly did you just say about your anus, ha-ha?")

Back to the question I posed. I can't pretend to speak for everyone; I wouldn't want to, and everyone is not the same anyway. But as someone so strong in the water element, I do pick up on other people's moods, and what I have gotten from so many people this year, both in person and from news articles, is a desire for apocalypse. As if the only action that will stop the madness symbolized and manifested by the Uranus-Pluto square I keep going on about is spontaneous global combustion. Fire? Ice? Bombs? Death by Chocolate? (Sign me up for that last one.)

Something I find truly interesting and disturbing is not that so many people have major thanatos (death wish) during these topsy-turvy times, but that apocalypse literally means "uncovering," as in a lifting of the veil. Disclosure. Knowledge.

Perhaps many of us want both: to be in the know and to die. Heightened consciousness can indeed bring bucketfuls of pain. Ignorance may not always bring bliss, but a willful unwillingness to follow current events may also keep you from feeling like there is just no point in going on...unless, of course, your personal circumstances are such that you want to die anyway.

The last time the mood was this apocalyptic was during the late 1960s, an era triggered by Uranus-Pluto conjunction -- a handful of years when I was a concept, a tie-dyed-in-the-wool hippie, or my uncle (who died in January 1970, six months before I was born). Peaceful flower power and civil disobedience waned as violence and black-and-white thinking became more commonplace and accepted; you were either on one side of the fence or another; no shades of gray were tolerated. Change would have to occur, as Malcom X warned before he himself was gunned down, "by any means necessary." Time horizons shrank as events sped up and seemingly out of control. As Jim Morrison of the Doors sang on their very first album, "The future's uncertain and the end is always near."

On the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, the first day of Capricorn, the midst of the holiday season, and most assuredly not the end of the world, my only cosmic prescription is to find something to ease any pain you might be feeling that does not hurt you or anyone else. Laughter is a safe bet; find something to tickle your funny bone. If you find that solitude is more comforting than company right now, by all means shut the door and indulge in some downtime. But remember that Capricorn, for all its standoffish, CEO airs, is still a sensual, hands-on earth sign, and still needs to be held close sometimes.

Sun Square Saturn: "Father?" "Yes, Son?" "I want to kill you."

If you are chafing under the collar and champing at the bit of the PTB (powers that be) and Authority with a capital "A," relax: you are simply responding to the Sun squaring Saturn (exact tomorrow, 1/19, at 4:20 p.m. EST). Or don't relax. Saturn won't let you anyway, and besides, it's not so simple. The Sun in the final degree of Capricorn squares Saturn in the final degree of Libra, so if you have one or more natal planets at 29 degrees of a Cardinal sign (i.e., Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn), the feeling of repression/oppression is especially intensified.

Lest you think from the title of this post that I am advocating patricide, far from it: Please, kids, do not try this at home. I am just quoting directly from the Doors' lighthearted little ditty "The End." Interestingly, Jim "Lizard King" Morrison did kill his father in a way--by telling the press that he (plus his mother) had died in a car crash, even though his family was alive and well and probably wondering what they had done to deserve such a slap in the face of their son's newfound fame.

Still, if you are on the outs with your father, or boss, or any authority figure, now is the time to confront it (unless it has already confronted you) and find a way to deal with it, even if you cannot resolve this thorny issue as if you were a character in a half-hour TV sitcom.

Also consider the possibility that you may be your own harsh father figure, putting yourself down and punishing yourself for any and all mistakes you make instead of accepting your own humanity.

The Sun square Saturn indicates structural challenges of all sorts, from one's own skeleton (aching bones, anyone?) to the houses and buildings we live and work in to government. One timely example: the SOPA/PIPA wars, a proposed "anti-piracy" bill that has led to a Wikipedia blackout (Saturn) in protest. Opponents of this very Saturnian bill maintain that if the bill passes, it will be tantamount to Internet censorship and a violation of First Amendment rights.

If you feel that you have been making slow, steady progress under the recent harmonious Saturn trine Neptune, you may now feel as if you are taking two steps back at best or getting knocked off the mountain by a landslide at worst.

But to quote another rock 'n' roll giant, "All things must pass," and this too shall pass. The Sun square Jupiter (from 1 degree of Aquarius to 1 degree of Taurus) this weekend will be an entirely different ball of wax. Stay tuned...

Winter Solstice and Self-Transformation: Sun Conjunct Pluto

I hope everyone reading this post-Christmas and last-night-of-Hanukkah post is faring well less than a week into winter. Small wonder that it is during the darkest days of the year (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) we feel the need for party lights and reconnecting with those people whom we hold dear, and on a New Moon (exact 12/24 at 1:06 p.m. EST) shortly after the solstice, a new cycle has begun that concentrates on building a solid foundation for one's public persona as well as strengthening contacts with older or more successful people.

Jupiter stationed direct at 0 degrees of Taurus on Christmas Day, indicating a high potential for material and/or sensual bounty, particularly for the Earth signs of Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn.

The Sun and Pluto are approaching a conjunction in Capricorn, which means that between now and 12/29 at 2:41 a.m. EST this is an optimal time to dig deep into your self-identity and root out compulsive or controlling behavior. Much like the Sun in Scorpio, a Sun-Pluto conjunction is all about self-transformation, confronting parts of yourself you would rather keep secret, and breaking through all manner of taboos. By working on yourself as honestly as possible, you may begin to sense real change in your place in the world. Just make a point not to engage in self-loathing or self-destructive behavior (two downsides of Pluto and Scorpio), and be gentle and patient with yourself as you shed your old, ill-fitting skin.

Sun/Saturn Conjunction: Taking Responsibility for Yourself

Today the Sun and Saturn meet (the exact conjunction is 8:42 p.m. EDT). Because we are also coming up on the Last Quarter Moon in Cancer (11:52 p.m. EDT), there will also be a Moon/Saturn square (11:40 p.m.). The Last Quarter aspect itself relates strongly to the sign Capricorn, which is ruled by Saturn. All this by way of saying that there's a lot of Saturn energy out there today. Saturn can be a melancholy "heavy," and especially combined with the Moon in Cancer, a "wet blanket." The weather today, at least at my coordinates, is literally reflecting that: plenty of rain with the possibility of flooding. (The Moon also opposes Pluto in Capricorn at 2:54 p.m., which is a good time to avoid being drawn into any emotional or manipulative exchanges.)

How best to handle your inner weather? Saturn is all about time--especially slowing it down. If your day is dragging, take it as a blessing in disguise and use that extra time to ponder your relationships (since the Sun/Saturn conjunction occurs in Libra, the most relating-centric sign in the zodiac), your ambition, your goals. It is a good day to concentrate on structure of any kind, both inner and outer, such as hierarchies, architecture or bones (especially spine), outlines or timelines. It is a good day to work hard, but not so hard as to force an idea whose time has not come.

Fellow earth sign Virgo is the sign of discrimination, details, organization, and service, but Capricorn is more likely to want to run the company and be on top than to toil or tinker, unrecognized, on the finer details. Yet if you wind up being the lone goat on the mountaintop, you can easily become disconnected from others; it is very important to make an effort to connect and foster a sense of interdependency. Even if you are the most rugged, anti-team-player individualist on earth, you can't do it all (whatever "all" means to you) by yourself. Again, the fact that Sun and Saturn are in Libra, the relating sign, should help.

And if all this difficult yet necessary effort is getting you down, listen to Capricorn Janis Joplin's "Try Just a Little Bit Harder" (preferably the live version).

Bye, Bye Baby: Happy Birthday, Janis Joplin

I came of pop-music age with the Go-Go's and Madonna. Yet as I was perusing my parents' LP collection as a teen-something, I paused at an album depicting an oddly attired woman on the cover: huge granny glasses, feathers, bangle bracelets, flywaway hair. This was Joplin in Concert. And from the very first sound of her chiding voice--"You've been playing the wrong chord all night"--right before "Down on Me" kicked in, I was transfixed. Yet the raw emotion and obvious vulnerability of this performer (there was no doubt in my mind that she was not just a singer, but a performer of epic proportions) also frightened me, and I hadn't even realized yet that her life was in the past tense. Listening to her wail the blues was like gazing into a mirror at my own teen angst, although my "voice" was that of a scribbler of morbid, puerile poetry that graced the pages of my suburban high-school literary magazine to little recognition (except for the local newspaper that offered me the job of "high school correspondent," obviously on the unfounded faith that a budding poet would make a good journalist).

Perhaps a year or two later, an hour-long documentary called Women in Rock was released on cable TV, and I saw, not merely heard, Janis wailing "Ball and Chain" and "Summertime" onstage at the Montery Pop Festival that ushered in the all too brief Summer of Love that had died by the summer I was born. And I was retroactively hooked.

Janis Joplin's first name could not have suited her more: she was born in January, the month itself named for the two-faced Roman god Janus, which looked both backward and forward. Janis was born at the end of the sign of Capricorn, a sign noted both for its melancholy and spiritual potential, and at the very beginning of the generation that became known as "hippies," although like the beatniks of the 1950s, Janis made the pilgrimage to North Beach a few years before the Haight-Ashbury district became psychedelicized.

But what, astrologically, could account for Janis's seismic personality; her persona of "Pearl," the tough-talking, hard-drinking, blues-singing floozy; her rebellious nature; her untimely demise?

Janis Joplin was born just before the Full Moon, the phase of the moon most associated with a desire for fame. And her Moon in Cancer (whose gem is the pearl) widely conjuncted her Jupiter, which only magnified the hypersensitivity of her innermost emotions. She may have talked tough, but it was obvious that her sharp words were there to protect a very soft underbelly. Indeed, a slight snub from a stranger at a party could make her burst into tears, and she often lamented that her life on the road was a cruel joke. She claimed to want a nice man to take her out to dinner after a show, as opposed to the hangers-on of the groupie scene that had nothing to do with her real self. Yet paradoxically, the more she retreated into her "Pearl" persona, the more of a caricature she became, the more she surrounded herself by sychophants, the less chance she seemed to have of someone "real" being able to break through.

She was the firstborn of three, and as the fates would have it, was born with Aquarius on the Ascendant, making her a natural rebel, especially in a town as "proper" as Port Arthur, Texas, and a time as constricted as the U.S. in the 1950s. Had she been born slightly earlier or later in the morning, Janis might have upheld the status quo (Capricorn Rising) or merged into her local environment (Pisces Rising). But Janis was born on a metaphoric fault line, and indeed, her conservative parents would never approve of the unusual path she created for herself. Janis was born with Mercury Retrograde in Aquarius in her 12th House, opposing Pluto; how apropos, then, that one of her "complexes" involved her younger sister (Mercury), who was perceived as the "good daughter," the one who was approved of by her parents while Janis herself was "lost" to the Plutonian underworld of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Capricorns, the cynics of the zodiac, are often influenced strongly by the father; Janis's own father, who by today's standards would probably be considered an alcoholic (certainly, he spent more time drinking and tinkering around in the garage than with his family), taught his oldest daughter about "the Saturday Night swindle": the realization that it's not ever going to get any better than being out on a Saturday night, not having a particularly good time, blowing your weekly paycheck on a few drinks, only to start all over again the next day, hung over and broke.

Yet with that prominent, creative, ever-hungry 5th House Moon in Cancer, Janis was one of the very few women of the era who made it in the men's club of rock and roll. Grace Slick similarly dominated her all-male band, yet "Gracie" was also a conventionally beautiful ex-model from a rich family, whereas Janis was a much rougher diamond. Both helped pave the way for subsequent generations of women in rock, yet Janis paid a very steep price for being the archetypal goat atop the mountain: she was already addicted to alcohol by the time of her success, and her ultimate undoing, heroin, soon followed to dull the pain. Yet because Janis was such a huge success, few people, even among her closest friends, felt that she deserved any sympathy or understanding for her so-called problems. "People like their blues singers drunk and miserable," she said bluntly.

(And dead?)

Her version of "Ball and Chain" is certainly a Capricornian masterpiece, showing how duty, sorrow, and loneliness can make the heart so heavy in love. Yet I would rather celebrate her upbeat "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)": as she exhorts in her stage patter right before the song kicks in, "If you're lookin' for a nice piece of... action, and you ain't gettin' any, you know what you gotta do, baby...you gotta try harder."

Somehow, this exultation to hard work, which flew in the face of the "tune in, turn on, drop out" hippie era, seems the opposite of sea-goat cynicism.

I love you, Janis.