September 14th would have been Amy Winehouse's 31st
Birthday, had she not tragically died at age 27. Thinking about the loss
of her talent, her troubling, vulnerable presence and the "what if she
had lived" scenario one often imagines of those who seem to have left
the Earth before their time led me to take a look at her Natal Chart for
further insight.
Amy's Natal Chart is
remarkable for being a series of Conjunctions. A Conjunction is where
two or more Planets are within 5 degrees of each other, causing a
greater influence/melding of the two Planetary energies and giving the
combined force of the two Planets emphasized power and importance. We
will see these various Conjunctions by Planet/Asteroid, Sign and House
as we watch the story of her Chart unfold.
The Mutable, malleable, changeable, communicative Planet
Mercury dominates the Natal Chart of singer/songwriter/performing artist Amy Winehouse.
Mercury, associated with both
Gemini and
Virgo, is the Ruler of Amy’s
Virgo Sun, which happens to be
Conjunct her
Natal Planet Mercury in Virgo as well as being the Planetary ruler of her
Gemini Ascendant. Because the Planet associated with one’s Ascendant (“Rising Sign”) is said to be the “Ruling Planet of the Chart,”
Mercury is by this standard as well as its predominance (
Combust Conjunction) the most dominant influence of her chart.
The
Archetype of Mercury is that of the “Winged Messenger,” quick
intelligence, mental activity, thought process, all communicative skills
from speech to singing to oration, etc. The Hebrew name for Mercury is “
Kochav”
which means simply “Star”, as the closest and brightest Planet to the
Sun, only fast-moving Mercury is quick enough to stay away from the
Sun’s potentially destructive heat while remaining visible and “reliably
changeable” to the naked eyes.
Gemini and Virgo are both “Mutable” Signs, they transform the elements they are associated with.
Gemini is
Mutable Air, which is
transformative thought.
Virgo is
Mutable Earth, which is
transformative manifestation.
Amy’s
natural talent was expressed through her voice, and her vocation as a
singer/songwriter. As she thought, so she sang. As she imagined herself
to be, so she expressed herself through her compositions, her voice,
her dress, her makeup and hair, her stage persona.
Amy was born to be a "Star" and she knew it from birth. Not only were her communicative powers subtle, unique, varied and multifaceted, but they were ingrained in her from her
4th House Family of Origin, where her
Mars (her "koach," energy, Chi, drive, "Yetzer") and her
Venus (creativity, art, music, dance, beauty, romance, the aesthetic perception) are
Conjunct together in
Leo.
Amy’s
Venus and Mars Conjunction in Leo in her 4th House made her the
performer/actor/drama queen - not only in her family of origin, but in
her professional life as well, which grew out of her "amateur" life at
home. Mars at 20 Leo and
Venus
at 23 Leo give her a powerful dramatic flair that is easily evident
with only a cursory glance at pictures of her throughout her career.
Located in her 4th House of Home, Family and "The Seat of the Soul",
this dramatic flair clearly sprung from her family of origin, perhaps
going back several generations.
Amy may have
known that “showing off” was the most effective way of getting attention
in her family. Her retro style of glamour was also very Leo-like and
seems to have originated in some kind of ancestral connection to her
family of origin as well (a beautiful, dramatic, artistic and creative
female relative). Her home life growing up may have been a competitive
environment where the loudest and most dramatic contestant "won" (the
prize being the attention/affirmation from the
intellectual/detached/distant/professional parent.
Neptune, the Planet of glamor, illusion/delusion and distortion (both romantic and other) at 26
Sagittarius forms a harmonious
Trine (150 Degree Angle) to her
Mars/Venus Conjunction, giving her that
“touch of magic” which allowed the Fire Sign energy of Charismatic Inspiration to smolder, burn and blaze at her will.
Her North Node at 20 Gemini is Conjunct her Ascendant at 17 Gemini. Nearby (at 23 Gemini, also in her 1st House of Personality/Ego Manifestation and “Self” awareness) is the Asteroid
Vesta, which is the archetype for the goddess of hearth and home.
Vesta
is represented in every Roman household by the hearth fire, which was
lit upon the occasion of a Roman entering his new home with the intent
to occupy it, until he left the home forever, at which time the hearth
flame would be extinguished. In a Natal Chart, the
Asteroid Vesta points to where one’s “Sacred Flame” of hearth and home is located. I
It is interesting to note that Amy Winehouse’s
North Node (the “Karmic Setpoint” and “Tikkun Point” of the Chart) and her
Asteroid Vesta are Conjunct each other and her Ascendant.
Her
Karmic imperative (North Node in 1st House) was towards individuation,
becoming fully herself via her own unique individuality, as opposed to
via relationships with others (South Node in 7th House). Her Vesta
burned very bright, adding its steady flame to her North Node, but in a
curious way making her even more removed from her ability to directly
FEEL her own emotions. The immense influence of Mercury in her Chart
erected a barrier between her experiences and her ability to feel.
Everything was filtered through the lens of thought, and the only way
she could bypass that was to step into her performance persona
(Mars/Venus Conjunct in Leo), becoming someone else – the Amy Winehouse
character she invented.
Amy’s
Moon at Zero Degrees Capricorn in her 7th House tells a sad story. It is said that a Planet is not established in a Sign until it reaches 1 Degree. Amy’s
Moon, so important to her chart, is
“disabled” because it falls at Zero Degrees (not yet established in the Sign) of
Capricorn, a relatively lonely and isolated place for the emotional Moon.
Her
Moon Placement at Zero Capricorn in her 7th House of Relationships
created an eternal cycle of frustration in the area of romance and
emotional connection. Neptune at 26 Degrees Sagittarius in her 7th House
informed her marriage and romantic partnership choices with stunning
idealism which easily could be manipulated into outrageous levels of
denial of reality and a knee-jerk reactionary response to criticism of
her choice in mates.
She frequently mistook sexual/romantic drama for love.
Her
Mars/Venus Conjunction in Leo fell in her 4th House of family and home,
the “seat of her soul”, where and how she grew up in her nuclear
family. Very likely Amy the show-off performer perceived herself as the
glue that held her parents marriage together. Emotional drama, perhaps
even emotional violence, colored her perceptions of love and informed
her relationship style.
Unable
to truly emotionally connect with her disabled Zero Degrees Capricorn
7th House Moon, she used her Mars/Venus in Leo as the vehicle for
connection, but because her family of origin paradigm taught her that
artificiality (the performance persona) was key to receiving the
affection she craved, and because her mutable, transformative, mercurial
Virgo/Gemini attributes made becoming another person than herself so
easy, she couldn’t really trust being “herself” with another in
intimacy.
A disconnect between body and mind is illustrated in her
6th House. The Sign of
Scorpio is
“incepted” in her
6th House (meaning
the entire 30 Degrees of Scorpio is contained within the House itself,
which begins at 24 Libra and ends at 17 Sagittarius).
Saturn at 1 Degree
Scorpio in her 6th House of physical health, mind-body connection and the healing arts
Conjunct her
Vertex at 5
Scorpio is a configuration with a double-edged sword.
Her
natural capacity for immense concentration, determination and focus in
her body-mind connection (Saturn, Planet of structure, control,
boundaries) was “incepted” or energetically confined/trapped in her 6th
House. The
Vertex is the “rabbit’s hole”
of the Natal Chart. Like Alice in Wonderland who chased after the White
Rabbit until she fell down the rabbit’s hole into Wonderland,
the
Vertex shows where in our life we fall down our own personal “Rabbit’s
hole”, where we make repetitive mistakes, or always take the wrong turn.
In Amy Winehouse’s chart,
patterns of extreme control over her body/mind connection were
consistently interrupted by total loss of control, destructive excesses,
the mistaking of intensity for validity, the romanticizing of excess
and addiction, and the conviction that the next mistake would be the
last.
“Lucky” Jupiter in his
home sign of Sagittarius Conjunct individualistic, unique Uranus in
Sagittarius, both in her 6th House, gave her a “Lucky Charm” outlook on
excesses and deliberately intense infliction of physical/emotional
“Chaos vs. Control”. She always thought she’d come out on top, knew she
had a “lucky streak” but was arrogant in playing her “luck” card, never
knowing how many punch-holes it had left until the last one.
Her
family of origin dynamic had a big influence on her outlook. Desiring
to please an emotionally unavailable, detached parent, she became a
performer. Her home life and her perception of her parents’ marital
dynamic was a curious mix of intellectual curiosity and camaraderie with
undertones of sexual jealousy and rivalry for attention. She could
please them by being smart and relating to them on an idealistic,
theoretical level, but could get attention from them (good or bad
attention, it matters not which) by enacting her drama which caused them
to give her the nurturing she so desperately needed – as long as she
was perceived by them as “in trouble”.
Her
10th House (Career and Vocation)
Parts of Fortune (material blessings) in
Pisces made her
a victim of her own success.
Knowing that it was through her own efforts that material abundance
would enter her family of origin, she martyred herself (Pisces-like) and
subsumed her own hesitations and even her own self-preservation
instinct to carry on in her public persona / performance self because,
if she stopped, she felt those who depended on her success would suffer.
Saddest of all, the
Asteroid Hades (literally one’s own private “hell”) is found
Conjunct the Asteroid Chiron (“The Wounded Healer”) in Amy’s
12th House –
the House that has to do with endings, secrets, subconscious and
unconscious impulses, ancestral legacy, institutions, confinement, and
the general falling apart of all things as they dissolve back into the
primordial chaos that is the soup of Creation, only to be re-assembled
and brought back to one-ness in the 1st House.
Chiron, the
“Wounded Healer,” is the illustration of one’s own primal wound. The
only way to find relief from this wound is to help others heal their own
similar woundedness, hence the “Wounded Healer” archetype.
Amy’s
“Wounded Healer” was Conjunct her own “private hell” in her 12th House.
If she had lived and developed her own unique attributes, she might
have had the capacity to become an incredibly skilled and sensitive
counselor, therapist or facilitator, working with women whose sense of
self built around artifice, illusion and disconnection from their own
truth caused them emotional and physical damage.
Eating
disorders, dysfunctional relationships, the creation of a false
persona, the mistaking of drama for love, the need to emotionally
connect being stunted by an emotionally detached, distant or disengaged
parent, the impetus to unique individuation hijacked by the inner voice
of a punishing perfectionism, and an immensely genuine, authentic and
gigantic talent to communicate through words, music and the language of
costuming that outsized all the rest of it, and might have carried her
above and beyond the impedances of her mundane reality if she hadn’t
overestimated her luck and underestimated the destructive properties of
drugs, alcohol and those substances, behaviors and people she used to
manage the emotional pain of meaning so much to so many people and so
little to herself.
Happy Birthday, Amy
Winehouse. I still miss you - all of you, the "real" you and the
"unreal" you, your multifaceted selves hadn't even really begun to
unfold yet before you were taken from us too early. You would have grown
up into a grand old dame!
