Whitney Houston, Princess of Pop, dead at 48

JUPITER AS A RELEASE AT DEATH

We live in a world that tends to see death as a total negative, a wipe out. However, I need to say that I'm a passionate Nichiren Buddhist and embrace its tenets that (1) every person has an enlightened core or buddha nature, and (2) that life is eternal, and death is a part of life. It happens, we come back, it happens again, we come back again. How we come back and in what circumstances is determined by how we've lived.

I've often seen charts for the day of death where Jupiter, the planet of expansion, has been active. I would think for many elderly, for persons with terminal illnesses or, yes, in this case, where one is in the grip of addiction, that death is a release into the next path, if you will. In Whitney's chart, transiting Jupiter at 4* Taurus in exact trine to her natal Uranus expresses this sudden release into another sphere.

MINOR ASPECTS ARE OFTEN VERY IMPORTANT

Practically any astrologer can look at Whitney's big aspects, the awesome trines and conjunctions and see the successes in her life. But often the minor aspects are key to explaining the inexplicable, the mysteries, the confounding personality traits, the detours in one's life.

Natally her Ju/Ur is sesquiquadrate [135 degrees, a 'square-and-a-half,' a minor aspect indicating tension and challenge]. The very unique talents of Ju/Ur seem to have challenged her tremendously, considering the years [gaps] when she left show biz because of the pressure. Also this challenging minor aspect touches two important points in her natal chart.
One, Jupiter conjuncts her Moon, shown by her mother Cissy Houston's tremendous impact on her career and her family of songbirds [Dionne Warwick, a cousin].

Two, Ur/Me sits astride her 7th H. cusp, dealing with the public, marriage and open enemies in classical astrology terms. Certainly it describes her public career, her choice of marital partner and their public battles/reality show. Ju/Mo trines her Su/Ve which shows the beauty,the great fortune, the recognition. Su/Ve is also opposed by Saturn in the 12th H., where the unbidden blasts from the past reside in all of our charts. I watch Sun opp. Sat in natal charts closely, having read that this aspect is troublesome from mid life on. Seems to have been so here.

MANY PLANETS IN THE SECOND DECANATES OF SIGNS

Also, 12 of her natal placements, from the Sun through Lilith and MH, are in the second decanates. Other than prog. Sun at 3* Aries, which is formidable, she wasn't getting hit by the tr. Sa/Pl/Ur cardinal square. However, she was hit by it last year; perhaps her associations with drugs/dealers/unsavory influences deepened then and set the stage for now.

A TROUBLED NEPTUNE IS NOT A GOOD FRIEND

With a Pisces Ascendant or rising sign, her ruler is a troubled Neptune [music, drugs, fame, illusions] in Scorpio; it is the highest planet in the chart in the 8th h., and the focal point of a t-square with Saturn, troubling in the 12th, and Su/Ve in the 6th. Good sixth house influences produce the model employee. From her debut as a teen to the very last day of her life, she had a strong bond with mogul Clive Davis, her boss at Arista. She was such a good girl! She produced for him and everyone around her. But n. Nep. is disposited by Mars in Libra which is quincunx or 150* from the Asc and sextile Su/Ve.

QUINCUNXES: The illness aspect, yours or someone else's

Quincunxes mean illness/disease/discomfort, but one can subvert the meaning of a quincunx in one's chart by helping others with their illness. Hence we have the time honored tradition in courts of serving "time" by helping the less fortunate. I think the enormous pressure of being a superstar, and a fading one at that, sucked up too much energy for her to be more of a humanitarian. However, many other stars get it, i.e. volunteering their time in Haiti or Dar es Salaam or New Orleans is one way of countering the unhealthy effects of fame and its excesses.
During her final illness, my fellow Buddhist, Arline, happily told us as we chanted nam-myoho-renge-kyo, "See you next lifetime." With all due respect, see you next lifetime, Ms. Houston!

Bobby Brown: High peaks, even deeper valleys

I recently saw a 2009 VH-1 special on Bobby Brown, the provocative entertainer and ex-mate of Whitney Houston. He peaked early, an international pop star at 15. "I'm not that old that I can't reach for the top again," he says in the special. Can he? Where is he in the life cycle? Has Bobby passed into an obscure stage?

Like Gail Sheehy's Passages [1976], which delineated major stages in the life cycle, astrology gives many ways of looking at charts to predict peaks and valleys. One way is to track the outer planets from Jupiter through Pluto. While transiting the top half of the chart, these planets keep one out in the world where one's light can shine. In the bottom half of the chart, one goes through what Grant Lewi called a period of obscurity. Since they are slow moving, each impacts our lives for long periods of time--years, decades.

Saturn is transiting Bobby's 8th h. stellium. With Saturn being aboveground [top half] for the next nine years, his pain, passion and progress will play out in the public arena. Progress: Saturn's transit of his n. Pluto at 24 Virgo coincided with his reality show evolution into a country and western singer, a successful public transformation. Pain: a death rumor went viral so fast in April he had to refute it by speaking out.

Eighth house transits change us for good, leaving us bereft because we have to give up someone or something. In his case, his marriage ended, he was homeless and broke, and he gave up drugs. With four planets [Moon, Pluto, Uranus, Jupiter] in his 8th h., he has a smoldering, heartbreaking sensuality. The latter three planets trine his 1st h. Mercury in Aquarius, so he can speak, sing and write this sensuality in an utterly unique way.

If you look at the green lines in his chart, you can see something like a narrow pyramid. This is called a yod. A yod involves at least 3 planets (or angle: MC/IC or Asc/Desc). Two will be 60 degrees apart; each of them will be 150 degrees from the third. His Virgoan Moon and Scorpio Mars are sextile. The third planet in Bobby's chart is Saturn in Aries in the third house.

Gail Sandra Klein asserts that the yod typically leads to chronic (unfinishable) situations, like illness, neuroses, habit formations which, because the energy must find continual release, result in creativity. In other words, Mister Brown will have this energy percolating all his days, and music is the way he releases it.

Saturn is also the ruler of his chart since he has 16 Capricorn rising. What?! Bobby Brown, incorrigible, law-breaking, pelvis-twisting, drugging, wild wild Bobby Brown has strong Capricorn influences? Aren't those type of people conservative, stick-in-the-mud, law-and-order, upright citizens? Yes, they are, and now that he's given up drugs, he has a chance to let this side unfold. Drugs obscure the real person. People with strong Saturn influeces are hard workers. He was an international star in his teens because he started working and touring [and doing drugs] that early.

In the VH-1 special, Bobby said, "I'm gonna be the bad boy probably forever."
He's chosen, he said, to be the bad boy only in performing and to use his prerogative to live "without dope, without drugs."

b. February 5, 1969, 5:21 AM, Boston, MA
birth data from astrotheme.com