I crashed down and I tumbled, but I did not crumble
I got through all the pain
— Whitney Houston, “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength”
As the music industry descended on Los Angeles for the Grammy Awards on Saturday, Whitney Houston died in her room at the Beverly Hills Hilton. She was one of the biggest superstars of the 1980s and 1990s, rising up from a mix of humble beginnings in Newark, NJ, and the pedigree of a family connected to the music industry.
Photo by Jack Vargoogian / Front Row Photos.
Known for her three-octave range and stunning beauty, she never recorded an album that sold less than a million copies. She had won more than 400 career awards including six Grammys, and sold more than 170 million albums, singles and videos worldwide.
A friend of Ms. Houston appeared on CNN this morning and said that she had seen her recently, and that “she was not herself.” A writer, she went home and wrote an obituary, anticipating the worst. That came in the form of a 9-1-1 call at 3:43 pm Saturday. Fire department personnel were already on the scene preparing for a pre-Grammy party. They tried for 20 minutes to revive her. The cause of death has not been determined yet.
Outside the hotel, “tourists shot cellphone pictures of a police crime laboratory van parked outside. But inside, the glamour of the event seemed undiminished, even if Ms Houston’s name was on everyone’s lips,” The New York Times reported Sunday.
Performing was in her blood. Wikipedia’s editors write: “Inspired by prominent soul singers in her family, including her mother Cissy Houston, cousins Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, and her godmother Aretha Franklin, Houston began singing with New Jersey church’s junior gospel choir at age 11. After she began performing alongside her mother in night clubs in the New York City area, she was discovered by Arista Records label head Clive Davis.”
Natal chart of Whitney Houston, Leo with Aries Moon and Pisces rising.
Whitney Houston was a Leo, born Aug. 9, 1963. Venus is conjunct the Sun to about five degrees, though it’s also conjunct the hypothetical point Transpluto, which made her gleam like a jewel on the outside but all but assured that she would be equally critical of her beauty and talent within her own thoughts — a fact confirmed by her Aries placements, which I will return to in a moment.
Her birth time was rated by data collector (the late) Lois Rodden as AA, birth record in hand, so we can be pretty sure it’s accurate. We get a chart with Chiron in Pisces rising, an apt image of her intense beauty mingled with the feeling that she was constantly being fed to the sharks, in the form of the photographers who stalked her and the reporters who hounded her, whom she openly reviled.
Her natal chart is a mid-1960s model, as she was born just before the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Virgo. With Pisces rising, that places the conjunction — which sparked off what we think of as the 1960s — in her 7th house of relationships and marriages, where it comes at her like a moving train. Mercury, the ruler of Virgo, is closely conjunct Pluto right on her relationship angle (the 7th). This is an ominous image of both her fame (Mercury conjunct Pluto, prominently placed, describes her connection to ‘the millions’), and the sense that everyone was a potential assassin, pirate or predator, and on a good day, where every experience with another person was an intense one.
Though she emanated life, death itself was part of her appeal, and it’s fitting, if tragic, that she died just as all of her colleagues and mentors were on their way into town.
Her chart describes one of the most vivid self-esteem crises that someone can endure. It’s as if she started with enormous self-worth and determination, then had it turned on her. This appears in the form of three points in Aries, which is her 2nd house (self worth, personal wealth). The points are the dauntless Aries Moon, retrograde Jupiter and retrograde Eris. It was if she could feel who she was but didn’t quite know who she was, a bit like driving a very fast car with a blindfold on.
Whitney Houston death chart, time from the New York Times. Aquarius is on the 8th house (nature and cause of death) so that makes Saturn the first ruler and Uranus the second ruler. The "sudden death" message of Uranus definitely came through -- though note the prominence of Mercury IN the 8th house -- more "death as message." This could have been a suicide. Also note the exact opposition of her death chart Moon with her birth chart Moon.
Those Aries planets are square the lunar nodes. Many astrology students and even practicing astrologers struggle to understand the nodes. Think of it this way — the Moon and other planets square the lunar nodes add an evolutionary struggle to the chart. It’s as if her whole life is a turning point, and everything depends on her ability to understand what those Aries plants are about, which is basically a desperate search for herself and for her value. The planets are at the south bending — the Moon is as low in declination as it can go — so the issues are deeply buried, a fact that is reiterated by Jupiter and Eris being retrograde.
While this is happening, her Moon is moving at close to top speed — more than 14 degrees on the day she was born. It’s as if she was racing ahead and trying to leave her issues behind.
Not only didn’t this get in the way of her rise to stardom or her acclaim, it spurred the way. But eventually these factors undermined her as she was unable to get her life on steady ground.
One of the keynotes of her chart is codependency — that is to say, the unhealthy dependency on destructive relationships where substance abuse is involved. We see a clue to this in the concentration of planets in her 7th house (her relationship angle) — a total of nine major points across Virgo and Libra. This can create a life where everything is a projection; she sees her own shadow everywhere she looks, and the world projects its image of her onto her. Like Marshall McLuhan said of The Beatles, she would put the crowd on like a mask.
When we check her minor planets, one thing stands out at the top of the list: her earliest planet in any sign is the asteroid Hebe, the planet of codependency associated with substances. It’s in early Libra, exactly opposite the Aries Point, conjunct a massive galaxy called M87. She had what you might call normal issues, but magnified to cosmic proportions by her fame — though it’s difficult to say which fed the other. Clearly her need for approval helped get her where she was, but as is often the case, that didn’t buy her happiness.
See all of Whitney Houston’s minor planets on Serennu.com.
See Whitney Houston’s natal and progressed charts in larger format.
