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 19o8s and 1990s, rising up from a mix of humble beginnings in Newark, NJ, and the pedigree of a family connected to the music industry.
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 Grammies, 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.”
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, 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.
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.
While I’m not the massive Whitney fan, I am a fan of astrology and especially of witnessing the education of delineating charts. That photo of Whitney at the start is just wonderful and I’m glad to see the her before the addiction. She was truly gifted and evidently greatly loved. For me, Whitney sang the national anthem back in … 90? that was so brilliant and spirited and full of such energy and soul … I am happy for her she had this connect with all of us that one glorious day.
mm.
Also, must add that having read about the one planet Hebe the earliest planet in any sign, I went to the ephemeris and looked up mine. Seems the only planet that sits @ the 29th degree in my entire chart is Hebe @ 29 Cancer … seems so fitting with so much history of addition in my scottish/irish lingeage.
And it’s just sad.
An African American girl with classical features, talent, extraordinary beauty, status, money, and relatives in high places. Add, primo bod and a very cute nose which added symmetry to her whole face
During an after party on the release of ‘The Bodyguard’, starring Kevin Costner, her husband Bobbi Brown told her he did not trust Costner. She reassured him by saying “don’t worry baby, I would never get together with a white guy”.
She was proud and I say all the more power to her, but pride and vanity is a fucked up union when arrogance rears it’s ugly head. She had it going in abundance. She would have needed someone outside of herself, perhaps a parent, to drive that message home. To channel her power somewhere – which gets back to what Eric pointed out ‘she never found a purpose outside that fame (except for destructive relationships)’.
Thank you for posting this. I am considering this woman’s fame, and how she torched the tail-end of the 80’s, in a way that is incomprehensible now, because it’s was the 80’s, and fame was different back then because the media was different.
Her dominance of that time was so singularly commanding, so peerless, so powerfully magnanimous and not cruel, yet, not sexy yet either. Whitney Houston was simply everywhere; her entrance into that star power was swift and unquestionable. Wildfire. In a matter of weeks, she arrived polished with gospel and flanked by a court of beautiful, powerful, black blood women.
Whitney was a knight. Aries moon: I’ll take it. We watched her come of age, become sexy, too skinny, blatant, lusty, as in ‘i like it’, as in ‘she suffers perfect pitch’. Use the phallic metaphors, please. Talk Vishuddha, please. She penetrated [many parts of us] with that voice, plying the world open. Open with the strength of her heart, her pain, her perfection, in right action, direct from the church, from the bloodline, from beyond. That much talent correlates with that much responsibility. She knew she had it, and that she had to give it. To us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-JBT9SLHPc
I’ve never been a big fan of her style of pop music. But she had a powerful voice, and was a highly accomplished performer who as an artist positively influenced a generation of singers. Fans grieve a lost artist because of the connection felt with them. It’s not so much fear of one’s mortality, as recognition of the loss of a gift with historic impact, and that gift’s ongoing presence in the world. At that level, death is felt personally, regardless of the lack of personal connection.
Much has been said of Houston’s addictions in coverage of her passing; it’s hardly been overlooked. For me, as someone who’s seen the passing of more than one highly gifted friend far too young, my thoughts are on the destructiveness of addiction: a disease which takes sometimes remarkable people and degrades them. Some aren’t strong enough to overcome those forces. She wasn’t. It doesn’t negate her gift in the end, and it doesn’t define her.
In instances like this, there are always a variety of public responses. Some go overboard emotionally. Many joke, instantly. (And if any reaction strikes me as a mask of subconscious fear of death, it’s crude jokes. They also serve to distance oneself from a more authentic response–that being some degree of communally shared sorrow.)
Meanwhile the media obsesses. But no one is obligated to watch or hear or read everything about it. We can always turn off the TV, radio, web. We can choose to filter all those inputs.
She would have been someone without the pretty face. She did make a contribution. She was someone’s wife, mother, daughter, cousin, niece, friend. She died as the result of an affliction now recognized in the medical community as a disease. Our fleeting newsfeed annoyance is trivial compared to other’s loss. The suffering of the world will continue, and take forefront again soon enough. For a moment it’s worth reflecting on the toll of addiction, the price of fame, the struggle of the gifted in the maws of an industry known for eating its own. This is a human story, underneath all the layers some want to overlay on it–or strip away. It bears apprehending humanely.
Ok, I am distracted; there are waaay too many typos in my previous post. Meh.
Her chart exemplifies her to me perfectly: that Mercury in Virgo (controlled voice) in the seventh (out there, public) with all her emotional vulnerability and dreaminess on her sleeve (Pisces rising) with that Chiron in Piseces in the first house (her personal pain out front) but still feeling a bit distant (all those planets in earthy Virgo; Virgo doesn’t really like the limelight).
Her voice in the beginning was young, raw and almost grating but as she got older, her voiced deepened into a richer, more mature (meaning she has lived life and been hurt) sound.
Her music peaked just when I met Dave and fell in love with him so all that controlled passion with vulnerability resonated with me.
Yet I also feel the media is beating it to death when so much more is going on around the world that merits our attention. No wonder every other country accuse Americans of being shallow, self absorbed and filled with hype. We are that and worse and it sickens me.
My first thought was for her daughter too. That poor child; what a messed up life she has had already and now she has lost her mother.
LuckyDriver –
I don’t think she wrote her own songs either, it may not have been one of her talents. She seemed to focus on the singing and leave the rest to managers or whoever and it showed, the songs were lots of times pretty bad. But they sure did that “ear worm” thing and get into your head and you couldn’t get it out no matter what.
Hazel1 –
I agree, even if her appearance were different, her vocal ability would still have garnered attention for her. She was well-known as a model before her singing career took off, but I think if she were less attractive she still would have made it as a singer through another route.
It’s interesting – I never really listened to her music much although I recognize that the talent she had seems undeniable. I have no idea whether or not she wrote her own songs – my sense is that she did not, and that makes a difference in how she sounds to me somehow. As beautiful as her voice is, I think it would have packed a more authentic punch if she wrote and expressed her own material.
Eric, I don’t think she would have been nobody if she’d had a funny looking nose. She still had real talent and ability, she would have found a way to use it, though maybe it would have been a more manageable life and a happier one. A few years ago you did a big writeup on Anna Nicole Smith and how misunderstood she was. What contributions did she give to society? Plastic boobs? LuckyDriver – I too feel for Whitney’s daughter, I come from parents who were too messed up to really raise me and I can imagine some of what she’s going through. She’s in my prayers for sure.
Thanks for posting the chart; I was curious about this when I heard the news last night. I feel so much empathy for Whitney’s daughter at this juncture. Her childhood must have been challenging enough having two parents with such serious issues; now her mother’s death is no doubt going to be a massive turning point for her. I only hope she finds a way to make good choices for herself as she wades through all this.
Ditto, mystes (and Fe).
I was never a big fan of how she handled her voice — I always thought she didn’t know quite what to do with it. It was a huge and powerful gift, yet she didn’t have the “infrastructure” to deal with it. It was sort of all or nothing, without enough subtlety. It overwhelmed her, just as fame did. I heard glimpses of how glorious it could be, but the pop packaging really stifled what could have been enormous growth.
Yeah, and that wall-to-wall reporting about her death, what’s up with that? I was struck by how much airtime some programs were devoting to it.
RIP, Whitney.
A good friend of mine got to see Whitney perform in a small club (possibly The Bottom Line, I’ll have to check in with her on that) before she exploded on the pop scene. It might also have been before Clive signed her (I will check on that too). Anyhoo, I remember early on in Whitney’s explosive ascendance, my friend commented that the pop version of Whitney was different than what she’d seen in the club. According to this friend, the early club version of Whitney was more extraordinary than the pop version that became a part of all of our lives (like it or not).
Personally, I never felt compelled to buy any of her records but I was always struck by the voice….and, especially with my friend’s comments in mind, always wished I could hear her drop the pop and throw down with her godmother. If they ever did and I missed it, I’m sorry. And if they did throw down, I hope it was for real, and not controlled by any industry pop forces that have a way of sapping the heart out of such moments.
And as sad and newsworthy as this is, I agree with Zerosity…I think Syria is infinitely sadder and infinitely *more* newsworthy.
She was not on my short list of pop singers, since I pretty much stopped listening to pop music in the 1980s. Talented? Yes, she was. Tragic? Yes, she was. Is her death a tragedy? Yes, but not unexpected.
What I do resent is the “wall to wall news coverage” in the main stream media as if there was nothing else newsworthy to cover. I mean, Robin and George on GMA dressed in black!! Pulleeeze!
Then again, it may be a welcome relief to the never-ending coverage of the tragedy of the ‘Pub candidates.
JannKinz
It’s my opinion that she was too famous, in contrast to what she contributed to society; and she never found a purpose outside that fame (with the possible exception of her family). If she had a funny looking nose, she would not have had that kind of fame.
Her personal always seemed so public, didn’t it? Always felt to me as if the media were actually on the edge of truthfulness when it came to Ms. Houston. I enjoy the power behind her voice (that size 12 stuffed into a 6) but I never felt warmth projected from it. Her demise did indeed feel written from the beginning, didn’t it?
On that note, I have a question for anyone willing to educate me. Eric discusses the “earliest planet in any sign” (last para).
Here at PW I’ve been learning about the importance of transiting planets changing signs; I’m looking to understand how to read objects on sign cups in natal chart (considering that the a natal chart is a “fixed” moment, not moving, I conclude that the idea of “change” doesn’t fit as well as it does with a transit. -?)
Are they a dominating voice in the room – over other planets placed there ?(I u/s the answer might be qualifed based on other aspects)
Personally, for example, I have Nemesis and Venus in a conjunction at 0 AQ, the mean Apogee at 0 AR Lachesis (the thread measuring fate) at 0 TC (my MC) and Zeus at 0 VI (conjunction Pluto and opposing Sun)
I have many important objects in very early degrees of signs and/or houses. Is there a general thought process for this kind of situation*? (*or variations on the theme such as many planets at late degrees, etc.)
Thanks PW friends for any insight on this.
Her decline and fall was so painful to watch, especially for those of us who have loved ones struggling with substance issues. Hurts my heart. The Greatest Love of All remains a personal fave.
Her chart affirms that she’s was her own worst enemy. A friend went to see her when she was just coming up, and reported that she projected no personal warmth, that she seemed standoff’ish and suggested that she needed to get more accomplished at handling big crowds. She never did. It was always too much scrutiny.
Fe, *exactly*. I have never liked or been attracted to WH’s voice; it always seemed to carry a putsch in it – like it was trying to cram some size 12 energy into a size 6 frame. I hope she finds a bigger sky in which to express that energy now. It was hogtied by the mirror-factory too early here.
***
**
*
You always had a feeling that fame was kryptonite to her. the more she had the weaker, more scared and unsure she was.
When I heard last night I wanted to see her chart first thing, thanks for posting it here. I’m the same age she is and I really admired her talent and I loved her voice. “driving a very fast car with a blindfold on” sounds pretty accurate to me. Thanks again for the post.