_{Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman as Clara Varner and Ben Quick in the film ‘The Long Hot Summer’. It was based on a novel by William Faulkner and directed by Martin Ritt, circa 1958. The couple remained together until Newman’s death in 2008. (Getty Images)}

I promised you an example of a synastry analysis that is slightly more positive than the Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas debacle, and thank God that HBO saved my a$%! Because I have to say that finding positive examples in the world of celebrity marriages and relationships is a difficult task and mostly because the good ones are not so easily mediatized. People who love well and stay together usually lead relatively quiet lives, fairly removed from scandal & drama (see for example Christian Bale and Sibi Blazic, or George & Amal Clooney). In my romantic search, I found out that in 2022, HBO released a documentary created by an enthusiastic Ethan Hawke, about the intimate life of Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. I don’t know why it took me this long to realize that it was available to watch, but I feel like the waiting has a fated quality to it, since I am writing about it now, after the Autumn Equinox of 2023 and during Libra season, the zodiac sign of partnerships.

The 6-parts documentary is emotional and informative and just gorgeous to watch, as you get behind-the-scenes audio interpretations by a slew of famous actors, most of whom appear to be Ethan’s chums; to say that I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen was an understatement, it was such an interesting and emotional ride, and a really welcomed surprise. Called The Last Movie Stars, the documentary revealed some interesting aspects about their 50-years long marriage (the pair got married in 1958!). I mean, even if I were to start a relationship this year, I don’t think I would still have 50 years left to give it my all to love; but I can dream about that possibility, and that’s the beauty of this intimate piece of work: it renews romantic hope. The fascinating part was the relationship that Paul and Joanne had, which by itself and considering its length, becomes almost an institutional entity. So let’s explore their astrological markers and see if there are any clues that may point toward relational durability and love stamina.

Below is Joanne’s chart, which tells us that she is a Sun in Pisces in the 2nd house (conjunct Venus), a Moon in Aquarius in the 2nd house (conjunct Mars, Mercury & Lilith in the 1st house), and an Ascendant in Capricorn (conjunct the Part of Fortune in the 1st house & Saturn in the 12th house). The big threes in someone natal chart (the Sun, Moon and Ascendant) point towards someone’s identity, their public and private Self but in a synastry analysis, we have to look at a person’s relationship markers to sus out the glue that binds two people together. As relationship markers, Joanne has them deeply combined with her personal identity placements, seeing as her Moon is tied up with her Mars & Mercury (making her a passionate and naturally clever woman), and her Sun is hugged by her Venus (some astrologers call the Sun’s nearness to any planet, a combust aspect, something which drains the planet of its energy; however, Joanne is undeniably beautiful so we will ignore that interpretation – in general, I don’t see the point of naming aspects ‘combust’).

_{Photo and birth-chart of actress Joanne Woodward taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/joanne-woodward-horoscope}

In addition, Joanne brings a powerful aspect to the table in terms love and marriage and that is her Pluto retrograde in Cancer in the 7th house conjunct the Descendant. Pluto here can make one highly sexed up, intimidating, mysterious and irresistibly attractive in love; they may also use manipulation, subterfuge and guilt-tripping to control their loved ones, especially since hers is placed in the sign of Cancer (a Water sign) which rules over emotional mood swings. And guess what, Paul has this exact placement too! The reason being is they share an Ascendant. This mutual Pluto aspect can also manifest as a secret love affair. Indeed their love story began when Paul was still married to his ex-wife, Jackie Witte. Paul left Jackie for Joanne, as the latter was too astrologically irresistible. Another reason was, that they had a hefty past-life karma to process together, since Paul’s Saturn in Scorpio was conjunct Joanne’s South Node in Scorpio, and Joanne’s Moon, Mars and Mercury were conjunct Paul’s South Node.

Speaking of Paul’s chart, you can see below that he has a Sun in Aquarius in the 1st house (conjunct his South Node), a Moon in Pisces in the 2nd house (conjunct Uranus) and the same Capricorn Ascendant as Joanne – the difference is that his Asc is conjunct the planet of luck and growth, Jupiter! Not only that but Venus and Mercury are neatly tucked into the Ascendant’s radius, which is wow! It’s like God, on the day of Creation decided to spend some time on Paul, packing in his lunch box some diamonds too. Having Jupiter, Venus and Mercury on the Ascendant obliterates the rather stern and difficult energy that Capricorn brings to anyone’s chances in life. At the same time it adds layers upon layers of fears and responsibilities to someone’s life. In the series he describes how he used drinking as a way to take the edge off things, so that they won’t feel so difficult. Practical responsibilities burdened him more than any other man, since Paul was born with a sensitive Moon in Pisces conjunct Uranus in the 2nd house. Uranus disrupted and fragmented his inner world and gave him some wild emotional ups and downs, but due to his Capricorn Ascendant he kept it all in, repressing the expressionist madness of his inner life; the positive side is that this energy was then sublimated in his movie roles, and transformed into art.

_{Photo and birth-chart of actor Paul Newman taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/paul-newman-horoscope}

Notice here another interesting pattern between their charts? Paul’s Moon falls on Joanne’s Sun and Venus (which is usually an indication of soul-mate marriage), while his Uranus also conjuncts her Sun and Venus (a sign of relational disruption). This means that as much as there was emotional sweetness between the two of them (Sun conjunct Moon) and true love (Sun conjunct Venus), there were also shocks, sudden separations, electricity and awkwardness (Sun conjunct Uranus). They also had an emotional double whammy which guarantees a deep soulmate bond: both of their Sun and Moons were intertwined! So despite the fact that he is an Air sign and she is a Water sign and some classic astrologers might consider them incompatible, her Sun in Pisces fell on his Moon in Pisces, while his Sun in Aquarius fell on her Moon – this kind of synastry gives me goosebumps, since it shows two people who think and feel in similar ways. And indeed in their political views and humanitarian efforts, they were united. On a deeper level it shows two similar souls, made for marriage and embodied to support each other in this lifetime.

Let’s return to their shared Ascendant, since their shared Capricorn energy is the most visible sign of two people who came together to build something durable. Capricorn energy doesn’t play around: it is pragmatic, it looks for something safe, it makes strategic moves to gain something tangible, enduring and reliable; and this is how their relationship seemed to the public, from the outside looking in. The Ascendant represents the opportunities people tend to attract towards themselves, so for Paul it was his destiny to attract fame and fortune (Jupiter), to have many women in his life (Venus) and to develop an image of stoic communication (Mercury). Indeed, in The Last Movie Stars, the most fascinating aspect was how Paul’s career took off in his twenties, around the time he married here, while Joanne’s stagnated as she took on the role of primary caregiver for their children, right after she won an Oscar.

In spite of this power-shift, many actors and directors continued to believe that Joanne was the most talented in the craft of acting from the two of them, if we take into account that she won her Oscar in 1958, while Paul received his as an honorary award in 1986 (for Joanne, Saturn gave her limitations but it also gave her professional respect and enduring skills). This Jupiter in Capricorn versus Saturn in Capricorn energies that they shared are demonstrated in the directions that their lives took. But there is more to this weird shift in power which they experienced in their careers, and this aspect is shown by the placement of their lunar nodal points. Let me bring up their synastry chart so you can have a look at their points and aspects in detail:

_{The synastry chart of Paul and Joanne’s relationship taken from https://famouspeople.astro-seek.com/marriage/paul-newman/joanne-woodward}

Jesus Christ! When I first saw the chart I couldn’t help myself: it looks like a literal battle ground, due to the prevalence of the many red aspects (or points of tension, the squares and the oppositions). But as many red aspects as they have, these are balanced out by the blue ones (or harmonious and friendly energies, the trines and the sextiles). Astro-seek.com is letting me know that the two actors have 7 loving aspects, 9 key aspects, 11 passion aspects and 5 pain aspects between them. Conspicuously, there seems to be no conflict aspect between them… well, this is why getting a synastry analysis from a human being rather than a computer, can be a more satisfying endeavor. The odd description of ’11 passion aspects’ can be better summed up by the fact that Joanne and Paul had a natural, wild chemistry between them as her Mars was conjunct his Sun and this is a classic signifier of being physically turned on by someone while also frequently arguing with them.

In addition, Paul’s Mars in Aries was conjunct Joanne’s Uranus in Aries, another indicator of feeling aroused and electrified by someone’s unique individuality (and with a Mars in Aries it is also not surprising to me that he enjoyed car racing so much). Not only that but their physical passion was supported by emotional aspects with long-term holding potential and stoic durability. Paul’s Saturn in Scorpio in the 10th house was trine (or in harmony) to Joanne’s Sun and Venus in Pisces, showing again how he helped her express her femininity and create a safe haven at home, not with his physical presence in the home but by playing his role as the family provider (the 10th house shows the public arena and the role of the experienced mentor, and any planets here carry a lot of weight, like Atlas holding the world).

Coming into his strength and shinning brightly in the public’s eye was Paul’s uncomfortable growth zone and destiny, as his North Node was in charismatic Leo. While for Joanne, letting go of her sexual power and her artistry was necessary, so that she could focus more on domestics bliss and creating a simple and cozy sense of stability in her life, since her North Node was in stable Taurus. They were interviewed once if they had things in common and aside from the world of acting and their family life, they felt divided in their hobbies and goals. Again, this divide is a manifestation of the placement of their nodal points which were at odds with each other: Scorpio vs. Aquarius South Nodes, and Taurus vs. Leo North Nodes. Nonetheless having nodal points in such fixed signs, contributed to their durability as a couple.

In addition, Paul’s Moon in Pisces was naturally supported by Joanne’s Saturn in Capricorn. In the documentary there is a good portion dedicated to Paul’s alcoholism and there is a memory described in which Joanne was fed up with Paul’s self-destructive drinking and she took the kids and drove them to a house in Malibu. She refused to come out of it, unless Paul quit drinking. It’s almost impossible to convince someone with that much Saturn and Neptune energy in his chart (plus a Saturn in Scorpio) to drop drinking or other habits which help them cope with the sheer heaviness and gravity of being alive. But as he solar light in Pisces (The Sun) influenced Paul’s darker moods (the Moon), Joanne had this inner fortitude which helped him at least improve a toxic habit. She apparently reached a compromise with him so that in the end, he gave up hard liquor and kept drinking only beer. As a Pisces Sun myself and growing up with an alcoholic father who has a Moon in Capricorn, I think I have a certain understanding as to how difficult that must’ve been for her, but nonetheless they reached a solution. Despite their shared interest in acting, their intense physical chemistry and their deep soulmate compatibility, their relationship was far from perfect and it seems like they grew into loving one another after marriage rather than at the time they got married. Joanne describes in the documentary: ‘I don’t think I was in love with him when we met. I was in lust, but no. Love came later’.

And that is the beauty of their relationship and their synastry: it shows two people who saved their love-ship by committing to each other time and time again, even after the power shift in their careers, even after the suicide of his son, even after the secret liaisons with other people, Paul came home to Joanne and Joanne came home to Paul, and when they did they gave each other room to breathe and to grow rather than basking in resentments and fighting. And they did this for 50 years, building their love and commitment brick by brick, after every challenge. In present days, where most people meet online and we block and stonewall those who have different opinions then we do, when we are distracted by all the many sexual options that the social world has to offer, and when we tend to commit more to our jobs rather than our relationships, their love story is truly inspiring and serves as a sober role-model to admire and follow.

There is of course more to say about their synastry, but I shall stop here because this post will become too long. One final interesting tidbit I wanted to add was that the creator of the documentary, Ethan Hawke, also had some fascinating synastry with them. Ethan is a Sun in Scorpio (conjunct a stellium) and a Moon in Aquarius (conjunct his North Node). Sadly, we don’t know his Ascendant, but I bet it might be Capricorn 🙂 If you clicked on Ethan’s highlighted name to see his chart, you may have noticed Ethan’s Scorpio stellium, which was activated in relation to the couple in order to preserve the intimate legacy of Paul (aspects to his Saturn in Scorpio & Sun in Aquarius) and honor the emotional craftsmanship of Joanne as an actress (aspects to her Moon, Mercury and Mars in Aquarius; beautiful trine to her Sun and Venus in Pisces). Bearing this in mind, my intuition is telling me that Ethan was so enthralled with their story because it also helped him heal himself, by unifying the split masculine and feminine energy within himself, as he has this powerful Sun-Moon conjunction aspect to both Paul and Joanne. Outside of a marriage, the Sun and the Moon can also represent the Mother and the Father collective archetypes, and from my public knowledge of his early life and upbringing, Ethan grew up without a father and with a strong, single mother, Leslie (who happens to love visiting Romania). But I guess we can look into Ethan’s chart some other time. For the time being, I hope this analysis inspired you. If you enjoyed this analysis and would like to get in touch with me for your own, personalized synastry report, please see here.

With cosmic love,

Lexi

_{Image of Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner taken from Profimedia Images. Read more at: https://www.digi24.ro/magazin/timp-liber/showbiz/joe-jonas-si-sophie-turner-divorteaza-dupa-patru-ani-de-casnicie-2495341}

…and Joe Jonas’ post-Venus retrograde hangover. This title was too long so I had to shorten it, although it does contain a melancholic reminder of what an accumulation of tense and unfortunate, astrological transits can do to a relationship. I argue that the relationship wasn’t necessarily strong from the beginning, although I believe it was meant to be for them to grow through this marriage and the fact that they also became parents in the meantime. Around the time that Venus went direct in Leo, we found out that the singer Joe Jonas filed for divorce from his wife of 4 years, actress Sophie Turner. This news was rather shocking for the collective, expressing their disappointment with this celebrity brand of ‘true love’ in many TikToks. Through subsequent media updates, we also discovered some strange details about this connection: that their two children mostly lived with him while he was touring, that he was still wearing his wedding ring when news of the divorce filling broke out, that Sophie was suspected of cheating on Joe with a co-star in her latest film, that Joe has an alcoholic addiction, that Sophie is a party girl when everyone knew her as a homebody…and I felt that most of these weird bits of gossip were highly Neptunian in nature, like a cloud, changing colours every day. A Neptunian cloud that hovered over their connection from the beginning and suddenly burst under the weight of a couple of re-vising transits. You see they met when Saturn in Sagittarius was squaring Neptune, in October 2016, a year we mostly all want to forget because of the massive delusions and political disappointments that washed over the collective.

At present, the British actress, Sophie Turner is 27 years old. Already a celebrity, already a wife, already a mom. All brave achievements to have amassed before the age of 27, which is known as the drama-bringer, a year in a person’s life which can often make or brake some people (see the Club 27 story). This is the age at which the energy of the planet Mars, matures and becomes ripe. And Mars doesn’t mess around. Mars or the God of War, Ares, cuts, pierces, stampedes and destroys what it no longer wants. It claims what it desires, it does what it feels like and it cares not one bit for social norms of decorum and politeness. Sophie Turner’s Mars return is happening in her 9th house, a lucky house, also known as the seat of individual freedom in the natal chart. So she feels compelled to chase her freedom at the moment. Just that her Mars is in Pisces, conjunct her Sun and loosely conjunct her natal Saturn in Pisces. So, should we tell her what is coming towards her from next year? The dark night of the soul that a Saturn return can bring to an individual crossing the 28th, 29th and 30th years of their life? I’d rather just see her survive through this divorce, safe and sound and with the possibility to still care for and nurture her children. I know that she will successfully deal with her Saturn return, after Mars loosens the impulsive grip it holds over her life at the moment.

You will have noticed that since Joe Jonas made it public that he filed for divorce, there are some mysterious and confusing facts surrounding this relationship’s end. And it is the nature of Piscean energy – especially the one in which Sophie’s energy is shrouded – to offer us some concealment, some weirdness and some evasiveness. Get ready for some more odd facts to pop up about Sophie and Joe’s relationship until the divorce is finalized. But to clarify some of the weird information that is being ping-ponged around, like we are sitting in line at Wimbledon while scouring the media, here is my take on the astrological energies that Sophie shares with Joe. I’ll tell you what I see and make my own interpretations and you may then decide what you want to believe about these two. Just to get this out of the way, I am 100% team Sophie in this mayhem and not necessarily because I am a big fan of either of them, but mostly because the way she describes herself (and has done for years now) actually fits so well with her birth chart (unlike Joe’s side of the story). So let’s begin with Joe’s chart:

_{Image of Joe Jonas (left) and his natal chart (right) taken from https://astro-charts.com/persons/chart/joe-jonas/}

We can see that Joe is a Sun in Leo (definitely not a homebody), Libra Ascendant (the most sociable sign I know, and I should know since this is also my Ascendant) and a Moon in Aquarius. This is someone who is very charismatic, charming, polite, an intelligent individual who has a problem with accepting his feelings, especially if they are of the negative kind. Air signs (those born with Gemini/Libra/Aquarius Suns) are notorious for trying to reason with feelings such as anger, jealousy and sadness, instead of just accepting them. Going through emotional ups and downs is normal in life and it simply makes someone human, fallible and still loveable. We see in Joe’s chart some heavy rational influences with his stellium in reasonable and control-minded Virgo (comprising of his Venus, Mercury and Mars), his brilliant Moon in Aquarius conjunct his North Node (an aspect which denotes high emotions and emotional volatility in someone’s chart but since they are in Aquarius there is a need to intellectualize his strong emotions and often project them onto others), and his Libra Ascendant. In addition, Joe has some important influences in Capricorn which is another stoic and reasonable sign (his Saturn, Neptune and Chiron), thereby contributing to his innate need to be in control and to think of himself as the rational and morally superior one in a relationship.

We also see that the seat of his joy (Jupiter) is in the motherly sign of Cancer (which falls right on top of Sophie’s lunar Ascendant), while the other watery significator in his chart (Pluto in Scorpio) resides exactly on the cusp between his first and second house (the center of a person’s self-esteem and self-worth). So we are dealing here with somebody who may exhibit self-obsessed tendencies while at the same time still feeling happy around his wife’s physical embodiment. I believe that to Joe, being around Sophie’s body made him feel and look better in the eyes of the public, although I also feel that Joe mostly had a love relationship to himself rather than with her; all this being said, I do think that he is a good father, no matter what went down in the relationship with Sophie. He has the markers of a man who cares about his offspring and wants to protect them (Jupiter in Cancer and Sun in Leo), but he may use the children indirectly to keep tabs on Sophie even after the separation (Virgo stellium).

So Joe draws his power by focusing on his sexual needs (Pluto in Scorpio) and even though the way in which Sophie looks (her Ascendant in Cancer) makes him happy (Jupiter in Cancer) and strongly impacts his public image as a father (Jupiter in nurturing Cancer on his Midheaven), he is nonetheless emotionally misunderstood by her since the ways in which they take action are diametrically opposed: his Mars in Virgo is sitting in opposition to her Mars in Pisces. Worst even is his Venus in Virgo opposing her natal Mars, leading to a hot-and-cold energy in their love life that could wear them down in the long-run.

Finally, what I would say is that his comfort zone is being himself, and being the center of attention since he has a South Node (comfort zone) in Leo conjunct his Sun, and what he needs to learn in this lifetime is how to be more of a team player, how to detach his feelings from his beliefs, and be tolerant and open-minded in love (North Node in Aquarius in the 5th house). However, I can also see here a person obsessed with being wanted by others, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the reason they are breaking up is the fact that he has a wandering eye but he is playing his Cancerian Midheaven ‘concerned father card’ to make the public like him in the wake of this divorce.

Now let’s look at Sophie’s chart:

_{Image of Sophie Turner (left) and her natal chart (right) taken from https://astro-charts.com/persons/chart/sophie-turner/}

We notice her Sun in Pisces in the 9th house (conjunct Saturn and Mars), a Sun which is conjunct her Midheaven in Aquarius (where Joe’s North Node falls upon). An Aquarius Midheaven shows a woman with an unconventional public image, who may seem rebellious and progressive. In addition, her Cancer Ascendant falls conjunct his Jupiter, and she also has a brave and fiery Aries Moon conjunct her Venus – I take this aspect as a justification for her beautiful red hair 🙂 We also see a friendly energy between Joe’s Moon in Aquarius and her Moon in Aries, and we see as well a North Node in Libra (conjunct Joe’s Ascendant). So they met to push each other to grow outside of their comfort zones since their North Nodes are so enmeshed with their public roles; this can provoke fights and irritations and some intimate, dirty laundry which is washed in the public’s eyes.

At the same time there is a generational difference between them: she’s a Pluto in Sagittarius in the 6th house (a Gen Z), while he is a Pluto in Scorpio on the cusp between the 1st and the 2nd houses (a Millennial). There is also an opposition between her Jupiter in Capricorn in the 7th house and his Jupiter in Cancer in the 10th house. So relationally she will come across as more focused on work and her business partnerships (Capricorn), while he will come across as the grieving, involved father (Cancer). Now Sophie does suffer from a certain lack of empathy and an emotional coldness, given to her by her Saturn in Pisces conjunct her Sun. Saturn freezes and blocks her emotional world, her creativity and her capacity to love and be loved, to attain her goals in life, and to shine unproblematically. She is learning in this lifetime how to soften, to forgive, how to process feelings and to deal with emotional pain.

Sophie has to fight her negative feelings and overcome a victim-mentality in order to have success in life. She is destined to attract a lot of partners towards her, for both work and love, and she may also get married a couple of times (Jupiter in the 7th house), until she figures out how to cope emotionally with her Saturn in Pisces karma. I grew up with a mother who has this placement and since I was little, I can say my mom was emotionally blocked; she was both overwhelmed by her intense feelings and fighting against them, to gain control and not seem weak. It took me a while to understand that my feelings are valid and it’s ok to feel, because I never saw this modelled from my mother. In time, I worked together with her to forgive, heal and develop empathy. So I’m holding onto hope for Sophie’s children, who may find themselves in similar circumstances. I can see that as they develop her children may find it easier to feel emotionally close to their father rather than to her, which I can imagine is tough for a mother.

Coming back to their relationship, Joe recently had the Mercury retrograde in Virgo transit spending 3 weeks across his Virgo stellium, activating the Virgoan need to emotionally ‘clean up house’. So clearly he spent some time revising his relationship to his wife. He also might have felt ignored and unloved during the Venus retrograde in Leo which is known to attack our beauty and love energy, and this took place across 44 days and nights crossing over his Sun and South Node. I have the feeling someone from Joe’s past came back to haunt him by catering to his Ego, since both Lilith (betrayal) and Venus (love) played so heavily on his South Node during the retrograde (the karmic past, the comfort zone). Sophie on the other hand was knee-deep in her Mars return sitting in tension with all of Joe’s Leonic, dramatic energy. So as he wanted to fight and control, she felt compelled to let go and dissolve. Her water (Pisces Sun) dampened his fire, his fire (Leo Sun) boiled her water, evaporating the connection. And it seems like things might get increasingly bitter for the two of them as it was just announced that Sophie sues Joe on the grounds of wrongful detainment of her children.

These transits were the final straw in what I think was an emotionally ill-fitting connection from the beginning. I am kind of sorry these two couldn’t find a way to make things work, but as we can see from their charts emotional frost and some significant Ego issues prevented love from truly surviving in such a harsh, intimate climate. To add a humorous note to a sad ending, I always though that had she dyed her hair black and he put on more weight and grew a moustache, they would have made the perfect Morticia and Gomez Adams impersonators 🙂 Some light-hearted levity, but of course it’s never funny when two people decide to throw away what they have carefully built in years of their lives.

This post is also meant to celebrate the introduction of my new service, the Synastry report! The above analysis tends to skew towards a melancholic note, but I shall soon return with a more optimistic example of synastry that works beautifully. The synastry report is a service meant to help you check the compatibility between you and a romantic partner. If you enjoyed the above analysis and feel interested in purchasing a report for yourself, please get in touch by writing me an email. You can find more details about it on my E-Shop page, which is accessible by clicking on the tab by the same name from the website’s menu bar (above). Take care and keep loving against all odds!

With cosmic love,

Lexi

_{Image of Armie Hammer on the cover of OUT magazine. See here: https://www.out.com/tag/armie-hammer#toggle-gdpr}

I will never be able to look at the The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in the same way again. It’s Virgo season, so in today’s post I have the chart of another Virgo Sun male celebrity for your consideration. This is not necessarily the most positive example of a Virgo chart, and it’s slightly sad for me to do this analysis since I had a soft spot for Armier Hammer. I actually found him pretty hot, before the news broke of his mistreatment of women. As we are approaching the Full Moon in Pisces, some things come out of the shadow and become apparent, especially situations involving the secrets of the acting world. This approaching Full Moon in idealistic Pisces is coming up on the 31st of August and it is conjunct Saturn (the energy of karma) and Neptune (the energy of imagination and escapism, the one that rules over the film industry).

Bearing all this in mind, I recently saw the House of Hammer mini series on HBO and felt slightly gob-smacked at the evidence presented against Armie Hammer and his intimate relationships with a number of women who accused him of sexual assault. Now, I am aware that such docu-series can be fabricated to present a certain version of the truth, and to a large extent, as the public we will never truly know what actually happened between two people in an intimate setting, but my gut was telling me this rings somehow true and that was the chilling factor in my bones. Armie is an objectively good looking man, a classic ‘hunk’ some might say, but this is the manufactured public version of his personality, his ‘Hollywood costume’ if you’d like. So I was curious to see what does his chart say about how he his in private? What about the form of masculinity he naturally embodies?

In the series, I found out that Armie was named after his great-grandfather Armand Hammer, a ruthless man who built an empire from scratch and became a wealthy oil tycoon. His grandfather however also had a penchant for exercising domestic violence and covert control tactics to keep his family members in check, especially his wives. And it seems that just like the name he was given, the spectre of a received type of masculine identity seems to be unconsciously haunting Armie. I’ll try to combine in this article my knowledge of sociology, psychology and astrology and analyze this fascinatingly eerie case study of a famous Virgo Sun.

In their book ‘Toxic Masculinity: Mapping the Monstrous in Our Heroes’ (2020) Esther de Dauw and Daniel J. Connell write that:

_{“(…) hegemonic masculinity can be defined as the configuration of gender practices which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women.” This hegemonic masculinity is straight, able-bodied, White and ‘hard’ i.e., not feminine” (p. 4).}

The term ‘hegemon’ comes from Ancient Greek and can be defined as a supreme leader, a king basically. So it could be tempting to consider the form of masculinity which Armie seems to adopt in his private life to be a toxic kind; but rather than seeing his identity as toxic it’s more of a case of him employing toxic behaviors in private in order to maintain his power, a power that gives him so many rewards in his public life. Indeed if you watch the docu-series, the text messages presented there portray Armie as being hungry for absolute power in the sexual coercion he was employing with his lovers. The authors go on to complete that in society, through the means of culture:

_{“(…) men are encouraged to wield a performative “woke-ness” which allows them to act personally in ways that are seemingly divorced from hegemonic or toxic masculinity while simultaneously reinforcing structural inequalities. Hegemonic masculinity has an unfixed nature, encompassing hybrid masculinities, hypermasculinity and toxic masculinity” (p. 5).}

Or to put it bluntly, what distinguishes Armie’s aggressive masculinity from that of any other man who uses violence to punish a woman, is the fact that Armie is rich and well-connected, and thereby he embodies a higher form of toxicity, a hegemonic form of masculinity, the kind that usually walks away and doesn’t suffer harsh consequences even when leaving behind the disturbing evidence of his actions.

So how did he learn to embody this hegemonic masculinity? Well, it seems that the docu-series is putting forward the idea that it was transmitted to him, passed down from grandfather, to father to son. Our parents are able to give us not only material and financial assets or help us develop our intelligence and our skill sets, but they also can give us in unseen ways, some pretty heavy emotional baggage. Family psychologists have a term for this process and they refer to it as ‘inter-generational transmission’, or:

_{“the extent to which behaviors and characteristics of individuals from one generation are recurring in offspring, has been reported for multiple characteristics, such as personality and psychopathology, educational attainment and Socioeconomic Status (SES), Body Mass Index (BMI), life style factors, and health, as well as relational processes, such as quality of parenting or divorce” (from Branje et al., 2020)}

Now that I introduced the terms used in the title, I hope that it is more clear what I am attempting to argue for in this article. Astrologically-speaking, in order to explore the answers to the questions above, we need to examine the placement of his natal Moon, Mars and the North Node, since the Moon shows our unconscious priming, Mars shows the type of masculinity her uses in his daily life, and the North Node shows his destiny or what he is meant to experience in this incarnation. Needless to say, if I was shocked at the allegations of cannibalism and rape, when I had a look into this chart, I was floored again by how the astral placements matched the history of violence and the transmission down his family line of toxic masculinity traits and strong Ego attachments to power. Take a look for yourself:

_{Image of Armie Hammer and his birth-chart taken from https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Armie_Hammer}

First of all, we see a Gemini Ascendant at the chaotic 29th degree (also called the anaretic degree, a fated indicator). His Ascendant is conjunct his Moon and the asteroid Lilith, both in the witty and dual sign of Gemini and placed in the spiritual 12th house. This house is also the house of secrets, bed pleasures and spaces of confinement – make a note of this Gemini energy in the 12th house, because it is the defining clue to what I mean by him being haunted by his great-grandfather’s karma. We also see a dutiful Sun in Virgo conjunct Mercury and the Part of Fortune in the communicative 3rd house. This placement denotes an intelligent person with a penchant for behaving like a trickster. So Armie has a lot of Mercurial energy in his chart, as Gemini and Virgo are co-ruled by the Messenger God, Hermes Trismegistus. The equivalent to Hermes in Scandinavian lore is the mean-spirited God Loki, who had a bone to pick with his brother the more luminous and popular Thor. I’m only bringing up this mythological and familial drama, because it seems to bear a heavy weight in Armie’ relationships to the men in his family. Having a Mercury ruled chart makes someone intelligent, social charming but also contradictory and cunning. And the theme of his destiny seems to be this conflict between mind and heart, since a brilliant mind without a kind heart can make someone quite cruel and calculated.

You’ll also notice that his Mercury (his mind and the way he speaks) is squared by Saturn in Sagittarius in the 6th house, an aspect that denotes someone who suffers from ‘foot in the mouth syndrome’. So Armie clearly has a pattern of saying things (Mercury) that are detrimental to his work (6th house), things that endure in time and can affect his reputation (Saturn). Saturn is also sitting in tension with his Sun, so despite the fact that in the media and in his local environment, things and people will revolve around him (as he is the warmth-bringer with his Sun placed there at the incredibly fortunate 4’44 degree), however in his everyday work he is frequently challenged by older and wiser men who have the capacity to block his growth (Saturn in Sagittarius). Certain ‘truths’ about his personality will emerge from the people he interacts with on a daily basis, people who have the potential to become his open enemies (the 6th house). Some of these enemies are sadly, his own relatives (Moon opposite Saturn and Uranus).

Although, Armie was born with a super-pleasant Venus in Libra energy – which makes one charismatic and sociable, well-mannered and literate in their personal connections – his Venus is conjunct the South Node (his comfort zone), an aspect which tells me that he loves women (Venus), surrounds himself easily with them and tends to fall back on his relationships with beautiful women when things become tough in his life (South Node). However, most of the women he will encounter in his life will be his karmic partners due to that conjunction to the South Node. This means that even if he is attractive and lucky with women on some level, women will continuously hold his accountable for his bad behavior and bring a lot of punishments and responsibilities in his life. Furthermore, he is meant to have mostly short-term romances with them, since his Venus is placed in the fun-loving, non-committal 5th house; this is also the house of skills, so he “ahem” practices his skills on them (such as rope bonding, apparently).

However, things are indeed meant to take a darker turn in his life, because if we look closely there are two massive red flags influencing these rather sweet placements: his Venus is loosely conjunct intense Pluto in Scorpio in the same 5th house, and his Mars in Capricorn in the 7th house is sitting in tension with his Venus in Libra. Now, Mars square Venus is the classic aspect of fights and arguments in someone’s love life; it is an aspect of misfortune in love and some astrologers have went as far as to call it ‘the domestic violence aspect’. Paired with a darkened Venus, which is affected by Pluto (the aspect of the underworld, death and decay), well I can already see that the allegations made by the women in his life carry seeds of truth. A Venus conjunct Pluto personality has a knack for power and domination in love, especially when it is expressed in a lower vibration it can bring up issues such as sadism, fetishes and even murder.

With a Mars in the house of love (the 7 house), Armie is a man who takes initiative in his relationships and can come across as strongly sexual. Mars is also in the sign of Capricorn, which tells me that Armie is adopting a traditional form of masculinity, in which violence and womanizing might be commonplace to his particular understanding of being a ‘man’. Capricorn is a strict disciplinarian, a follower of rules, a conformist that keeps everyone in check. With a Mars in Capricorn, Armie gravitates towards a definition of masculinity which is constructed around control, especially physical, financial and sexual control. This energy is however softened by a conjunction to Neptune, and which placed in the 7th house makes him an individual that could often have messy relationships, in which he doesn’t really see his partners clearly and he could also cheat; this combined energy tells me that Armie easily idealizes love, idealizes women and marriage, while at the same time upholding a 1950s form of relating to the people in his life.

To put it more clearly, I can see that the inner world of Armie Hammer is the world of a Don Draper-like character and lifestyle. It’s a world of wealth, privilege and being the center of attention, while also being at the mercy of some dark, unconscious forces which play out in his personal connections (the 7th house) as well as with women in short-term love affairs (Venus in the 5th). His problem is relating to men, and especially the men in is family, and this under-developed energy is evident in Armie’s North Node in Aries which shows someone obsessed with being a man while also struggling to accept his masculinity. This is interesting since the 7th house is also the place in which we store our Shadow.

His Shadow is actually sitting in conjunction to the North Node of his great-grandfather Armand, who was born with a South Node in Cancer in the 12th house and a North Node in Capricorn in the 6th house. You can see in the image below that Armand’s destiny, that of becoming a power, status and money-obsessed man, the ultimate provider (North Node in Capricorn) is triggering Armie’s Mars in Capricorn in the 7th house, the area in his chart which is showing what he unconsciously received passed on from the older men in his family. Breaking through the obsession with power and financial control that he inherited from great-grandpa and constructing a form of progressive masculinity of his own, was the main task of Armie’s transit led by Pluto in Capricorn in the last 14 years which crossed over his natal Mars and Neptune and reconstituted his relationships (ex. we know he went through a divorce which plunged him into this string of sexual liaisons, in which he projected the trauma he refused to heal onto his victims).

Not only that but Armand was a Gemini stellium! Having his Sun, Moon, Pluto, Venus, Neptune and Lilith in this Mercury-ruled sign and in the 11th house of ideals and co-working. All of these placements fall in Armie’s 12th house, the house of the unconscious, of dissolving the Ego and of collective memories. Remarkably, Armand also had his Mars in Aries which now falls on Armie’s North Node in Aries in the 11th house (where his great-grandfather had his natal stellium in Gemini). The pattern is uncanny! Armand had North Node in Capricorn conjunct Armie’s Mars in Capricorn and Armie has a North Node in Aries conjunct Armand Mars in Aries. This points so strongly to the deep mental connection between these two men, showing that Armie was literally born to psychologically transform the toxic legacy of the men in his family, a legacy which began with Armand.

_{Image of Armand Hammer and his birth-chart taken from https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Armand_Hammer}

How will he be able to achieve this? By having the courage to re-create his identity (Aries), one which is different from what he knows and was taught. He is not supposed to be aggressive with other women, but to compete with the best version of himself, as he builds his masculinity from personal experiences. By becoming aware of his own behaviors’ in privacy but also by investing effort in raising his own children (he had a daughter Grace and a son, Ford) he can gradually become emotionally mature and aware of these patterns and dissolve them. The secrecy and the ignorance are the ingredients which allow this psychological toxicity to keep infecting his family.

In his personal relationships, be they romantic, familial or professional, Armie constantly tries to enact control and the sweet release from it since both his Sun (personality) is in an Earth sign (Virgo) known for preferring order and control, while also having his masculine identity (his Mars) in another earth-sign, Capricorn, who feels comfortable with rules, regulations and bondage. The problem with Earth signs is that they tend to be rather unemotional, and this empathy issue is further underlined in Armie’s chart by his brainy Gemini Moon and Ascendant. So he needs to learn how to feel things, to empathize with others, to show vulnerability and be brave enough to heal the traits of his hegemonic bloodline.

This is because the real problem-bringer of his chart is his North Node in Aries; but in the problem also lies the blissful resolve. Aries is the energy of the first sign of the zodiac, carrying with it the impetus of primal fire. Having a North Node in Aries means that one’s destiny in this lifetime is to pioneer something in their family, to be the first to accomplish what their ancestors were not able to. A poorly functioning Aries North Node would mar a person’s life with violence, sex, drugs and rock’n’roll and a couple of sobering confrontations with the law. A highly functioning Aries North Node is a creative powerhouse, a person who is incredibly passionate about life and shares that unbridled optimism and energy with everyone they come into contact with. Aries works at its best when it defends, protect and is the first to inspire others to have courage.

At its worst, Aries is a thug, a criminal, a rebel with no cause, out to pillage, rape and destroy just for the sheer madness of it (and this description applies to both men and women born with an afflicted North Node in Aries, see for example Amber Heard who shares this placement in common with Armie). With his North Node in the collaborative and collegial 11th house, Armie needs to learn to sacrifice his selfish needs (5th house South Node) and to use language to become a team-player, to ask for consent, to negotiate within social groups and enact equalitarianism. We see how he is currently failing at this; but this year marks his nodal return so he is given a couple more chances to reform and for the sake of other women out there, I hope he does before he hurts them.

In a nutshell, after taking a look over his birth-chart, do I believe the sexual assault claims made against Armie Hammer are true? Yes. Do I believe that he will likely get away with them? Also, yes. Notice his Jupiter placement! When you are curious if someone will get away with something, you should always pay special attention to Jupiter, as the lucky ‘get out of jail’ Monopoly card in a natal chart. Armie has his Jupiter in the 10th house, the house of the public and his career. Not only that but his Jupiter is highly functioning in the blessed and spiritual sign of the arts and cinema, Pisces. So it is highly likely that the public will continue to love him and still watch his movies, even despite SA allegations. But I also think that he is a man that makes enemies easily and that he will constantly have people taking advantage of the trail of communications he leaves behind him.

As Pluto will enter Aquarius and his 8th house from next year – the house of blood, sugar, sex and magic, also the house of healing on a deeper level – it will be interesting to see if he will take on the responsibility to transform his mind and behaviour. Pluto will leave his 7th house from 2023 onwards, moving away from the years-long degradation of his natal Mars in Capricorn conjunct Neptune, and it will be fascinating to see how his public persona will transform. Will he only be offered roles in which he is sarcastically playing the sadistic sexual predator? Will he be given the redemption arc to follow and thereby have the American public fall in love with his atonement? With a North Node in Aries he can smoothly make a career out of being the villain, and to be honest that would be a more authentic career change for him. From my part, I only wish that he becomes increasingly more aware of these energies in his chart and refrains from hurting the people he is dating.

An interesting sidenote is that I chose a good day to write and publish this article since today Armie turned 37 years old. I also found out that he shares a birthday with the amazingly talented Florence Welch (who apparently is celebrating her birthday recovering in the hospital after surgery). I hope that with time, Armie will be able to retreat from the dating game and heal himself from the intense legacy of violence inherited from the emotionally unaware men in his family.

With universal love,

Lexi

_{Portrait of British Sci-fi author, China Mieville from: https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/china-mieville}

What if I told you that inside your home lives someone whom you never met? An individual that shares the same space as you, but also someone you were taught to unsee since birth, for fear of breaching your immediate reality? What if the city you live in, had another city superimposed upon it? Or that only through a careful exercise in ignoring certain details about your daily life, both of these parallel worlds could co-exist? However, if there are two cities having this awkward relationship with one another, then what takes place in the space in-between them? What happens when things (and people) spill over conventional boundaries? This is the fascinating premise of China Mieville‘s 2009 novel ‘The City and the City‘, which I just finished reading and couldn’t wait to write about!

I knew of China’s work from before, when in 2012 in Edinburgh (exactly 11 years ago!) I saw him speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival, after spending a feverish 2 weeks tucked into the world of his Perdido Street Station novel. A man whose writing made me reconsider bugs (in a way in which perhaps only Kafka in his brilliant ‘Metamorphosis’ got closest to). Needless to say, a Virgo Sun.

Happy Virgo season & Mercury retrograde, btw! I guess you noticed who is the Virgoan ‘culprit’ who I shall be analyzing in today’s post. As I was reading ‘The City and the city’ and knowing that he is a Virgo Sun with a peculiar fondness for bizarre settings and crimes (labelled in literature as ‘weird fiction’), I wondered what else in his chart could make a man who penned his author’s name to sound like something soft and precious have such a prolific output and a penchant for sci-fi, neo-noirs? Let’s investigate together by peering into his astrological abyss below:

_{Image of China Mieville born on the 6th of September 1972 in Norwich, UK & his birth chart taken from: https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/china-mieville-horoscope}

Remarkably, the first thing that stands out is that he is in his 50s (!) and that he has a Moon in Leo at the anaretic 29th degree. Could it be a mere coincidence that I felt drawn to finish his book and start writing about his chart at the New Moon in Leo which took place on the 16th of August? Not really, I don’t believe in coincidences anyways. A Moon placed at the final degree makes an individual intimately familiar with their creative urges, as they are very comfortable being emotional and exploring their unconscious fantasies. It is a sign of emotional maturity but it also means that the chaos experienced by an individual in their lives is ruled by their relationships with women, emotions and their unconscious desires. So in a way one is dissolved into that very thing one feels like they control the most, and in China’s case these are his strong emotions and his ripe imagination.

Another aspect that stands out to me – aside from the annoying fact that without his birth-time we can’t see his Ascendant* (some advanced astrologers are able to do this but not me, sadly, at least not yet) – is that he has a Venus in Cancer conjunct his South Node and a North Node in Capricorn. Both of these nodal points are in friendly energy to his Virgo Sun, Mercury and Mars, which means that his goals in life and his identity are supported by the forces of his destiny guiding him towards a rather strict and stoic existence. He has to write in order to earn, and writing takes a long time usually, or at least it takes effort and concentration, and the paycheck comes also with the completion of this slow work, so I assume he needs to learn to save up for a rainy day and be cautious with his spendings. He is meant for a modest existence here on Earth that nonetheless can help him create the kind of work that will outlive him, and that is the gift of a Saturnian North Node. If a North Node in Capricorn could talk, it would say to its astrological native: “struggle now in this embodiment so that people will know your name even after your death”.

A Capricorn destiny is a pressure cooker but one which China can easily live up to considering the Martian qualities of his modest and hard-working Virgo Sun. If as a writer, he looks more like a street-fighter than an Oxford professor, this is due to his natal Mars placement which is perfectly conjunct his Sun in Virgo; this special cosmic blending makes his personality borrow traits from Aries energy. By consequence, he looks like a motorcycle-loving rebel rather than a neat and dutiful Virgo man. Judging by his work, I guess we shouldn’t be fooled by this idiosyncrasy. And personally speaking I think this makes him quite interesting and hot 🙂

I can also see that through writing, he is also healing his identity because he has Chiron (the Wounded Healer Archetype) in the sign of charisma, Aries, which might have been frequently produced wounding in his life related to his identity, his masculinity, a feeling of being misunderstood and not being admired enough or allowed to create. With a shy and family-oriented Venus in Cancer, growing up China might’ve preferred having women as friends and been very close to his mother too. I don’t know the facts of his upbringing but his chart shows me someone that had to work hard to develop healthy relationships with other men his age, and especially to feel loved and admired by his father. These are all symptoms of a SN in Cancer / NN in Capricorn life-path, denoting a person who eventually becomes the respectable and admirable father that they wished they had while growing up. So China was brought into this reality in order to work (NN in Capricorn and Sun in Virgo) and to create (Moon in Leo) in order to heal (Chiron in Aries) and to express his skills by paying careful attention to details (Mercury in Virgo).

He is a prolific author because his Saturn is in the sign of communication, reading, writing and learning: witty Gemini. Furthermore, he feels drawn to future topics and hence sci-fi, because he has a Pluto conjunct Uranus pairing in intelligent Libra. This means that he is attracted to space, the future and to wacky ideas, because he is himself a ‘walking & talking’ revolution. From what I can remember he is charming and quite funny in public conversations which I attribute to his Jupiter in Sagittarius, a domicile position which grants him a lot of good luck, especially in terms of creative and imaginative ideas, as his Jupiter (a point of growth) is natally conjunct dreamy Neptune.

Not only that but China has a Lilith placement in Scorpio, which could get quite dark, making him both irrevocably attracted to mysterious, sexy and cruel women or at least to topics which are taboo and involve life or death scenarios. It seems like I got him quite figured out but not really, since I am surprised to see a lack of Aquarius energy in his chart. I am maybe thinking that his Ascendant is in Aquarius, which would make him look attractive in an unconventional way and it would put his Moon in Leo in the communicative 7th house and his Saturn in Gemini in the 4th house, while his strong Libra duo of Pluto and Uranus would then land in his 9th houses the place of travel and the higher mind, which would be perfect for a sci-fi writer.

But this is only speculation. I do need to mention that in parts, his writing does become quite clunky and confused and often I need to re-read a couple of phrases to understand what he is trying to get his characters to convey. He often has a lot of dialogues when I would’ve also preferred a carefully crafted balance of descriptions and dialogues. But overall his ideas are truly something that linger with you. For example, I’ll never forget the interspecies sex scene with which Perdido Street Station begins or the realization I had that perhaps the City and the City offers an interesting interpretation to that weird sensation we have that some places are haunted: if we are to take the two-city theory to heart, we are not haunted by specters but by people who lead lives superimposed upon ours and which our eyes have trained to ignore each day. Huh…

In a global society in which we are becoming increasingly more tuned out of observing the everyday environment as we become more plugged into our gadgets and interests, this realization sent a chilling sensation down my spine. And this is exactly why during this Virgo season, I would recommend giving China Mieville’s prose a try. Let me know what you discover!

_{My sandals and watermelon smoothie match the cover of China’s book, the City & the City}

With universal love,

Lexi

_{Virgo by Salvador Dali, 1969}

From the 23rd of August until the 15th of September 2023, swift planet Mercury will retrograde in the sign of pragmatic Virgo, travelling from Virgo 21’51 degrees to Virgo 8’00 degrees (8 being the esoteric number of power and financial wealth). Needless to say, starting the ‘going back to school’ season with a Mercury retrograde is not ideal since most of the administrative things that will need to be efficiently dealt with, will take up more time than expected, will require more of our attention, focus and effort. However by the end of the retrograde something important will have been cleared up in our lives and following some random expenses brought about by the Venus retrograde which will overlap with this Mercury retrograde, well those expenses will be reorganized and finally dealt with. Financial reconstitution is the main theme of this retrograde and bringing order back into the emotional chaos of the summer is its main goal.

A retrograde brings a confusing energy with it, and it often creates a phenomenon called ‘brain fog’. On a pragmatic level, symptoms of its manifestations might include mixing up delivery addresses, forgetting the passwords that you use daily, making invoice mistakes, losing your keys, dropping your phone or laptop to the ground, messing up spreadsheets and double-booking meetings and events. On a psychological level, retrogrades bring with them the energy of feeling ‘completely out of it’ or as if you just ‘can’t be bothered with it’. This is why a retrograde is a perfect time for a detox, a clean up or a holiday, since you’ll be moving with the energy of release rather than pushing hard to build new things on quick-sand.

Virgo is the energy of the Divine feminine, as she represents the 6th sign of the zodiac and this is the numerological vibration of Venus and beauty in all its manifestations here on Earth. Virgo is a also the flexible Earth sign of the zodiac, the pure, hard-worker who appreciates stability, loyalty and ‘savoir faire’ (or skilled competence). If you struggled to get into some healthy eating habits, if you neglected your self-care routine, if you fell ill and couldn’t work, then the period around the New Moon in Virgo is your ‘health = wealth’ reset time. We need Virgoan analytical magic to parse through the complicated emotions that this Venus in Leo has stirred in us all. The problem is that much as love and beauty tends to be muted during a Venus retrograde, so is logic and order absent during a Mercury retrograde. Without logic and love, or rather with these energies ‘on hold’ for a while, then what are we?

The answer to this is that we are adequately equipped to work on the past and deal with those things that have been haunting us. Reflecting on our relationships with people from the past and with the past itself, reconsidering some things we overlooked when the planets were direct, reviving a beauty routine, clearing up some old objects, catching up with childhood friends or getting closure from an ex are all favorable during this 3 week period. We might have decided on something as Venus was retrograding by herself, only to reconsider our decision as Mercury begins its retrograde. This is why I feel that celebrity couples who broke up during this Venus retro will potentially shock us with news of a surprise reconciliation or some ‘dirty laundry’ being washed in public during the Mercury retrograde.

The good news is that the period of this Mercury retrograde will actually wrap up the Venus retrograde which will officially end on the 3rd of September. Furthermore, during Mercury’s backward spin we will also have a Full Moon in Pisces conjunct Saturn and Neptune on the 31st of August and a New Moon in Virgo on the 15th of September – the day we will collectively be released from the retrogrades of these personal planets (woo hoo! mark that date and chill the champagne). However, we will remain knee-deep in outer-planetary retrogrades as Pluto, Saturn and Neptune are all retrograde and on the 29th of August, Uranus will join them too. So, as the outer planets all line up in their retrograde positions, all personal planets line up in their direct modes, during this magical Mercury retro. This means that we will gradually begin to feel more personal power, as external events will become slightly more difficult to deal with. The Autumn and Winter of 2023 should be interesting times, especially as Pluto in Capricorn will be reaching peak corruption and the 1% will continue to live out their ‘honeymoon period’ on borrowed time.

A gradual worsening of the economy (Saturn), ongoing environmental surprises (Uranus), and the rise in the use of psychedelics, medication and other forms of escapism (Neptune) are ushering in some sudden and powerful changes in society in the year 2024 (a year which begins strongly Uranian, as Uranus goes direct during Aquarius season on the 27th of January and Pluto re-enters Aquarius on the 20th of January). But I feel I am looking too far ahead and I run the risk of confusing you with too much information all at once. Better boundaries with the kind of information you receive during this Mercury retrograde will be an important skill to acquire.

To sum up, Virgo likes to clean house and this is exactly what this Mercury retro will do for us: help us move away from bad romances, remove toxicity that exists in our body due to relationship stress, help us get grounded and look at things with more common sense than ever. We will post-it our walls, streamline our wardrobes to make them more echo friendly, think of ways to save up and manage our money better, refresh our food intake, and think deeply about how can we be of service to the world, when faced with so much destruction (or the decay of the crumbling Pluto in Capricorn environment). And if you can, please deal with any frustrations by being outdoors and close to nature, or ideally take a step back from work and focus on some emotional, internal clean up, as you get some rest. In the Pluto in Cap era we have been all over-worked and underpaid. Therefore, if you feel some strong procrastination tendencies, don’t worry; you are simply beginning to align with the energies of the Pluto in Aqua imaginative environment, in which work will begin to change its meaning and form, and social causes will abound.

With universal love,

Lexi

_{Movie still of Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha taken from: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/frances-ha-and-the-pursuit-of-happiness}

What do Charles Bukowski, Greta Gerwig and Arnold Schwarzenegger have in common? Aside from unpronounceable family names, they are all born with Leo Suns. I want to use the space of this article to dive as much as I can into the things that bring them together and also set them apart as the Leonic artists that they are. Of course, I’m only able to ‘gently’ touch upon some of the surface-level aspects in their birth-charts since it might take me the span of a whole book to do a deep astrological comparison, so keep this aspect in mind as you read the analyses below. I first need to mention the very awesome fact that the people I selected for this article are part of 3 different generations: Pluto in Cancer (Bukowski), Pluto in Leo (Schwarzenegger) and Pluto in Libra (Gerwig). This aspect shows that they have very different values and unconscious needs and that they lived within a set of circumstances that made their success possible.

Now the reasons I selected these three Leos is purely personal and selfish: Greta blew up in the media with her latest movie ‘Barbie’ which I really enjoyed seeing but also made me wax nostalgically about her earlier work in fringe movies like ‘Frances Ha’ (one of my favourites). Arnold was recently featured on Netflix as part of a documentary about his legacy. I’ve always had a soft spot towards him after seeing Terminator for the first time when I was about 5 years old (the movie shocked me so much that I recounted the synopsis to anyone who would care to pay me attention). The documentary on Netflix about Arnold’s life as a body-builder, actor and politician revived these memories for me, so I felt compelled to write about his chart.

On the other hand, Charles Bukowski was someone whose literary work I heard of in high-school when I was listening to rock music and read articles with my favorite musicians who would often cite his work or his name at least (nod to Paul Banks from Interpol); but much like Henry Miller, whose work he was often compared to, I didn’t find it interesting enough at the time to read his work (I was more of a Thomas Hardy and Virginia Wolf afficionado back in high school). Last week, as I was browsing through a bookstore in Bucharest, I found his book “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and Other Stories” and decided it was time to become Bukowski-ed 🙂 So as I’m writing this, his novel rests on my night-stand and I am adequately entertained, shocked and disgusted to sleep, by his feral adventures.

Charles Bukowski (born on August 16th 1920 in Andernach, Germany) is a Leo Sun in the 5th house (conjunct Jupiter, Neptune and Mercury), a Virgo Moon in the 6th house (loosely conjunct Saturn and Venus), and a Taurus Ascendant conjunct his South Node. His destiny points are a South Node in Taurus in the 1st house (the house of the Self) and a Scorpio North Node in the 7th house (conjunct Mars!). The first thing that stands out from his chart is that most of his planetary placements are ‘underground’ or placed below the Ascendant/Descendant line that crosses a chart in half. This is the mark of a true introvert and someone who is meant to live their existence in this incarnation from ‘the inside out’. Another thing that impressed me is that Bukowski is a Moon conjunct Saturn in the purest sign of the zodiac, the Virgo Maiden; not only that but his Venus is also conjunct Saturn. Just the first placement would be difficult for someone’s love life and self-esteem but having Saturn grip both his Venus (pleasure, love, beauty) and Moon (emotions, safety, unconscious) is truly astounding and very difficult to live with. I don’t blame him for turning to alcohol and I certainly understand his need to write about what he was experiencing, because none of these placements is for the light-hearted. When Saturn touches upon someone’s Moon and Venus it gives the native both a deep desire and yearning to be loved but it also delays and prolongs the process of finding a partner that would reciprocate in kind.

_{Image of the birth-chart of Charles Bukowski taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/charles-bukowski-horoscope}

The person is deeply spiritualized through personal, romantic rejections, emotional pain, social awkwardness and communicative misunderstandings in love. The native usually has to deal with low-quality people, who are selfish and mean, people who mostly use them and discard them, people who are old, tired of life and sick. I know this energy intimately since I too was born with a Moon conjunct Saturn, a Mars in the 7th house and a Sun in the 5th house, just like Bukowski. So these placements combined offer the native long periods of emotional deprivation or needing to be stoic (Moon conjunct Saturn) as most of the people you tend to naturally attract (Sun in the 5th) offer your karmic lessons, tend to treat you with aggression or use you for sex (Mars in the 7th). His Mars square the Sun also shows a propensity towards fighting with other men to prove his masculinity, but it can also give him a high sex drive which he needs to learn to control. His Chiron in Aries in the 12th house shows a deep wounding of the Ego that may never be healed, and I feel that it is this wounding that makes his writing something more than just outright pornography. And indeed, his literary works portray someone of such promise and spiritual anointment (Sun conjunct lucky Jupiter and in the blessed 5th house) who chooses to live like a loser, a nobody, an all-American reject (Chiron in Aries in the 12th house in tandem with his self-deprecating Moon conjunct Saturn inner landscape). Reading him is like reading the gospel of everyday fuckery: his prose oozes with this energy, of flesh and fucking that yearns to be saved and spiritualized in some way, of the grace of daily dramas and the cruelty of relating. I remember that at some point in my life I reached the conclusion that everything in the environment either wants to ‘fuck me or kill me’ and all I had back then, was a reliance upon the Divine to show me a way out of this daily gutter. And I feel that Bukowski might have thought this too at some point, even if his cocky Leo Sun conjunct Jupiter might have tempted him to say ‘but it is I who does the fucking too’. He died at the age of 73 just as Pluto in Scorpio was preparing to leave (Sidenote: can you imagine living up until your 70s after a lifetime of drinking, smoking and a poor diet? He was a magician!).

Moving on to a more light-hearted Leo energy, let’s talk about Greta Gerwig! She was born on August 4th 1983 in Sacramento, California (age 39 years), but unfortunately I couldn’t find any information regarding her time of birth. So her analysis will be devoid of house placements or an Ascendant. We know at least that she is a Sun in Leo with a Gemini Moon (conjunct the North Node and Chiron), her Mars is in Cancer and her Venus is in Virgo (conjunct Mercury) and her destiny points are a North Node in Gemini versus a South Node in Sagittarius (conjunct Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune). She has a stellium in her chart which is a very special marker showing how an individual’s life can change dramatically over-night after years of waiting. This is also the marker of a highly intelligent person who prefers her alone time, and it denotes someone who invents things and creates beautiful things to share with the collective, in this precious alone time. A healthy & functioning stellium person rarely gets bored in their solitude.

_{Image of the birth-chart of Greta Gerwig taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/greta-gerwig-horoscope}

I noticed as well that Greta has chosen to settle down with director Noah Baumbach, who directed her in Frances Ha. Noah for his part, is a Virgo Sun and Greta’s Venus is in the sign of Virgo, which tells me clearly that she is very much in love with him. Usually when we meet a person whose Sun touches upon our Venus we tend to instantly feel a sense of attraction and affection towards them. Another example: my Venus is in Aquarius and I was married to an Aquarius Sun man (especially since my Juno placement – the asteroid which usually indicates marriage and the type of spouse a person is – is also in Aquarius). I also like the fact that Greta seems to have gone public with their relationship and started having children with him, after she established herself as a director, following the success of ‘Lady bird’ and ‘Little Women’ and now with this summer’s hit ‘Barbie’.

Greta’s move from actor to director is a very Leonic thing to do, and it is also aligned with her nodal points. She moved from starring in artsy and niche movies in which her performances were applauded for their authenticity (Sagittarius) into directorial features which are more popular, mass-consumed, light-hearted and brimming with witty dialogues (Gemini). I’m sure that now that she has children, her next feature might build on the playful world we saw in Barbie, or focus on children’s adventures in some capacity, since she has a lot of Mercurian energy in her chart (her North Node in Gemini, her Venus and Mercury in Virgo) which usually leads to rather cartoony creations. Leos in general are very good at drawing inspiration in their art from their direct, lived and personal experiences, so I’m sure that Greta is no exception. I really like the direction her career has taken and I’m rooting for her, even if I still go back and rewatch her indie movies.

Now, you could say I saved the most famous Leo for last. Arnold Schwarzenegger was born July 30th 1947 in Thal, Austria (age 76 years) and he is a proud Leo Sun in the 6th house (conjunct Saturn and Pluto), with a Cancer Ascendant (conjunct Mercury & Venus) and a Moon in Capricorn in the 6th house (conjunct Lilith). His destiny points are a his North Node in Taurus in the 11th house versus his South Node in Scorpio in the 5th house (conjunct Jupiter and Chiron). I can already notice a very strong pattern among men who become rich and famous in the entertainment industry and this pattern is tied into their natal Moon in Capricorn placement. Case in point: Johnny Depp has it, Brad Pitt has it, Pedro Pascal has it and the list goes on. A Moon in Capricorn is a stoic placement that doesn’t deal with mushy sentimentality (unless the native had a couple of drinks). It is a traditionally masculine energy in the softest placement of someone’s chart (the Moon shows our emotions, deep desires, capacity to nourish ourselves and others and how we relax). With this Saturnian energy, usually we are dealing here with a person who can easily detach from their emotions and can exercise a lot of emotional control. They mostly pour their hearts into their work and craft, to which they feel more emotionality attached to, rather than to their loved ones.

In all honesty, a native with a Moon in Capricorn in spite of being quite loyal and responsible, can also be someone who is quite a lousy lover, a distant father and often a cruel competitor, because the native represses so much of their emotionality. Feeling like a failure is the harshest thing this lunar placement can experience and they often go through difficult separations, losses and challenges which are meant to strengthen their determination and resolve to persevere no matter what; the thing is they will most likely chose to persevere at work and in making money and not so much in saving their personal relationships from meltdowns. In Arnold’s case this energy is amplified somehow because his North Node is in stubborn Taurus, which channels all its strength to achieve wealth, financial stability and material success. In order to attain that, the native must overcome their inner darkness, obsessive nature and lewd sexual behaviour (South Node in Scorpio); the native needs to heal to attain stability and stop reproducing chaos. So I’m sure Arnold is hiding a lot of things which will probably shock us, if they reached daylight.

_{Image of the birth-chart of Arnold Schwarzenegger taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/arnold-schwarzenegger-horoscope}

However, Arnold was given a natal Moon in Capricorn placement in the 6th house, so that through his work in the service of others, a focus on health and routinized activities (such as weightlifting), he may learn to learn to control his temper (South Node in Scorpio) in order to attain financial success (North Node in Taurus). And this financial success is directly tied into his sense of self-worth since we see a very powerful Saturn placement in his 2nd house (the area in our charts that governs over the body, money and esteem) which also happens to be conjunct his Sun (identity) and Pluto (achieving power through transformation). Having a Sun conjunct Pluto, makes one a powerhouse of pleasure and intensity; a true daredevil with a gangsta side. But having Saturn conjunct the Sun, takes away from that power and karmically binds one into a feeling of always needing to prove yourself to others and to strive to accept who you are. Arnold has both!

So for him, the way in which he could make money and feel worthy of love and attention, was by working on his body and produce a powerful transformation. He was given the gift of having Venus in the 1st house which shows a person who easily attracts love, compliments, admiration and the support of others, especially of women. However a Venus in the 1st has the downside of denoting someone in love with themselves to the detriment of other people. Having Mercury on the Ascendant makes Arnold a more gregarious individual than his shy Cancerian energy would naturally make him be. We see here somebody who used his mind, his words and his capacity to attract love and compliments in order to build a name for himself. It might not be the truth, but I 100% believe that marrying Maria Schriever was not necessarily a move out of love, but a strategic move to get him to has a step in the world of American politics, seeing as he had his cultural foreignness as an Austrian, standing between him and even greater success. Maria is also a pat-life soulmate of his, who was meant to help him move towards his destiny but then could not accompany him fully along the way (her Sun in Scorpio touches upon his South Node and Jupiter in Scorpio; a point of growth by letting people go). Through this powerful alliance and once again, Arnold transformed his work role (Pluto in the 2nd house) and attained more wealth, prestige and an enduring image (North Node in Taurus).

In conclusion, I think that what unites these three Leonic lives is how focused they are on strength: in Arnold’s case it is obvious physical strength turned into entertaining and political strength; in Greta’s case is the strength of humor & that kind of gendered strength required to move from being an actress to becoming a successful director and a mama, embodying the epitome for ‘having it all’; in Bukowski’s case is the strength to keep writing and to endure life, to resist his own self-destructive behaviors but also to exist within a society that rejected him and tried to fit him into a mold he persistently rejected. And that requires balls.

With universal love,

Lexi

_{Cover Image of Sinead O’Connor’s book, a revelatory memoir called ‘Rememberings’. Image from: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53968505-rememberings}

In a weird blow to the collective, we recently found out that not only did Jane Birkin pass away on the 16th of July, but a mere 10 days after, on the 26th of July, Sinead O’Connor departed as well. When I heard such sad news, I immediately thought of ‘What is going on here?’ since I was aware that one thing these wonderful artists had in astrological common was the fact that they were Sagittarius Suns. Since the Spring of 2023, Sagittarius energy has been under pressure due to the squares received from Uranus conjunct Jupiter in Taurus and Saturn conjunct Neptune in Pisces – two energies which don’t blend well with Jupiterian optimism and exuberance. However, having squares to one’s natal Sun isn’t enough to predict or estimate the death of a celebrity, also because squares indicate a productive sense of frustration, they bring in dynamic changes and course corrections. However, it’s notoriously difficult to predict how an individual’s free will is going to use the astrological energy available to them; and often circumstances take a fated quality and end up escaping individual control. In such cases, astrologers need to look at the influence of the outer planets rather than the transits of the personal planets.

One thing which stands out is the fact that Sinead was undergoing her second Saturn return at the time of her death. The current transits of Saturn and Neptune in Pisces were crossing over her natal Saturn in Pisces in the 3rd house (the house of the local neighborhood & communication) and conjunct the asteroid Lilith (The Wild Feminine) and Chiron (the Wounded Healer). Not only that but Sinead’s Saturn is nataly placed in opposition to her Pluto (death and transformation) and in Virgo (the sign of health) and in the 9th house, conjunct Uranus (the energy of shock and sudden awareness). So, in spite of the fact that it’s too early to tell – because the investigation into her mysterious death is ongoing – I do feel like she might’ve been pressured (Saturn) by someone in her neighborhood (3rd house) of international origins (the 9th house). Let’s look more closely into her chart and see what else she might have in common with the late Jane Birkin.

_{Image of the birth-chart of Sinead O’Connor taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/sinead-o-connor-horoscope}

Sinéad O’Connor was born on December 8th, 1966 in Dublin Ireland; she was 56 years old at the time of her death). Her Sun was in Sagittarius in the 1st house (conjunct Venus & her Ascendant) while her Moon was in Libra in the 10th house (loosely conjunct Mars). We see here the markers of a passionate persona who does not hold back when she needs to speak her truth. In addition, her North Node was in Taurus in the 5th house while her South Node was in Scorpio in the 11th house (conjunct Neptune and Mercury). This is the placement of an individual struggling with their self-worth and needing to overcome a lot of darkness in their lives (I briefly talked about this placement when I examined Pamela Anderson’s chart).

After 18th months of having her nodal return – since the nodes of the Moon travelled through the signs of Taurus and Scorpio from 19th January 2022 up until the 18th of July – Sinead also embarked on her second Saturn return (as the planet of karma moved into Pisces in March of this year). Those are some heavy karmic energies to deal with and I find it heart-breaking that she relocated to London during her nodal return in order to ‘feel less lonely’ only to find herself during a Saturn return, which mentally is a difficult time when one feels alone, pressured by external circumstances and criticized by people. Sinead had to find a way to channel Saturnian density into some form of meaningful work. It looked as if Sinead was indeed living up to the Saturnian pressure as she was rumored to have been working on another album and planning new tour dates, but I believe no one expected the ‘mother of all unexpected events’ to reach her doorstep, and still so early in her life.

For an artist like Sinead, having a South Node in Scorpio makes one comfortable with sudden and traumatic events that one simple must endure. A person with such a heavy karma undergoes a lot of loss, abuse and darkness as they are growing up. Oout of these experiences, the individual needs to create stability, calm, peace of mind and a healing form of art that brings the light into their soul again. And with Saturn in the spiritual and emotional sign of Pisces, soul healing was her duty in this lifetime. This Piscean energy also gave her that gorgeous voice and lyrical sensitivity. Sinead’s personal history is as sad as it gets, involving growing up with a violent mother, attending the Magdalene laundries and suffering deprivation and abuse, speaking out against the Catholic church and receiving backlash for that (Saturn in the 3rd house makes one receive their heaviest karma through their words and communications) but through it all she persevered: she raised 4 children, changed religions, fell in and out of love, was politically outspoken and kept performing. My favorite period of her career was her collaboration with Massive Attack on the album 100th Window, which to my mind is the most haunting presence she had in music.

_{Image of the birth-chart of Jane Birkin taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/jane-birkin-horoscope}

I guess there isn’t much of a term of comparison, although Jane Birkin (born on December 14th 1946 in Marylebone, London, UK; aged 76 years old at time of death) had her Sun in the sign of Sagittarius in the 7th house (conjunct Mars, Lilith, Mercury and her South Node), her Moon was in Virgo in the 5th house and her Ascendant in Gemini (conjunct Uranus retrograde and her North Node). We see here someone with an opposite Ascendant to what Sinead had (Geminian rather than Sagittarian). In addition Jane had her Sun in the relational and romantic 7th house, while Sinead had it in the charismatic and individualistic, 1st house. So even if they are born under the same emotionally expressive Sagittarius energy, the areas of life and the manner in which both women play out these energies are contradictorily different.

Jane’s Venus placement was in Scorpio and conjunct Jupiter, the Great Benefic and in the service-prone 6th house, while her Mars placement was in Sagittarius conjunct that 7th house Jupiterian stellium mentioned above. These two, latter, personal placements of her Venus and Mars denote someone who was not only meant to achieve fame in her lifetime but also lived with, loved and gave birth to famous people (nod to Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon). Her Venus conjunct Jupiter energy is also the culprit behind the reason why Jane ended up being associated with one of the most expensive luxury goods, the famous Birkin bag created by Hermès and inspired by her image, and currently retailing at up to $300,000!

With her North Node in Gemini and South Node in Sagittarius, Jane was born to learn to take life less seriously, to adopt a light-hearted approach to her personal relationships and to communicate as much as she can. We see here gradually moving from her performative role in her youth, as a model and singer, and a muse to her famous partner, Serge Gainsbourg, to a more acting oriented career. I also see here someone who struggled with her emotions, feeling safe or rooted into a specific space and even might have had to put in a lot of effort into building her blended family life, since her karma, represented by Saturn is in the 4th house conjunct Pluto retrograde and in Leo. I’ sure that while she might’ve been a heavy-handed and rather intimidating mother with such a placement, she also provided her many children a sense of powerful safety, especially since with her Moon in the 5th house this is a woman who is emotionally attached to her children and someone in love with performing and the world of arts.

It’s interesting that Jane died this summer, right before the beginning of Leo season, as Venus was in Leo and preparing to begin her retrograde movement and as Lilith, the Wild Feminine Archetype and the bringer of ruin, was transiting through the sign of Leo. This summer must’ve felt heavy on Jane’s soul with so many transits going back and forth over her natal Saturn and Pluto and in the most private place of the zodiac, the 4th house. As a consequence of this energy, we are informed that Jane died at home, after a stroke which was a symptom which she had suffered from in the past. I feel like Jane left behind a rather quirky and chaotic body of work, but most importantly she left behind a legacy of freedom. From being censored for her work with Serge early in her career to her animal activism later on in life, she held a candle high for unbridled artistic & romantic expression; a mentality which I can see that her courageous & sensitive Cancer Sun daughter, Charlotte took to extremes in her career (nod to her continuous collaboration with Lars von Trier).

But this post is about Jane and Sinead, not anyone else that they loved or brought into this world. I guess that on a deeper level this post is about what we all collectively gained from their legacy; if I were to sum it up in a sentence that precious thing would be: being given permission to speak as women, live freely & take risks in life and in art, with wanton abandon.

With universal love,

Lexi

I am a little bit obsessed. Ever since the nodes of the Moon switched signs, and shifted from the Scorpio/Taurus astrological axis to the Aries/Libra one on the 18th of July, I randomly started listening to Marylin Manson and Nine Inch Nails and kept to it on a daily basis (as I’m writing this, Coma White keeps playing in my mind, for example). It’s such a strange break in my habits, and I was wondering what pulled me in so suddenly to the dark rock figures of the 90s? Naturally, I had a look into Marylin Manson’s & Trent Reznor’s charts, and the idea for this post was created since the meaning behind this weird & spontaneous revival of interest started unraveling.

You see, much like myself in this period, Marylin Manson is having his nodal return, since I noticed that he was born with a North Node in Aries in the 8th house (and conjunct Chiron, the Wounded Healer and Saturn, the Lord of Karma sneakily placed in his 9th house). On the other hand, I have my North Node in Aries in the 6th house and conjunct Jupiter. Marylin Manson also has his Venus in Pisces, while my Sun and Mercury are in Pisces and these placements are currently being karmically linked by Saturn in the sign of Pisces, the Neptunian master of all things musical, emotional and spiritual. So the dark music that Marylin Manson creates with all that Martian intensity in the fiercest house of the zodiac (the 8th, ruled by Scorpio) makes me strangely happy in this period. Maybe happy is not the best word; his music makes me feel as if I just finished arguing with somebody and there is that relief that washes over me that finally the truth, no matter how brutal, has been conveyed.

Psychologically, Marilyn Manson’s music is facilitating in me a sort of healing regression to my past, bizarrely reminding me of my puberty, when as an anxious teen I had my eyes glued to MTV and can still remember how the videos for ‘The Nobodies‘, ‘The Beautiful People‘, and ‘Disposable Teens‘ terrorized me and I had to actively avoid them in order to sleep well at night. It was only during the ‘Dope Show‘ era that I could spend time actually looking at a Marylin Manson video but still the songs didn’t hook me in, I just found it scary and uncomfortable to watch. Aries is about identity, so this nostalgic dive into the past can help me understand better what messages I was exposed to while growing up.

Segway to my late 30s and I find the songs, aesthetic and lyrics of that dark rock era to be strangely comforting and pertinent to a lot of the social problems increasingly encroaching around me. I live in a loud neighborhood, where people constantly fight and shout at each other, construction workers abound and everything feels dusty and industrial. I also am feeling highly sensitive in this period and rather isolated, as Neptune & Saturn are conjunct my already Neptunian-afflicted Sun. So I think I can understand where Marylin Manson’s music is coming from now. It also helps that hearing someone scream in a rock song, takes the pressure out of my own capacity to get angry, because I can simply project it onto the song and sublimate my real-life emotional experience. I can’t pretend I feel attracted to either him or Trent Reznor, but it’s their music, the aesthetic and the lyrics that I kind of find comfortable enough to psychologically ‘live in’ at the moment, as the nodal return is stirring up some anger inside of me, some romantic longing, some regret, and fears about the future.

The hopeless desolation of this music, the biting social critiques, the fury of being seen and judged as an outcast, the extremity of feelings – I’m completely on board with that, while simultaneously remaining curious to see how long this phase with last (the nodal return is taking place across 18 months, but I doubt I can sustain the interest for that long). It’s interesting to see how the name that Marylin Manson chose for his shock-rock alter-ego stems from the metaphorization of his nodal placements, as he named the band after someone beautiful (Marylin Monroe, a representative of Venus) and someone violent (Charles Manson, a representative of Mars). The nodal axis of Libra and Aries deal with exactly these themes of peace & war, beauty & violence, masculinity & femininity, personal anger & social justice. I also find it fascinating that I was thinking of both Marylin Manson and Trent Reznor in this period, not knowing that Trent actually helped Marylin Manson in their debut & they actual had some sort of years-long, twisted, bromance that frequently ended up in feuds and reconciliations. This chaotic & karmic energy between them, emerges so clearly when we put their charts in synastry, and as always Venus and Saturn are heavily involved.

_{Image of the birth-chart of Marylin Manson taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/marilyn-manson-horoscope}

Marylin Manson, by his actual name Brian Hugh Warner (born January 5, 1969 in Canton, Ohio; 54 years old) is a Sun in Capricorn in the 5th house (conjunct his Part of Fortune) and a Moon in Leo in the 12th house conjunct his Leo Ascendant. After seeing this, it’s not surprising to me that he is such good friends with Johnny Depp since Johnny has a Moon in Capricorn and a Leo Ascendant too. Coming back to Brian’s chart, we see here a lot of Ego markers in tandem with a Light & Shadow play since he has strong Leo placements (light) in combination with Scorpio and Capricorn (dark). His Mars is in Scorpio (conjunct Neptune) and his Venus in Pisces, so we can witness here some pretty powerful romantic and emotional energies especially since these Watery energies are placed in his communicative 3rd house, private 4th house and relational 7th house.

The interesting thing is that Brian is getting ready for his second Saturn return which will begin for him from 2025 until 2027 and it will take place in his 9th house (the house of freedom, adventures and good luck) and in the pioneering sign of Aries and conjunct his North Node in Aries tied in to Chiron in the sign of Pisces. With both Saturn on his North Node and Venus conjunct Chiron, I can see why he might associate love with pain and mix in romance with cruelty. The final stretch of Pluto retrograde in his sign is also urging him to change right before his karmic retribution comes in, as Saturn will return. His buddy, Johnny Depp had a very public Saturn return in Aquarius in the courtroom, and I wonder if we will see Marylin in a similar position two years from now, as he is having to deal with an impressive number of abuse allegations.

_{Image of the birth-chart of Trent Reznor taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/trent-reznor-horoscope}

Trent Reznor’s big three placements are: his Sun in Taurus in the 4th house (conjunct Mercury), his Capricorn Ascendant (conjunct Lilith) and his Moon in Sagittarius in the 12th house (conjunct the South Node in the 11th house). His Mars is in Virgo and Venus in Gemini, while the nodal axis is connected to the signs of Sagittarius and Gemini, with a really crowded North Node placement in Gemini in his 5th house involving conjunctions to Jupiter, Venus and the Part of Fortune. That’s fascinating to me because I recently saw an interview with him in which Trent mentioned how he played most instruments in his band at the beginning, and it spoke volumes to his 5th house Sun placement since the 5th house is the zodiac house of skill and talent (naturally ruled by Leo). He also mentions in the interview that he got a reputation of being ‘a control freak’ or an ‘ego maniac’ which speaks volume to how others perceive his Capricorn Ascendant trine Sun in Taurus blended energies. These two signs are the most stabilizing influences in the zodiac, and to create order and stability one has to exercise control over themselves and their surroundings.

The theme of control can be seen in Brian’s chart as well, since Trent’s Ascendant mirrors Brian’s Sun both in the security-obsessed sign of Capricorn, the sign of limits, effort and karma. Not only that but Trent is actually going through his second Saturn return as we speak, since his Saturn is in the sign of Pisces and in the 2nd house conjunct Chiron, the Wounded Healer. In an interesting synastry aspect, we can also see that Marylin is also having the transit of Saturn over his natal Venus in Pisces. To be honest, I am surprised at how many astrological energies these two men have in common in their chart. We see in Trent’s Saturn placement some problems with his sense of self-worth which could negatively reflect on his body, on the money he earns and the wealth he is able to create in life. He could make a lot but he might feel it is never enough, and judging by his materially-sensitive Taurus Sun and ambitious Capricorn Ascendant, the struggle for wealth & respect as an artist could have marked his whole life.

Looking into the backstory of how he created some of the NIN albums, it seems that this path towards self-love and making healthier decisions reached a pretty low point around the time Nine Inch Nails released the album ‘The Fragile’ in 1999, detailing he destruction of a man and Trent’s personal metaphor for his struggle with addiction. During that era, Pluto began its transit through the sign of Sagittarius in the year 1995 and it touched upon his natal Sagittarius Moon. Rather than analyzing his emotions, Trent did everything he could to avoid them which made him dive head first into addictive patterns at the root of which where emotional problems (Moon). By the time Pluto was ready to leave this sign, NIN released ‘With Teeth’ in 2005, an album covertly about recovery and re-empowerment. His self-worth and artistic struggles of that period stand as a testament of a Pluto’s transit capacity to break you and then re-make you.

Looking at the synastry points between the two men, I can see a pattern emerging. As Brian’s Sun in Capricorn (energy) touched upon Trent’s Ascendant (opportunity, direction), they took on this master and apprentice roles. Usually, having met someone who has the Ascendant in the same sign as your Sun, will make one attracted to look like the Ascendant person, so I guess that Marylin really enjoyed how Trent looked and the whole aesthetic of the Nine Inch Nails creative project, while having an Ascendant conjunct someone else’s Sun would make the Ascendant person obsessed with reaching the ambitious goals, prestige and charisma of the Sun-born placement so I think that on some subconscious level Trent did emulate a lot of Marylin Manson’s art after they met, it wasn’t all just Brian learning from him.

It’s also intriguing to notice how both men have Fire Moons, Brian having his in the sign of Leo and Trent in the sign of Sagittarius. Without this energy and with so much Earth governing their chart, both men would’ve been conformists; traditional types who would’ve respected hierarchies and allowed their lives to be confined by social norms, habits, codes of conduct and pragmatic achievements. But with these feisty lunar subconscious worlds, they both had a fire in their hearts to create, and to especially express anger in creative and powerful ways.

Anger is especially a big theme in Brian’s chart, since learning how to cope with it and integrate it as fuel for his creative work, rather than as violence against his partners is the key to his success in this lifetime. Unfortunately, anger is also one of the few emotions allowed in the construction of traditional forms of masculinity; it is a toxic character trait but one which many still associated with male privilege and dominion. It’s interesting to see that at the time when Pluto in Sagittarius was reshaping Trent’s body, finances and self-worth issues, Brian was building and then destroying his personal relationships. Following a short period of being married to the gorgeous Dita von Teese, he entered into a toxic relationships with the luminous Even Rachel Wood, but it has been speculated that both of these relationships failed due to infidelity, drug abuse and intimate partner abuse. Brian has a Pluto in Virgo in the 2nd house which is a marker of someone who may use money and material objects to control people, while his Mars in Scorpio in the 3rd house is also about verbal control or secrets texts messages and emails that could be created to solicit sex, to exert control and power or to keep things hidden; so I don’t doubt that there is some truth to the allegations.

A final word about their Moons – since the lunar placement matter a lot in the charts of artists – is that both men also have these lunar placements in the soft and imaginative 12th house of the zodiac, which tempers a little bit the strong passion, powerful anger and sense of entitlement they might feel, since a 12th house lunar placement gives one a penchant for suffering, a need for solitude, and a deep need to feel loved and held (this need could be so vast and deep that no human experience might be able to fulfill it, so the native turns to a higher power, like God and the angels…or in this case, the available demons). The 12th house is also a place of confinement (like a prison), privacy (secret bed pleasures) & altered states of consciousness (such as those induced by drugs or alcohol). And most of these landscapes of confinement, deep melancholy and mutated powerlessness figure prominently in the earlier and edgier songs and videos of both Nine Inch Nails and Marylin Manson. Those very images, that on a subconscious level at least, shaped my impressionable teen brain a couple of decades ago, especially because they seemed so obscene and forbidden.

If the music of Marylin Manson or Nine Inch Nails is something new to you, feel free to start here & here. Have a listen and let me know what you think (it’s certainly a different soundscape than what is popular today, in the ‘constant positivity’ era).

With universal love,

Lexi

I know it’s Leo season and this post makes no sense as it is not about Leo energy, but I’ve been feeling quite nostalgic recently. Could be the combined energy of the Venus retrograde and the fact that the planet Pluto has been sitting this entire year, on top of my Immum Coeli (the seat of the soul, the root of an individual’s being) and in the 4th house, the most nostalgic house of the zodiac. Since the North Node entered Aries this past week, I shared on Instagram (@ms_bontemps) that I have been listening to a lot of 90s dark rock. I grew up glued to the television screen, watching American movies, MTV and Cartoon Network and absorbing like a sponge some pretty intense and charged up imagery.

If in other parts of the world, parents were applying the findings of psychological research which ascertained that children’s behavior’s were strongly influenced by what they saw on television (especially their mimicry of violent attitudes – see Bobo de clown experiments), in the post-communist Romanian landscape of the 90s, growing up with a colour Tv was a privilege and if we could, we all lavished in it. Most people couldn’t afford a television during Ceausescu’s times and even if they did, it mostly showcased black and white, scheduled propaganda. So because my parents thought that they were cool and progressive they did not consider it necessary to limit my screen time because they also believed it taught me English, a language I apparently needed to learn how to speak in order to seek my economic fortune elsewhere, once I was old enough to work and travel (which I did at some point and then returned home, as I became aware of my early conditioning & realized I like living in my own country).

In this context, I grew up watching most of the violent and sexually-charged things that were abundantly available in the dark ages of the Pluto in Scorpio era. This is why whenever I listen to Marylin Manson, Deftones, Bush or Nine Inch Nails or when I re-watch Terminator, the X Files, The Twilight Zone or Blade Runner, as disturbing as it may seem from a contemporary moral lens, I actually feel a fuzzy sense of nostalgia. Looking back, I see that we made a lot of progress in terms of how we protect children but at the same time we live in an increasingly surveilled and censored era which does impact the creativity one can exert in art, music and films.

Case in point, when was the last time you saw in the cinema a really good erotic thriller? I always think that as an adult if you want to consume such entertainment nothing beats the movies that were created between the years 1983 and 1995 (or the time-span of the Pluto in Scorpio era). And speaking of these movies, I was re-watching last night ‘Fatal Attraction’, which made me think of ‘Basic Instinct’ and suddenly I realized something interesting from an astrological point of view. Aside from the fact that both movies have reached cult status by now and both star Michael Douglas as the leading man (a truly bizarre casting choice), both movies are also lead by two awesome women who were born with Pisces Suns!

Sharon Stone who plays Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct and Glenn Close who plays Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction are both born in March but years apart. So I immediately thought, is there something in their charts that made them gravitate towards such roles? It is not surprising to me that they both reached public exposure during the Pluto in Scorpio, since Scorpio and Pisces are Water signs and as such they energetically support each other’s goals. So as Pluto was making a beautiful trine to both Sharon and Glenn’s Suns, they reached a public form of empowerment in their work by appearing in these movies in the years 1987 and 1992. One interesting fact that I wasn’t aware of until I started writing this article is that Sharon Stone lost custody of one of her sons after Basic Instinct appeared. The more you dive into this story the more you understand how unfairly she was treated, although karmically this can be explained by the strict energy of her Saturn in the 4th house placement (the house of privacy, nurturing and motherhood) conjunct her Moon (so affecting in a negative way her emotions and feminine receptivity). When unfair or cruel things happen to us that leave us often gobsmacked and in need of some logical explanations as to why we deserved that, then you can rest assured that karma and Saturn and Pluto are involved, and unfortunately Sharon has strong energies in her chart from both of these planets. She has even claimed in an interview that as she suffered a near fatal stroke in 2001, she was clinically dead for a couple of minutes and witnessed the afterlife.

Pluto deals with sexuality, intensity, violent passions and deep transformation. It also brings up themes of betrayal, control and murderous intentions. So Pluto shined its dark light and helped these actresses embody two of the most iconic roles of that era, being both laced with sexual intensity and murderous circumstances. But aside from the transit, was there something else in their natal charts that influenced this choice of roles? Let’s have a look at their charts and explore what else helped them embody the darker side of the dual, Pisces sign.

_{Birth-chart of actress Sharon Stone taken from https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Sharon_Stone}

Sharon Stone’s was born on March 10, 1958 in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Her significant markers are her Sun in Pisces in the 7th house (conjunct Mercury and the asteroid Lilith, the Wild Feminine Archetype), her Moon in Sagittarius in the 4th house (loosely conjunct Saturn – I wrote about this placement of hers in a previous post, see here), and her Ascendant in Virgo (conjunct Pluto retrograde at 0 degrees!). Her destiny is marked by a powerful North Node in Scorpio in the 3rd house (conjunct Jupiter and Neptune) and a South Node in Taurus in the 9th house (conjunct her Part of Fortune). She actually went through a reverse nodal return in the years 2022 and 2023, which might have placed her in some destined and growth-related circumstances. This news-piece about her turning her home into an art studio really stuck with me, because we can see the influence of the Nodes at work in her life since Taurus energy rules over art and beauty, while Scorpio is about expressing emotions in a way that helps the soul transform. Therefore painting and making art is a perfect way to play with this Scorpio/Taurus nodal energy in her chart.

_{Birth-chart of actress Glenn Close taken from https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Glenn_Close}

Glenn Close was born on March 19, 1947 in Greenwich, Connecticut and she is 76 years of age. Her big threes are her Sun in Pisces in the 8th house (conjunct Mars and Mercury retrograde), her Moon in Aquarius in the 7th house (conjunct Venus), and her Ascendant in Leo (conjunct Pluto and Saturn retrograde). Her destiny points revolve around a North Node in Gemini in the 11th house (conjunct Uranus) and a South Node in Sagittarius in the 5th house (conjunct the asteroid Lilith, the Wild Feminine Archetype). We can clearly see that Glenn’s destiny is to open people’s minds and to get them to think differently about art and femininity. She is doing this by mostly playing villains or gender-swapping characters with a fierce precision and commitment to her craft which I admire. for example she had some brilliant dialogues with John Malkovich when they played together in Dangerous Liaisons. It’s funny or rather fitting, because she shares a lunar placement with him, seeing as they both were born with an intelligent and provocative Moon in Aquarius, and Aquarius energy is all about witty discussions.

Coming back to her chart, the first thing that stands out to me is her Sun in the 8th house which offers Glenn a rather Scorpionic energy to her already emotional and imaginative Pisces identity. It could be why she is usually cast in the role of the villain like in ‘Fatal Attraction’ but also in the cartoony role of Cruella DeVil (which she played to perfection, because I can’t see any other person playing in this role *silent nod to Emma Stone, who tried*) or as the scheming Marquise de Merteuil from ‘Dangerous Liaisons’. In addition to this, Glenn is truly a force to reckon with since she has both Pluto and Saturn conjunct the most visible part of her chart, the Ascendant (her aura, her body, her presence and the opportunities she attracts towards her; so all of these are darkened by the energies of these two ‘malefics’). I think that in person, as on screen, Glenn can be quite intimidating and a little bit of a perfectionist who might’ve struggled with people’s perceptions of her – which I am sure where not that favorable (to put it mildly). Saturn and Pluto make people criticize you and teach you some harsh lessons through what you attract towards you, but Glenn seems to have developed so much fortitude and a healthy sense of humor in coping with these placements, which I attribute to her playful Leo Ascendant energy and her whimsy & intelligent Aquarius Moon.

She is an actress who received so many prizes and accolades in her career for her transformative acting and yet she never got an Oscar, which is the ultimate recognition as an experienced actress. She jokingly said she is ‘keeping the record up’ by being nominated for one 7 times already, but I can see that it is a karmic burden she is supposed to bear in her career since her capable and professional Midheaven in Taurus is unfortunately squared by her Saturn in Leo (and it is retrograde, which makes this energy even more dense and powerful). This placement is connected to slow rewards in work, a legacy that is built after overcoming many setbacks and frustrations, and also with the side-effect of not being the most popular with the public; nonetheless, I do believe she might receive an honorary Oscar for her entire career, since her South Node is in Sagittarius, the sign of competition, awards and growth and it could help unleash a big career blessing for her just when she least expects it.

Of course, in such an article I can only scratch the surface of the actual interpretation of the charts of these talented Piscean actresses. I was mostly interested in exploring why they received these roles and why these roles made them so well-known. As always, Pluto and Saturn have something to do with it but once we take a look at the position of the nodes of the Moon, the karmic South Node and dharmic North Node, it emerges quite clearly just how destined some things in our lives are and how in spite of our free-will the flow of life can lead us into situations that darken our perception before they bring on the light and adulation of many. If these actresses’ work is new to you, you can start here with Sharon Stone’s filmography and for Glenn Close please check out this list. Happy discoveries!

With universal love,

Lexi

It’s the final day of Cancer season in 2023 and I thought I would create an ‘honorable mention’ looking into the birth-chart of the gorgeous Isabelle Adjani, a French actress who won 5 times the prestigious Cesar French Film Award and was nominated for an Oscar. She’s a fascinating person, not only due to her extra-ordinary beauty but also because of her strange personality, being known for her reclusiveness, vulnerability and strange interview comments.

Isabelle’s filmography includes some of the most intense performances I saw from a female lead and I always wondered whether I would be able to pick up from her chart what makes her gravitate towards these unusual cinematic performances. Her beauty alone would make her a prime contender for the role of a romantic heroine, but even when she chooses to play such roles (like in Queen Margot) the stories of her characters are ultimately tinged with blood, gore and despair. This week she re-appeared in the media due to her being accused of fraud by an ex-employee.

_{Image of Isabelle Adjani’s birth-chart from https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Isabelle_Adjani}

Isabelle’s big three astrological markers are her Sun in Cancer in the 4th house (conjunct Mars and Uranus), her Ascendant in Aries and her Moon in Libra in the 6th house (conjunct Neptune). She has a balanced mix of Air, Water and Fire in her chart, however these energies also portray a person who grew up in an environment in which the parents were in conflict and which might have taught her to internalize a set of contradictory values (this is a typical marker of a person born with a Sun square Moon aspect). We see here a person who is governed by the changeable and mysterious nature of the Moon, since she is not only a Cancerian but her Sun is also placed in the house naturally ruled by Cancer and the Moon, the private 4th house. So it could be said that she is a double-Cancerian, which means that the qualities and defects of this maternal sign, tend to be amplified in her energy. Her Sun’s placement in the 4th house is an indicator of just how naturally comfortable she feels away from the public eye and indeed many have called her ‘reclusive’. The Sun shows what our life revolves around, if you consider how the planets in our solar system revolve around the Sun, in much the same way the markers in a natal chart are also warmed and supported by the center of our focus in this lifetime, our identity (the Sun).

So for Isabelle, her life revolves around her home, her relationship to her family members, and I guess that she identifies strongly with her role as a mother. She is a person with a rich inner world and with some powerful emotions (Sun conjunct Mars). Emotions come over her in surprising ways and she is meant to learn and grow from her emotional reactivity (Mars conjunct Uranus). This is someone who can fly into fits of anger or passionate love and then as quickly she can detach and observe her reaction in order to extract wisdom from it and emotionally expand, especially if we look at her analytical Moon in Libra placement. I believe that this is why is such a good actress because she is able to feel things strongly but then she is also capable of detaching from this intimate intensity.

As a Cancerian she is natural born artist, with a phenomenal sensitivity and intuition. Indeed, this purity of method s obvious on screen, as you can almost touch her vulnerability, making her acting an almost palpable experience. However, there is a fury attached to this emotionality, a sense of mischievousness and cool control, which is given to her by her Uranus and Mars in Cancer placements. Her home life and private inner world is restless and electrifying with these placements flanking at the root of her being, the seat of the soul in astrology, the Immum Coeli. However, because her Ascendant is in brave and creative Aries, she is able to easily display the rich emotional content she has harvested inside, in those deep moments of reflection and analysis (due to her analytical Moon in Libra in the Virgoan and pragmatic 6th house). She acts from a deep and instinctive place and her characters seems pragmatic and visceral in their performances. She could deliver an over the top performance for sure, but her acting never seems inauthentic, and that is truly a gift. Isabelle calls her acting something akin to cellular memory retrieval (or ‘memoire cellulaire‘).

_{Movies stills of Isabelle Adjani from (top to bottom): Queen Margot (1994), Possession (1981) and The Story of Adele H. (1975)}

Another interesting thing stands out of Isabelle’s chart: she has the so-called ‘mogul’ aspect of wealth & prestige in her chart, a powerful Jupiter conjunct Pluto in Leo in the 5th house. This aspect again underlines her destiny as an actress and performer and talks about experiencing a lot of joy and drawing her power from acting and performing, from showcasing her skills on stage, in front of other people. In addition, this is also a marker of a mother who really enjoyed her role of bringing children into the world and raising them, but she might’ve also been too intense, jealous and intimidating in her children’s eyes.

The 5th house rules also over short-term romances and great passions, so with this hot Jupiter (joy, expansion, luck) conjunct Pluto (intensity, drama, sexuality) in the combative and exuberant sign of Leo, you can only imagine the type of consuming love-affairs she had in her personal life. As a public, we know mostly of her relationships to Bruno Nuyten, Daniel Day Lewis and Jean Michelle Jarre, relationships which unfortunately ended up in separations and from which Isabelle remained with two rather handsome boys. It is said that Daniel Day Lewis (an Aries Sun) broke the news to Isabelle that he was leaving her by means of a fax when she was 7 months pregnant with their son (wow!). Isabelle, seems to not have that much luck in love and her personal relationships, as beautiful and talented as she is. She lost her brother in 2010 & some say that she got secretly married to a mysterious man in 2022.

The reasons why I am bringing up these separations and her loss is because we can see that she has a lot of love-related karma, since her Saturn is placed in intense Scorpio and in the house of other people and marriage, the 7th house. The fraud accusations seem to tall in line with this Saturnian presence which shows that some of the toughest karma Isabelle had to endure in this lifetime is related to her lovers, family members and business associates. Again secret intimacy, delayed or non-existing marriage, broken contractual agreements and tax-related issues are some of the most Saturn in Scorpio themes one could experience. A Saturn in Scorpio tends to freeze emotions and gives one issues related to sexuality and sexual pleasure. It puts one face to face with some painful emotional decisions and it can make a person either abstain from sex completely or become a Mary Magdalene character. The most difficult aspect is learning how to trust others and how to open up and show vulnerability. I guess we can see that Isabelle succeeds in her karmic ‘vulnerability test’, at least in her public role as an actress, but we won’t know for sure how painful this placement must’ve been for her in private.

And speaking about showing emotions and putting in the work of trusting more, Isabelle has another interesting aspect that reflects how her path in this lifetime is changing from one of a rational and detached soul story, to a passionate and feisty one. She has her South Node in Gemini in the 3rd house (this is her comfort zone), and her North Node in Sagittarius in the 9th house (this is her growth zone). Again we see a marker of natural-born actress, with her comfort zone being in the sign of the zodiac’s jester, Gemini. In addition, we know that she was born into a family with parents from different cultures and she was bilingual from an early age. So the visceral intensity that we see on screen is a direct influence of Isabelle working her dramatic Saturn in Scorpio in tandem with her South Node in Gemini/North Node in Sagittarius axis, which are both basically urging her soul to feel and to become more emotionally expressive. She is meant to let go of over-thinking things, playing the Devil’s advocate or being just cynical and intellectually detached from life (Gemini) and to display authenticity, to fight for what is right, to showcase passion and concentrate her energy on achieving one important goal at a time (Sagittarius). Her soul is moving her from a past-lifetime legacy of pessimism and duality, to a perception of life as an adventure replete with drama, passionate fights, and the search for truth and freedom.

I am hopelessly attracted to women who act in difficult roles, women who are brave and take risks in their career, women who seem complicated and who radiate a special kind of light, and I wrote about them in a previous post. So I understand if Isabelle might not be for everyone’s taste. But if you are like me (aka a Millennial who grew up watching French movies in her high-school years) and enjoy such a personality, for further explorations of Adjani’s work (especially if you are new to her) you can begin with these movies . I also enjoyed this video commentary of her extra-ordinarily disturbing performance in Possession (1981) Check them out and let me know your thoughts.

With universal love,

Lexi