Astrology gives us a unique insight into people. David BOWIES Birth chart, for example, tells us a lot about both his strengths and his struggles.
Let’s take a look.
With an Aquarian ascendant, Bowie presents as unusual, innovative, shocking. He used the fact of his bisexuality, gender signifiers such as makeup, space/alien themes and mixed it up to provoke, which he worked incredibly well in his favor.
A Capricorn by nature, with Sun, Mercury and Mars all in the practical, hardworking sign. True to the meaning of Capricorn, he was indeed enduring and hard working. He has managed to leave an incredible legacy, the enormity of which has been revealed with his recent passing.
“Rather than having a hit song these days, I like the idea that I’m in there changing the plan of what society and culture look like, sound like. I did change things; I knew I would. It feels great and very very rewarding.”
Bowies Moon was in the sign of Leo. A Dramatic, character-driven, multidisciplinary creative. Bowie consolidated his creative talents into his musical career, giving him an edge over many of his contemporaries.
Leo is known for dramatic entrances…Bowie knew the end was near and planned a well executed dramatic EXIT. Leaving us with a final goodbye as well as a message that will continue to connect us to him even after his death.
In astrology, we look at the placement of planets…with 12 ‘houses’ representing 12 areas of life. Bowies Capricorn Sun is found in the 12th house of his birth chart. This area of life represents the collective consciousness. This is an ephemeral and mystic area, quite misunderstood by our western culture, if not vilified in the past as well as ‘owned’ by the Church. It can be accessed through meditation, dreams, drugs, and is very in tune with your inner voice/intuition. Murmurings surface like bubbles from the deepest sea.
Artists that have managed to stay true to expressing the whispers they decipher tend to be phenomenal successes and manage to reinvent with the changing tides. Due to ever representing they stay on top. Madonna is another classic example of a 12th house Sun. The Sun represents how we shine, and where we shine.
With a 12th house Sun, Bowie shone by tapping into the collective unconscious as a voice of his generation, which underpinned his success.
An interesting point to Sun in the 12th house is that although the Sun represents our conscious ego expression and identity, the 12th house is an area that gives us the most when we surrender our ego. Surrender to our greater self, beyond our conscious thoughts, expectations, conditioning etc. into absolute limitlessness, our timelessness, our authentic being..Surrender to ‘God’ as religious people would say.
People with this placement often love to play characters and explore their identity in creative ways. For Bowie, characters were key to his enduring success. The moment he thought he’d struck a formula and attempted to repeat it, he failed. Re-invention, as with Madonna was the key.
“All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.”
Bowie struggled for years with one of the darker sides of navigating the 12th house realms, drugs. Escapism can be a key theme of the 12th house.
“The lowest point in my life was in 1975, when I was 28, living in Los Angeles. I really did think that my thoughts about not making 30 would come true. Drugs had taken my life away from me”
The 12th house Sun person wants so badly to merge out of the everyday into those mystic realms that rather than standing on the precipice, the point of creation, to manifest and share with the world what they bring back from that place, they dive in, hoping to lose their personal, conscious identity, and merge with the greater whole, with the unmanifest. Perhaps what we would call, the divine. Drugs can be a direct ‘out’, and Bowie struggled for many years with hard drugs like heroin as well as Cocaine, while still managing to put a material, coherent and relevant form to his visions.
“Now we find ourselves wished a fond farewell, as Bowie finally takes his final curtain.
‘Look up here,
I’m in heaven I’ve scars that can’t be seen
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now…
..Just like that bluebird
Oh I’ll be free
Ain’t that just like me?’
You are loved, beloved,
Vanessa | ASTRO ALL-STARZ