And yes, I do realize that analyzing celebrity charts, particularly celebrity relationships, is a great way to use SEO and public interest to get more traffic and to teach because most of us have kind of, sort of an idea of what goes on in someone’s public life.

But as much as I’ve tried, I’m kind of uncomfortable with that. I just feel kind of….basic? doing that, and kind of like I’m quite possibly accidentally doing some bad astrology.

I Don’t Have Permission From Any of Them.

While you can find someone’s public information and use it to draw up a birth chart, how someone is going to use that information can vary wildly. There’s some good astrologers out there, and there’s some very young, very new astrologers who need to take their shingle and study some more and live some more life before they start counseling or even interpreting charts. I mean, that’s also a reason why I don’t have much of a social media presence, because I don’t want to compete with a lot of the same people sharing the same information (or rather, misinformation — a lot of these kids attribute things to Sun signs that should be attributed to Mercury and Venus signs, or even the ascendant, but it’s not something they take seriously). But for both, I understand the utility. I understand why you would want to use a chart from someone who is known, or supposedly known by the world, but you may not want someone publicly opining on otherwise private parts of your psyche, your experience, and your future. I might find that rather invasive and pigeon-holing after a while.

Personas are not people.

I worked in media before the Recession, and while I didn’t write (and I’m glad I never wrote for the places I worked, frankly), I do know what it’s like to work for a place that sells information to a targeted audience. I also understand persona, and that persona is not the person. You know, it’s not even the rising sign or even the midheaven, or planets in the 10th house. It’s not the Sun sign, either. Persona for those who are so famous that they do have complete control over how the world sees them is no longer merely an expression of a part of themselves through a creative filter, but rather a hydra that cannibalizes itself in order to make room for more heads. We don’t really get to see the person, not matter how much real estate they may take up in our minds and hearts, because this is all what they are selling (artists, personalities, their bodies), what someone else is selling based on what they’re selling (i.e. critics, merchandisers, politicians, etc.), and through which medium (social media, interviews, the music/the show/the gossip page). Each need the other in order to keep the persona alive, even if it hurts, even if it’s counterproductive, because it’s attention, and ineffable things cease to exist when no one cares anymore.

And no one, not even astrologers, really, are totally immune to the spell of persona.

Fuck: Take a look at Astrodatabank.org and start reading through some of the biographies, so I’m going to stop recommending this website. It’s a mixed bag. Most of them are actually pretty neutral, but there’s a lot of them that are just too biased, and there’s no real way for you to complain. And that is incredibly fucking unprofessional for any astrologer, because if you can’t figure out a way to have some sympathy for a subject when you have their chart, you can’t counsel, and if you can’t look beyond persona, you can’t do chart analysis, so take off your wizard’s cap and go home.

So now, I’m going to recommend astro-charts.org, because while they have fewer overall entries, they have a much stronger ethic and only contain relevant information about the subjects. Also, unlike Astrodatabank, you can actually look up by planetary placement beyond the luminaries and they clearly have the editing standards that Astrodatabank really ought to have if they want to be the go-to bank for the charts of well-known people.

But anyway:

What I’ve noticed that I do and other astrologers tend to do is take what we think we know about a person we don’t actually know and stuff it around the zodiac. Like, I understand that Kim Kardashian’s Neptune in the 1st house might give her a penchant for enchantment and augmenting her body, but can we talk about that Mercury/Uranus conjunction in the 12th house and the north node in the 8th house? Because if you don’t know who this is and what she looks like or who she has fucked, you may wonder if this person is a diabolical genius capable of shaping the ideas of what’s acceptable (ruler of Sagittarius ascendant in 9H Virgo, Venus), and not a glamour puss. In fact, would you even think that with Venus in the 9th house in Virgo, not really making any major aspects to any planet other than a square to that Neptune? I mean, it’s barely conjunct Jupiter, which is in detriment in Virgo.

In fact, if you mosey on over to her tenth house where the Sun, Saturn, and Pluto are in Libra and look at that 8H Leo North Node, you might find it easier to believe that she’s studying to be a criminal defense attorney. And seriously: with that Neptune in the 1st house and all that activity in the 12th, including Mars in Sagittarius, this would be someone who would have sympathy for the downtrodden and want to advocate for them, and with the Moon all by itself at 28 degrees Pisces in the 3rd and 4th, struggle with objectivity, and perhaps won’t be the next Clarence Darrow, but could do the work.

But…unless you knew about her surgeries and penchant for Facetune and the way her family pays the paparazzi to edit their “candid” photos, or that this all really got started because she was friends with Paris Hilton and then leaked what was clearly a staged hardcore sex tape, you would not so readily attribute anything you find in the chart to these things, even though Venus in Virgo actually can easily use sex, romance, beauty, and sensuality as a transaction, a means to an end, or even a work in progress, even in the “exotic” 9H.

And the thing is that she’s actually capable of being all these things and not simply living life through her 1st house Neptune.

But what we know about her, and all other celebrities, is what they show us and what other people say about the things they see.

I Don’t Like sharing Relationship Prognoses.

Most of the articles you’re going to read about celebrity romance are wrong anyway because they’re just focusing on synastry, and that’s great, but eventually there’s a relationship. Again, there’s also personas, and while I do believe Paul and Linda McCartney were very happy together, as were Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, it must have been difficult for these women to have had their careers subsumed by their husband’s, at least at first, and really, these were not walks in the park. There was work to do, and they wanted to do it.

But to give you an example, the Pattern is a fun way to compare yourself to people, and I’m still trying to figure out how it determines it’s definition of relationships. For example, Linda and Paul had a “meaningful” marriage and an “epic” friendship. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward have a “powerful” marriage and a “golden” friendship.

But The Pattern hasn’t decided that they’re soul mates, so maybe it’s not using the right criteria?

Incidentally, do you know who The Pattern says is my celebrity soulmate?

Adele.

So I looked up her chart and I don’t get it. I’m sure she’s very nice, and I like her music, but just a glance at her chart makes me unsure why she and I have soulmate karma. I mean, there are some karmic aspects. Her north node is conjunct my ascendant. My Venus is conjunct her Saturn, and her Venus is square my Saturn and ascendant. Her Moon is conjunct my Venus. But my Mercury retrograde would create a T-square with her Mars and Sun, and that’s not good because I have a tendency to stick my foot in my mouth. Her Jupiter is conjunct my Chiron, so she may accidentally exacerbate my insecurities. I mean, there is karma, but soulmates? All things considered, this is cool, but it’s not really taking into account what I need, particularly a penis, but also some passion other than T-square with her Mars and her Neptune, Saturn, and Uranus making a trine to my Mars, which frankly, everyone her age is already doing, and I can’t possibly fuck them all, not my age, that is.

Not to say I haven’t made predictions in the past, for this blog or for money when I was writing astrology articles in law school. Not to say I don’t privately make predictions now. I just don’t think that if the couple wants the ugly to be seen yet, maybe it’s not my job to put it out there, especially when time will reveal what the stars have already told us. Until then, let the kids play and let them explore and create their karma and transform each other.

With that being said, I really wish I felt comfortable telling you exactly what I think of a relationship, because I’m continuously impressed to discovery what brings people together and then what binds them together, particularly in light of their own individual needs.

You can definitely find all this somewhere else.

I’m not exactly depriving you of anything because you can find celebrity horoscope interpretations all over the place. You can find out about their relationships, their personal lives, and all sorts of things on so many other websites that it doesn’t seem necessary for me to add to the mix.

To do so would require me to keep up with pop culture.

And I really don’t want to have to do that.