astrology of depression

What we need to learn from the death of Saoirse Kennedy Hill

One of the granddaughters of Robert F. Kennedy took her own life the other day at the age of 22 after a long battle with depression.  I wanted to write about this because Saoirse was of the Pluto in Sagittarius generation – the generation (born 1995-2008) that tends to be fixated on the perfection of the heavily curated Instagram life.  Sagittarius is associated with media, optimism, and a search for meaning that can sometimes disappear in the haze of today’s world of instant gratification and the superficial happiness of things.  A look at young female YouTubers offers an array of videos with titles like “What I Wore, Bought and Did in Capri,” “Huge Summer Try-on Haul,” “What I Wore to Coachella,” etc.   Social media is shown to be harder on girls, who tend to compare themselves to others in the best of circumstances. When the comparisons are made against a curated perfection, it’s no wonder young girls are depressed.

Pluto is the planet of transformation, but also of obsession and self-undoing.  It offers the keys to transformation through the exposure of the qualities that will be our downfall, and this is especially true in the generations that share Pluto in a particular sign.  For example, Pluto in Leo marked the Baby Boomers – the generation that is fixated on our own glorious self expression (Leo traits).  Pluto in Virgo people (1957-1971) are the hard workers of Generation X – the generation which, like Virgo, tends to avoid the limelight, qualities which led to this generation being called the Slacker generation, a term which they fortunately outgrew as they matured and began to take on their roles as stable, conservative members of society.  The Pluto in […]

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By |2019-11-10T19:09:05-05:00August 3rd, 2019|Life, Psychology|5 Comments
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RIP Kate Spade

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Designer Kate Spade, whose handbags can be seen everywhere, has died of an apparent suicide at the age of 55.  A fashion designer for many years,in 2006 she sold the successful company that she started with her husband in 1993.  Their more recent endeavors had not been as well received.

I recently did a session for a client who was very depressed and wanted to know if her chart showed a tendency towards suicide.  The fact is, while a chart can show whether an individual will suffer from depression and what form that is likely to take, how they manage their suffering is not something we can see in the chart.  We can see whether someone has the strength to actively fight for their health and turn their life around, but we can’t predict whether or not they will actually do it.

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Kate Spade’s chart (set for noon, no birth time available) does show the potential for psychological issues.  Emotional intensity (Pluto square the Moon) adds to a deep sense of abandonment as illustrated by stressful aspects from Chiron (soul wounding and healing) to both the Moon and Pluto. Uranus (radical behavior) is involved too in that system, which can sometimes suggest a tendency towards anxiety and a highly sensitized nervous system.  The fact that her Moon was in happy Sagittarius suggests that it would be difficult for her to delve into her unhappiness and would instead attempt to fly beyond her problems.

Ms. Spade’s chart was also weak in the fire element; her Sagittarius Moon provided motivation and drive […]

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By |2019-11-10T19:09:06-05:00June 6th, 2018|Death, People, Psychology|7 Comments
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RIP Robin Williams, the astrology of Mars and depression

Robin Williams astrologyRobin Williams lost a long battle against depression and substance abuse when he took his own life this week at the age of 63.  Like many comedic geniuses, Williams had a dark side that was evident in some of his darker film roles which allowed the multidimensionality of his personality to emerge through the veneer of hilarity.

Depression and addiction take many forms in the astrological chart.  A prominent Saturn can cause depression through a sense of one’s own failure.  A strong Chiron can bring one’s inner wounds to the surface where emotional sensitivity is the central experience.  Neptune can bring about a desire for escapism and a tendency to avoid the harsh realities of life.  But underlying many forms of depression we find a weak Mars and a buildup of anger and rage that becomes turned against itself in helplessness.

Anger is associated with depression, and it is often the denied or unexpressed anger or aggression which correlates most closely in depression. In the astrological chart, anger and aggression correlate with the planet Mars.  The placement of Mars in the birthchart reveals how comfortable the individual is with expressing their own needs and how they respond when those needs aren’t met.  Infants demonstrate the purest expression of Mars: an infant is hungry, they cry to be fed.  There are no filters when those needs are expressed but if the needs are not met, frustration is the result.  Habitual frustration leads to anger, chronic anger leads to rage.  This kind of anger and frustration can erupt into violence on an external level, or internally.

Williams’s astrological chart shows that as the ruler of his Scorpio ascendant, Mars was an important planet and a driver of his personality. […]

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By |2018-06-11T12:25:57-04:00August 12th, 2014|People, Psychology|9 Comments
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Saturn/Pluto and teenage violence and depression

I was catching up on my local newspaper this morning when I found an article about a 13-year old who had been shot and killed by police after he opened fire on them.  Searching his backpack, police found a handgun and 250 rounds of ammunition.
I wanted to find out more about the situation so I searched in Google News and came up with these other similar events involving 13 and 14 year olds:
Then I looked back a few months for more events, and found these:
Thinking maybe this is just a fluke, and that other age groups are also killing themselves and each other at alarming rates I searched for “teen suicides” and found none other than the ones listed here.
Even in the best of times, kids aged 13-14 go through some rough patches.  This is the time of the “Saturn Opposition,” when transiting Saturn forms a 180 degree angle to Saturn in the birthchart.  Saturn is the planet that brings us hardship and challenges so that we will learn the attributes of discipline and hard work and the strength to overcome adversity,  Until we learn those skills, though, […]
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By |2019-05-11T07:34:52-04:00January 19th, 2010|Psychology, Saturn|1 Comment
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