Amy Winehouse was been found dead in her London flat on 23rd July as a result of a suspected drugs overdose. I did just a few weeks ago I did a post about her and her horoscope and I suggested she was facing a real battle into the next year and so it proved. On doing the original post, I felt that there was a danger that Amy might not get through a very difficult period, however I took a more positive note at the time hoping that she would work her way through her drink and drugs problems. Unfortunately it was not to be. I have today found out a corrected accurate birth time and I have amended a few parts of the original post to give improved accuracy to my assumptions at the time. The main thrust of the article still holds together correctly and this the final version now with the corrected time of birth I hope shows a true astrological picture of the life of a most talented girl.
Initially posted 21st June 2011
Amy was born on 14th September 1983 in Enfield in North London; her birth-time finally being confirmed at 22.25, I have been informed of the birth time through some correspondence of one of my readers, the time is a recollection according to her mother. This gave Amy a creative 5th house Sun in conjunction to Mercury in precise careful Virgo. Her Moon was just into Capricorn and she had a chatty Gemini Ascendant.
Ok, to the chart itself. Very interestingly and unusually, all the planets sit in pairs dotted around the chart. Amy was a perfectionist Sun in Virgo in close conjunction to Mercury in the creative 5th house. The Sun Mercury conjunction points to a creative influence she took from her father (the Sun represents the father in the natal chart), he was a jazz singer and obviously Amy took good note of her father’s abilities. Mercury is retrograde and inward looking, and she would have been self-critical and would have worried endlessly with regard to personal problems, which would constantly mull over and over in her mind. The Sun here in the 5th was creative and combined with the Gemini ascendant and the Mercury alongside, she needed to communicate. With a square to Neptune that communication came through in the form of her songs. Looking back it is even more poignant how the titles like “Rehab”, Love Is A Losing Game” and “Tears Dry On Their Own” are so autobiographical. The Moon in Capricorn is quite serious and responsible and if Amy did have her problems, she would refuse to ask for help and assistance. The Moon shows need. The need here was to work and create, to fulfil her ambitions but there was another need, the need to escape. The Moon is in close conjunction to Neptune the planet of music, but also of dreams and escapism. Neptune bestowed Amy with an emotional need to be creative, but also an emotional need to get completely lost and to get away from it all when she felt under pressure or down. The cocktail of the doubting Sun/Mercury conjunction and Capricorn Moon which refuses to ask for help with the escapist tendencies of the Moon/Neptune (they are in square aspect) was potent. She was technically (Virgo) a brilliant musician and singer (Neptune), but she doubted her ability and this doubt dragged her down.
The square between the Sun and Moon accurately describes the break up of her parents which happened when she was around 10 years old, and this I believe this added to the hurtful emotional baggage and doubt that she still carried around with her every day of her life. That retrograde Mercury conjunct to the Sun (representing her father) never lets one forget and turns the doubts over and over again in her mind. When she felt troubled, she turned to drink, drugs and any other substances to deaden the pain she felt. The Moon/Neptune conjunction sat in the 7th house of relationships. Amy would need to be around people. She would have been gullible to meeting the wrong type of people and trusting them completely. I personally think her management and advisors were very much to blame to letting this impressionable sensitive soul go off the rails and exposing her to pressure when in truth she needed help. If that wasn’t bad enough Jupiter and Uranus sat in conjunction in Sagittarius, unconnected to any other planets. This is excess, taken to excess!! When she started something, she didn’t know when to stop!! Maybe this explains why she had such problems, she couldn’t stop herself. By the same token, the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction sat in her 6th house and gave her a constructive attitude to her daily work & she would have been inspirational to her fellow musicians in the recording studio. This would have been one of the few places she really would have felt at home. It is a very avant-garde aspect, ahead of her time, experimenting with new styles and fashions. Maybe this aspect went a long way to explaining why she seemed so cutting edge and able to experiment.
Moving to the Venus/Mars conjunction sitting in the 4th house. Both are in Leo and here is the show-woman who craved attention and liked to be centre stage. Mars/Venus is trine the Moon and Neptune. Performing on stage was her other escape from the pain of her day to day life. Neptune trine Mars is ultra glamorous and exudes charisma. Neptune/Moon trine Venus is kind and sympathetic and a very soft, kind heart lay inside Amy, however the type of men she was attracted to were likely to be the wrong type – so it proved to be. The Mars/Venus combination did give her a pushy air in love, she was the one who would have made the first move and I suspect made her quite difficult to live with. At home she would have craved a warm loving environment (Venus), but the reality would have been quite different as with Mars here, arguments and disputes would have often punctured the air. This rather chaotic home life would have upset her greatly and affected her upbringing. So problems at home and problems at school too. With erratic and revolutionary Aquarius on the cusp of the 9th house of education Amy was eventually expelled for failing in her studies and also for piercing her nose against school rules, transforming her looks. Her rebel (Uranus/Aquarius) tendencies were too much for the school authorities.
This Venus/Mars and Moon/Neptune trine formed a grand mini trine with sextiles to Saturn/Pluto at the point of the formation. Here was the really troubling part of her chart. Saturn/Pluto will affect all that connects with it and wherever it is located in the chart, it brings disappointment failure and then transformation. In her love life (Venus /Mars), her marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil failed and he was sent to prison. I have not looked at his chart, but from the outside he seemed to be a very disruptive influence who introduced her to the drink and drug culture, although once she had found it through him or otherwise, the problems she experienced would have still caused her major problems. Later in her career, she had been blighted by disappointing live performances and drink/drug use affecting her so much that she was been forced into rehabilitation several times. Even her appearance was very Saturn/Pluto she often wore black, she had tattoos on her arms with strong long dark hair and striking features. She obviously took her music very seriously, and her jazz tinged style, the most complex of musical forms which is very dark and moody was a perfect for a mix of Saturn and Pluto. Saturn and Pluto most pertinently sat in the 6th house. This is the house of health. This combination would have weakened her constitution and made her especially vulnerable to any kind of ailment or substance affecting her wellbeing. The drink and drugs she became dependent on would not have helped the situation at all.
Now looking at the present, transiting Pluto had been transiting trough her 7th house for a little while and back in 2008 when her problems really started, it was conjunct to her natal Moon. This affected and was transforming her relationships, and crucially also affected her personal self worth (2nd house) which Cancer ruled by the Moon completely encircles. This transit would have dragged her down emotionally and at the same time weakened her already afflicted health – Scorpio ruled by Pluto is intercepted in the 6th house. It is quite sad that in the last few months, that debilitating Pluto influence was slowly moving out of range and both her transits chart and solar arc charts were looking quite optimistic. She had just finished an alcohol rehabilitation course after the Belgrade fiasco and was starting to work again. On the day of her death however, her Sun was square to Saturn and Pluto which is depressing and downtrodden, and her transiting Moon for that moment was opposite Saturn and Mars was making a square to her Sun and Mercury conjunction, so this was a brief window when she would have felt depressed. There was one other striking factor too. Transiting Pluto was almost exactly quindecile to her North Node and also on the cusp of the 8th house of transformation and death. This was destiny at work, when her death (Pluto/8th) would put her firmly into the public eye (North Node).
I am convinced that astrologically Amy was on the mend, and that one brief down moment when her personal planets (Sun & Moon) were badly aspected contributed to her being depressed enough to take her over the edge. It is a crying shame that one so talented and shone so brightly is no longer with us. She was the voice of a generation and whilst her passing robs us of a uniquely talented singer and musician, her legacy and music will live on for generations to come.
My condolences to all her family, friends and fans. May she now rest in peace…
