A fun spin on serious cosmic stuff! Wendell C. Perry has 40 years experience studying astrology and how it impacts personalities & relationships. He's written two books & published articles in astrology magazines. He's happy to share this website so that you, too, can have fun with astrology to help you in everyday life!
In my last article I discussed the magical impact that positive progressed aspects can have in our lives. Like the positive progressions, negative secondary progressions bring out potentials that are already present in our horoscope. However, when the connection is negative, that is to say a hard aspect or an aspect involving Mars of Saturn, the result can be problematic.
In keeping with our focus on pop icons (I used Katy Perry, Madonna and Janis Joplin in my last entry) we’ll start with Britney Spears. Spears’ problems began in 2004 when her secondary progressed Mars moved over her Ascendant. She suffered some minor career reversals early in this period (a cancelled concert, some bad publicity) but what really started Spears’ downward slide was her decision to marry Kevin Federline.
Up until this time Britney Spears had spent her life working incredibly hard toward one goal: to become a famous pop star. There had been little time left for her to learn how to be a regular person, let alone a competent wife and mother. So, it’s no wonder her marriage faltered and her ability to care for her two children was questioned. Mars on her Ascendant made these gaps in Spears’ experience and awareness painfully obvious to the world.
I’ve written about secondary progressions several times on this website. Secondary progressions are a predictive technique predicated on the notion that the natal horoscope continues to grow and develop after the moment of birth. The rate of that growth is one day of planetary motion for each year of life. If you were born on June 10, 1985, for example, a secondary progressed horoscope for your 20th year would show the placement of the planets for June 30, 1985.
There is a subtle difference between the way secondary progressions bring changes to our live and the way transits (the placement of the planets in real time) work. Transits tend to show themselves in terms of events and circumstances that come at us from the “outside.” Secondary progressions, on the other hand, bring out potentials that were hidden in our horoscopes.
A positive secondary progression often seems like a gentle wind that pushes us to the place that we always knew we were mean to occupy. Doors that we thought were closed suddenly open and the things we want most from life fall into our lap. The experience can be magical.
In the series of articles I just completed on Katy Perry I described how in 2007 she switched record labels after languishing for several years. Perry put out her hit album One of the Boys with her new label in 2008 and it became an enormous hit. A short time later she met and married Russell Brand.
In my last two articles I’ve been discussing the horoscope of Katy Perry. (Click here to see the sources of her birth information and chart in AstroDataBase.) Now let’s see how the Cycle of Saturn has influenced and is going to influence Perry’s horoscope.
First of all we have to go back to 1999 when Perry was first discovered signing in her church and offered a recording contract with a Christian rock label. At that time Saturn was opposite it natal position. As I’ve pointed out in other articles, this is the crucial “adolescent” opposition in what we call the Saturn Cycle. For most people it coincides with events of a more personal nature, but for Perry (as it did for Paris Jackson) the opposition also proved to have relevance to her career.
The attempt to launch Katy Perry (or Katy Hudson, as she was then known) as a Christian singer fell flat. As I said in my last entry, people with the Moon conjunct Saturn can’t expect any easy road to success. Perry returned to California where she was eventually signed by Columbia Records. When Saturn crossed her Midheaven, another crucial point in the Saturn Cycle, she was in a kind of musical limbo. She had recorded material for a new album but Columbia refused to release it.
In my last article I began a discussion of the horoscope of Katy Perry. (Click here to see the sources of her birth information and chart in AstroDataBase.) I focused on the fact that the planets in her chart are laid out in what is called a “Bundle” formation. Today, let’s look at some of the aspects that dominate Perry’s horoscope. Because everything is crowded so close together in that Bundle formation the most significant aspects are conjunctions. Two conjunctions stand out in Perry’s horoscope and they are both extremely close.
The first is the conjunction of her Sun with Pluto. Since Pluto rules Scorpio this aspect automatically doubles the already considerable influence of that sign in Perry’s personality. As I said in my last article, Perry’s Libra Ascendant puts a pretty face on a whole lot of Scorpio power. This aspect tells us that Perry is essentially a conservative person and that she has tremendous strength of will. She is driven by deep feelings and obsessive emotions and this can make her seem ruthless at times. She is also secretive and likes to keep her true motivations and desires to herself.
