Tom JacobsBowie is one of the charts featured as I explore the karma of some well known people in my new book, The Soul’s Journey I: Astrology, Reincarnation, and Karma with a Medium and Channel.
January 8 1947, 9:15 AM, Brixton England (rated AA).
David Bowie has his South Node (SN) in Sagittarius in the 10th house, conjunct Juno in the same sign and house. It’s also conjunct Venus in Sagittarius in the 9th.
Conjunct the North Node (NN) is retrograde Uranus in Gemini/4th. The SN ruler Jupiter is in Scorpio/9th, sextile Sun-Mars, square retro Pluto in Leo/7th, and inconjunct that Uranus. Uranus is actually the finger of a yod, too.
The SN in the 10th suggests that in his various lives, he’s defined by what he does for a living, or who he is in the world/outside the home. But his work is very Uranian, reflecting that he’s in touch with his inner Uranus and lets it inform his work. In the karmic past, he hasn’t gotten to really learn about and how to “do” Uranus, hence its conjunction to the NN – the SN is where we come from; anything opposite it is opposite where we are. But we know it’s part of us, so we can be determined to experience/express that part of ourselves, or feel we don’t get to/won’t be allowed to/don’t deserve to.
In any of us, we can do what’s symbolized by our South Nodes and be successful. The SN is a part of life or way of living that we have a lot of experience with and can do very well. The NN, on the other hand, is new territory. The ideal is that we explore and grow into our North Node and then let it inform what we give from our South Node.
Bowie has done this to great effect. He opened the door to his Uranian inner self and brought him/them out on stage in many forms over many years. He’s explored the effects of actually getting to know and bringing into the public sphere what makes him unique that, if he looks inside himself, is what he finds staring back at him. It’s making peace with who he is on the inside, after not having the freedom to explore it in various lives. It would be easy for Bowie to be successful at something without this inner knowing, yet he wouldn’t feel authentic.
Uranus as the finger of a yod puts a tremendous amount of pressure on it. Yods are called Fingers of God because it feels like God is pointing at you to do something. His charge is to know himself, truly and deeply. Bowie will have when young felt an urgency about setting himself apart, even if unclear about what in fact would set him apart. Trial and error was called for, and I’ll bet that his early recordings reveal a more conventional composer and singer than we see in the 1970s, when his originality had such a great effect on many other musicians. Uranus is retrograde, so the call to trial and error in self-knowledge is underscored – others’ ways of knowing the self and setting themselves apart just won’t work for him.
SN ruler in Scorpio/9th says that in his various lives, he shows up as someone intense who has a strong belief system. The inconjunct to Uranus in the 4th is about receiving extremely difficult energy he didn’t know what to do with/how to handle from Uranian sources at home. The criticism Gemini has for Scorpio is to stop asking hard questions, stop digging below the surface looking for seamy underbellies and hidden truths; just be here now. Bowie shows up as serious, intense, interested in taboos including sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and gets some serious guff from 4th house folks who live more on the surface of things and prefer convention.
The square of the SN ruler to Pluto in Leo/7th says two things. First, that in various lives he’s pressured by Leonine others not to Scorpio, or not to believe what believes. Second, that his karmic wounding, the deep wounding of the soul that he carries from life to life, involves risking (Jupiter) in the arena of belief (9th).
The karmic wounding at root is about fairness, equality and justice (7th). In Leo, he’s learning how to express himself. Leo and the 7th says that learning to balance expression within relationship is big on the soul’s agenda in his various lives. How much to give, how much to expect to receive, and how to show up in relationship as someone who’ll accept equality and only equality are major issues for his learning. The Uranus in the 4th says that inner knowledge and communicating it are important, yet this Pluto on the Leo Descendant says that he needs someone else, some specific other, to hear him. Pluto is conjunct Moon and Saturn in Leo/6th, so add to this lots of stuff about family, responsibility, duty, and what he learned from his role models (and what in there needs to be grown beyond) to get a feel for his major growth and healing in this life.
If this kind of analysis speaks to you, check out my new book The Soul’s Journey I: Astrology, Reincarnation, and Karma with a Medium and Channel. In it I discuss how to see the soul’s journey in any chart and teach a four-step method of bringing the karmic story out of any chart.
Tom Jacobs is an astrologer, medium and channel in Tucson, AZ. He is the author of three new books, and teaches astrology and intuitive skills development to individuals and groups. Contact him via his website, https://tdjacobs.com.