Amy Winehouse and the Critical 27th Year

Amy Winehouse, the talented and troubled Diva is the latest to join the unfortunate Club 27, the group of the young and talented who have died at the age of 27. What is it about this year in the life that makes it so critical? Astrologer’s look at planetary cycles and transits to the natal horoscope for clues. One of the techniques in the Astrologer’s tool box is the “day for a year” method. The theory is that the first day of life relates to the first year of life, the second day of life to the second year and so on.  Using the person’s current age the astrologer moves the planets and house cusps of the horoscope along to where they were the same number of days after birth and casts a horoscope for that day. This is called Secondary Progressions. In the 27^th year of life the Secondary Progressed Moon is at the same degree as the Natal Moon. The Progressed Moon on the degree of the Natal Moon brings up many childhood and emotional issues.   The Club 27 members all had the Secondary Progressed Moon near to the degree of their Natal Moon.  Now many of Rock and Roll's bad boys and girls have rolled through the 27^th year and  lived to tell the tale. What is the difference? First we always look at the natal chart, if it is not promised in the Natal, no amount of transits or progressions will change the basic nature of the person.  This progression happens to everyone. What is different about Club 27’s is the promise of the natal as well as other transits occurring during the year 27. In this instance, Ms. Winehouse was undergoing a series of significant transits that contributed to this regrettable outcome. As you would expect given her flamboyant lifestyle her Natal Horoscope is most interesting. A Virgo, with Retrograde Mercury in conjunction with the Sun, these two are in square aspect to her Moon in early Capricorn conjunct Neptune in late Sagittarius. Her horoscope is filled with planetary pairings; Mars and Venus conjunct in Leo, Uranus and Jupiter conjunct in Sagittarius, Pluto and Saturn in out of sign conjunction in Libra/Scorpio.  These pairs are all connected to one another, either by easy trines and sextiles or the more difficult squares.  So when a transiting planet hits one pair the energy reverberates around her chart. At the time of her death Mars was transiting her first house, the physical body conjunct her natal North Node. The Nodes are the point where the Moon’s orbit takes her to the ecliptic going north or south. The North and South Nodes are exactly opposite. The transiting Nodal Axis put the North Node on her Natal South Node and the transiting South on her North. The Nodal cycle is 18.6 years and the Nodes themselves have much to do with relationships, Karma and past lives.  So transiting Mars, the action, energy planet, who can be a real bad guy when he wants to, fired up her Nodal Axis, which in turn activated her Moon/Neptune conjunction.  Moon/Neptune turned around and spit in the eye of the Sun/Mercury conjunction. Her Mars/Venus, connected to her Moon/Neptune as well as Bad Boy Mars brought more energy to the party. Her horoscope clearly reflects her incredible talent and artistic ability and the transits to it reveal difficulty, stress and a certain amount of anxiety.  Most of the planets in her horoscope are below the horizon, indicating someone who prefers privacy and shuns the public eye.  Her life took her in the opposite direction and while a blessing it could not have been easy for her. It is a sad day when a creative light is dimmed.