The ubiquitous and evergreen Dolly Parton is having another resurgence with a new podcast, her jubilee performance at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry airing on NBC; and Heartstrings, a Neflix series dramatising the stories behind some of her songs. Last but not least the musical version of 9 to 5, for which she wrote the score is still going strong 11 years since it made its stage debut.
Over fifty years she’s managed to sidestep politics, mastermind a varied and successful career, appealed to a wide cross section of the public and presented what could be a caricature drag-image of a busty blonde and still come across as sympathetic and witty.
Born dirt poor, the fourth of twelve children, on 19 January 1946 8.25 pm Little River, Tennessee, she has an amazing chart with a charming and ambitious Sun Venus Mercury in Capricorn in her performing 5th house opposition a tough Saturn Mars in Cancer square Jupiter in Libra in the 2nd. Mars Saturn will give her discipline though it will have provided more than its fair share of setbacks and mishaps. All focused onto a 2nd house Jupiter which will have attracted money her way.
Her maverick Uranus on her Midheaven trines Neptune and sextiles Pluto – giving her a unique talent, a need to control and the ability to have influence. All the planets in her chart bar one are tied up in those two configurations – a Cardinal T Square and a mini-Grand Trine. The odd one out is her sparsely aspected Virgo Moon in the 12th which is sextile Jupiter and her North Node and inconjunct her Sun. That may contribute to her sense of aloneness – despite a long marriage, she’s almost never seen with her husband and they are apart for long stretches; and have no children.
She’s been under pressure in recent years with first tr Uranus in Aries elbowing its way round her Mars Saturn, Sun, Venus and then her Jupiter; followed by tr Pluto opposing her Mars Saturn for the past two years which would have been fairly punishing. Tr Pluto will wend its way on for another three years conjunct her Venus and Sun; with tr Saturn in Capricorn adding its words of caution in 2020. But as ever her Jupiter will win out with 2021/22 looking like bonanza years as her tr Pluto squares her Jupiter and her Solar Arc Pluto is conjunct her Jupiter.
She’s one tough lady and a national treasure.
Interesting to read this today as Dolly’s generous donation of $1 million to an university research effort has helped see the successful development of a promising vaccine. She’s her own woman, smart, wise, funny, and talented!
Most endearing Dolly fact to me is that she has run a program sending children books to impoverished areas in Tennessee for decades. Her chart is also an interesting mix of my mother’s – my mother shared her birthday, although she was a couple of years younger – and her mother’s, my grandmother’s, charts. My Virgo Sun/Moon grandmother always worked the land, but was probably the best client of communal libraries at her villages, and would read to me all the time.