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Shannen Doherty, a child star who became tabloid fodder with her wild-child behaviour, peaked in the 1990s teen drama Beverly Hills, 90210 but struggled in a rag-bag career later. She contracted breast cancer in 2015 which she handled with her customary bravado, working to publicise cancer awareness, but it spread to her brain and bones and she died two days back.
She was born 12 April 1971 4.16 pm Memphis, Tennessee with a beautician mother who pushed her into auditions aged 10. Beverly Hills, 90210 which made her name was a photogenic after-school soap but the conformist teens on screen were a gulf away from the troubled reality offscreen with stories of Doherty’s bad cheques, nightclub altercations and open enmity on set. She left midway through the decade-long series, and was later sentenced to anger-management counselling after throwing a beer bottle at the windscreen of a motorist with whom she had rowed; and published a self-help book Badass: A Hard-Earned Guide to Living Life with Style and (the Right) Attitude.
She married George Hamilton’s son Ashley at the height of her 90210 fame, when she was 22 and he was 18, which lasted only five months. There was a subsequent engagement to the cosmetics heir Dean Factor (who filed a restraining order against his fiancée in May 1993). A second marriage, to the professional poker player Rick Salomon, who would later achieve notoriety for a sex tape with Paris Hilton, was annulled after nine months. She married a photographer in 2011 and announced their divorce last year.
What a life.
She had an Aries Sun on the cusp of her 8th house square Mars in Capricorn in her 4th with her Mars square a 1st house rebellious Uranus – volatile, overly impulsive, act first and think second, anger issues and relationship problems – 7/8th house Sun and 4th house Mars. She also had an intense Scorpio Moon opposition Saturn in Taurus tied into a Half grand Sextile with Moon sextile Mars and trine Venus in Pisces. Her Saturn was also in a stubborn and gritty trine to Pluto on her Ascendant.
Her Earth Grand Trine of Saturn trine Mars trine a Virgo Ascendant (and Pluto) formed into a Kite by Saturn opposition Moon makes her emotionally trenchant and wilfully stubborn Moon in Scorpio her driving planet. That plus her tinderbox Mars all added up to her badasss temperament.
Her looking-for-a-cause Aquarius North Node finally found its calling in her campaigning for cancer patients in the latter years of her life.
Hugely complicated and talented chart but she never quite got it together.
Midheaven square BlackMoon (Strength: 5.81)
You have a love of freedom and openness which could help you work with artistic types, nurturing their creativity. In your personal life you could be very impulsive, quickly jumping in and out of relationships or even marriages. An actress with this aspect was known for creating a chaos of discord on the set. Freedom of speech is important to you. You would not like being censored. You can be known for your razor-sharp wit and unabashed outspokenness. There is a danger of feeling sorry for yourself. You can fix that by taking complete responsibility for how you are.
With respect, what does that mean that she “never really got it together” what she had in her chart? I have not been following closely Shannen`s life, but I have read about how she prepared herself and her loved ones to her beckoning death. I reckon this is definitely a time of anybody`s life when they have a chance to take that leap, and from what I know she has achieved it. Perhaps it is not visible for the headlines of the world, but she has made arrangements with her own mother in mind that life could be easier for her mother after her passing. I do not know any healthy living people at the moment who would have the courage to do this. I know people in my own family well over 80 of whom I would say that they have not put their lives together. Ok, I have a disasterously aspected Scorpio Moon as well, one degree short of the 8th house, so probably I have lived more death than the average bear, even if it sounds a contradiction.
Anony, usually planets so close to a cusp of the next house are interpreted as in that next house, because by the age of three, I think, through progressions they usually enter that house. And it has to do with the formation of a person’s personality, and is another Hamaker rule.
My Moon is still in the 7th house but one degree away from the start of the 8th and Lilith, which is the 8th, all in Scorpio obviously. I was on the brink of death a few times and this is not a turn of phrase. Could you please tell me more about this Hamaker rule?
So far I can’t tell you much more than that basic rule according to which your natal Moon would be interpreted as in the 8th house. Read about it, study it, everything regarding it (sign, house, aspects and so on), and develop insights into it which will then give you the knowledge to go above it and use what at first might be perceived as weaknesses as strengths. Everything has two sides.
You could be right that Shannen “got it together” as it looks like she had a peaceful transition with transiting Saturn sextiling her Mars, transiting Uranus trining her Ascendant and transiting Jupiter trining her Uranus and sextiling her Chiron. Plus it does seem like she was admired for the way she lived her life after her diagnosis.
The contemplation of the variety of difficulty in charts leading to difficult lives never ceases to amaze me. I have been reading Anthony Lewis’s short and useful monographs. Here’s a brief discussion about Morin’s theory of determinations for delineating a house.
https://tonylouis.wordpress.com/2024/06/07/morin-and-the-rulers-of-the-1st-house/
Briefly, Morin considered that everything contained within a house counts toward the significations of that house: signs and parts of signs, planets, planetary aspects and antiscions, fixed stars, and so on. The ruler of the house -the sign of the cusp- shares rulership with any other sign in the house.
Applying Morin’s theory of determinations to Shannen, you begin to see the huge difficulties of this chart.
Both rulers of the first house are in bad luck houses. Virgo rises, making Mercury Rx in taurus in the 8th the ruler, and the first ouse contains libra, making Venus in the 6th a co-ruler. Notably, Mercury is in the exaltation of the Moon (feelings, family, breasts), which means that her Mercury ALWAYS calls attention to the Moon, i.e. whatever happens to Mercury in this chart, it happens to the Moon’s domain. Mercury is combust, in the house of death, and opposition BML and, broadly, Uranus. Venus, exalted in Pisces) disposits Uranus in Libra, co-rules the first (according to Morin) and co-rules the 8th, so it “brings” both Uranus and Saturn to bear in the affairs of the 6th and 7th houses (conjuncts the DESC).
As ruler of the 1st, Venus in Pisces made Shannen lucky in terms of looks and gave her optimism. Otherwise, it is in as difficult as position the Mercury. Venus tries the Moon fro the 6th, but he Moon is in fall, and opposes Saturn conjunct Ceres on Algol (poin) trine Pluto: this is a picture of seasons spent in hell. Venus sextiles Saturn, which forms a t-square with the nodes, making the breast cancer (Venus in the 6th of heath).
Did Shannen get it together? It would seem so. Mercury and the Moon rule her career and relations to the public 10th house. The destiny of Mercury in Taurus is to acquire a voice, but this would take an inordinate amount of time because Taurus is slow to mature, and tenacious but also lazy, and Shannen would have to wait until Mercury went direct by Solar Arc, got past the shadow, and began to flex its muscle, so to speak. The Sun “blinds” Mercury, especially because the Sun is exalted in Aries, and is angular. Aries doesn’t “see” Taurus, and is also inconjunct Virgo, the ASC sign. Yet Mercury, the natural ruler of everybody’s 3rd house, and dispositor of the ASC and MC is extremely important in this chart. Neptune/ Jupiter, rulers of the DESC and the IC, conjunct in the third house of speech/communication, and form the finger of a yod, quincunx Mercury, and quincunx fixed star Tejat Prior at 3° Cancer, which rules the left breast. Jupiter quincunxes Tejat Posterior at 5° Cancer, which rules the right breast. According to Ptolemy, these stars are of the nature of Mercury-Venus. If he’s right, the Tejat stars function as surrogates for the rulers of the chart, angular in the 10th house. It’s not surprising that Shannen’s Mercury finally came into her own when breast cancer gave her a focus to become an advocate. All this rhymes with the promise of her Pluto rising in Virgo: presentation of the self as a critical thinker and researcher about Hades/plutonic matters. It gives one pause to see how Uranus in the first (chaos, a reversal of the norm/ a revolution within the body) opposition her angular Chiron (incurable illness) conjunct her part of fortune, making illness a fortunate aspect of her life despite the hardships. It would lead her to fulfill the task of that Mercury and grow into the docent role indicated by the end of her life IC ruler, Jupiter.
Quite a pearl for a life lived as a badass.
In 2015, Pluto at 13-14 Capricorn was starting to edge closer to her natal Mars at 18 Cap. (ruler Aries/8th h cusp) and start its square to her Sun at 22 Aries (ruler Leo/12 h cusp). Natal Pluto/Virgo a couple degrees conj. her Asc.
P. S. I forgot to add, and you all know, that such an insense Moon was probably further complicated by that depressing, and depressing in a never-letting-go kind of way of depressive feelings, opposition to Saturn.
Scorpio Moon does indeed seem to be horrific at times. Which doesn’t mean you who have it and are reading this should be preoccupied or depressed! It’s just sometimes that it’s hard. I am in a job right now which I started just maybe an hour or something like that before the void-of-course Scorpio Moon left for Sagittarius. It has been so insense, so hurtful, and filled with manipulative (Scorpio) women (Moon). Or at least it seems that way, and I don’t know how to escape it all. I blame myself for not knowing how to react (Moon), for living thorough it all intensively (Scorpio), and just having such a hard time to be more phlegmatic and don’t-care-ish.
Shannen probably lived through all the life’s stings intensely, and they all fell onto that Moon, leaving wounds that never fully healed and maybe, just maybe, manifested somatically as illness.
She probably never really fully developed her chart’s possibilities because she was pushed too early onto this life and career track, and the chart probably needed maturity and ageing.
So glad she fought they way she did, bravely, and raised awareness in her latter years.
I hope she found peace now.
Good comment, El Aznar.
My progressed moon is currently transiting Scorpio plus I have natal moon opposite saturn and that knotted feeling never really goes away.
I have a Scorpio Moon trine Chiron exact and boy, is every feeling intense or what? I remember as a child thinking why do my feelings hurt so much, while other children seem to recover quickly, it would take me weeks, months to process one’s darkness. But intensity can work both ways. You get the downside, but the uplifting feelings you experience can be truly euphoric.
*to process my darkness.
Great comment – I haven’t thought about it, but it makes so much sense that the good feelings would be intensified as well. On second thought, I don’t know how good that is either, but I’m going to think so. 😀
Moon opposition Saturn is one of the difficult aspects, really heavy. I need to brush much more on it, but I remember gaining that impression years ago when I read experiences of someone who had it natally and I knew someone who has it as well.