Britney in Retrograde

You all probably know the Rx symbol as standing for prescriptions. But in astrology, Rx is the symbol for "retrograde," when a planet goes behind the Sun and appears to turn backward as seen from Earth. When planets are retrograde, the energies they represent operate in strange, inverted, sometimes counterproductive way. In general it may feel like things are moving backward rather than forward.

I mention this because when I saw these (somewhat recent) photos of Britney in Las Vegas, the first thing that crossed my mind was "She's in retrograde rehab!" On some psychic level, Britney's T-shirt may be expressing a cosmic truth. Certainly it seems like she has been going downhill lately; if I had a nickel for every time I heard the phrase "let herself go" with regard to La Brit, I could buy my own customized Ferrari with astrological symbols on the rims. (Is that what they're called? Rims? I really don't drive...) Anyhoo, I choose to believe that Britney herself is in a sort of retrograde, and her shirt is a cry for help.

Britney's progressed chart, which is a way of showing how a person has evolved over the course of her life, shows a very intense configuration right now. Over the years, her progressed Sun (core personality and self-image) has moved from free-spirited Sag into pragmatic Capricorn. Just as significantly, it has pulled away from the conjunction to her natal and progressed Neptune, the planet of glamour and fantasy, that heralded her heyday as a pop icon (by 2003, when Britney backlash had set in big-time, the progressed Sun was six degrees away from the Neptunes (natal and progressed planets, not the production group). In Britney's progressed chart, the Sun and Moon are now conjunct in Capricorn, squaring her Mars in Libra in the 12th house and sextiling Jupiter in Scorpio in the 1st house. This is a new beginning for her with opportunities for transformative growth, but she will have to work and struggle against her own self-defeating habits to make that change happen. Meanwhile, Saturn and Pluto are straddling the Ascendant, marking a make-or-break moment for how she sees herself and presents herself to the world. This further emphasizes the idea that Brit may be headed for a process of transformation that teaches her some tough lessons, but not without growing pains. Let's hope so, because Britney clearly does need psychic rehabilitation to reverse her current downhill momentum.