Nicole Richie At Risk

While I am loath to acknowledge as "celebrities" those individuals who are noteworthy primarily for being the spawn of celebrities or, worse yet, of rich and unfamous people, Nicole Richie has crossed over from the "heiress" to the "train wreck" category and therefore has piqued my interest.

A glance at Nicole's chart shows that this is a high-risk time for her if the rumors of self-destructive behavior are true. Mars is conjuncting Nicole's natal retrograde Chiron in Taurus, which is the focal point of a yod with her Neptune and Pluto. This aspect may indicate a distorted, shameful or painful body image or a low sense of self-worth, which serves as a release valve for other pent-up pressures. This Mars transit could be the catalyst for her to act out this self-destructive potential in some way.

Pluto, the planet of transformation, has been passing over Nicole's natal Neptune for the past year or so. While she has no birth time on record that I could find (please email me if you know it), it would not be a surprise to find that Pluto is passing through Nicole's 1st house of appearance, seeing as how she has physically transformed into an almost unrecognizable person, from chunky, skunk-haired, table-dancing hoochie to "Breakfast at Tiffany's"-looking bobblehead.

This spring, Pluto will come within two degrees of a square to her mutable Virgo Sun before turning retrograde. During this time Nicole will continue to change, possibly becoming even more fastidious about her appearance in an attempt to control every facet of her physical being. With a four-planet pile-up in Libra, including a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction and a tight Mercury-Pluto conjunction, Nicole may have something of an obsession with beauty and being loved. It would be nice if her musical endeavors turned out to be something less than abhorrent, since an artistic calling would be a wonderfully fruitful expression of Libra's jones for beauty and grace. As opposed to, say, constant self-starvation and shopping.

So, if you're one of Ms. Richie's loved ones and you're reading this, please call her parents and tell them to get her some help. Then, please ask them if they could look up her birth time and email it to me. Thanks in advance.