Saturn and Sheryl's Stellium

Now it is I who am eating crow. In my schadenfreude-filled post on Sheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong's breakup, I stated that:

Both of them kind of annoy me, especially her because she doesn't have a triumphant conquering-cancer story to make me feel guilty about being annoyed by her....

So, when I heard that Sheryl Crow underwent surgery for breast cancer on Wednesday, Feb. 22 (Source: CNN), you can only imagine the shame spiral into which I descended. I sincerely wish Sheryl all the best and send her lots of good luck in her recovery. Furthermore, I would like to take this opportunity to state on the record that I have always secretly liked "Every Day Is a Winding Road" and also that duet she did with Kid Rock, which is an instant karaoke classic.

Sheryl actually has a really interesting chart, with an extremely rare pile-up of six planets in Aquarius, plus the South Node. Uranus, the ruler of this Aquarius stellium, is in Aquarius' opposite sign of Leo. While Uranus is opposing her Sun, the two planets are also in mutual reception, i.e., they're in the signs each other rules and thereby work in concert. Hers is a very strong personality; she doesn't just march to the beat of her own drummer, she walks down the street air-drumming. With the Sun-Uranus opposition, chaos and sudden upheaval are a part of her life; every day is a winding road, with some whiplash-inducing U-turns along the way. (Can U-turns induce whiplash? I don't actually know how to drive....) Unless she was born after 11PM, she has a resilient Taurus Moon to help ground all that airy Aquarius and weather the Uranian storms, though it also makes her stubborn, stick-to-her-guns attitude even more deeply entrenched.

With all these planets in a row and the Moon squaring at least some of them, Sheryl's chart makes Sasha Cohen's look balanced. And when things get stressful or out of control in Sheryl's life, it all piles up at once. The transiting Saturn-Chiron opposition in Leo/Aquarius, for instance, is hitting Sheryl pretty hard -- obviously, as she's been faced with a public breakup as well as a life-threatening disease. On the day of Sheryl's surgery, transiting Chiron, the "wounded" planetoid, was hovering between Sheryl's Mars and Saturn, with Saturn opposing them. This is definitely a trying time for her; with Saturn opposing her Saturn, she is at a key moment of reckoning in her life cycle. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the transiting Sun was approaching a conjunction to her natal Chiron, describing the surgery. With the Moon waning in its third quarter, Wednesday was a good time for surgery to have something removed. Her prognosis is very positive, and with her Sun-Jupiter conjunction she possesses the vitality and optimism that are so valuable to the healing and recovery process.

There is still a bumpy road ahead for Sheryl in many aspects of her life, as retrograde Saturn will station directly opposite her natal Saturn on April 5. From there it will move forward to oppose all six of those Aquarius planets in 2006, before turning retrograde directly opposite her Venus in December 2006 and hitting her Sun-Jupiter again before stationing on her North Node in April '07. Saturn makes its last contact with Sheryl's Venus on August 1, 2007, marking the close of what will be a challenging, almost fateful time for her. Over the next couple of years she will take stock of her life, her career and her relationships. This is a time of karmic spring cleaning. The good news is that with so many planets in fixed signs, Sheryl already has a very solid sense of who she is and what she's all about. Saturn comes down hardest on people who are fake and in denial, while rewarding people who make the effort to work on themselves throughout their lives. Hopefully this year will be Sheryl's chance to clear out anything that is not working in her life and reap the rewards of everything that is. I wish her lots of luck in her recovery and any other Saturnian challenges that come her way.

Not to get all PSA-y, but I would be remiss not to post the link to the Lance Armstrong Foundation plus some links to breast cancer information and donation opportunities:
Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
BreastCancer.org
National Breast Cancer Foundation