Whither TomKat?

Like many a second-rate astrologer, Life & Style magazine has mastered the art of the cover-your-ass prediction, which cannot be disproved either way. See, they already told us Tom and Katie would continue to pretend to be together through the spring, so issuing a denial is a bit like saying, "No, I haven't stopped beating my wife -- I mean -- d'oh!" (Full story: CNN) Of course, time will ultimately tell if TomKat splits, just as we will eventually learn what, if anything, is actually growing inside Katie's belly. But anyway, what light can astrology shed on this rumor? Could it be that the shamtastic duo are really ready to give up the ruse -- I mean, have realized they're not right for each other?

Because TomKat is an entity unto itself, which seems to have taken on a life and personality of its own quite different from anything we saw out of Tom or Katie pre-pairing, the composite chart is a perfect format in which to analyze their relationship. A composite chart is a chart that takes two people's birth charts and basically averages them out, creating a portrait of the relationship dynamic.

In TomKat's case, the relationship dynamic appears to be a rather unstable one, with mutable signs on all four angles. Virgo is rising, with its ruler Mercury tightly conjunct from the first house. Mercury rules communication; Virgo represents control; and certainly from the beginning, this relationship has been all about announcing itself and managing the face it presents to the world (the Ascendant represents surface appearances). However, control-freak Mercury in Virgo is opposed by Mars in supersensitive Pisces in the 7th house of relationships, creating the possibility of verbal and physical outbursts in which someone might ... oh, I dunno ... jump on a couch, shake their fists in the air, and announce their love to the world? Just throwing that out there. The Sun, representing the core of the relationship, is conjunct erratic, unpredictable (and rather kinky) Uranus in Libra, the sign of partnership. Again, this is a volatile union; TomKat wants to shock the world with its love.

Worrisomely, if that is a word, relationship planet Venus, in her own sign of romantic Libra, is in an out-of-sign conjunction to controlling Pluto in Virgo. Hidden under the surface of their hearts-and-flowers romance is an intense power dynamic. There is no sense of privacy between the two individuals in the relationship with Pluto breathing down Venus's neck and asking it if it's really going to leave the house wearing that. Pluto might even ... oh, I dunno ... buy a sonogram machine so it can keep an eye on the contents of Venus' uterus. Echoing this theme of a love bound by power and control, Saturn and Neptune are tightly conjunct in secretive, power-hungry Scorpio, near the cusp of Tomkat's fourth house of home and family. Saturn rules limitations, restrictions, responsibilities and the imposition of authority. Neptune rules fantasy, deception and illusion, along with the glamour and mystique that attend celebrities. It's almost as if some iron-clad responsibility is keeping the TomKat household bound to maintaining some sort of illusion. What could this possibly mean?

If indeed there is a facade being maintained at Camp Tomkat, the question becomes one of when the cracks will start to appear. Based on transits to the TomKat composite, I'm going to guess early to mid-May. The Life & Style story came out with transiting Mercury and Uranus opposing the Tomkat Ascendant at 9° Virgo. By May, Uranus will be opposing Tomkat's Mercury, ruler of the Ascendant -- and opposing that volatile 7th-house Mars. An unexpected outburst could blow the whole thing wide open. Also at that time, retrograde Jupiter in Scorpio will be trining Mars and sextiling Mercury, offering an opportunity to grow and move on by making a clean break with the past. Transiting Pluto in Sagittarius will be squaring the Pluto in TomKat's chart, perhaps auguring a groundswell of revelations about the power dynamic in their relationship. And Saturn will be coming up on the composite Moon in Leo while Chiron opposes it, sticking a cork in TomKat's effusive outpouring of love. Since Saturn rules the father and the Moon rules the mother, this could also signal an attempt by Tom to control Katie's parenting style or impose limits on her relationship with her child. By this point, the pressures of their tightly controlled Virgo-rising relationship may have built up to a boiling point. Also, in May, Pluto will be right on Katie's free-spirited Sagittarian Sun, and she may no longer be able to squelch her own ego or suppress her true personality. Pluto has a way of finding the skeletons in people's closets and putting them on display. And come May, there could be quite a stampede out of the closet.

A note on data: I found Tom's birth time on the fantastique French astrology site Astrotheme, which I just discovered and am enchantée by. The only downside is that there is no source given for the birth time, so I can't be certain it's reliable (sometimes the data comes straight from a birth certificate; other times it's hearsay and not necessarily accurate). In any case, I have decided to use the birth time in the absence of another viable option and just take it with a grain of salt until I get confirmation.

Check out Tom's and Katie's charts on Astrotheme. (To give you a sense of how comprehensive this site is, they also have John Holmes' birth chart.) As always, please email me any confirmation or correction of birth data, or post a comment.