Celeb AstroBlogy: Angelina Jolie's 2006 Birthday Forecast

Happy birthday to the light of the world, the mother of us all, the beacon of hope for the future, and the international über-MILF, Ms. Angelina Jolie, who turns 31 today, although in her shape-shifting Gemini way she has obviously already lived more lives than most of us. As I have gleaned that the public seems to have some sort of passing interest in the life and times of Ms. Jolie, I have decided to mark this momentous day with a reading of Angelina's birthday horoscope and her forecast for the coming year.

Angelina's solar return chart, a chart cast for the moment when the Sun returns to the exact zodiac point where it was at the person's birth, shows that the coming year will see a lot of career activity and (of course) media attention, but those achievements may pose some conflict with her personal needs and family life. Like any working mom, Angie will feel pulled in different directions trying to be all things to all people.

Angelina's natal 10th house (career) comes to the solar return Ascendant, showing that work will be at the forefront of her life this year. With the solar return Ascendant conjunct her natal 11th house cusp, her humanitarian work is highlighted as well, along with her self-consciousness in the media spotlight. (The 11th house rules social networks, from the global community to the mass media and Internet.) This theme is echoed by Aquarius on the solar return Midheaven (career goals). Pursuing her calling this year will be as much about her work with the U.N. as her work in Hollywood. With solar return Mars on her natal Ascendant, whatever she does, Angelina will throw herself into it passionately and wholeheartedly.

Angelina's Sun in the 1st house of the solar return chart shows that this year she will also focus on finding herself and getting to know who she is as a person. It is important for her to be in touch with her own needs and nurture her personal growth. The Sun squares the solar return Moon in caretaking Virgo in the 4th house of motherhood, home and family. And restless Uranus in the 10th house (again, career) forms a T-square with the Sun and Moon. This is where we see signs of strain as Angelina juggles the demands of her children, the demands of the industry and her own personal needs. These different realms of her life compete with each other for attention, especially for someone who is highly driven to be the best, and it is safe to say that Angelina does not seem like the type of person who is happy doing everything half-assed.

A grand cross, or four-way square, is formed in the solar return chart between Venus in Taurus in the 12th house, the Mars-Saturn conjunction in Leo in the 3rd, Jupiter in Scorpio in the 6th, and Chiron in Aquarius in the 9th. Here again it seems that the various spheres of her life seem to collide, from her relationship with Brad (which seems to be taking a back seat, with Venus hidden in the 12th house) to her own creative expression (Leo in the 3rd) to the everyday responsibilities of her life (the 6th) to her struggle with celebrity ("wounded healer" Chiron in Aquarius, sign of mass media, in the 9th house of travel, which depicts the way she uses her fame to get attention for underprivileged people on distant continents). While the grand cross is a challenging aspect, the friction generated by these planets could also be a powerful motivating force. Jupiter's opposition to Venus and square to Mars-Saturn might manifest as an irrepressible nothing-can-keep-me-down spirit that overcomes all obstacles.

These squares will bring challenges in the coming year, but with her driven, ambitious, energetic Moon-Mars-Jupiter conjunction on the Aries Midheaven, all squaring disciplined Saturn, Angelina enjoys pushing herself to be the first, best and brightest. This year could be a stressful one for her, with so much going on in her life. But it could also be tremendously rewarding, as she strives to live up to the expectations she has set for herself as a superstar supermom sex bomb who saves the world in her spare time.

Astro-Methodology Note (of interest to astrology geeks only): Mind you, making predictions for Angelina is not an easy task, because the solar return chart, or birthday horoscope, is usually cast for the location that will be the person's primary residence for the year. Going on vacation to a different location in hopes of acquiring a more favorable chart for the year is considered cheating, and doesn't really work. But here we have a subject who is genuinely a citizen of the world. While Angelina's nominal residence is L.A. and it is rumored that she will eventually relent to partner Brad Pitt's pleas to return there, she hasn't set foot on the West Coast in many moons. And while Paris may have provided a pregnancy pit stop divertissement, it is not at all clear that she and her Pitt-suffixed entourage will be spending significant time in the City of Lights in the coming year. Thus, after more deliberation than was perhaps rightly necessary in a world where actual people have actual problems, I have decided that it would be putting the proverbial cart before the proverbial house to make a prediction about where Angelina will spend her year and base her yearly forecast on that. Instead, I have opted to honor Angie's "wherever you go, there you are" M.O. and cast her solar return chart for where she is right now: near Swakopmund, Namibia. (Whew. It was bad enough when I had to figure out which day her baby was born.)