Celeb AstroBlogy: Keith Urban's Scorpio Saga: Relapse, Rehab, Retrograde

Was anyone really surprised when Keith Urban, country musician and Mrs. Nicole Kidman, announced he's checking into rehab? The acknowledged former cokehead fessed on Friday that "one can never let one's guard down on recovery, and I'm afraid that I have." {Source} Well, sure he has. For one thing, you would kinda have to be coked up to find it normal to hang out with someone who never eats and has a deathly pale, waxy cast to her skin at all times. (Forget Botox, Nic may be undead. But that's a whole nother can of worms.)

Then, too, there's the fact that Keith's Scorpio planets (Sun, Mercury and Neptune) have been receiving encouragement from excess-prone Jupiter this year. Scorpio is a sign of intense craving, passionate yearning and deep emotional needs. If a person with a lot of Scorpio energy avoids coming face to face with this bottomless abyss of feeling, he or she may easily turn to the coping mechanism of blotting out said feelings with substance abuse, displacing the craving for emotional connection onto a craving for the junk. (Sex addiction is also right up there as a way of filling the emotional void.) The secrecy and keep-it-on-the-DL M.O. of Scorpios also makes it easy for them to hide an addiction; Mercury retrograde in Scorpio means Keith is very good at communicating under the radar. Uranus in Pisces opposing Keith's Venus in Virgo suggests a sense of instability around relationships, a fear of losing control—which, again, could be sublimated into self-medication with Pisces involved.

Right now, as gratification-oriented Jupiter approaches a conjunction to Keith's natal Neptune, often associated with addiction and deception, in Scorpio, it has been overwhelmingly easy for Keith to indulge himself in the temptations and pleasures that come with power and marital/financial connections (all ruled by Scorpio). In Keith's natal chart, Neptune forms a grand trine with his 1st-house Moon in Cancer, ruler of the chart; and with Chiron in Pisces. This configuration makes it easy for Keith to express his emotions and heal his pain through music, but also gives him precious little self-control when it comes to resisting the impulse to medicate these same emotions.

I can't help but wonder if this relapse confession comes unprompted or whether Keith finally slipped up and was busted by his fembot better half or even the authorities. With Mercury in Scorpio slowing down in approach to retrograde just five degrees from Keith's natal retrograde Mercury, even his Scorpio smooth-operator skills might falter. Perhaps Nic caught him on the phone mid-deal? Alternatively, with Saturn, which rules forces and figures of authority as well as limitation, restraint and structure, approaching an exact square to Keith's natal Neptune, he could have been under pressure from his record label to clean up his act ... or perhaps he even got busted by cops and agreed to rehab as long as the incident was covered up. Or, to take a more supportive view, it is possible that Keith's Mercury return did bring him some insight, while the Saturn-Neptune square led him to lift the chippie-induced blinders from his eyes and take a hard look at the need for more structure and self-discipline in his life.

These same aspects bode well for Keith's stay in rehab, I must say. The Mercury retrograde always invites opportunities to review, reflect and rethink, and this process is only intensified by the fact that Mercury is retrograding over its natal placement in Keith's chart—as well as that Mercury is retrograde natally. Retrograde Mercury will conjunct its natal position on November 9, then, after turning direct on the 17th, make a final conjunction to Keith's Mercury on November 28. If Keith entered a 30- or 45-day treatment program, he really chose an ideal time to focus on looking within himself and redirecting the self-destructive pathways in his mind. Meanwhile, that Saturn-Neptune square challenges Keith to muster up the will power to keep his addictions at bay.

I sincerely wish Keith the best of luck in his recovery; no matter how he came to his decision, it is a positive and healthy step and, again, he has chosen an extremely productive time to tackle this intense, difficult psychic work. I just can't help but wonder, considering that volatile Venus-Uranus square four months into a marriage, how Nicole fits into the picture. Certainly one of the Mercury-retrograde-in-Scorpio issues Keith must confront in rehab will be the secrets he was keeping from his wife (if rumors are to be believed, perhaps sexual as well as drug-related). Once he plumbs his emotional depths, what will Keith discover about his connection and communication (or lack thereof) with Nicole? This may well be a make-or-break time for the Kidbans. Their marriage may emerge strengthened by rehab and by Keith's increased self-awareness and insight ... or said self-awareness and insight might lead Keith to conclude that they should pull a Cheswegger and cut their losses.