Chelsea Clinton’s Challenge (with notes on her father)
Zip Dobyns
Chelsea Clinton was reportedly born in Little Rock, AR on February 27, 1980 at 23:24 (11:24 P.M.) CST. Despite the sensitivity of Pisces in the natural house of Cancer, she is a very strong young lady and is likely to accomplish much in life. Her parents are obviously extremely important in her life, with the 4th and 10th houses the most occupied in the chart. Four factors are in each of these parental houses, and no other house has more than two factors. She shares a strong Scorpio component with her mother, who has her Sun in Scorpio. Chelsea is identified with the sign, with her Ascendant, Uranus, and East Point placed there. The prominent Uranus on the East Point and trine Mercury indicates an innovative nature and keen mind, while the Scorpio shows depth and persistence—a will that does not give up easily. A Leo Moon, MC, and north lunar node, plus Chiron and Vesta in Taurus add more fixed-sign determination to the Scorpio, while Venus and Ceres in Aries add further strength to the courage and will.
Chelsea is also intensely idealistic, identified with the Absolute with Mars tightly conjunct Jupiter and part of Sagittarius in her first house, while the Sun in Pisces indicates the urge to expand and do more with her dreams of perfection. Mercury in Pisces shows a vivid imagination and considerable psychic ability as well as potential artistic talent. Pallas conjunct Mercury could attract her into a helping profession or into politics, with its Libra connotations. Her strong Virgo-Pisces emphasis fits either an artist-craftsperson or a healing-helping person. Located in the 4th and 10th houses, the oppositions show a modern woman who wants both a home and family and a career in the world.
The 4th and 10th houses are keys to the parents, but either house can be either parent. Normally, the 4th house is the nurturing, unconditional love parent, while the 10th is the disciplinarian, conditional love parent whose role in the world influences the family’s status in the society. Sometimes the planetary picture is so mixed, we suspect that the parents are very similar or that one parent is playing both roles. Chelsea’s chart fits this description, with the Sun and Mercury, rulers of the signs in the 10th house, being placed in the 4th house, while Jupiter and Saturn, co-rulers of the signs in the 4th house, are in the 10th house. Both parents are experienced by Chelsea as idealistic workaholics with emotional tension between them shown by the lunar nodes in Leo-Aquarius in the parental houses. 4-10 nodes may indicate frequent changes of residence or parental jobs, or they may point to tension and possible separation between the parents. Sometimes one parent is physically absent due to work commitments or travel, or just emotionally remote.
The publicity about the Clintons has exposed a couple who apparently do love each other (as much as Bill is able to love any one person), but who also have remained legally together partly because of shared ambition and ideals. With Bill’s rising Neptune and massive stellium in Libra, he “loves” everyone and no one. Bill is obviously a compulsive womanizer, and there are lots of women who are eager to play with a charming, handsome, and powerful man. I suspect that one of the reasons the Republicans hate Bill so much is that he is such a successful manipulator, the consummate politician. Unfortunately, we do not have a firm birth time for Hillary. The Pisces 1998 issue of The Mutable Dilemma discussed my reasons for thinking she might have been born at 8 A.M. rather than the initially reported 8 P.M. which came from a family friend.
A horoscope shows how an individual experiences and reacts to the world. The world may actually be quite different from one’s experience of it, which is shaped by individual beliefs and habits. Chelsea’s keys to parents show them strongly earth and water, with fire especially present in her mother with Chelsea’s Ceres in Aries and a Leo Moon in the Sagittarius house. She sees their career ambitions and success (earth backed by fire initiative) but is less conscious of the massive air emphasis in her father’s nature. Air is Chelsea’s weakest element, and she is currently being forced to develop more of its ability to detach, be objective, and take things lightly—the ability to be a spectator, seeing the broad perspective and being able to understand and accept it without feeling compelled to change it. It is an important part of her growth if she is going to be a healer-helper of the world and avoid ending up as a martyr-victim. The media constantly expresses amazement at Bill’s ability to compartmentalize and carry on his work while battling for his personal political life. The element of air in astrology, supported by earth for the job, shows the ability to do that, while fire shows the confidence-faith to believe it will all work out eventually. Bill’s chart is as heavily dominated by air and fire as any I have seen, other than a criminal sociopath named Charles Stewart. Obviously, many extreme conservatives put him in the same category as Stewart.
Any part of life can be overdone, and excesses lead to some form of pain which warns us to turn back. So Chelsea is learning from her father’s example about the value of air, but also, hopefully, not to overdo it. The problems of excessive air include difficulty in maintaining lasting close relationships—“everyone’s friend but no one owns me.” Air is “space between,” conscious intellectual distance. One of the ways that Chelsea’s chart shows that a lesson in close relationships is part of her father’s (negative) example is the fact that they both have an exact conjunction of Vesta on the Descendant. We are born where we “fit,” where we see parts of our own past habits reflected in others around us, especially in parents and siblings in the early life.
Vesta has been one of my favorite asteroids since I acquired the first four in 1972, because I saw such dramatic examples when it was prominent in charts. Like the little girl with the curl, when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid! Vesta symbolizes the capacity for an intense, total focus on the “job” of the moment. Nothing else matters. If people get in the way of the immediate, all-consuming goal, too bad for the people. This ability for tunnel vision can produce major achievements in the world and it can also produce serious alienation in relationships. The placement of any astrological factor on an angle in the chart makes it prominent. It says “this is an important issue in your nature. Pay attention!” Chelsea is far softer with her Pisces and far more practical with her Virgo than is her father, but she can learn about close relationships from him. She can try to avoid polarizing others, leaving them fixated in a state of devotion or a state of total alienation, which happens so often in her father’s relationships. It is really quite amazing to see a single individual with Bill’s breadth of perspective (air) combined with the strong capacity for total one-pointedness (Vesta). He may be the most intelligent president we have ever had, but woefully weak in garden-variety common sense (earth).
Returning to Chelsea, she left home to attend Stanford University in California and is currently coping with the disgrace of her father and her mother’s emotional pain in addition to her own disillusionment with her father. Chelsea’s P Sun was moving through an opposition to her N and P Saturn through part of 1993 into 1997, so it covered the period of Monica’s affair with her father, though it did not become public knowledge until late 1997. Chelsea’s progressed New Moon, a new 30-year cycle, occurred in the late summer of 1997, marking a major new period in her life. The P Moon caught up with the P Sun in 26 Pisces, and they were trine Uranus to repeat the importance of the new beginning. Soon after the New Moon, her P Moon moved into Aries and her P Ascendant moved into Sagittarius to repeat the message. Fire symbolizes the urge to innovate, to do something different. Her P Sun reached a quincunx and semisextile to the P lunar nodes by the spring of 1998 when the media were full of the speculation about Bill after the news of Monica broke on January 21, 1998, but Bill was still lying to Hillary and Chelsea. The lunar nodes, like the Moon, are connected to emotional security, which usually involves close relationships. In January when the story broke, Chelsea’s P Moon was in early Aries trioctile her Ascendant, quincunx Aletheia (the goddess of truth), and less than a week from starting a quincunx to P Jupiter which sextiled Aletheia to form a yod for major change. Both fire and air tend to bring things out where earth and water may conceal for security reasons.
Chelsea has the asteroid Williams in 27 Taurus 39 conjunct her West Point, which is similar to being on the Descendant, the potential for partnership or conflict. Her P lunar nodes remain square to Williams for years, while her P Williams in 4 Gemini is holding squares to her Mars and Jupiter and a quincunx to her Antivertex for several years. It will reach an octile to her P Pluto in the summer of 1999, so their relationship will not get any easier. One of the major Pluto lessons is learning to forgive. Chelsea’s Hillary is in 11 Sagittarius, conjunct Nemesis (who “got” you when you flouted Themis, divine law). America is just beyond them in 12 Sagittarius. Chelsea’s P MC was in 11 Virgo square Hillary and Nemesis when the Monica story broke, and it reached the square to America in the summer when Bill was forced to admit his improper relationship to his family and the country. Chelsea’s P East Point, an auxiliary Ascendant, was just coming to P Hillary in January 1998 and they will remain conjunct into the year 2000. Chelsea obviously identifies with her mother and shares her ethical distress and loss of faith with the emphasis on Sagittarius.
Chelsea’s local house positions in Washington, DC and in Palo Alto, CA are also appropriate. In Washington, her N Sun is exactly on the IC for her fame in the White House, and her Uranus is just over one degree from her local Ascendant for the unusual experiences and new knowledge in that region. N Williams is exactly on her local Descendant. It is fascinating the way local angles repeat and reinforce the information in the birth place angles. Chelsea moved from Little Rock where Williams was on the West Point to Washington where it was on the Descendant, which represents the same principle.
California puts Chelsea’s Pluto precisely on the local Ascendant and N Mercury quincunx it. Pluto calls for us to understand and master our subconscious emotions and physical appetites, usually through interactions with close relationships, though it may occur primarily through personal introspection. Any of the appetites may be involved; money, eating, drinking, sex, etc. Chelsea’s Ascendant and East Point axes across Scorpio-Taurus call for integrating this polarity, for being able to enjoy physical pleasures without excesses, and for learning to share possessions and passions with close others for mutual pleasure. Moving to a city which put Pluto exactly on the Ascendant implies a crash course in the Scorpio principle, including the capacity to forgive. Her parents are demonstrating some of its opposite potentials with her mother’s loyalty to a committed relationship and her father’s lack of it. However, I do think her parents will separate after his term of office is over, whether or not they divorce legally.
When Chelsea left for college, the Clintons appealed to the media to let her alone, and mostly they have complied, except for the tabloids, which have described her emotional anguish and physical problems that probably stem from the emotional stress. In another variation of the Scorpio lesson, and compounding her distress over her parents, Chelsea has also been abandoned by a man described as her “first love.” He is a fellow student at Stanford who is also a star athlete. The tabloids quote him as saying that he could not handle Chelsea’s emotional problems and thought they should separate, though he wanted to continue to be her friend. His coach also reportedly advised him to totally concentrate on his training if he was really aiming at qualifying for the Olympics. Planets in the 7th and 8th houses are often projected, so Vesta on Chelsea’s Descendant can attract single-minded individuals who have problems handling more than one goal at a time. P Vesta is currently square the MC as a sign of the current challenge. Another tabloid devoted a lengthy article to advising Chelsea on handling her hair and makeup and clothes, suggesting Hollywood stars who could be good examples for her.
Many additional asteroids could be mentioned. Neptune holds a lifetime opposition to Themis (divine justice), and P Saturn holds a very long square to both. Conflict aspects between earth and keys to idealism signify the conflict between what we want and what is possible. With Saturn a key to father, among many other possibilities, and Themis in a partnership house, we can see how her father’s example is forcing Chelsea to face the need to integrate her ideals with her partnership goals. P Pallas in Pisces completes a grand cross, repeating the same message, with Pallas symbolizing what we want in a partner and Pisces looking for an ideal. We may look for a perfect mate, or pick a mate who is looking for perfection, or over-value, over-rate a mate, or pick one who thinks he is god, etc. Integration requires being reasonable in the expectations of both partners and having shared values, ideals, and goals.
In addition to the Scorpio lessons already mentioned which Chelsea is facing in California, in one of those bizarre twists of fate, Ken Starr’s daughter Carolyn is also attending Stanford University, and occasionally the two young women have had to confront each other. In Chelsea’s chart, the asteroid Starr is retrograding in 27 Libra 17 and P Starr is back to 25 Libra. That put Chelsea’s P Sun quincunx Starr through 1996 into the fall of 1999. P Starr is also quincunx N Psyche, which I find often associated with feeling helpless and victimized, though its positive potential is to be a healer/helper. The asteroid Carolyn is retrograding in 9 Cancer and it returned to its natal place in the fall of 1998. It is intriguing to note that Carolyn the asteroid has mostly positive aspects to Chelsea’s planets. It is trine her Sun, semisextile her Moon, and sextile her Chiron, though it has also started a trioctile to P Uranus. It looks as if Carolyn the person will facilitate Chelsea’s spiritual growth, though the process may not be pleasurable. I am not sure how to interpret P Aeternitas (immortality) conjunct Carolyn. Does the relationship between the two young women have deep roots in the past, or will it help to prepare them for a distant future, or will it be immortalized in some form in the media, or all of the above?
I looked at Chelsea’s progressions for the end of her father’s term of office as president, and the most striking aspect is P Moon crossing the Descendant and conjunct N Vesta. The pattern shows a major change in Chelsea’s relationships, often signaling the beginning of a more public life as the Moon moves above the horizon, with Vesta suggesting important work decisions. Near the end of 2000, Chelsea’s P East Point will finally leave the conjunction with P Hillary, but it will square N Pallas, conjunct P America, and be quincunx Vesta and P Moon. Her P MC in 14 Virgo will still be square P Nemesis, which travels with P Hillary for years, so Chelsea will continue to be deeply concerned with her mother’s well-being. In the spring of 2001, Chelsea’s P Sun moves into Aries to accentuate a new phase of her life. To repeat our beginning, Chelsea is a sensitive but strong and intelligent individual who is likely to make her mark in the world.