Britney Spears & the Astrology

I just want to highlight and add a few things to the conversation for anyone following the story about Britney Spears and the astrology of it. I will focus on Britney Spears first, and then close with why this event has collective significance as well.

Reference: the documentary Framing Britney Spears, Britney’s recent public statement, or your own research on the conservatorship.

As an evolutionary astrologer who always looks for planets squaring the nodal axis (a major signature relating to a karmic impasse in this life), what has always stood out to me about Britney’s chart is that she has Saturn and Pluto in Libra in balsamic (closing) phase conjunction in the 1st house, square the nodes in Capricorn and Cancer in the 4th and 10th houses.

Planets square the nodes suggest three main things. I have a series of videos on the nodal axes when squared on my YouTube channel here (scroll down to Squared Nodes Series).

• The individual has vacillated between extremes related to each node and the planetary ruler of that node.
• The planet(s) squaring the nodes are up for major confrontation and integration in this lifetime, in the individual’s personality and circumstances.
• Further, both nodes offer integration, but one node in particular is more important and is called the resolution node. This is the last node the planet made a conjunction with in the sky. In Britney’s case, the Saturn-Pluto square to the nodes is resolved through the North Node in Cancer in the 10th house, and planetary ruler Moon in Aquarius in the 5th.

Saturn and Pluto in Libra in the 1st house as an impasse/karmic conflict hangs in the balance between the extremes of the Cancer and Capricorn, 4th/10th nodes. Let’s break this down:

Saturn and Pluto in Libra in the 1st house as an impasse/karmic conflict:

• The first house relates to an individual’s free expression, sovereignty, freedom to follow their urges and impulses unhindered. Like a wide open road and a fast car. The first house relates to having agency and mobility. Britney’s life and freedoms are severely limited.
• Saturn-Pluto can relate to major psychological contractions, or grueling psychological conditions/hardships. As the documentary about Britney’s conservatorship points out, Britney’s life has been full of abnormal pressures that have a tone of injustice to them (Libra).
• The moments where Britney decides to take a bat to a paparazzi’s car and is caught on camera for it, or shaves her head, are like moments of unfiltered Pluto 1st house, release of pressure (Saturn), in a moment without care for the consequence. Some of these choices came with unusually harsh punishment and control mechanisms put in place. Had Britney not had the career and wealth that she had, what motivation would there have been to put her in the system in the way she has? She may have had a breakdown with more freedom to move on with her life after. But her breakdown and her public stature/wealth resulted in a reason to trap her in unusually harsh legal control.
• Saturn-Pluto could also relate to power battles with an authority or father figure. She is currently sueing her father. (Libra, justice, court)
• Saturn squaring the nodes relates to a difficulty embodying one’s own authority. There may be some types of maturation or ‘proper conduct’ the individual has a difficult time including their personality, which can result in external attempts to control the individual. Britney’s forms of lashing out have had severe consequences in her life. Impulse control or the lack of it has been a reason for external influences to control her (not justifying that, just observing).
• Pluto squaring the nodes can relate to a major challenge between the soul and the ego. With the North Node in Cancer in the 10th (career, public image, a home in the world perhaps) and ruler Moon in Aquarius in the 5th (talent, play, expression, creative genius), Britney’s soul and power has shone through in her skills and talents as a performer, before other psychological pressures and environmental pressures set in. Which takes us to the nodes:

the extremes of the Cancer and Capricorn, 4th/10th nodes:

• Generally, when I see Cancer/Capricorn or 4th/10th house nodes there is OFTEN a dynamic of control in the family system, overprotection. 
• The Cancer side of the nodal axis relates to identifying with one’s clan or family, as well as occupying a more fragile state within the family and potentially relying on family members. The Cancer side of the nodal axis can get emotional in ways that is overpowering the ability to work or be out in the world.
• The Capricorn side of the nodal axis is well controlled, disciplined, and takes pride in accomplishment. The Capricorn side can forgo emotional comfort for long periods of time to serve a lofty goal.
• When these nodes are squared, the individual has vacillated between extreme emotion and control of those emotions, both inwardly placed and externally directed at the soul. The image of mental breakdown or “hysteria” and then being put in the system is relevant here.
• This becomes a trap when the systems of control are so intense that as conditions, they tend to inspire more emotional conflict. An oppressive system here could continue to place the onus on the individual “to get better” or “to comply” – any deeper contemplation of the intense control that has been imposed on Britney’s life is likely to spark some empathy of how truly difficult and demoralizing that would be.
• Squared Cancer/Capricorn nodes can be a little age dysmorphic. In some sense the individual can be infantilized and controlled as a result, or an individual can be given immense amounts of responsibility before they are actually ready for it (and may collapse as a result). Britney was involved in a serious career from a young age, and simultaneously infantilized. 

By transit at the moment that this story is again active, we are in the Saturn-Uranus square characterizing 2021. Saturn-Uranus transits can bring sudden changes or sudden ends to historic, seemingly set-in-stone dynamics. The Berlin Wall fell during a Saturn-Uranus conjunction. This could be a moment this long-standing, seemingly immovable conservatorship could end.

The Saturn-Uranus square is sitting on Britney’s Moon in 12 Aquarius. So this world transit is interfacing with her chart in a very personal way.

Britney’s Sun is conjunct Black Moon Lilith, a symbol of the primordial feminine. Her story may be touching the collective in the way it is at the moment because her story also symbolizes the way our culture treats the feminine. Particularly the raw, messy, wild feminine. Britney has been extracted from in a large number of ways, just as the patriarchal world extracts from the Earth. When Britney was having mental distress, the world ridiculed and demeaned her and photographed and celebrated it. The documentary about her suggests the world owes her an apology.

Britney also could symbolize here the reality that we are influenced by the conditions around us – that mental health is not just a personal endeavor, but communal. Difficult family systems, or difficult social dynamics can be a strain on mental health. I think many of us can feel for how Britney’s life has been full of pressures that aren’t fair, and Britney is primarily paying the price for it.

I normally stress personal responsibility in my messaging, because that’s what I’m about (personal development) and it’s where we have the most personal agency. I see in Britney something I recognize in myself, as someone who was treated and drugged psychiatrically against my will. The more I fought, the worse things became. When I learned how to say what I needed to appear normal and earn my freedom, I eventually found my way out of that labyrinth. I saw first-hand how cold and demanding that world is, of losing other people’s perception of your sanity and for a time, not having a voice. I remember my environment, my parents, my psychiatrist, assuring me they were doing what was best for me and that I needed to get with the program. I never felt like the medications helped – they caused severe side effects – and I didn’t feel like that was the support/resource/nourishment I needed.

I was able to get out and didn’t have nearly as controlling a system set up on my ‘behalf’. My freedom began to return to me within six months, and I found a connection to my soul in that rock bottom. I don’t know the degree to which Britney has operated within the system she is in, what choices she has made there. But I do understand what it’s like to feel so demoralized because you don’t have agency, and there are people watching you and your ‘progress’ even though they are hindering it at the same time. I recognize the traps of these nodal patterns because I also have first house planets squaring my 4th/10th nodes in Cancer and Capricorn, and I’ve been contemplating this for years.

I pray that Britney is freed and gains access to resources she chooses with her own agency, rather than this severe set of controls placed on her.

Thoughts?

~Sabrina Monarch