Astrology Expressed

Ms. Lively has been a busy lady this year and a lot has been going on in her chart. But in this post, I will focus on a few important themes that help us understand her current predicament. Her current predicament is that one day she was working hard wearing her florals and promoting her movie, her booze line, her hair care line, her husband’s movie, her husband’s screen writing skills and the next minute she was covered in mud. Not mud that fell out of nowhere but mudpies that the press and the denizens of social media started launching at her. They threw them and threw them and it’s not over yet.

Understanding Ms. Lively

Blake has a new moon chart with zero air. This is what my favourite teacher, Steven Forrest, says about this phase, “The person is a living symbol. A person takes on the quality of something that transcends their personality. These are charismatic people. It’s as if they have something radiating from them that seems like they have one foot in a transcendental realm. It becomes a source of their charisma. People will listen to them. Here’s somebody who knows something, who is in touch with the spirits, who has some kind of power. Naturally one could abuse such powers over other people. It can be a seductive energy. How we live out our chart is not simply in the hands of the chart. There is an element of personal responsibility. But there is that magical charismatic quality with the new moon.”

Add a Leo ascendant to that with Leo’s ruler sun in the first house conjunct Mars to the degree. This is no shrinking violet. This is a big bright sunflower that bursts onto a scene and dominates it. But there is more to her presence than just this. Her sun is conjunct four other planets, all bodies are in Virgo. That gave me pause. Virgo is quiet, rather self-effacing energy and it is very self-critical. With her Virgo Moon squaring Saturn, it is likely there is another side to Blake where she is quite hard on herself and pushes herself to achieve perfection. Lazy she is not. As IMDb reports, she was class president, a cheerleader, and performed with the choir. And this is after she starred in her first big movie at the age of 18.

When she was 20, she was in Gossip Girls, a popular show that continued till she was 25. She did quite a bit of work before and after that. But this is the show that made her well-known. Wiki says of the character she plays, Serena van der Woodsen: an angelically attractive and charming it-girl. Forgive me for suspecting that this is the persona Blake magnifies when she is in front of the press. And it’s not all fake either, she is a ball of fun and spunk with the Sagittarius Uranus trining her ascendant.

We would go on and on about the lively Blake but one more point that stood out for me. Blake has zero air. Nothing, no planet, no luminary, no angle. A singular lack of air. The element of air helps us to be detached and objective. So it is unlikely that Blake is able to step back and see herself and her actions with detachment. An important quality if you are a public figure who likes to make a splash. And then has the consequences plastered all over media.

What Say the Transits

The gossip, and it’s really been just gossip, about troubles with her co-star, Justin Baldoni, started soon after the New York premier of It Ends with Us on 6 August 2024. Saturn was retrograde at 18 Pisces at that time. As Saturn slowly started moving back, the gossip about the erstwhile Gossip Girl grew and grew. How she was marketing a movie about domestic violence as a fun movie. How she was making the promotion all about clothes with a floral theme because her character is a florist in the film. How she was using the movie launch to also promote Betty Buzz and Blake Brown. And plugging in her husband and his work too. But not a word about the director and co-star of the movie.

I think she could have lived it all down especially because the movie is an undoubted hit. But on 10 August 2024, reporter Kjersti Flaa shared a snippet from a 2016 interview with Blake Lively and Parker Posey. It’s quite awful to watch it because Blake is first rude to the reporter and then by focusing on just talking to Posey, she humiliates the other woman completely. To be fair, I don’ think Blake was doing it to hurt Kjersti the person. Blake had an axe to grind. Well, a couple of axes, really. With Pluto in her third house, she knows the power of words. But she did not display the high Pluto which comes right out and clears the air by openly discussing the taboo. She did it insidiously, indirectly. Her words had a hidden agenda and the air reeked of it. Fair reeked.

Her dismissive attitude toward Kjersti was the final nail in her PR coffin that was already being nailed shut by the whispers about tension with Justin, the shameless self-promotion and ignoring her responsibility as a celebrity in a movie about domestic violence. It’s been two months since the launch and now Saturn is at 14 Pisces. Where it interestingly squares her natal Saturn at 14 Sag – the theme here is of the need for maturity, accepting responsibility, and being held accountable for one’s actions.

In Blake’s case the moon is involved as well because transiting Saturn will station to go direct on 12 Pisces on 14 November 2024 exactly opposite Blake’s natal moon. A second pass because transiting Saturn has been in Pisces since early 2023 and has opposed all of Blake’s many Virgo planets. So she’s been in a challenging Saturn period since then. Oppositions can feel like others are opposing one. And that all of one’s difficulties are someone else’s fault. But this is a weak and unhelpful reaction. What helps with oppositions is to see the other as a projection, a mirror; and then fix what needs to be fixed like a grown-up.

The moon is a very sensitive point in the chart ruling as it does the feelings. It’s very likely that she is extraordinarily hurt by the bad press and feeling quite alone. Plus with a natal Saturn square Moon, the transiting Saturn is creating a tsquare that is putting a lot of pressure on Blake to do something. This influence is active till mid-January 2025 and I hope Blake takes the higher road and takes responsibility for her actions. It’s a good time to address her that Pluto with its hidden agendas and come clean about her motives and thoughts behind her various actions over the years that are being highlighted now. It’s good practise for 2027 when transiting Pluto squares itself in her chart and words, meanings and hidden agendas become a big deal.

Secondary Progressions

The Saturn theme is repeated in her progressed chart: her progressed ascendant and progressed descendant are squaring her progressed Saturn. Saturnian events in her domestic life are putting pressure on how she presents herself to the world and on her closest relationships. The theme is of having to grow up, taking on responsibility for one’s home and private space.

Even with the Virgo stellium just the transiting Saturn opposition is not enough to explain the magnitude and relentlessness of the bad press. But then we see her progressed sun is quincunx her MC and her Jupiter. The quincunx talks about moving into a new situation. It’s about change, releasing, letting go, separation. Bernadette Brady says, “From changing an opinion to breaking a relationship, the quincunx wants to move you into a new situation whether you are ready or not. Sometimes it is very stressful. At other times it maybe very joyful.” How I see it: her evolving personality is causing a change in her career and popularity.

Something Helpful

There is a lot more I could write. It’s a remarkable chart and very active right now. But I want to end this post by exploring how Blake can best use what has happened. Let’s start with the moon. Her Moon in Virgo is the ruler of her 12 house. Perhaps this pressure has made her hide and understandably so. But there is much richness in the twelfth house. It is the house of self-undoing, hidden enemies, jails, hospitals and falling apart. But here we fall apart and then surrender to a higher power. The twelfth house is also the house of divine grace and although it is always ready at hand, it’s only when we’re at our lowest do we seek it out. Let’s hope that in her temporary retreat Blake finds that both her humanity and her divinity connect her to all there is and she redeems herself in her own eyes.