Amid rumors, speculation, and even uncertainty among the participants themselves, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Aniston find themselves in the middle of one of the most celebrated purported love triangles that may or may not even have any basis for being. In a case where the tabloid industry—the institution notorious for producing libel and fictions—meets celebrities that have mastered evading the press, no one knows for sure the difference between rumor and fiction in this case. Although Jolie, Aniston, and Pitt would probably not found be in the same room together, one thing that unites them is their consistent denial about tabloid rumors. On a deeper level, the threesome is connected through current astrological factors. All three celebrities are currently undergoing significant transits from the outer planets to their natal Sun positions. Heralded as the gods of change and the significations of turning points in our lives, the outer planets to major points in our birth chart typically mark the most profound transformations, crises, and turning points in our life’s biography. Using astrology as our tool for illumination, we can uncover major themes in these celebrities’ biographies.

Brad Pitt: Transiting Pluto conjunct Sun

Brad Pitt is currently undergoing a major transit from Pluto across the position of his natal Sun in Sagittarius.(1) Due to Pluto’s extremely slow crawl around the Sun, Pluto transits to our natal Sun are a rare but prolonged affair. In fact, most of us will only incur one—possibly two—major transits from Pluto to one’s natal Sun in a lifetime. If one assumes that something analogous to a divine mind has created the order of the cosmos, then it seems somehow accurate that major Pluto transits occur with limited frequency, for Pluto transits symbolize the most intense points of evolution and transformation in our lives.

In order to understand how Pluto functions, perhaps we can look to two of the most celebrated breakups in recent years: the Pitt-Aniston split and the Cruise-Kidman divorce. With Kidman’s Moon in mid-Sagittarius and Aniston’s Moon in later degrees of the same sign, both women received Pluto transits to their Moon position at approximately the point when their breakups occurred.(2) Interestingly, friends of Kidman and Aniston used the word “devastated” to describe the condition of the women immediately following their respective breakups. Devastation—or any close synonym of this word of which we can dream up—is a condition that happens in our personal lives (hopefully) only once or twice in a lifetime. To be devastated implies a state of near destruction, cataclysm, or annihilation, and it is through this process that we can enter the terrain of one of Pluto’s features—to eliminate and purge with extreme force that which no longer serves us. We can call Pluto a force that may resemble fate, but when a major transit from Pluto is observed, often events conspire that devastate our previous evolutionary condition and catapult us into a new evolutionary state. Our waking consciousness has very little input or say about this process—and this is often why Plutonian processes are indeed felt to be painful. Although speculative, it may be assumed that Pluto transits are merely the timing mechanism which indicates conditions that the soul has created to push us—often kicking and screaming—into a new evolutionary state altogether.

However, this annihilating, destroying action affiliated with Pluto is merely one facet of a very complex planetary symbol. Pluto also represents the flames of passion, the fires of sexuality, creativity, and the instinct to survive and live. So, united with its destructive functions, Pluto symbolizes both extremes of life and death, of creation and destruction, of passion and the complete lack thereof. The type of passion and intensity that Pluto represents is often considered taboo and kept out of the plain sight of day-to-day. Scorpio, the sign that Pluto is said to rule, is often associated with secretiveness, where the real personality is kept underground, and where it may have more control, power, and protection. Pitt’s purported relationship with Jolie exhibits the Plutonian fondness for “behind-closed-doors” secretiveness. Contrasted to the celebratory, out-in-the-open relationship of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, the Pitt-Jolie relationship is a veritable study in secretiveness—the hidden dimension with which Pluto is so often correlated.

Perhaps the most obvious sign of Pitt’s transformation during his Pluto-Sun transit is his purported newfound choice of partner, Jolie. Arguably perhaps more than any other female celebrity, Jolie carries the Plutonian dimension for the collective. In the late twentieth century, perhaps Madonna was the one woman to hold this archetype for the times and now the torch appears to be passed to Jolie. Erotic, dark, seductive, and empowered, Jolie is, in a sense, the antithesis of congenial bourgeois domesticity. Jolie’s and Aniston’s celebrity personas present a marked study in contrasts. Aniston’s charming, light, all-American cuteness is the flipside of Jolie’s darkly seductive siren. The nature of Pitt’s and Jolie’s relationship is certainly yet to be determined; however, as Pitt is undergoing a Plutonian process, it does fit the course of his life that he is linked with the one woman that embodies this symbol more than any other female celebrity.

As Pitt’s Plutonian journey to the underworld is just in the beginning phases, the transformative nature of his Pluto transit will certainly bear more rich, soulful territory in time. As a complex psychological territory that is both contradictory and hard to put into words, a Pluto transit to the Sun is often difficult to describe. However, from the point of view of the soul, the process changes one’s personality and ego to the core. Perhaps as the transit continues over the course of the next two years, Pitt’s biography will unfold more clues as to the nature of this highly transformative process.

Jennifer Aniston:
Transiting Neptune conjunct Sun

The first decade of the twenty-first century represents an extraordinarily revolutionary time for Aniston as the actress is undergoing major transits from Neptune and Pluto to her Sun and Moon, respectively. At the end of this decade, the perky and quirky Aniston who entertained millions on Friends will be a distant memory to the actress who played the part. Although a transit from Pluto to her Moon correlated with her current divorce from Brad Pitt, Aniston is currently entering a transit of Neptune to her Sun. In a similar way to Pluto, transiting Neptune moves so slowly that we undergo a major transit from Neptune to the Sun only once or twice in a lifetime. Also similar to Pluto, Neptune’s transiting force represents transpersonal energies that are beyond the scope and control of the ego’s powers. However, beyond these similarities, Pluto and Neptune are nearly diametrically opposed energies. While Pluto may radically empower our sense of effectiveness in the world, Neptune almost invariably immobilizes or incapacitates our sense of ego in the world. For a time that can last up to three years in some cases, major Neptune transits to the Sun can subordinate the accomplishments of our own identity so that we attune to something much greater than ourselves: the cosmic, the otherworldly, the metaphysical, or the spiritual.

During a significant transit of Neptune to the Sun, our daily, mundane tasks may appear to be petty or insignificant relative to some higher or greater purpose. Throughout Neptune transits to the Sun, we may loose, or at least question, our concern with “becoming” somebody and be more attuned to dropping our sense of attachments to striving and accomplishments. Therefore, it is not uncommon for individuals to turn to religion or spirituality during Neptune-Sun transits, for the greater orientation and perspective that religions afford harmonize well with the energies of a Neptunian transformation. Although she denies the rumors, Aniston, according to reports, has recently turned to Buddhism to assist her in her time of personal transformation. The iconography, messages, and doctrines of Eastern religion carry the archetypal Neptune, and it is often during significant Neptunian periods that individuals from Western cultures become interested in Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen, or any other form of Eastern spirituality.

Disorienting and yet inspirational, confusing and yet cleansing, a transiting conjunction from Neptune to the Sun can be a time when worldly concerns seem so inconsequential that we may take a temporary reprieve from our responsibilities so that we may tune into something far greater, cosmic, and wondrous than our daily lives. For individuals like Aniston who are in a creative profession, a transit from Neptune to the Sun can give one access to an extraordinary wealth of inspiration and imagination. Thus, while the Neptune transit may seem to keep her will in check, Aniston may bring more creativity than ever for her roles. The Neptunian dimension helps one to access the mythic, timeless, and larger-than-life facets of being, which is precisely why one goes to the movies in the first place. Often Neptune transits for actors and other artists can represent peak times in career, for the ability to access the creative imagination is far greater at these points than more prosaic, “earthly” points in one’s biography.

Angelina Jolie:
Transiting Uranus square Sun

Unlike Neptune and Pluto with their far reaching orbits, Uranus’s major transits to the Sun happen with greater frequency in any individual’s life biography. Because Uranus steadily orbits the Sun at a pace of eighty-four years, most of us receive the quadrature transits (the opposition, square, and conjunction) from Uranus to the Sun approximately four or five times in a lifetime. Lasting for up to two years, these Uranus transits to the Sun represent the most exciting, thrilling, creative times, on the one hand, and the most bizarre, destabilizing, and turbulent. As Jolie is receiving the square, or ninety degree, transit, the nature of the angular relationship emphasizes the “out-of-leftfield” quality often associated with Uranus transits in general. Uranus transits almost invariably bring in the sense of unpredictable change into our lives; the square transit, with its decentering affiliations, merely compounds this energy of Uranus.

For Jolie, a Uranus square transit to the Sun can feel not unlike a year or two rollercoaster ride in which the pace and rapidity of events happen so quickly that one has to simply go along with the chaos and allow what happens to happen. When asked how she was coping recently, Jolie said, “It’s a little crazy.” (3) Craziness is certainly one of Uranus’s main signatures. If we liken our lives to be not unlike our own personal film, then Uranus segments of this film may have very rapid editing, jump cuts, bizarre and experimental camera angles, and general weirdness; the Uranus segments of our lives certainly stand apart. We will never accuse our lives of being boring during Uranus transits; quite the contrary, we may pine for times in which our lives had a greater degree of steadfastness and groundedness.

Beyond craziness, Uranus transits also encourage us to become unique individuals, to detach from the scripts handed down to us from parents, and to free our selves from conformity. Although this time period may seem a bit crazy-making for Jolie, it may actually be quite refreshing, for Jolie is just exiting the demanding, labor-intensive maturational period of the Saturn Return. Uranus’s colorful, energizing, and thrilling energy may revitalize Jolie in ways which are entirely unexpected for the actress.

Although Uranus transits typically are not associated with the extremes and profundity of Neptune and Pluto transits, the danger of Uranus transits is to simply burn too many bridges too quickly, to abandon one’s past, and to defy social rules and conformity with a trickster-like nonchalance. If one gets swept up in Uranus’s crazy-making chaos, one can get carried away in rebelling and defying social or self-imposed structures. For Jolie to navigate this period successfully, it may be well-advised for her to take risks, to be experimental, and to ride the dynamic chaos of the period but to also remain grounded, focused, and stable in the process.

Conclusion:

By chance or by fate, these three actors’ lives have all intertwined a time in which they are experiencing extraordinary evolutionary possibilities. Transits from the outer three planets to our natal Suns often bring in the dramas, changes, crises, and turning points in our lives. By studying these celebrities’ lives over the next few years, one may catch a glimpse of how astrological archetypes assist and pattern the course of one’s life.

Birth Information:

Brad Pitt
December 18 1963
6:31 AM
Shawnee, OK
Source: AstroDataBank

Jennifer Aniston
February 11 1969
Sherman Oaks, CA
Natural Noon
Source: Internet Movie Database

Angelina Jolie
June 4 1975
Los Angeles, CA
Natural Noon
Source: Internet Movie Database

Notes:

(1) For the purposes of this article, “major” transits are defined as the quadrature aspects: the conjunction, opposition, and the square.

(2) Although we only have the natural noon chart of these individuals, we can know the Moon’s position +/- 6 degrees from the position of the Moon at noon on one’s birth day. In both Kidman’s and Aniston’s case, the natural noon Moon position (+/- degrees) is placed in orb of both individuals receiving a major Pluto transit to their Moon. Pluto-Moon transits are often correlated with intense relational dynamics, sometimes involving secrecy, betrayal, love triangulation, and extremely difficult emotions.

As interesting, Pitt and Aniston have a Sun-Moon conjunction by synastry. Noticing Pluto’s transit to this Sun-Moon position in their birth charts, astrologer David Pond presciently stated, “Watch for fateful events to emerge in there lives in 2005 with Pluto going across their Sagittarius conjunction.”
(August, 9th, 2004, http://www.llewellynjournal.com/article/663)

(3) People Magazine. June 20, 2005, p. 64.