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rince was a Gemini, born in the ‘Twin Cities’, Minneapolis, MN. Raised in the Seventh-Day Adventist faith, his father was a harsh authoritarian religious man by day, a jazz pianist by night. Prince inherited his father’s musical talent and determination, channelling youth trauma into healing music as he transformed from child prodigy to internationally recognised musical genius.

Fluid and shape-shifting, Prince embodied mutability throughout his polymorphous career. His talent as a multi-instrumentalist was noted as a teen when he was compared to James Brown and Stevie Wonder. On stage he wore bold, vibrant-coloured outfits, successfully sidestepping any categorisation of his music, which encompassed genres of funk, soul, jazz, punk, rock, pop and R&B. He was androgynous and undefinable. In 1993 he changed his name to a symbol, leaving the media scrambling as to how to address his declaration of divine, unspeakable multiplicity. His vocal range was marked by versatility, extending from deep tones into falsetto octaves. With his Gemini Sun partile the 8th house cusp, Prince never shied away from exploring and exploiting taboo topics. He blurred the lines between morality and pleasure, sex and spirituality, and channelled it all through his music with a depth of raw emotional vulnerability.

Epileptic from birth, his religious upbringing meant he quickly grasped the nature of duality and the dehumanising effect of labels – his condition was said to be either gifted by God or possessed by the Devil, depending on how it presented. At age 7, he told his mother that he would no longer be sick because an angel had visited and told him so. He sings about it in his song, The Sacrifice of Victor, released in 1992. This connection with the Divine stayed with him throughout his life and greatly influenced his music.

Prince had an 8th-house Gemini Sun in his horoscope closely aligned to the fixed star Rigel (16°c14), the ‘Knee of Orion’, of which Ebertin-Hoffmann report:

This Sun-Rigel combination is mutually applying by opposition to retrograde Saturn. This is both promising and difficult. Saturn is strong in power as it passes through the acronycal phase and transforms from morning to evening rise, creating delicate terrain that heightens fear and responsibility and renders self-consciousness. Consider Saturn’s rulership of his 3rd and 4th houses: Prince grew up in an abusive home, an African American in substantially white, conservative Minneapolis. He utilised the tension within this Sun-Saturn dynamic and the promise infused by Rigel to catapult himself from unsuspecting roots into the stratosphere of superstardom – not without the blessing of his name-sake Regulus (29°e15) on his Sun-ruled Leo MC!

According to his audio engineer, turning 30 was a psychologically challenging time for Prince. By 1987, his group, The Revolution, had disbanded, and a major personal relationship ended. Culturally, hip-hop was emerging from an underground scene into the mainstream, changing the pop-music landscape of the 80s that Prince had shaped, along with Madonna and Michael Jackson. His Solar Return that year reactivated his natal Sun-Saturn opposition as Saturn moved through its first Return conjoined by Uranus – he again funnelled the pressure of the time into creating his album Sign of the Times. Released March 30th, 1987, as Saturn stationed retrograde within a degree of his natal Saturn, critics realised that his previous success with albums 1999 and Purple Rain was no fluke, but in fact, his introduction to the mainstream as a musical genius. He marked his Saturn Return with yet another masterpiece.

With Mars in domicile ruling his Scorpio ascendant, and Pluto crowning the chart on the Regulus-MC, Prince was a pocket rocket, packing an immensely powerful presence into a compact 5' 3" frame. True to Geminian duality, he was both magnetic and persuasive, as well as forceful, with a need to control. Sinead O’Connor, who memorialised his song Nothing Compares 2U in 1990, reports that when she disagreed with him, he became physically violent, forcing her to escape by running onto a highway. After changing his name to a symbol, he made his battle with Warner Brothers public by writing the word ‘slave’ on his face. It was a powerful statement as an African American man seeking rights to his creativity; it carries the signature of his natal Venus, which rules the 7th house of contracts and is strong in impulse in its domicile but suffering weak expression from its subordinate placement in the 6th.

Prince’s powerfully angular Moon sways low in his chart. It bestows flow, ease and adaptability, making him a versatile artist, but also a moody friend. Its rulership of the 9th house of religion and spirituality underpinned everything he did and saturated his lyrics, ethics and personal philosophy. By his 40s, he became a Jehovah’s Witness, door-knocking with their Watchtower magazine in his hometown, and removing backup dancers from his shows. This sensitive Moon on the IC opposing Pluto on the MC made him dynamic and colourful on stage, yet extremely quiet and private, requiring his Paisley Park home to feel womb-like, so he could ‘create alone’.

Known for dreaming songs into existence, Neptune’s opposition to Venus from the 12th house gifted Prince his artistic genius. With his wide-ranging, all-encompassing vision, he capitalised on the power of the new artistic medium in the 1980s: music videos. As Pluto ravaged its way through Scorpio and changed collective and cultural perceptions of sex, passion and intimacy, Prince created music and imagery that unabashedly celebrated the naturalness of love and all it made one do and feel. The religiosity of his music invited his listeners into a space of personal liberation and salvation beyond the heteronormative limits imposed on gender, sexuality, and power dynamics.

Uncompromisingly unique, this Neptune-Venus opposition ropes in Uranus in Leo from the 9th house, as the apex of a fixed T-square. Adding further layers to his creative output, this dynamic combination fuelled his bands (The Revolution and The New Power Generation) to be bold, rebellious, and eclectic. His edgy and energetic guitar riffs revolutionised the charts and created a new musical trajectory. Further breaking the rules, he also utilised silence in his music, building suspense and intensity with space, where mainstream music seeks to fill every moment.

Understanding that creativity was a natural expression, and not something to be manufactured, Prince often kept the first take of a recording, regardless of its flaws. This went completely against the record industry’s cookie-cutter approach of recording take after take and splicing it all together to make a homogenised sound. Prince’s music holds the rawness of creative genius and serves as a reminder of the magic inherent in what can be perceived morally and professionally as imperfection.

With Mercury, Venus and Mars all dignified in domicile, Prince experienced a constant stream of creative energy, writing innumerable songs for other artists and being linked romantically with numerous women. He fathered only one child, with his first wife, Mayte Garcia, in October 1996. Saturn crossed his natal Mars on the 5th house cusp at the time, and his dreams turned to tragedy as his son, Amiir, died a week after birth. The couple’s second attempt at a family resulted in miscarriage and the subsequent dissolution of their relationship. Prince married a second time to Manuela Testolini in 2001, divorcing in 2006.

In the weeks leading up to Prince’s death, Mars, ruler of his 6th house, was stationing retrograde in Sagittarius, opposing Mercury, the ruler of his 8th. He had cancelled shows and checked out of hospital after becoming unresponsive on April 15th. Approaching his second Saturn return, his natal configuration of Sun-Rigel opposing Saturn was activated again. This time, the devitalising force was enough to end his life after 57 full years. He was found dead in an elevator on the morning of April 21st, 2016, encapsulating his life in death as always being transitory, on the move to somewhere else. His cause of death was determined to be an accidental fentanyl overdose found in counterfeit prescription painkillers.

One of the best-selling artists of all time, Prince leaves us with 39 albums created over 37 years. His seven Grammy’s, innumerable awards and inductions into multiple halls of fame allow him to continue to inspire artists and influence music today. The fullness of his art still takes the listener on a journey through the timelessness of love, divinity and the excitement of creative energy in action.