Sadly, Jimi Hendrix, as with Janis Joplin, did not live long enough to figure out how to resolve his personal issues and conflicts so as to be able to understand and rise above his own patterns of self-undoing. He was able to create and demonstrate his unique musical talents. He was unique in his lyrics and style, both with his music and with clothes. Widely recognized as one of the most creative and influential musicians of the 20th century, he pioneered the explosive possibilities of the electric guitar. Hendrix’s innovative style of combining fuzz, feedback and controlled distortion created a new musical form. Because he was unable to read music, it is nothing short of remarkable that his meteoric rise in music took place in just four short years.

 

The Inner and Outer Chart have clarity and coherence. They are very similar. They are both dominated by the Cradle Figure and all planets are part of, or link into, that figure. The charts are dominated by blue aspects with the energy and tension well defined in the oppositions. His life was full of talent and personal tension. The Cradle fills the upper hemisphere. The focus was on career, fulfilling paths to individuality. The outer world was where the energy as focused; this was where the enjoyment and comfort of using his talents and resources was based. The question was whether he could find access to cultural roots personally, as well as professionally.

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The Sun Stellium is in Sagittarius opposite Uranus/Saturn in Gemini. This grouping of planets is not only the oppositional theme of the Cradle Figure; it is the primary theme of the chart. Combined with its linkage to the Moon, all three ego planets are part of the structure. The theme and topic of the opposition center around the mentally and physically expressive signs of Sagittarius and Gemini on the 6th/12th Existence Axis. The Sun Stellium in Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, the chart ruler, exalted in Cancer. Jupiter is conjunct to and ruled by the Moon in Cancer. The Moon is comfortably placed in its domicile and is the chart final dispositor. The Sun Stellium is trine to the Moon/Jupiter conjunction. Internally Hendrix had a positive interworking of his creative life force and his emotional sense of himself. He was a very creative and skillful person who could envision and construct beautifully aesthetic music that was both technically complex and emotionally resonant. That music described his mental, emotional and physical sense of self in its creative manifestation. He also had an emotional structure that was highly sensitized, wanting to love himself, wanting to emotionally express himself. This person was strongly impacted by no roots, no connection to family, and resistance to finding expression of his personal needs in his external world environment. There is one green semi-sextile in the Inner Chart that creates a learning triangle for the Sun Stellium and Moon/Jupiter with his North Node that might have helped create a path to the future if given the time needed to learn the personal lessons needed through experience. It was clockwise in rotation, so the process would have taken time and needed the experiences of utilizing resources and linkage to relationship with others to develop what needed to be learned. Primarily his energy oscillated between the on and off ambivalence of red and blue energy.

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Mars in Scorpio is unaspected in both Inner and Outer Charts. It was a powerhouse when being used positively but explosive when untamed negatively. There can be a raw, intense, focused drive and passion that operates independently, often as a powerful, untamed force. It shows up as extreme focus, deep emotional intensity, but it can feel disconnected from the rest of the personality until consciously integrated. The empty lower hemisphere suggests the possibility of blockage, the inability to link to nuclear or collective family.  Mars ruled his 4th house, and being unaspected added an additional symbol of lack of connection to family and cultural roots.

 

Internally, the blending of Saturn/Uranus with the Sun Stellium offers a lot of potential to find structure for unique creative intelligence and expression. Finding and expressing this potential was available with the flow of talent and positive interaction offered by the sextiles and trines to the opposition from Neptune and Moon/Jupiter. That creative expression took the form of music. He used the Venus focus on talent and love of artistic form. His hands were blessed, and his mind and conscious essence were positively linked to emotionally enhanced senses. It was easy for him to envision and enact his own music with a Cancer Moon amplified by the strong Jupiter.  Neptune offered sensitivity and heightened perception to his creative expression. He enjoyed being able to express the imagination and even find the glamor potential that was available with Neptune. On a personal level, the deep insecurities, his lack of connection to cultural or family roots, along with compounding pressures from fame, legal issues and exhaustion, all emotionally amplified by that unaspected Mars, ultimately hindered his ability to form stable relationships and led to struggles with drugs and alcohol as coping mechanisms in adulthood. Resolution of tensions with the 6th/12th house Existence Axis requires that one become comfortable in their body and physical existence, able to take control of their personal life and their emotions. But one also has to be able to be comfortable, and to accept, whatever the problems might be in your personal environment when confronting your Self in that private inner world. One needs to be comfortable with their connection to the Collective.

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Jimi Hendrix's personal life was marked by a difficult, unstable childhood with alcoholic parents and early loss of his mother. He grew up with frequent moves, poverty, frequent parental conflict leading to foster care for siblings. He also dealt with racial issues both personally and with his music. As mentioned in an interview with biographer Charles R. Cross on KUOW radio on 2/12/2018: “In America he had a hard time breaking through. Race was such a divisive subject in America at that point that Hendrix – who was playing rock music, which was considered white music –was not necessarily accepted by people who liked soul music. There was this divide. And Hendrix was forever tormented by that. He felt that his music was too black to get on many white stations and too white to get on any black stations. No African-American stations ever played any of Jimi Hendrix’ songs in America in that time. So, Jimi goes to Europe in 1966 and suddenly is a star almost immediately. Literally, within three days of getting to London, he was playing with Eric Clapton. It’s really truly extraordinary. There has never in the history of the world been a performer who went from nobody to superstar as fast as Jimi Hendrix.”

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Internally Hendrix had a combination of energies that worked well for the evolution of music as the central expression of those energies. That same wiring was not able to overcome the environmental impacts that so strongly affected his personal life. In the external world of the Outer Chart, the Sun Stellium is in the 12th house, where those negative life experiences found a response of personal isolation and escape. Those experiences were amplified by Mars, and the very emotional Moon/Jupiter in the 8th house feeling no support from others. Saturn conjunct Uranus in Gemini in the 6th house described his unique musical structure and style, which was the central focus of his work. He used the unique Saturn discipline to teach himself how to play a guitar. This 6th house Saturn/Uranus also speaks to stress that came with trying to satisfy Saturn’s demands as a performer. This created the physical exhaustion and stress, with negative results. The Uranus speaks to his flamboyant public persona in the workplace. Neptune in the 9th house helped him to learn how to turn his imaginative images into workable forms.

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The placement of the Cradle in the Upper Hemisphere, with all that talent available, was able to work comfortably when focused on his career objectives and fulfilling his role in building his individuality and recognition through his music. The stage also offered outlets for that unpredictable Mars, although there were times when that Mars would erupt. He burned and smashed his guitar at the Monterey International Pop Festival, calling it an act of “sacrifice”. Later performances, such as at the Atlanta International Pop Festival in 1970, were described as "transcendent displays of raw energy," where his playing itself was the eruption, channeling the turbulence of the era. 

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When he needed to find himself, to exit to his personal world, he was unable to find a world that created comfort or enjoyment for himself. As is always a possibility with the Cradle in the upper hemisphere, especially with no access points to the empty hemisphere, he was not grounded and had no roots The personal demons, symbolized by a 12th house placement of his core identity, which can overtake conscious reality, were exasperated by the Mars and the overly emotional Moon/Jupiter. He had nowhere to turn to link himself to anyone. This led to the desire to escape into drugs and alcohol.

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He had a brother who he was close to, but their relationship was complicated. Leon had substance abuse issues, and actually heard about Jimi’s death on the radio while in prison. On the personal level of existence, therefore, it seems that the overly emotional Moon would succumb to the Mars ruled 4th house’s unresolved anger and disappointment, the lack of connection to any roots or family history. In this case Neptune only inflamed the sense of negative self-images when drugs were involved.