A Sad Lesson on Metaphysics

Boy is it hard to write and cry at the same time. My first love, Dolly Parton, died today at the age of 80 and, oh my God, what a life. What an absolutely phenomenal human being. As a child, Dolly’s song 9 to 5 was probably the first one I ever heard, very likely on the Donald Duck special Down and Out with Donald Duck, released in 1987 (when I was 6 or 7 years old) it was a mockumentary of a 60-Minutes style exposé on the cartoon character featuring a pop soundtrack (it’s not available anywhere online except in snippets). I first saw Dolly’s film, 9 to 5, as a young man and was inspired by the strong feminist theme and frivolity which helped bring some light into my otherwise melancholy world of depression and despair. Dolly was magical in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, one of the best musicals ever made (the locker room scene was quite the awakening). My first introduction to I Will Always Love You was Whitney Houston’s version on The Bodyguard soundtrack, but I later learned it was written by and performed first by Dolly, and was a tribute to her former business partner who had helped introduce her to the world but whom was also controlling and abusive which forced her to eventually end things with him.

As a young gay man who grew up in an abusive, patriarchal society with no male role models to inspire or protect me, it was always strong women like Dolly Parton outside of that insular and hateful world who gave me hope and showed me how to live. Being strong does not mean being perfect or powerful, but is instead the act of looking out for those who are oppressed or hurting and using our gifts and power to help others, which Dolly did in spades, and she never hesitated to come to the defense of LGBTQ+ people at a time when there was an abundance of hate.

But nobody can live forever, and our time here on Earth is set before we are even born, and the point of life is to live, not to pass any test or meet any litmus but to learn and grow from experience and do the best that we can in the short time we are given. As I discuss in both TPC and ULG, everyone on Earth is actually doing their best, even when that best is quite terrible, as it is human nature to try and succeed with the limited tools that we have. Some of us are lucky to have greater opportunity and better tools, and Dolly was indeed a talented individual who was able to rise up to a position of prominence and leadership and leave behind a world better than it was when she began.

Death is not something that astrology can currently predict, mostly because astrologers have refused to discover what transits are associated with death because the nature of humans to be obsessive and fearful would lead to unhelpful preoccupation. The obsession with death and mortality by influencers, rich people, and the religious demonstrates the harm that might occur from trying to use astrology for that purpose. But I believe that all real knowledge is ultimately helpful, and the way most astrology is used for entertainment, clicks, profit, and control is not actual knowledge and which continues to undermine its legitimacy in the same way that hateful, bigoted religionists undermine the validity of religious practice. Real knowledge of how the Universe works, which could include knowing the time and nature of our own death with accurate astrology, can instead bring wisdom and reverence for our mortal position.

‍Astrologers sometimes associate death with the 8th house due to a misunderstanding of the nature of the 8th house as too broadly characterized with taboo, death, sex, and shared resources. But the 8th house (as discussed in Under A Libra God) is simply the house of power and control as all of the themes affected by the 8th house like sex, taboo, shared finances, etc., are instances in which power and control dynamics occur. Scorpio is the sign of power and control, ruled by Pluto, and Scorpios are often intense (intense does not mean bad), because they are the very embodiment of this Universal principle. An Ascendant in Scorpio correlates with a traumatic life experience like what occurred to me which alters the course and direction of life afterward in demonstration of the dynamics of control and power and their consequences. This occurs to those with an Ascendant in Scorpio because of control behaviors which eventually force a realization of their futility and result in submission to the laws of reality and the relenting of control, as no human has any real control in life, only the desire for it.

This power of the 8th house does embody the dynamic of death as a metaphorical concept, as death of the ego, death of control behaviors, or death of ideology and our surrender to the powers that actually govern existence. But transits to the 8th house only sometimes correlate with actual physical death. When they do it is as a result of control behaviors attempting to control things like biology or people that we very well cannot (I’ve seen some murders occur by or to people with 8th house transits as a result of such control behaviors).

But the nature of death is largely biological, not ideological, and the realm of the 8th house does not govern the function of biology so most natural deaths involve the 6th house which is commonly associated with work and health. The 6th house is Virgo which is opposite Pisces which rules spirituality and delusion, and the opposite of spirituality and delusion is mortality and reality. As also discussed in ULG, the 6th house rules our daily labors as required of life, which is why it also includes such seemingly disparate subjects as work and health and caring for pets since these are all obligations we must meet daily. Most deaths thus occur during some transit to the 6th house as has just occurred to Dolly, being a Capricorn they currently have Uranus, the planet of surprise and unpredictability, transiting their 6th zodiac house. This should not be mistaken to mean that all 6th house transits result in death, that would be absurd, but instead correlates with problems with our daily labors which include things like eating regularly and eating healthy, going to bed on time, taking medicine and treating health problems as required, etc., and so can then be associated with death when other factors such as age and health are already also perilous. Sagittarius had this transit with Uranus previous to Capricorn, and a friend of mine who is Sagittarius had some surprise stomach discomfort come out of nowhere and was then able to resolve it (with my help), and was not at risk of dying. Uranus is also the planet of friendship, so our experiences with Uranus, like my friend, often also include friends, often in the form of help or assistance, and it is more likely that Capricorns throughout this period experience surprise health problems which come out of nowhere but are eventually resolved, sometimes with the help or assistance of friends.

Deaths are also sometimes associated with 2nd house transits because the 2nd house rules resources, not only money as it is typically associated, and energy and life force are also important resources. 2nd house transits are sometimes a factor in deaths because difficult transits to the 2nd house follow difficult transits to the 1st house of the self during which we risk forming unhelpful habits and behaviors such as trying to force the body to literally do what we desire, such as dieting behaviors or plastic surgery, which then lead to consequences in the following transit through the 2nd house in which we find ourselves lacking energy and health required to literally live. Capricorns unfortunately currently have Pluto, the planet of control and power, moving through their 2nd house after a 1st house transit. Val Kilmer was another Capricorn whom, like Dolly, died during this transit last year. It also occurred to beloved Jim Henson way back in 1990. Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, had Uranus transiting his 2nd house but interestingly also had Pluto in his natal 6th zodiac house, describing his general, infamous control behavior concerning work and health which helped propel him to material success but also became his undoing, and Steve also had Saturn transiting his 8th zodiac house at the time of his death which described the control behaviors he tried to assert over his own mortality.

Beloved actor Matthew Perry was known to struggle with addiction, and died from overdose complications in 2023 also with Pluto transiting his 6th zodiac house (and Saturn transiting his 8th). All Leos at this time struggled with desires for control over their work and health as Virgos have now after Pluto changed signs, and many of the deaths which occur over the next 18 years will be Virgos which similarly have difficulty letting go of desires to control mortality and doing daily what is required to be healthy (especially since many people do not even know what that means. My friend from High School with stage 3 HER2 positive breast cancer whom I saved after being diagnosed in 2024 is a Virgo, and when I lectured her for 4-5 hours on the biology of cancer I also lectured on the peril of currently being a Virgo with Pluto transiting this house, as the control desire would be to resume living as easy and carefree as we have in our youth after the resolution of cancer, which is a profound mistake and even after getting well cannot, without dire consequences, cease the daily requirements for sunshine, tannins, calories, vitamin C, vitamin E, keeping blood sugar elevated, etc. Libras just had Neptune end its long transit of our 6th house from 2011-2025 which described and bookended my similar struggle with health issues, Neptune being the planet of spirituality caused this struggle to culminate in spiritual knowledge and experience, but it is also the planet of the unknown and secrets, so I did not discover until about a decade into the transit that all my health problems had been rooted in undiagnosed cystic fibrosis. The wonderful actress Michelle Trachtenberg, also a Libra, died last year at the very end of this transit from undiagnosed diabetes, and Scorpios now have this transit and will need to find the solution to their mysterious or chronic health problems in their daily routine. So it is easy to see how astrology describes and correlates with the nature and timing of our death but is not necessarily useful to predict it. For those with such transits it is always possible to die during them, but it is far more likely that we simply experience health problems or other struggles as is part of our unique fate and experience.

Of all the billions of humans and trillions of other organisms which have lived on this Earth not a single one of them as cheated death, and in spite of this reality we all hope and think that death will not come for us as well. This is a silly function of the human evolutionary survival ego in which our biological programming tries to motivate us with fear to live and reproduce, that our species may continue. But it is unhelpful to be afraid of death, and fear only comes from an absence of knowledge which can and should be earned through reading and the practice of inventory therapy. The only thing we should be afraid of is wasting our life, and instead focus on showing up for opportunity and doing our best as did Dolly Parton. Most of us never contemplate death unless the subject is forced on us by circumstances, such as the death of a loved one or our own deteriorating physical health, and coming to terms with death only when its spectre is imminent produces profound fear and anxiety. But if we take the time to converse with mortality such as by inventorying a fear of death, disease, loss, pain, punishment, the unknown, the afterlife, God, religion, spirituality, mortality, etc., we can find enlightenment before our time is up and therefore know peace and wisdom instead. If you would like more wisdom and learn how to practically use astrology you can read my related articles, Fate and Action or you can read about how Pluto’s transit currently affects your sign, or Neptune’s transit, Uranu transit, Saturn transit, and Jupiter’s transit (these are all on the front page of the Spirituality section.