ASTROLOGY ARTICLES BY JON

STEVIE NICKS AND LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM: SOUL MATES?

I'm a big fan of Fleetwood Mac, and as a musician myself, I have always been interested in their story — in particular, the relationship between the two band members Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. I'll take a look at their relationship from an astrological point of view in this article.

Stevie Nicks was born on May 26, 1948 (3:02 am) in Phoenix, Arizona, but would move often throughout her childhood. She said, as a kid, she loved fairy tales, and that her grandfather, a frustrated country and western musician, taught her to sing. She got her first guitar at 16 and started writing songs right away.

With that little bit of information, let's now look at Stevie's birth chart. Stevie's Sun is in Gemini in the second house. The Sun in Gemini loves to listen to and tell stories, loves to share all that it learns. The second house deals with self worth, so she developed her singing and writing skills to compensate, to feel worthy. Uranus conjunct Mercury in the third house in Gemini suggests a lot of disruptive changes in the early environment, and we can see from her bio she moved a lot. This also gives a highly original and progressive mind with a personality that enjoys shocking others. In my opinion Stevie Nicks is an awesome songwriter.

Stevie has Aries rising along with Sun square Mars (ruler of Aries). She's a warrior, I'm sure this drove her to success and helped her overcome many obstacles, but it also quite possibly got her into a bit of trouble. Her Mars is in the fifth house of creativity, so her music provided her with an outlet for this energy.

Her Moon is in Capricorn in the tenth house so she finds security in her career. She probably also acts in a motherly (Moon) fashion towards her bandmates. This also suggest that her mom was a major influence on her and her career. This elevated Moon gives her great ambition.

Stevie makes one final move with her family in 1965 from Los Angeles to Atherton, California. One Wednesday evening (circa 1965), she attends a gathering and sees a young man sitting on the floor playing the guitar and singing "California Dreaming" by The Mamas and the Papas.

Lindsey Buckingham was born on October 3, 1949 (1:53 am) in Palo Alto, California, the youngest of 3 children. His brother Greg won an Olympic silver medal in swimming in 1968. He started playing guitar at a young age and developed a unique finger-picking style along the lines of folk and bluegrass, but he rocks out also. (He has had a major influence on my own playing.) He idolized Brian Wilson and the harmonies of The Beach Boys.

Looking at Lindsey's chart the thing that jumps out right away is the Ascendant/Mars/Pluto conjunction in Leo. Sue Tompkins, astrologer, writer and author of one of the best books on astrological aspects, defines Mars-Pluto connections: "fighting to the death, the fight for survival, compulsive winning, assertion of power, sexual power, and buried rage."

You will find that a lot of Lindsey's lyrics are about power and winning. Having the Mars/Pluto combo on the Ascendent (conditions at birth) probably meant that his birth was a "fight for survival". He wound up turning that energy into a positive thing through his music. As you can probably imagine, with that powerful Leo Ascendant, he is a great live performer.

Lindsey's Sun is in Libra conjunct Neptune and Mercury, and square Uranus in the third house of skills and communication. Libra is the sign of the artist. Neptune is about the ideal plane so it is very easy for Sun/Neptune to fall into it's shadow side of escape through drugs and alchohol, but, on the positive side, it gives great artitistic potential and a wonderful imagination.

Sun square Uranus (11th house) and the Moon in Aquarius trine Uranus adds electricity and genius to Lindsey's profile. Uranus rules music and in particular I think Lindsey's music is very Uranian, original and ahead of its time.

So the universe brings Lindsey and Stevie together around 1965. They form the band Fritz in the late 60s. Interestingly, they don't become romantically involved until after the band breaks up in 1971. They become a romantic couple as well as a musical couple forming the duo Buckingham Nicks. They release an album in 1973 but nothing comes of it. Then on New Year's Eve of 1974, Mick Fleetwood asks Lindsey to join Fleetwood Mac. Lindsey tells him that he and Stevie are a "package deal," and Mick agrees. And the rest, as they say, is history.

They sell millions of records, make millions of dollars and become legends. They go through a messy break up (in 1977) while the band is on top of the world. Lindsey eventually takes leave of the band for a stretch to work on a solo career. Stevie begins a great solo career also. Now here we are in 2006 and Stevie and Lindsey are back making music together.

I have found, in my experience as an Astrologer, the two most important factors that indicate a significant relationship are contacts, from one person to the other, that hit one or more of the four angles of a chart: the Ascendant-Descendant axis (1st-7th house cusps, and the horizon line), and the Midheaven-Nadir axis (4th-10th house cusps), as well as the Lunar Nodes, which are considered strong indicators of our soul purpose and karma. I have noticed, in most of my significant relationships, a planet or planets, angles, or nodes will fall on one of my angles, nodes, or planets and sometimes vice versa. And this is totally the case in Lindsey and Stevie's relationship chart.

Lindsey's North Node (16 Aries) is conjunct Stevie's Ascendant (18 Aries). Stevie's North Node (13 Taurus) is conjunct Lindsey's Midheaven (10 Taurus). Stevie's Saturn (planet of karma) falls exactly on Lindsey's Ascendant/Mars/Pluto conjunction (17 Leo).

The way I read it is, they were married in a past life/lives (denoted through the Descendant, IC, and South Node connections), and in this life, they agreed to work it out in front of the world (as the Ascendant, Midheaven and North Nodes indicate). A Taurus Midheaven suggests that this time around Lindsey is gaining self worth by learning to rely on his own resources rather than other people's. An Aries Ascendant suggests that Stevie needed to become her own individual person outside of a relationship, and become a star on her own.

I think they tried to get back together as a couple because of the South Node familiarity, but the universe was prodding them toward their North Nodes and evolutionary growth. I think they separated and lived their own lives and became their own individual people, and now that they accomplished this, they are free to make music together again.