Virgo Charlotte Grace Loves Books

At 19 months, Virgo Charlotte Grace (Freddie Prinze Jr. & Sarah Michelle Gellar) is already an avid lover of books, no doubt thanks to the entire family as mom, dad, and grandma read to her several times a day.

Charlotte has Mercury, the planet of the mind and learning, in Virgo, very close to the Sun (also in Virgo). Mercury is never terribly far away from the Sun, but when it's in a close conjunction, it indicates someone who identifies (Sun) with the planet Mercury and all that it represents. This can show up in various ways, depending on the sign, as someone who is highly verbal, intellectual, creative, analytical -- the list goes on and on. In Virgo, the mental capacity for taking in information and analyzing it will be strong in Charlotte.


Her Mercury is also retrograde, which means she was born when Mercury, because of its position in the sky in relation to Earth, appeared to be moving backward through the zodiac, instead of forward. When planets are retrograde, they tend to draw the energy inward, rather than outward. With this 'yin' Mercury, it's likely that Charlotte will be more soft-spoken, thoughtful, and developing more of an internal awareness of things and imagination. She is no doubt already highly observant, noting and remembering everything around her. With serious Saturn also close to this combination, her reading skills and interest may very well transfer to strong study skills and high intelligence.

Wonder when she'll get around to reading Charlotte's Web?

*Charlotte's birth time is not known. The chart shown is known as a sunrise, or solar, chart.

Dylan Douglas' Dyslexia

In an interview with the UK Guardian, Michael Douglas revealed that his 10 year old son, Dylan, has dyslexia and that it "runs in the family" (Michael's brother has it). Michael and his family recently relocated to New York so Dylan could attend a special school to assist him.

Dyslexia can produce any number of challenges that are mostly focused around reading, writing, and speaking, so it tends to be Mercury's terrain. The condition of Mercury in a natal chart indicates how we'll think and process information, communicate, and the way our mind works in general, both symbolically and literally to some extent.

Dylan's Mercury is in Leo in the 7th house of his chart, not necessarily indicative of any learning disabilities. Any planet in a sign or house alone can manifest a number of ways. Aspects between planets typically show more of the action and dynamic qualities of a chart, so any tension or difficulty a planet is under is often more easily seen in its connections to other planets.

In Dylan's case, his Mercury is conjunct Mars, indicating that a lot of passion, fire, and energy is running through his mental circuits. He may find himself wanting to respond quickly or off the cuff, almost as if his mind and mouth are running faster than he is. Someone with this configuration might simply talk very quickly, so we wouldn't see dyslexia in even the majority of the cases, but where we know it's present, we might suspect that the nature of the Mercurial challenge in Dylan's case is an issue of speed, as in, too much of it. Mars can also illustrate where people hold their stress and anxiety in general, where burnout or overwhelm can happen if stress levels get too high, and it's said that both stress and anxiety can exacerbate dyslexia symptoms (although there's precious little in this world that stress and anxiety don't worsen!)

Dylan also has Neptune in Aquarius opposed his Mercury and Mars. Dyslexia has no bearing on intelligence or vice versa: it is simply a matter of how information is processed and communicated, not whether it's understood on a conceptual level. Neptune has an 'other-worldly' quality to it; it represents the part of us that is least attached to the logical, 3-dimensional, shared 'reality' world and more connected to things like the dream world (waking or sleeping), intuition, imagination, and the part of us that understands symbols and metaphors. Neptune is often thought to have a 'foggy' influence on life, but that is only when we are trying to rigidly define our world. In our imagination or our dream world, we would have no problem saying 2+2=22 if it made a kind of creative sense to us, for instance. With Neptune in a difficult relationship to Mercury, he processes messages in a way that is outside the rigid rules of '2+2=4 and nothing else' thinking. His mind is free, for better and worse, to process information outside of typical constraints.

Something that can help him master and manage symptoms of dyslexia is his Saturn in Taurus, in a sextile relationship to Mercury, indicating that Saturn and Mercury can work well together. Slowing it down (Taurus) and steady practice (Saturn) are his best tools, but he'll also benefit from finding ways to incorporate the imagination and symbolism of his Neptune into his mental processes in a way that doesn't just lead to confusion, but a new way of looking at things entirely! Inventive and imaginative greats such as Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and Mozart were all said to have some form of dyslexia.

Bridget Moynahan's WhizKid

Bridget Moynahan (Sex and the City, Ramona and Beezus), a self-confessed book lover, says her son Jack seems to be following in those footsteps:

"I have pictures of him looking at books and flash cards when he's just sitting up. I have one picture where I was reading a book on Buddha and Buddhism and his face is in there, looking at the words.

"We went through four books" she says of reading with him the night before). "He's known his numbers and alphabet for some time now, and it's clearly from reading..."

It's easy to say that most kids have 'brains like sponges', feeding their curiosity ravenously with anything they can get their hands on, but there are a number of ways a child can do that, outside of reading. Jack, almost 3 years old, seems to have come out of the womb an avid reader, a fact that is no surprise to an astrologer.

Jack has the planet Mercury close to his South Node. The South Node represents our habits and norms, what we are used to and in many ways what we are naturally good at. Mercury represents anything to do with the mind or the voice, such as learning, communicating, and of course, reading.

Mercury is in the sign of Virgo, which allows Jack to easily take note of all the details and an inherent understanding of how the structure of something is set up and broken down. For instance, it probably makes great sense to Jack that sentences are made of words which are made of letters, so he can understand each component like a puzzle and fit them together easily.

It also doesn't hurt that he's got his Moon (the emotional heart of us) in Sagittarius which has a love of learning and new experiences, something that he's probably already discovered that books can provide for him. He also has Mars, a planet that represents our desires in the ever-curious sign of Gemini, so his love of learning will be lifelong. Future scientist? We'll see!

Angelina Jolie's Bilingual Babes

In the August issue of Vanity Fair, Angelina Jolie discusses life in Venice, acting, and all of it accompanied by her troop of six children. She discussed how important it is to her for her children to have a sense of the wide world around them, and likes to have them learn about the local culture wherever they are. Of their education in and out of Venice, Jolie says:

"We have two teachers who travel with us, and we found a wonderful local man who teaches them the history of Venice and some Italian. It's a nice mix--this is what we do. They go to school every day 10 to 4 at home. They're on the Lycée curriculum.

Angelina is a jet-setter herself and would be even without the necessity of acting on location for her profession, so it's no wonder she enjoys opening up the cultural world to her children, including learning multiple languages. So how will the children fair with this curriculum and learning lifestyle? That's a question with a multi-faceted answer, no doubt, but initially we look to the planet Mercury for questions about learning style and preferences.

Maddox has Mercury in Leo, in a tight conjunction with his Sun. Angelina mentions in the Vanity Fair

article what an intellectual he is, is great at school and could be a writer. It's no surprise to Mlle. Kiddie! The Sun is central to our personality, and with Mercury there, that means his mind and what he can do with it is just as central to his sense of self. He'll gain a great deal of confidence from using and developing his intelligence.

Both Pax and Zahara have Mercury in Sagittarius, so they will take their multi-cultural education in absolute stride as if it were tailored just for them. Sagittarius is the sign of the philosopher, who loves discovering the principles of meaning inherent in all different cultures, joined by humanity. Zahara in particular has her Mercury in a tight conjunction with her Venus, which lends a quality of grace, creativity, and beauty to her mind. Her mom said in the interview that Zahara has "an extraordinary voice and is just so elegant and well spoken." All qualities of Venus (beauty) when connected to Mercury (voice and mind).

Shiloh has Mercury in Gemini which will give her a quick mind and an ability to pick up a lot in short amounts of time, but it is in a square (tough) relationship with Uranus in dreamy Pisces and in a trine (easy) relationship with Neptune, both influences which will make her challenge that of concentrating. Keep her interested, and she'll gobble it up, but here's a girl who will be so overwhelmed by the desire for input that she can get carried away with the next new and fascinating thing. Angelina says Shiloh is just like she was as a child "goofy and verbal." Mercury in Gemini is a playful and mischievious kind of energy, and adding it to Uranus in Pisces and Neptune (which has a resonance with Pisces) and her imagination is boundless. She's certain to be a storyteller.

Vivienne and Knox have Mercury in Cancer, which is a water sign. Water signs learn best when there is an emotional, personal, or subjective component to them, something they can attach meaning and memory to (they typically have great memories). Mercury is also in a sextile (easy) relationship to Saturn and Mars in the sign of Virgo, so they'll no doubt be dutiful students, who learn with precision and dedication.

A jet-setter herself, Mademoiselle Kiddie approves of the program! Bravo!