Note: Quoted lyric from Joni’s song, The Circle Game.
One of my favorite young ones (she used to live here), the multitalented poet and artist Brie, has just sent me this video of one of the iconic women of my generation.
What struck me immediately is that Joni still smokes! And what’s more, in 2013, when this video was made, her face was not even all that wrinkled!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWEz_hpOQME
But then I began to listen to her, and to listen to other videos in the same series. This woman is a sociologist, a philosopher, a brilliant, quirky individualist, and a biting critic of her Pluto in Leo Baby Boomer generation, not to mention the amazingly inventive musician we know and remember, and even that talent, according to her wikipedia article, is secondary: “I am a painter who got derailed by circumstance.”
In one of the video clips, she noted that, because of the day of her birth, she was born a “discoverer.” Hmmm . . . I wondered what she meant. Decided to look at her birth chart.
Well, I’d call her born to be a public artist and/or aesthete of some kind (music and painting both, in her case), given that harmonious watery grand trine with Cancer Ascendant and Mercury/Sun in Scorpio, both showcasing Moon in Pisces almost exactly on the very public Midheaven. Plus her grand trine also happens to be in a larger kite formation, with Venus/north node in Virgo, opposite Moon: recall those tricky, discerning, rhythms and lyrics; both are square critical Mars/Saturn in Gemini.
Indeed, like me, Joni was born in 1942-43 with Saturn and Uranus in Gemini, and opposite me, in that for her Mars was in Gemini, but my Mars in Sagittarius, the opposite sign. (No wonder: Mars has a two-year cycle). These three planets are joined at the hip for both of us, and all three indicate some kind of continuous (Mars), serious (Saturn) and inventive (Uranus) thinking process. You might say that we who were born during those two years (once Uranus had moved from Taurus to Gemini, in May 1942), i.e., we who were born into a Pluto in Leo subgeneration with Uranus/Saturn in Gemini (and for some of us, with Mars), arrived to bring in new ideas that the next subgeneration (those born in 1946-48, with Saturn/Pluto in Leo) would begin to put into practice.
Joni roundly critiques our entire Baby Boomer Pluto in Leo generation (1938-1958) as having gotten derailed from its original purpose. I’d pretty much agree, given the McMansion, SUV and hedge fund focus that seems to have devoured our original generational imprint — which is, remember? — Pluto in Leo — each of us born to “do our thing,” i.e., to let go of social conditioning and express the life force within us fully into the world.
I’d say that quirky, individualistic, intensely multitalented Joni has done exactly that; a rare accomplishment. How many have? How many of us are still alive?
Joni, still the defiant smoker (in plain view as this video began), had polio as a child. Now apparently, she no longer makes public appearances, and it’s said she is suffering from morgellons disease. Jeez! I remember hearing about morgellons — fibers coming out of the skin, and so on. And I remember hearing something about chem trails being possibly connected to morgellons. Hmmm. Search “morgellons and chem trails” and you will find plenty of references. Hmmm. Apparently most of the cases of morgellons occur in the U.S. (is it the most heavily chemtrailed country?), and a majority of these in California (she lives in Bel Air), infecting middle aged white women! Do wonder if all or any of that is true.
Joni’s critical, even prophetic take on the world, surfaced in Big Yellow Taxi.
Joni says she wrote Woodstock from the point of view of a young person who wanted to go, but couldn’t. Thank you Joni, for your unique full-on expression of your own original nature. You sang for all of us. You still speak for many of us who remain.
