Aspect Patterns in Prince’s chart part 2; a pair of yods

So last week I wrote about the Finger of the World pattern in Prince’s chart, which has plenty more aspect patterns to explore. Today I want to look at the two yods, a pattern also called the Finger of Fate or the Finger of God. And those names are a clue, of course, to what the pattern might mean in a chart. Just like the Finger of the World, this is a triangular pattern, with two planets joined by a sextile, each quincunx (also called inconjunct) a third planet. So again we have a focal planet, a direction for all that unsettled quincunx energy to go. And the two planets in sextile can work together, seeking creative solutions, new ways of approaching and expressing their energies. This is a pattern associated with fatedness, with energies that might feel out of our control, so that we have no choice but to engage with them. Quincunxes need attention, consciousness, effort. Planets in quincunx are 150 degrees apart and tend to have little in common - they are in different elements, different modes, even different polarities. It can be hard to find the middle ground, which is where that clever sextile comes in. There’s an inner restlessness that drives growth, even a sense of reaching for a personal destiny.

So Prince has two yods in his chart, one between Mercury, Mars, and Neptune and another between Mars, Neptune, and Pluto. Let’s start with a nice comfortable Mercury in Gemini in the 7th house - good at expressing itself, good at finding the words, good at making all kinds of connections. The sextile is between Mercury and Mars in Aries in the 5th house - also nice and comfortable, both of them at home in their own signs. Here is a lovely creative balance of thought and action, of ideas seen through and brought into reality, of selves expressed and also friends and lovers supported. Prince didn’t just write songs for himself after all. When he died, it was said there were enough unfinished projects in his basement for a hundred years of albums. And there’s the Neptune, utterly lacking in boundaries in the 12th house. The unease here might be expressed as a disconnect between Prince’s prolific work and drive to succeed, and his faith in something greater than himself. That’s the Neptune in the 12th. A Neptune urge to surrender, to merge back into oneness with the universe - and a very focused Mars, happily working with Mercury to sing and write and play and express his individual power.

The second yod is more generational, with two outer planets as well as that Mars again. Neptune and Pluto both move so slowly that they take many years to go through a single sign so that the energies of that sign are shared by a whole generation. Some natal charts have more personalised connections with the generational planets, and these are the folk who express something of the zeitgeist of the time, who speak for more than just themselves. And of course, Prince was one of those. The sextile between Neptune and Pluto in Prince’s chart is in the natal chart of all those born that year, each of whom expresses it differently. In itself, it speaks of a deep yearning for transformation, for a reinvention of what is meaningful. in Prince’s chart there’s a balance to be found - Pluto is very visible on the MC, the dramatic stage performer who lived life in public. But Neptune in the 12th needs periodic phases of retreat, before re-emerging, reinventing the self all over again. And Prince very much lived that dynamic. He even built his home to be a place of retreat, a place where he could create alone. These two powerful outer planets are both quincunx our friend Mars, beavering away as a pioneering musician and performer down in the much more personal 5th house. There’s a Prince quote in which he talks about ideas coming so fast, they can flow away “like sand on a beach” - couldn’t get more Mars quincunx Neptune if you tried!