by Lynn Hayes
I have to say I am a bit creeped out by Mackenzie Phillips’ admission that she had what amounts to an affair with her father for ten years. There has been much debate in the news media about whether the affair was rape or not, since Mackenzie reportedly was 19 years old when the initial incident occurred.
Mackenzie is the daughter of John Phillips and his first wife, Susan Adams, but John left the family when he married his second wife, Michelle Phillips, in 1962. So John was the distant father to Mackenzie, most likely idealized by her and never available.
Her
astrological chart shows that she has a Scorpio Sun in tight conjunction to Mars (sexuality and aggression), both of which are squared by Uranus (shock and sudden change). That Sun/Mars conjunction has a strong sexual component, and the square to Uranus can signify a shocking early trauma, or simply a rebellious nature that relishes the shock value of radical behavior. In any case, Uranus square the Sun often shows the sudden departure (Uranus) of the father (Sun) that leaves a gaping hole in the life of the individual.
Mackenzie’s chart is made more difficult by a square from Saturn to both the Moon and Venus. Venus in the birthchart shows where we feel attractive and deserving of love, and that square from Saturn indicates a deep insecurity and sense of rejection. The square from Saturn to the Moon, which represents emotional security and safety, exacerbates that insecurity and adds a note of isolation and loneliness.
She also has Chiron (wounding and healing) square to the Sun and directly opposite Uranus. The square of Chiron to the Sun reveals the difficulty she has had in developing a sense of Self and a healthy ego (the Sun), and the Chiron/Uranus opposition is often associated with anxiety and because it requires a transmutation of energy it can be extremely intense. It is prevalent in the charts of people who do healing work but it is also commonly found in people who have drug addictions as they seek to medicate the intensity of their experiences.
The hippie culture in the 1960s embraced a different morality in an effort to separate from the uptightness of traditional American society of the 1950s. I lived in communes in the early 1970s and it was not uncommon for parents to give their children LSD and other psychedelics in an effort to “free their mind.” Looking back, it was an incredibly delusional period, but we were trying to forge a new culture where everyone was free. As it turned out though, that freedom nearly killed many of us.
Mackenzie had tried both pot and LSD by age 12, and by 18 she was injecting heroin with her father. At the time that the incestuous affair began in 1979, John Phillips’ career and life were spiraling down into a morass of drug-induced stupor. His addiction was so intense in the late 1970s that he was unable to complete an album for the Rolling Stones, and Mackenzie was arrested for drug possession and suspended from her television series. She barely worked again until 1992 when she achieved sobriety and appeared to stay out of trouble until August of 2008 when she was arrested with cocaine and heroin.
During that period in 1979, transiting Uranus conjoined Mackenzie’s Sun, setting off the Sun/Uranus square in her chart. I can just imagine that here is this depressed and insecure young girl, whose father is a gorgeous rock god who left her and her mother when she was just a baby, and finally he is giving her the attention she has always longed for. She knows it’s wrong by conventional moral standards, but she’s a rebel at heart (Sun square Uranus) and Uranus is activating that morality buster. Uranus brings us experiences that alter and change us forever, and that would certainly have been the case here.
Over the past year and a half transiting Pluto has been activating the Saturn/Moon/Venus complex in Mackenzie’s chart. This is a very challenging planetary event that would have excavated (Pluto) all of Mackenzie’s insecurities and anxieties, as well as releasing memories and feelings from the past. At the same time she has been going through her Chiron return, which is a cycle we go through around age 51 when Chiron returns to its place in the birthchart. This activates the release of old feelings and emotions, and while it can be overwhelming at times there is also the opportunity for healing.
The combination of the Chiron return (with transiting Chiron also activating Uranus in the chart and the desire for real change and evolution) with the transit of Pluto and its potential for transformation along with the revelations of deep dark secrets from the Underworld, must have been an intense one. Dr. Drew PInsky, who has treated Mackenzie, said in an interview that the revelation of this secret (Pluto) is part of Mackenzie’s healing (Chiron).
posted September 25, 2009 at 11:48 pm
A very compassionate treatment of this story, Lynn. Bravo.
posted September 26, 2009 at 12:41 am
I really feel for this woman. I don’t know what else to say.
posted September 26, 2009 at 2:35 am
Thanks for sharing your own experience. I myself was at a commune in 1970 and in 71. The loss of identity for the greater good came much too early for many. When teens tell me that I had the greatest music in my time, I get sick thinking what human pain and delusion was behind it. Thanks for posting this.
posted September 26, 2009 at 5:55 am
What’s up with that last comment, Lynn? Am I reading the dig incorrectly? Hope so.
I mean this is her story, right? She can tell it however she likes. Everyone else does. Admittedly I have a diffcult time swallowing her “at peace with it” and “I love my dad” declarations – still, it’s better than a daughter lost in agony. Or dead.
I feel terrible that this happened to her. To anyone.
posted September 26, 2009 at 6:38 am
Marie, I just can’t help being a little snarky when someone makes a big admission like this a week before the release of a book. Certainly she can tell it however she likes, and I applaud her for her bravery in telling it at all. It’s just the timing that I’m a little skeptical of.
posted September 26, 2009 at 9:03 am
I imagine whatever money she had was long ago spent on cocaine and other drugs. The money from this lurid book is probably necessary to pay her various bills. I tend to believe her story, since she’d have to be unbelievably sick in the head to make this up and go public with it and maybe there is something cathartic in just telling the whole story and having it known.
ANY parent who gave LSD to his or her child, whether a hippie living in a commune or not, is beyond abusive. For that alone, John Phillips deserves nothing but condemnation. My parents were from that generation and I’m incredibly grateful that they took me to church and raised me on a farm with 1950s values. Some of their college friends and similarly aged relations are now suffering the ill effects of their experimentation with drugs, family relationships, and living arrangements. Mackenzie Phillips is one more victim of that bankrupt lifestyle.
posted September 26, 2009 at 9:05 am
Lynn, please do a radio show on Chiron. Your insights are inspiring.
posted September 26, 2009 at 9:31 am
Well, 1950′s values can be (and frequently have been) equally morally bankrupt, Andrea.
posted September 26, 2009 at 9:48 am
I don’t disagree with you there, Kieron. This particular type of child abuse and abuse of power has probably gone on in every society, in every time period, more often than we think and any type of value system can be perverted. I think the excesses of the 1960s were more often than not extremely dangerous. I’m still glad that my parents’ 1960s idealism didn’t include living in a commune or experimenting with relationships or, as Phillips apparently did with his very young daughter, experimentation with drugs. I got the best of the 60s from them: a “Free to be You and Me” book and a strong affection for folk ballads by Peter Paul and Mary and Joan Baez and company and I’m glad that they also raised me with the best of the 1950s values.
In any event, poor Mackenzie Phillips, whatever the truth really is.
posted September 26, 2009 at 10:46 am
I lived thru the late 60′s and 70′s. What a horrible time. I have 2 daughters and from the time they were little I told them to stay away from drugs, and have morales. The way my parents taught me. If my friends parents were like mine they would still be alive today. The only thing the hippie era was good for was to make me a strong woman.We don’t have to be as rigid as the 50′s but we all need to teach our children until adulthood. Do you agree????????????
posted September 26, 2009 at 11:39 am
First Michael Jackson, now Mackenzie. Unlike Michael she didn’t die for her truth to be told. Incest survivors need to tell their story to heal, celebrities just have a bigger venue, a wider audience. I feel full because her journey reminds me of the road I’ve walked. I am not surprised at the family and publics reaction.
This wounding of children [mostly girls] comes from so many ways…drugs for one generation, alcohol abuse from my parents and their parents generation. Priests in Church. Abuse of power is abuse of power no matter the drug/drink of choice.
The shadow is the shadow until Chiron/Pluto flushes it out. If you are morally bankrupt then chances are you’re morally bankrupt parents who breed another generation until someone the courage to say stop. Then they are thrown under the bus by the family…its a very painful and heartbreaking place to be. A damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Truth telling is a good thing.
posted September 26, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Whatever her chart says about her, it is unbearable to know that with all those people around not one person put a stop to any of this. Certainly getting his daughter hooked on drugs is nearly as destructive and could have killed her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she must have noticed that Mick Jagger was not taking his daughters to parties, or Keith Richards shooting up his offspring. She still seems enmeshed with her father–I hope she heals.
posted September 26, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I can’t claim to know why she timed her announcement the way she did, to coincide with a book release. Perhaps it is a craven bid for publicity and sales, perhaps it is part of the purging and healing process. Why write a book and keep quiet about it? The death of a father does not erase what he did. If that were the case, Stalin is singing with the angels.
Nonetheless, in light of the situation, I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt. No skin off my nose, my measly opinion counts for nothing anyway, and though I am not a Christian, I imagine it is What Jesus Would Do, to paraphrase the acronym.
If it helps ONE person, one little girl, one grown-up girl, for me it would be worth all the worldwide scorn, skepticism, and judgement heaped upon my head by smallhearted, meanspirited people around the world. Just one.
What is one life worth? It’s worth the universe.
posted September 27, 2009 at 4:25 am
Oprah actually read the book prior to the interview, unlike many interviewers. I saw the show and Oprah started the interview by asking Mackenzie to read the passage that described the first rape/sexual encounter with her father. Mackenzie seemed surprised and very uncomfortable to start the interview with that particular topic, she looked so trapped and vulnerable.
Television appearances may have been in her publishing contract and expected of her just like movie stars have to go on all the television talk shows and talk about their new movies. Mackenzie was so uncomfortable and ill at ease that my heart went out to her.
A secret like this would be very destructive to hold in and carry through her life, it needs the healing light of day shone on it to allow her to heal. Yes, it is uncomfortable for us to hear, but can you imagine how painful it must be to carry?
I remember hearing about a woman raised in the 1950′s in a perfect looking family, with all the correct traditional family values, her mother stayed at home and her father was an FBI agent. Her father also had sexual relations with her at a much younger age than Mackenzie had with her father.
The 1950′s weren’t perfect, people just didn’t talk about things like child abuse, infact many people beat their children and called it discipline and that was accepted. Even though most mothers stayed at home there was still child neglect, etc. No one talked about child sex offenders so they had more freedom and they seemed to thrive in religious environments, as boy scout leaders, etc. Children were expected not to talk about things that could put the family in a shameful light.
Some people took things too far in the 1960′s but I really do not believe the majority of people did. The backlash in the 1980′s started the pull back to the right and now it is my humble opinion that some things have gone too far right and will need to be tugged in
posted September 27, 2009 at 4:44 am
Sorry, I somehow chopped the end of my last post.
I think that with the major changes starting that we should look at the 60′s and consider both the positive and the negative consequences/outcomes, perhaps this time we could avoid the destructive extremes and the violence.
posted September 27, 2009 at 12:32 pm
As a publicist, I know there’s nothing unusual about her revealing this secret timed to her book – that’s how all media works. Can’t fault her for that.
But in terms of MacKenzie being shocked that Oprah’s first question pertained to the relationship with her father – come on. That’s exactly the reason she wrote this book – to tell that story. The surprise is a bit disingenuous.
As for her admission helping one single girl — It’s not clear to me what MacKenzie’s motive was (revenge? attention? a comeback?). I do know that for the vast majority of abused children for whom it is NOT consensual, well this kind of thing can potentially hurt us.
One of the hardest things incest survivors have to overcome is the feeling that we were somehow responsible. In MacKenzie’s case, an extremely rare case, she was.
I’ll pray for her and I hope she stays clean and sober, but I also hope she’ll really examine what her motivation was. And I also pray for all the abused who had absolutely no choice and no escape at all.
posted September 27, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Ms. Phillips is the victim here. Men like that start brainwashing or training a child when they are very young. They manipulate their emotions so severely that the child feels it is their fault, even after they grow up. Drugs are an easy way to manipulate young people, so is a little girls love for her daddy. This man was sick yes, but he also CHOOSE to do what he did. This way he has no reason (in his mind) to feel guilty. “It’s all her!” I hope people, as well as Ms. Phillips, realize this. My prayers are with all who have been abused. I have personal experience in this subject so I know what she went through and is still going through.
IN LOVE
Little Ann
posted October 27, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Great to see that other astrologers have written about this taboo subject. I hadn’t heard about Mackenzie at all until an astrologer on our <a href=" forum”>http://forum.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=messageboard.viewThread&entryID=74908903&groupID=107871311&adTopicID=27&Mytoken=7A7EFAA4-3A84-4362-A5DFDD063BAB425E537970971“>forumcalled her a fraud, and as a a bit of a astro- feminist I had to look into this deeper. So I have recently posted a Blog too.
I use such tight orbs I didn’t notice the other significant T square in her Chart that you brought up. The Uranus opposite Chiron T squaring the Sun. Chiron (wounds) is in the 8th (taboo sex) opposed Uranus (Shocks) in the 2nd (self worth) both squaring the Sun (the father/ego) in the 4th (home)
Great you mention the transits, so Uranus was on the Apex of that T square when they started the affair in 1979?
And all year of course she has had on an off the triple conjunction (Jup/Chiron/Nep) on her 8th house Chiron. Woo! What’s going to happen to her in December when it hits for the last time?
Yes I can see how revealing this secret is part of her healing.