Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh poured a whole life's fire into a single burning decade. His Sun sat in Aries, the pioneer-warrior of the zodiac, the double leader who casts light and leaves a lasting mark wherever it goes. That Sun rose to the very top of his chart in the tenth house, the Sun at noon on its throne, the placement of enormous public reputation. In one of astrology's quiet cruelties, that blazing career fame arrived only after his death: infamy and glory are both forms of visibility, and his came posthumously, the misunderstood genius the world finally circled.

His Moon lived in Sagittarius in the sixth house of daily work, health and service. Sagittarius gave his psyche its restless craving for freedom, faith and the open road, from missionary in Belgium to painter of olive trees and wheat fields under the southern sun. Yet the sixth house is where the Moon suffers: bound to fragile health, self-neglect and the depression that shadowed him.

With Cancer rising, the tender lunar mask of the crab, he met the world raw and deeply feeling. In roughly ten years he made some 2,100 works before his death in 1890, aged thirty-seven. The pioneer who painted the light he could not always feel.