In the spirit of peroxide warfare, let’s take a look at the birth charts of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” castmates and reality foes Sutton Stracke and Erika Jayne.
These two women have recently been at odds and shared expletives over Jayne’s legal woes and her husband’s alleged embezzlement scandal and Stracke’s seeming inability to stop discussing it ad nauseam.
As a Virgo, Stracke, 49, is an earth sign ruled by messenger planet Mercury. Her mind moves anxiously and rapidly and she feels compelled — if not divinely entitled — to share her thoughts, assessments and condemnations with the world at large.
Virgo is the watcher of the zodiac, and their penetrating observations can often and easily be construed as judgment.
Case in point: Stracke’s allegation that Jayne’s divorce is a sham and that there’s “something fishy” about it. As the sign of hospital corners and the Patron Saint of Scouring Pads, Virgo places value on presentation and order. Thus, the messiness of Jayne’s legal situation and the fear that it might splash some of its tawdriness on the sterling surface of her own reputation is deeply upsetting to Stracke.
As Stracke confided to her other castmates, “I just needed to understand the rules and the guidelines around that because I don’t want to put myself in jeopardy.”
On the other side of rules and guidelines lives Jane, the watery, wounded Cancer. They are notoriously allergic to criticism, so it’s no wonder Jayne, 50, responds to Stracke with unblinking eyes and unfettered hate. Cancer is ruled by the moon and natives mirror that waxing and waning through their extreme mood swings.
Emotions are deeply felt and difficult to control, with Jayne promising Stracke, “I’ll go head-on with you all f–king day.” Cancer is an inherently defensive sign, symbolized by the crab with its protective outer shell and demonstrated by Jayne’s sharp response to any accusation. “How small-town of her. The ‘I don’t want to be associated with you because of what the neighbors may think’ to me is cowardice,” Jayne told Stracke in one episode. “We’re not in Augusta, bitch. Who the f–k cares? It has nothing, zero, negative, to do with you, Sutton.”
Come for a crab and prepare to get a sidestepping nipple-pinching, Sutton.
In addition to being the sign of constructive and completely unsolicited criticism, Virgo lives to be of service, perpetually asking, “How can I help?” That modality is evident in Stracke’s admission that she once offered Jayne money to ease her through the trauma and trials of her divorce. Stracke wants to be of use and feels slighted when her benevolence isn’t accepted or appreciated. It’s cloying, and basically control dressed in the drag of care behavior that Jayne — as an emotionally sunburned Cancer — cannot and will not abide.
Virgo wants to help you, but only if you’re willing to be accountable and feel sufficiently guilty.
That desire meets its doom in Jayne, who refuses to take responsibility for failure. In her and in all Cancers, there lives the unalienable belief that things happen to them — not because of them.
As conflict is king among these two, let’s consider their respective Mars placements. In the birth chart, Mars indicates aggression: f–king and fighting and forward momentum. Both Stracke and Jayne have Mars in the rabble-rousing, punk rock leaning sign of Aquarius. Mars in Aquarius is not to be questioned or contained. It’s abrasive, it’s graceless and the aim of conflict is never resolution but the sweet pursuit of superiority.
For Virgo sun Stracke that manifests as moral supremacy, and for scrappy Cancer Jayne, it’s martyrdom and the sympathy of the tweeting masses. In that sense, both women are succeeding on their respective fronts, and viewers can be sure there will be more blood and sauvignon blanc ahead.
Unless, of course, Dreamsicle Pisces Kathy Hilton decides to host an MDMA ladies lunch, encouraging everyone to get naked and release their trauma and tensions into the saltwater womb of her in-ground pool.
Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports back on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture and personal experience.