How the Planets
helped to push Dana Plato into a fatal overdose
by C. Ravin, Esq.
Summer 1999
On the day that Dana Plato swallowed her last pills, her
natal planets were being adversely contacted by the difficult transiting
planetary activity of 1999. Actually, that is an understatement. I will now
undertake an analysis of those circumstances as I can see them. This examination
of the astrological factors surrounding Dana's death does not purport to be
complete, for I do not have her exact birth time, so I have used 12 noon. Thus,
I have no Rising Sign evidence, nor can I comment on the issues with respect to
the Houses of her horoscope. I only have looked at the position of the planets,
yet it is my contention that this is the crux of astrological study anyway.
I also make the disclaimer
that all the information contained herein are only the hypotheses of one
individual, myself, and I classify it as research by a student of astrology,
rather than the opinion of a professional astrologer. As someone who does agree
with the interpretation that certain planets are malefic (difficult energy) and
benefic (positive energy), I do use somewhat graphic imagery. Yet I do find this
to be helpful in the overall understanding of the potency of the
planets.
I have done this study based on a feeling that deep down,
Dana Plato was not a bad person. I was fond of her as I grew up, and I enjoyed
watching her on TV. Somehow, I feel that her passing was a motivation for me to
look at, for my first time in detail, the astrological situation surrounding
one's death.
Dana Plato's 34 years were filled with dramatic highs and lows - and
unfortunately, too many "highs" of the wrong kind.
Dana Plato Born:
November 7, 1964, San Bernadino, CA
source: National Enquirer, May
16, 1999 at 32.
Dana had many
challenging aspects in her natal chart. The clearest one was her badly afflicted
Jupiter. This indicates a difficulty in getting ahead, in experiencing
expansiveness, and in gaining and retaining wealth and good
fortune.
Dana's had her natal Jupiter at 21 degrees Taurus (Hereinafter,
I will dispense with the term "degrees". Thus, the previous phrase would read
"21 Taurus. There are 30 total degrees per sign, and each contains 60 minutes).
Her Jupiter had five total aspects to it, four of which were
oppositions...usually considered the most difficult aspect, even harder than a
square:
Opposite Sun
Opposite Mercury
Opposite
Neptune
Opposite MC (Midheaven)
Dana's Sun and Neptune were
conjunct by two degrees in the intense, provocative sign of Scorpio. This
Sun-Neptune aspect, in this sign in particular, indicates a propensity toward
drugs (Neptune). The opposition from Jupiter likely impacted adversely this
already tense conjunction, and it caused her to have difficulty acquiring the
happiness that is most basic to life (afflicted Jupiter), and often caused her
some difficulty in getting drugs. Whichever direction Dana turned - toward her
inner essence (Sun), toward her ability to communicate (Mercury), toward her
need to escape (Neptune), or toward a career (Midheaven) - her Jupiter in the
Fixed Sign of Taurus "opposed" her efforts.
Dana also had Saturn in
Aquarius tightly square to her Mercury in Scorpio, both in late degrees of these
Fixed Signs. Now, Aquarius and Scorpio are square, and Saturn-Mercury in
stressful aspect is never an easy contact. It indicates a tendency to excessive
worry, pessimism, and in some cases, scheming and deliberate dishonesty are
probable if the rest of the chart agrees (it does). This aspect stifled and
limited Dana's communicative ability, and contributed to her occasional run-ins
with the law. Many of us can recall the 1992 picture of her in court when she
violated parole for forging Valium prescriptions, and got 30 days in jail. She
looked as if she realized that she had broken the traditional order of
things...Mercury square Saturn.
Then, on May 8, 1999, along
came Mercury at 28 Aries, charging right up to sextile her natal Saturn at 28
Aquarius (and Saturn so hates surprises) and also to inconjunct her natal
Mercury at 29 Scorpio. To make matters worse, transiting Venus in Gemini in a
most exact trine (literally, under ten minutes) to transiting Mars retrograde in
Libra, at 28 and 29 degrees, respectively, were right there contacting her natal
Saturn and Mercury square, at 28 and 29 degrees respectively themselves. Late
degrees, of any sign, are considered the most intense, and no doubt Dana could
not hang on much longer, literally not even one more day, when Mercury in feisty
Aries would go into Taurus, and Venus in fickle Gemini would stride into caring
Cancer, both on Sunday, May 9th, just hours before she died. It was that
late-degree Air-Fire energy that had built up so quickly, as Mercury and Venus
have been skating along together more rapidly this Spring, arm and arm in
sextile aspect, that combined to push the pills deep down Dana's gullet. No
doubt she was swallowing them hard.
On the day of Dana's death, the
transiting Sun in Taurus was in an exact square to transiting Uranus in
Aquarius. This square contacted three of her natal planets simultaneously.
First, this square hit her Pluto in Virgo and her Sun in Scorpio, which were in
an exact sextile at 15 degrees of their respective signs at birth. Then this
square slammed into her natal Neptune at 17 Scorpio, conjunct her Sun-Pluto
sextile, which this square had just agitated, and from which she was still
reeling. Two of these three natal positions (Sun and Neptune) were in Fixed
Signs, as are transiting Uranus in Aquarius and transiting Saturn in Taurus.
More Fixed Sign pain.
To make matters worse, which does not seem possible
nor fair, Neptune went retrograde at 4 Aquarius one day before Dana's death.
This is very powerful. A planet in retrograde, especially the Outer Planets,
builds much energy in the days before it goes retrograde, culminating on the day
it goes retrograde, and is still strong in the early days of its retrograde
motion. This period is called a "station", and Neptune's station in the hours
leading up to Dana's death no doubt knocked her weary soul for yet another loop.
Neptune in Aquarius is also square to the sign of Scorpio, where Dana's natal
Sun, Mercury, and Neptune resided. Again, more Fixed Sign stress, agitated
greatly by transiting Neptune in Aquarius, and then made that much more potent
by its retrograding station. Neptune, Master of Illusion, was saying, "enough is
enough, kid", as he surely did his part in bringing her painful life to a
close.
Could there have been anymore planetary nastiness toward this poor
girl, you ask? Unfortunately, yes. Let's turn now to Venus, a benefic planet,
and generally a positive spot in one's chart.
Dana had a weakly-aspected
Venus in its favorite sign of Libra, also subject to planetary attack throughout
her final months. The Moon in Aquarius passed by in her last few days, providing
an easy, Airy trine to her Venus in Libra. Perhaps this was Dana's last breath
of hope. I see it here as more of a final wink from the Universe that her last
days were numbered. It was also a grim indicator of the deadly stress energy
whirling about her soul, from which there was no escape, reminding us all that
it would be the pain from Fixed Signs (Aquarius) that would send her soul
careening away from this plane. It was thus more of a "stroke and punch", a
brief, wry smile immediately preceding the anguish of the same powerful
planetary jaws that would soon clamp down on her as her soul clamored for
release from its spent body shell. For this little trine, insignificant in its
strength and duration, masked the far greater damage that afflicted her
unprotected, usually sweet Venus position, which was manifesting in a protracted
and bloody beat-down from transiting malefics Pluto and Saturn.
Pluto,
you see, had been hovering in Sagittarius within a one-degree sextile to Dana's
natal Venus at 9 Libra (8 degrees, 59 minutes at high noon PST to be exact, yet
at this point, it makes no difference) since the last two months of 1998. This
gave Dana a false sense of belief that her love life (Venus) was finally going
to be transformed (Pluto), and hopefully balanced (Libra) from its recently
transitory, free-ranging state (Sagittarius). She was living...and dying...in
her fiancee's Winnebago (a true Pluto in Sag home).
This Pluto-Venus contact created an
inner urge in our heroine for acceptance and love that manifested in her
provocative, lewd sex appeal, as well as and despite her recent acceptance of a
marriage proposal months earlier. Pluto continued its stalking of Dana's Venus
in Libra, slobbering on Venus' neck yet again, when it retrograded at 10
Sagittarius in mid-March of this year. Saturn in Taurus, riding the bucking Bull
for months now himself, was within a one-degree inconjunct (negative) aspect to
her Venus. Saturn in Taurus, twirling his lasso with Venus in his sights too,
perhaps was most offensive at this point, exploiting Venus, which rules Libra,
by "riding" Venus in her foster-ruled sign of Taurus. At any rate, both Dana's
natal Venus, and transiting Saturn, were in the same degree in stressful aspect,
even if we isolate it. Yet that is not possible here, for there was so much
planetary madness raining down on Dana at this point, and the whole Energy was
most certainly more destructive that the sum of its parts.
Karmically,
Dana was fated, not only by her stressful natal chart, and by brutal planetary
body blows and uppercuts, but also by her natal nodal positions. Dana's South
Node (past, karma) at 24 Sagittarius was exactly conjunct her natal Moon. Her
North Node was in Gemini, positive to her Venus in Libra, which had no aspects
to it by degree, and little supporting positive energy by sign. This probably
indicated that Dana was destined to indiscriminately scatter her energies
(Gemini) in pursuit of love and partnership (Libra), and this she surely did, as
suggested by reports that the many men in her life believed that they were "the
only one", and that she would use them, and vice versa, for their generosity and
for their abilities to provide her with money and drugs. She represented the
embodiment of the more licentious, sex-and-drugs characteristics of Neptune in
Scorpio - her Sun (hers-elf) was only two degrees from her Neptune at birth. As
she began, post-Saturn Return at 29-30 years of age, to act more like her Sun,
others began to see her as a Neptune-in-Scorpio icon. She not only got heavier
into drugs and indiscriminate sex, but she also shot porn (Neptune in Scorpio),
even making an adult film called Different Strokes.
Lastly,
we turn to the Moon's position when she died, which I covered earlier, yet now
we take a look at what was happening on an hourly basis.
The Moon was in
Aquarius the day that Dana died. It was a stressful day for the Moon, which
opposed Vesta, conjuncted Uranus, squared the Sun, in that order, all on that
morning. It was probably then that Dana, cooped up in her fiancees mobile home,
decided to make her final "escape". The Moon in the
anything-can-happen-and-it-usually-does sign of Aquarius enjoyed an easier
sextile to Jupiter in feisty Aries in the mid-afternoon, yet by then, it was too
late.
You know, it could have been a trine, yet it would not have
mattered in the least. The end was upon her, as Dana gulped the Valium and
Lortab. Her fiance awoke from a nap to find her dead beside him. The coroner
placed the time of her death at 8:30 pm. I say that Dana "died" early that
morning, perhaps late the evening before. She "died" of a broken heart. Why do I
say that? Not only because of her own conviction, most likely accurate, that
Hollywood "chewed me and spit me out" (her own words). You see, in a grim aside
to her death, Dana showed up on Howard Stern's radio show on May 7th, the day
before she died. She came to deny that she was doing any drugs, an accusation
leveled by her former roommate and lover to the Enquirer in March. She broke
down into tears when several male callers criticized her with great hostility,
calling her a liar. She left the studio completely broken, and I believe that it
was then that she lost all will to live.
In her final years, it appears
that Dana attempted to walk down a Wiccan path, as seen by the pentacle around
her neck in the last available photo of her, also pictured on the cover of this
week's Enquirer. Yet, as many of us on the Wiccan/Pagan path know all too well,
there can be many diversions and false detours along this Path, especially for
the young people (and Dana was really still a child). Without proper role models
and teachers, which Dana must have experienced, this Path of Light and Truth can
easily veer off into a Path of Darkness. Dana either followed that detour, or
she never found the On-Ramp. And she most likely walked all alone.
I hope
that Dana's soul will rest and incarnate into a being less likely to be used and
damaged by its own actions. I hope that her karmic debts have been paid, and
that her soul can find true happiness the next time around. May the Gods bless
and love her soul, as many of us loved her as we grew up.
Bright
Blessings,
Carlo
Suggested
Links:
The Dana Plato Webring...at last!!!
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/danaplato.html
http://www.minorcon.org/memorial/DanaPlato.htm
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Plato,+Dana
Copyright © 1999-2010 C. Ravin, Esq. and Lovestarz.com. All rights
reserved.