When I first began reading charts in 2020, Lauryn Hill was one of the first celebrities charts I looked up. Initially, my attention was on her Venus square Jupiter. I saw this aspect as being the reason for her career not expanding after her debut album. Today, I am much more intrigued by other aspects of her chart such as her Venus-Saturn conjunction, Virgo ascendant, and Sagittarius Moon.

Venus-Saturn

This conjunction happens in the 11th house, a very public house known to attract large amounts of people via social networking and fanbases. A part of the legacy and hype of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was her love life. She was ending an on and off relationship with a former bandmate and began dating and would become pregnant with a member of the Marley family.

Venus-Saturn is a very harsh and restricting placement to have; Venus just wants to love unconditionally but Saturn wants to teach a lesson of why you can’t love everyone. Her song Ex Factor perfectly captures this placement, and the music video is full of blues and whites, both Cancerian/Lunar colors, and dark blue which is Saturn’s influence on Cancer’s energy.

Her album has an underlying theme of love that is carried through the album by the classroom skits where the teacher is asking students what love is to them. I have an article on Venus and Saturn so check it out once you’ve finished reading this to gain more insight on the special relationship these two planets share.

According to Wikipedia, the recording of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill took place September 1997 through June 1998. This means that the album was recorded while Lauryn was going through an 11th house profection year with the Venus-Saturn conjunction being the overarching theme for year and consequently the album. The 11th house profection year is a year of questioning your circle and the company you hang around. Recall the first verse in Forgive Them Father:

Beware the false motives of others. Be careful of those who pretend to be brothers. And you never suppose it’s those who are closest to you.

Virgo Ascendant

Virgo ascendants are the most vulnerable to criticism and are the most critical of themselves. There’s a video of Lauryn when she was 13 years old at the Apollo Amateur Night being booed as she began to sing but applauded by the end of her performance. This is an example of Virgo ascendants having to prove themselves before getting any praise, causing them to internalize this and subconsciously always in performance mode and keeping a mask on or isolating themselves (Leo in the 12th house).

These periods of isolation can be attributed to her Sun, the ruler of her 12th house, conjunct the South Node, also known as Ketu in Vedic astrology. Ketu is said to remove someone from the material world (from an energetic standpoint, not always literally) in order to become closer to the spiritual world. This separation of Lauryn from the material world is best noted in a 2012-2013 case for her failure to pay taxes. In a now archived Tumblr post, Lauryn posted that she began not to pay taxes “when it was necessary to withdraw from society”.

Sagittarius 4th House

Lauryn exposed a lot of herself in this album in a way that was palpable and relatable to everyone. She has North Node, the Moon, and Neptune in Sagittarius in the 4th house. These placements, to me, explains her being deeply spiritual as well as her deep regard for privacy especially with her Sun at 4°, a Cancerian degree. Sagittarius searches for a truth in religion and the truth in the universe.

Her debut album was her sharing her spiritual journey and philosophies as a 23-year-old though in interviews she’s adamant that the messages she shares are not created by her nor is she the first to say these things but rather she is a messenger and a vessel for God’s will.

The Astrology of… is a Patreon exclusive series where I cover the birth charts of celebrities, cultural events, and major cities. If you enjoyed this post, then you may enjoy similar ones on figures such as Rick Rubin, Megan Thee Stallion, and Nicki Minaj.