The Capricornian Imaginarium: Analyzing the Birth-Chart of David Lynch

Movie still of Kyle MacLachlan and Sherilyn Fenn in “Twin Peaks.”Credit ABC. Original website: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/arts/television/twin-peaks-anniversary.html

Because I love astrology and I love you all, I’m thinking of starting a habit on this page, one in which I analyze the birth-chart of a given celebrity each month for you. The only rule to this new astro habit is that the Sun of the celebrity has to match the season. As a test run, I thought I would look into the chart of the movie director David Lynch, a Capricorn Sun who matches the current season we find ourselves in, Capricorn Season (which officially began on the 22 of December 2022 and will end on the 20th of January 2023). This post has also been inspired by the fact that I recently finished re-watching Twin Peaks, the television series that undoubtedly launched the career of David Lynch, an American film-maker with a taste for stylish, macabre and deeply mysterious storytelling.

Lynch’s work tends to polarize people, who either feel incomprehensibly drawn towards his his twisted cinematic universe or struggle to comprehend it and give up in a frustrated rage. I will also admit to not truly understanding his often convoluted storylines (see Mulholland Drive), but I enjoy the atmosphere that he creates and the mystery he keeps taking his viewers in. You may say what you want about his creative work, but you must admit that it is intriguing, at least. And mystery seems to be his destiny seeing as Lynch was born on an astrological cusp, the one between Capricorn and Aquarius and fondly referred to as the Mystery cusp! However, I personally don’t believe that cusps are something we should pay attention too as practitioners or consumers of astrology and for a recall of why I think this, see my previous post: https://spiritualsocial.wordpress.com/2020/07/25/heres-the-issue-with-astrological-cusps/

Coming back to Lynch, I think he is one of those people who is able to create such an absorbing and unique set-up, on the foreground of which the stories of his beautiful and yet distraught characters slowly develop. What I like about Twin Peaks is how small it starts and how eerie and cosmic it becomes; how the first season is so incredibly good and how its second season is abysmally bad. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series – which by now is vintage and has aged relatively well – as viewers, we begin with a murder in a local town called Twin Peaks (a place strangely associated in my mind with Stardew Valley or Ridgside Village), a cosy, sleepy mountain resort closer to the border between Canada and the USA. However, we end the series with a deep-dive into the Underworld of that quaint town and a string of unexplained demonic possessions.

So naturally, I pulled up Lynch’s chart to see if there is anything astrological that points towards his attraction to small and quaint towns that hide creepy paranormal possessions and to my small surprise, I found some fascinating aspects and destined placements. See below his chart:

Astrological Chart of David Lynch born on 20th of January 1946, to be found on https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/David_Lynch

Lynch’s movies, his image, and his slightly elitist ‘cinema d’auteur’ vibe made me question for a while what are the astrological energies which compel a person to create such a visual imaginarium; I do believe in divine timing and maybe I waited so long to look at his chart, because the planet Pluto, currently transiting across his Sun is creating a powerful magnet of interest and attention towards his persona. I hope Lynch is well and that he is able to survive the end of a Pluto transit, because few people who have had this Pluto-Sun transit have managed to survive it (case in point, Capricorn Sun Betty White who passed away in December of 2021 and more recently Capricorn Sun Jeremy Renner who is struggling with a debilitating amputation caused by a snow plough accident).

Aside from Twin Peaks, you might know David Lynch in relation to his work on Dune, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Inland Empire, or Eraserhead, all famously filmed some considerable years, if not decades apart. So we know he is a slow worker, that he takes his time and that usually whatever he creates makes a splash in the collective unconscious when he launches it. With this point in mind, the thing that stands out from the beginning in his chart is his powerful and energetically concentrated Sun in Capricorn at the anaretic degree, the 29th, conjunct Venus and nearby Mercury in the cozy and hard-working 2nd house. So that’s were his fascination for quaint stable and traditional towns comes from – the 2nd house is the house usually ruled by moral Taurus, a house in which we focus on pragmatic things like money, food and creature comforts. We can see that Lynch’s life revolves around work and the accomplishment of his physical needs and he might also (I suspect) be quite selfish about how he accomplishes these thigs since his South Node (or his astrological comfort zone) is in Sagittarius and in the 1st house, the house of the Self and of the personality and life opportunities we attract. His North Node or his growth zone is in the 7th house, the house of Other people, love marriage and settlements. I think we can see now why Lynch was married 4 times 😉 So learning to negotiate, to show his feelings by talking to others, learning how to reach agreements and settlements are all part of his destiny and of his uncomfortable growth zone. We usually tend to be obsessed with the house and sign in which we have our North Node, so we see that Gemini and the 7th house is his point of attraction. I mean I still fondly remember the image below of Lynch and his leading lady, Isabella Rosellini (a Gemini Sun) from their time filming and promoting Blue Velvet:

I also thing that the fact that Isabella is considering cinema royalty having been born of two movie legends and becoming an accomplished actress in her own right, tickled Lynch’s fancy since Capricorn Sun’s usually love status. Another fun fact is that his leading male star, Kyle McLachlan who worked with Lynch in Dune, Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, is a Pisces Sun with Saturn in Capricorn and a 6th house in Capricorn which fits so beautifully with the director’s personal planets. They are karmic partners indeed seeing as the Sun, Mercury and Venus of Lynch fall into that professional area of Kyle’s chart. Lynch famously started working on a different project during Twin Peaks and most attribute the decrease in quality of the show’s second season to the fact that he stopped investing time, attention and care into it. To be honest, I agree because it is mostly in the episodes which he personally directed of the second season that the atmosphere and sense of ‘story continuation’ seemed to have returned. Taking time to care for others and to put effort into shared alliances, agreements and contracts is also where Lynch’s karma lies, since he has the planet of difficulty and karmic lessons (Saturn) in the most caring sign of the zodiac (Cancer) and his Mars is also conjunct his Saturn in Cancer in the house of sex, death, blood and magic, or the 8th house. Its perhaps interesting to underline that with a Mars conjunct Saturn combo in the sensitive and shy sign of Cancer, neither of the two traditional ‘malefics’ Saturn and Mars, are doing particularly well. Saturn is about restrictions, limits and discipline and Mars is about aggression, directness and courage and in the motherly and receptive energy of Cancer, these kind of butt heads. Such an energy can be beautiful for storytelling but also quite repressed and frustrated in personal connections.

The fact that his North Node is at the chaotic anaretic degree (the 29th) and so close to the border into the 8th house, tells me that Lynch’s personal life might have been chaotic, gossipy and strange and this inspired him to bring such experiences onto the silver screen, because original work usually stems from reflections based on lived experiences and our lived experiences are constantly influenced by astrological transits. I mean the man has Uranus, the planet of weird and wonderful events in the house of other people and it is retrograde (which makes it more intense and concentrated in energy). I think that Lynch constantly attracted in his life random, episodic, short-term relationships that taught his about the extremes of mental health. This Uranian energy combined with his combo in Cancer leads to the creation of a the kind of work which others may perceive as moody, crazy and messy, yet emotionally impactful. So, obviously Lynch will naturally put in a lot of work and effort towards the understanding of the occult, with such heavy and masculine energy in the house of the magic and witchcraft. We see his focus on identity transformations, questioning religion, investigating incest, depictions of sexual and domestic violence, jumps scares and soul possessions peppering his work. All of these darker aspects pertain to Scorpionic energy evident in his chart both in his Mars and Saturn 8th house placement but also in his two other important aspects.

So Lynch also has a Scorpio Ascendant paired with a Virgo Moon perfectly conjunct the Midheaven, in his public 10th house. We first notice compatible Earth and Water synergies which might explain his fertile & creative flow. However, these are also heavy, karmic energies and you can feel that existence to him has not been a proverbial ‘walk in the park’, since his conscious mind and communication style (Mercury), his capacity to love and earn money (Venus) and his energy, vitality and sense of confident identity (the Sun) are obscured under the tight grip of stern Saturn, the astrological ruler of Capricornian energy who sits opposite from his Capricornian stellium in his 2nd house. Saturn disciplines ones energy in a rough way (see my earlier post about Moon conjunct Saturn celebrities for a refresher), by frequently getting the native to make mistakes in order to learn. Saturn also gives one a great ambition to become somebody and an impulsivity to match (since Capricorn follows after passionate Sagittarius on the zodiac wheel), which the individual must learn to master and apply to the creation of physical and material goods, services and outcomes. And Saturn also slows things down, creating obstacles and energetic impediments on the path of a native, who must concentrate all their skills, willpower and determination to make something tangible with this innate creativity. I think Saturnian energy beacons so strongly out from Lynch’s work, but also from his personal life, as he only got better with time and after a couple of flops.

A Venus in Capricorn takes time to understand the flow of giving and receiving in a personal connection, so they might need to go through a couple of them in order to purge their Ego needs and become empathetic, compassionate and wise. Remember that David has been married 4 times, and he is still linked to his latest wife, which could point towards the integration and ripening of a Venusian energy that became better with time, with patience and after a couple of problematic marriages. In addition, a Sun in Capricorn is the energy of a person that matures slowly in time, after some life experiences have taught them how to lead others, how to ‘boss’ up and apply themselves efficiently to the task at hand. We can easily see the many mistakes Lynch has made with his controversial ‘Dune’ movie and the cinematic progress he displayed in Inland Empire. Some would argue that technology was not his friend back in the day and now he has better equipment to film, but I find that misses the point of understanding how Saturnian energy works – it’s a slow drip, it allows ample room for mistakes, it gives one a period of youth as a stage of apprenticeship in life, after which more mature, solid and respectable rewards can come though if the individual has done the work. Otherwise, Saturn can floor one with financial debts, diseases and social isolation. I think that’s not David Lynch’s case, and he has his work to prove it. And this is the final word of any Capricorn, the reality of the fact that their work when done well will outlive us all.

I think I’ll stop here as I can continue to write about this chart for another couple of pages. What do you think of David’s chart? Do you enjoy his movies? I hope this was useful and interesting to read and feel free to recommend Aquarius celebrities’ for next month’s analysis.

With universal love,

Lexi