Joni Mitchell has the Sun and Mercury in Scorpio in the 5th house of creativity, the Moon in Pisces at the top of the chart and Cancer rising: a songwriter of unusual honesty who has always called herself a painter first.

She was born Roberta Joan Anderson at 10 in the evening on 7 November 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. Astro-Databank rates the time A, from memory, which is reliable but not from a birth record. She grew up in Saskatchewan, studied at art college in Calgary, and in the mid-1960s moved first to Toronto and then to the United States to sing in folk clubs.

Sun and Mercury in Scorpio in the 5th house

Scorpio is depth, honesty and the urge to look under the surface. Her Sun and Mercury, the planet of words, sit together there in the 5th house, the house of creativity, self-expression and love. It describes songs that go further into private feeling than most people would dare. Blue (1971), written after a love affair ended, is still held up as one of the most open albums ever made.

Moon in Pisces in the 10th house, and a Pisces Midheaven

The Moon in Pisces is imaginative, artistic and deeply feeling. Hers sits in the 10th house, the house of career and reputation, with her Midheaven in Pisces too. Pisces at the top of the chart is a classic signature of an artist whose public life is the art itself. She painted many of her own album covers, including the self-portrait on Clouds (1969), and has described herself as a painter who was sidetracked into music.

Moon square Saturn, Saturn and Mars in the 12th house

The Moon makes a close square to Saturn, the planet of discipline and pressure, which sits in Gemini with Mars in her 12th house. It is an aspect of hard-won feeling: emotion worked on until it is exactly right. Gemini rules the hands, and she developed her own way of playing, tuning her guitar in dozens of unusual "open" tunings, partly because polio in childhood had weakened her left hand.

Cancer rising

Cancer rising is protective, sensitive and attached to home and memory. Her songs keep returning to places and to the people in them, from "Both Sides Now" to "Big Yellow Taxi". In 2022 she returned to the stage at the Newport Folk Festival, her first full public performance in about twenty years.

Compare your chart with hers

If you share her Scorpio Sun or her Pisces Moon, you may know the pull between deep, private feeling and the need to make something of it. Add your details below to see how your chart meets hers.