Tennis legend Serena Williams (9/26/1981, unverified time of 8:26 pm in Saginaw, MI) gave a referee a piece of her mind on Saturday, costing her the game and the match.  This sudden outburst is considered out of character for Serena, who rarely makes the news outside of the sports section.

This can be explained partially by her astrology chart and the fact that Serena has five planets in the peaceloving sign of Libra:  the Sun, Saturn, Jupiter, Pluto and Mercury.  But she’s not all peace, love and harmony – that Pluto/Mercury conjunction gives her plenty of verbal (Mercury) power (Pluto) and I suspect that she’s not afraid to use it.  Her Virgo Moon gives her a natural reticence and modesty, but this conflicts with a powerful Mars in the competitive sign of Leo, revealing her intense drive (Mars) to win (Leo). Still, that Virgo Moon is typically respectful of rules and dislikes rocking the boat and ESPN sports analyst Mary Carillo said, “This was an aberration, I’ve never seen her like that.”

It’s not surprising that Serena is touchier these days than usual.  Transiting Chiron, the planet that brings up all of our old wounds and fears, is making a square to Chiron in her natal chart. This is a challenging planetary event that removes the protective band-aids that we use to cover up our insecurities and old wounds of the psyche.  

She has also had a major transit of Pluto making a square to her Sun.  Although that cycle is taking a breather, she has likely been going through some rather intense changes in her professional and personal life.

On the day of the incident, transiting Mars was forming an exact square to Saturn in Serena’s chart.  Saturn often represents the father – the stern taskmaster that tells us over and over again that we’re not good enough.  I suspect that the voice of the referee, even though she was female, brought up something deep and old for Serena, who was already sensitized by the transiting square of Chiron, and goaded by Mars, the god of war,she erupted with anger.  

The final phase of the Chiron cycle will end in late April, and Serena will have plenty of Mars transits between now and then.  Hopefully she will resolve some of her issues off the courts so that her career can continue its amazing trajectory.