Helen Reddy is a rad example of Scorpio’s characteristics. She ran away from the circus. Then, as a single mother performing in Vegas, her feminist anthem became a hit. Helen Reddy, Scorpio, Singer, Songwriter & Activist is driven.
She sang + wrote the iconic Seventies “I Am Woman” anthem and was an icon of the Pluto in Leo generation.
She is Sun conjunct Mercury in Scorpio. (Mercury Retrograde, by the way.) She is Aries Rising, Moon in Capricorn, and Neptune on the North Node in Virgo. Neptune North Node people often have a visionary, mythopoetic view of possibilities.
Bucking the general trend, Reddy was raised in a circus performance family but left for suburban marriage and motherhood. She won a singing competition and flew to New York, only to find out she’d won just an audition. She failed that,
Left broke and as a single mother (in those days!) in a foreign city, she fought her way into headlining at Vegas just a few years later. Her support acts were a young Joan Rivers and Barry Manilow
But it was I Am Woman that made her name, written and released around the time of her Saturn Return, and an instant sensation.
“Women have always been objectified in showbiz. I’d be the opening act for a comic and as I was leaving the stage he’d say, ‘Yeah, take your clothes off and wait for me in the dressing room, I’ll be right there’. It was demeaning and humiliating for any woman to have that happen publicly.”
Reddy credits the song as having supernatural inspiration.
She said: “I remember lying in bed one night and the words, ‘I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman’, kept going over and over in my head. That part I consider to be divinely inspired. I had been chosen to get a message across.” Pressed on who had chosen her, she replied: “The universe.” The next day she wrote the lyric and handed it to Australian guitarist Ray Burton to put it to music.
Note the Scorpio characteristics on show here. She was undaunted by circumstances that would have sent many people shrieking back to wherever they came from. She blended faith in the ‘supernatural’ with a tireless work ethic. And, she made her art an alloy of creativity and political belief, without it seeming clumsy or strained.
Helen Reddy was my inspiration in my youth and still today!
She will live on forever; if only to continue to inspire young women to be the person they were designed to be – awesomely invisible!
We can do anything we choose to do!
PS. I had a massive crush on her in my younger years. 😉
cute
and I prefer too
she has Lilith conjunct Saturn & Uranus in the 2nd house FTW
She’s genuinely impressive, I love how she comes across on camera. Pretty damn powerful astro signature there.
I’ve heard that Scorpio Sun/Merc is pretty good for Hypnotherapy. It’s really refreshing to see someone who is genuinely at peace with their adult life choices with a fame past and not clinging to the glory days and says how happy they are in this moment. Genuinely heartwarming.
I also ran away from the circus lol.
wow, really?
That’s amazing.
I agree, she is beyond impressive as a human being.
I confess that I always loved her nose, those flaring nostrils that hint at having a temper and feisty temperament.
Can still sing Delta dawn…
Nice interview, linked below. She’s a now hypotherapist and psychic counselor now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xhVxpx7aCQ
Beautiful person.
LOL – she has a cartoon that says:
I am Woman
I am Invincible
I am tired
I saw that too, very funny
Wow, great link. Tossing your old memorabilia like that takes real balls. Kudos.
YES!
…also, talk about Scorpios and phoenixing!
How scorpio is that…Very evolved
holy fuq I love her!
Wow! Blast from the past – Hero Helen. That song was huge, and came out when my girlfriends and i were 12-13 and it became our song. We tried to sing it at the school concert that year, but our old misogynist music teacher was horrified and wouldn’t let us. I mean, you know – like The Pirates of Penzance was so much more relevant? :-/ It did drive home how we still had “a long, long way to go” … fired us up even more. Yaaay Helen! Beautiful singer.
She is total legend! ALWAYS loved that fabulous song – if I had to I can do anything! Onya Helen!!!! My 70’s childhood would not have been so empowering without you!
(Note to Madonna: You really should try Mystic’s tarot. Way easier.)
Happy New Moon in Leo! 😛
Eleven, sixteen. Oww
Wowsa!!
Feliz Luna Nueva to you too! 🙂
amazing, thanks for the link.
Gorgeous tumbler blog MM
Classic feminist anthem. Betty White did a kick-ass cover back in the day, too.
TYPO – Betty Wright.
got mixed up …she has cap moon…no matter : )
yay a scorpio post….funnily enough ‘resilient’ is the word my stepmother used to describe me once….and I got aries moon…yay
i needs a guitarist
Haaaa, omg you just reminded me of this random thing that pops into my head sometimes. A friend was in Denmark and took a picture of a shop window with “Slutspurt” across it. Obv it translates into something mundane like “super sale” but she thought it was a great name for a band. I totally would don a wig and outrageous clothes to play with Slutspurt but my husband doesn’t think it’s funny.
Slutspurt is great! I’m thinking electro.
I was playing a game of FIFA on playstation the other day with my 12 yo, There is a player called Schweinsteiger, who is a huge star from the German national team. We wondered what it meant and looked it up. In its original form it means. A pig mounter. My 12 yo asked many difficult questions that were basically impossible to answer.. Maybe a German subscriber can explain the truer meaning ?
I like Elevator Sluts as a band name.
very silly I know Slutsput is funny too..
I am constantly going “ooh that would be a great band name!” when I hear something cute.
Fun…flashback Friday…
I had the 45 for my portable record player as a kid…
going off point but…have you heard her Angie Baby?…total NeptuneDreaming…I remember as a kid walking to the record store to
get the Stones’ Angie but I ended up with Helen’s Angie Baby by
mistake…a good mistake :)…she sang Delta Dawn as well.
Angie Baby used to give me goosebumps as did Delta Dawn. Pathos personified or was it empathy that those songs evoked perhaps.
woowoowoo for sure.yes.yes 🙂
Strange songs indeed. Angie Baby – such a strange song to hit no.1. Creeped, saddened, empathised at same time. Delta Dawn – LZ in extremis? so good to belt out tho.
I’m actually named after that song, and my dad has called me Angie Baby my whole life (I’m now 38). Love it!
She lived down the street from me back in the day… didn’t know she was a scorp, too!
“Take What You Find” is a great title. Take whatever you can find & fertilize your roses with it. Tis the Scorpio way.
i loved that too, take it or leave it, either way 🙂
She seems awesome on so many levels.
I’m going to download her music.
So cool finding role models AND such a bonus to know their astro too.
More reasons to love this site, as if I need them.
Fantastic song, I remember it and always felt strengthened by it 🙂
There’s a great version of this recorded recently by some fabulous Aus women singers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7qTxbPv7tE
This song is so still needed. Thanks Helen.
Her best song by far was Candle on the Water… Forty years ago, I used to sing (scream) along with that record down the staircase… since then I’ve always wanted to be Austrailian!
She looks fabulously Saggo in that photo above. Perhaps it’s the 70’s vibe.
70’s always looks Saggo to me.
Scorpio with Aries and Cap is rad. Power combo!
She’s great!
It is a great pic.
Agreed. She looks great, and very Sagg in that free and physically confident way. I hadn’t thought of the 70s that way before but you’re right! Case in point: Olivia Newton John album covers.
Carly Simon would be Saggo with Kataka moon 🙂
Joan Baez, Saggo with Cap moon
Mama Caz, Sag with Jupiter rising
Yeah, all female musicians are saggo in the 70’s to me..(silly girl)
Wow. I’d never heard that song before. Epic.
What a woman!
The cool Dutch girl never got back to me and the viewing is tomorrow.
I don’t feel like chasing. She said the viewing was Saturday and that I was invited when I first applied so perhaps she will drop me a line tomorrow..
It’s cutting it a bit fine tho..
I spoke to a couple of other residents in this complex and apparently since the restaurants opened everyone has a rat problem. East London is apparently much worse in that respect because the buildings are older and I had a conversation with a woman in the gym today who said she’d had a similar issue in two other flats in London and when I asked her how she resolved it she said, “I got a cat.”
eureka moment
How have I never had a cat?
So I think its time…
googled cat adoption in London and there are millions of cats that need a loving home, read a quote that said, “it is impossible to be tense when you’re looking at a sleeping cat.”
Now I keep imagining having Feline companionship. I imagine it rubbing my leg when I’m working and sleeping on my bed, watching movies with me and generally doing snuggly, nesty type stuff. I have large balcony so outside access is not a problem. I think I’m just going to announce to the estate agent that I’m adopting a cat and if they give me any shit about pets I’ll just say, “well I already have some wild four legged rodents I didn’t sign up for so what they dude?”
Yeah bring on the Bast worship.
That’s what is missing from my life. I’m a single woman and I’m over 40. Fuq that, I qualify!
oh that is a new moon in leo genius moment. i just got adoption excitement for you
@nono this new moon in leo is quite the thing hey?
post that dreadful, scary, slushy dank moon which we shall speak of no more, life feels COMPLETELY different. I think I got my emo period (new dark moon phenomenon I’v observed in myself characterised by being truculent and intensely crabby, miserable and generally an asshole) about two weeks before this new moon but what a difference ahem….
I never see comments I’m so bad.at.reading this screen. I am going to blow up if I don’t figure out this technology situation. So much to doooo.
You did think of getting cat one time.. remember, the Australian Mist? Mm.
They need a friend though, a Mist without a friend is a friend in need, as they are too cuddly. My boy caught a mouse and it was deeply surprising to me, never had one since in the house, much to his disappointment.
Australian Mist?
Nay Sphinx, not I possum, er fellow PIAB mate.
This is the first time I’ve considered getting any kind of pet in my adult life.
For want of a more apt nonclemanture.
Adult life indeed.
yeah…
I need a friend too, a soft furry, purrrrry one.
Miss Virgopenny immediately began going through all the reasons why not at the moment of idea inception.
I’ve been googling up a storm on the various breeds and which ones are more needy, what they need etc.
I haven’t gone to meet any yet because I know I’ll fall in love with one and be kitten smitten so I’m still in prep for the visit to the humane society right now x
I remember this song when I was child in the seventies. I still remember the feeling I had when I heard this as a little girl, it was so powerful. With all the usual blah-blah-blah messages about what it is to be a woman and how to be a woman (a narrative usually directed by men), this stood out. Just a little bit of subversive counter-culture that made it to the top 40 chart telling me that I could choose my own course in life if so desired. I remember many dismissed it as uncool, and there was the usual backlash against the song. But it was heartening to hear it’s sentiments spoken not just by significant women in my life in my home (my mother, my aunties, my grandmother, my great-aunties etc). Hearing it spoken out loud like that seemed to suggest that it just might be real.
I too was a child of this time but too young to remember this song… however, we were of a generation given a very male version of female authority and power in the ’70s – from ‘Charlie’s Angels’ to Margaret Thatcher. Very little changed for twenty years, as I recall a younger girl cousin dismissing the Spice Girls. She knew it was a conceit to delude with each girl representing a male fantasy and not real ‘girl power’. Girls are smart and invincible too.
Ah – thank you – just as I was giving up.
Ray.burton. yessssss
‘I am invincible’. What else can we say? That’s fuq you Saturn, I get your message.