The NBA
regular season was just settling into a comfortable routine.
Professional basketball’s moral shortcomings were momentarily
overshadowed by all the murder and mayhem emerging from within the
NFL, while the fans were enjoying the competitive action of some
hot, young teams and a rising new generation of superstars. High
time for Dennis Rodman and his daily dose of disruption to return
from the shadows and remind us of what basketball is really all
about! Having
burned his bridges with the Lakers last season, returning to play
there under his former Bulls coach, Phil Jackson, was out of the
question. But the desperate Dallas Mavericks dangled a contract
tailored to Rodman’s every whim. With no practices, no workouts,
none of the ties that bind ordinary players together into a team,
Rodman is free to be himself in Dallas. And, true to form, he was
ejected in only his second game with the Mavericks, then suspended
and fined by the league for verbally abusing the officials and
refusing to leave the court. Welcome back, Dennis!
Who Is This
Guy, Anyway?
Whether
you love him or hate him, Dennis Rodman won’t go away. Who is the
man behind the hair-dye, and why does he intrigue us so? His natal
chart reveals a complicated personality with powerful, conflicting
drives. Rodman was born on May 13, 1961, and has both the Sun and
Moon in Taurus. Like many earthy Taureans, he is a stubborn and dedicated
sensualist, gorging himself on all the pleasures of the material world.
It’s
hard to overlook his vanity and Venusian fascination with self-adornment
(the sign Taurus is “ruled” by the planet Venus), but scratch the
surface and you find a successful businessman who knows how to pull
in (and spend) the big bucks. Rodman was born with practical Capricorn
rising, and his Taurus Sun is in a harmonious trine aspect (a 120
degree angle) to his equally earthy Saturn in Capricorn, enabling
him to profitably channel his ambition and ascend to the top of his
chosen profession.
Hiding in
Plain Sight
What
he does at the top is another story, because with Neptune in Scorpio
on his Midheaven (the cusp or beginning of the Tenth House), his public
image is a confusing enigma. Seductive and daringly sexual, he’s a
multi-hued butterfly who delights in revealing what most of us prefer
to keep secret. And sometimes he’s just drunk.
The Midheaven
is such a public part of the birth chart, marking the point of the
Sun's highest culmination in his daily path across the sky, that any
planets placed there tend to manifest markedly in an individual's
career or social standing. In Rodman's case, perhaps the illusive
and transpersonal Neptune serves as a projection screen for the fantasies
of the masses, while the "real" Rodman hides in public behind his
unique masquerade.
Struggles
with Authority
However, the
single most important factor in his chart, is that disruptive square
between his Taurus Sun in the Fourth House and his Uranus in Leo in
the very public Seventh House. This square keeps him in constant
contention with authority. Uranus in Leo loves to act out its own
unique freedom, and in that stressful combination with the Sun, the
ego is defined by rebellion, and must assert itself against any
perceived restraints. Dennis loves to test the limits, often just
for the sheer, adolescent fun of shocking and rocking the status
quo.
Not a
Flamboyant Player
The funny
thing is, for all his radical pose, Rodman plays a very
conservative, even boring game. He doesn’t dunk or run up the
score. In fact, he rarely scores at all, preferring to focus on his
Taurean specialty—rebounding. When the ball comes off the
backboard, he grabs it, wordlessly declaring, “It’s mine” and
he does it better than anyone else in the league. It’s all about
possession, a Taurus trait. This highly intuitive sense of applied
geometry and angular relationships has won him many NBA rebounding
titles and he’s not about to change now. For this skill alone,
teams are willing to put up with his sideshow. And he does sell
tickets.
Like
it or not, Dennis has earned the right to be Dennis. At this point
in his career, he can do it his way, or no way at all. Whatever you
may think of his taste, morality or fashion sense, I think we’d all
like to have more of that kind of freedom and control in our own lives—but
maybe without the hair!