John McPhee
John McPhee (born March 8, 1931, Princeton, United States), aged 95, is an American writer. McPhee is best known for Basin and Range, The Pine Barrens and The Headmaster. McPhee's honours include Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, John Burroughs Medal and George Polk Award.
John McPhee’s zodiac sign is Pisces, Chinese zodiac is Metal Goat, with Life Path 7 in numerology.
Pisces, Chinese zodiac is 
Metal Goat, with 
Life Path 7 in numerology.Your match with John
John McPhee’s AsterNym identity
The Tidal Seeker
Water represents depth and adaptability. Water-led charts are associated with instinct, memory and the ability to find a path around obstacles. Life Path 7 represents inquiry: study, solitude and the need to understand what others may simply accept.
Water Day Master (BaZi) × mutable Sun × Life Path 7, on the intuitive plane.
How common is the name John in the U.S.?
#23
US rank in 2025
~5,204,377
Americans share it since 1880
1947
its peak year
John ranked 3rd among boys and 356th among girls in 1931, the year of this birth, with 48,423 American boys and 325 girls on the register.
US Social Security Administration public records
What John’s name adds up to
Worked from the name as published, letter by letter.
7
Expression · depth and research
7
Soul Urge · understanding
9
Personality · generous, worldly
The name opens on J (1) and closes on N (5). The value it repeats most is 5, which numerology reads as movement.
Pythagorean letter values · A=1 to I=9, then J=1 again
John’s lucky numbers, colours and stones
Traditional correspondences, calculated not chosen.
Lucky numbers
7 · 2
Lucky colours
White & Gold
Lucky day
Thursday
Direction
← West
Season
autumn
Stones
Aquamarine, Yellow Sapphire, Rutilated Quartz
Flower constellation
🌼 Daffodil · 🌸 Peony · 🤍 White Camellia
Sunlit yellow · Rose-gold · Silver
The record
What sets John apart
Marjorie Estiano (1982) and Warren Zaïre-Emery (2006) share the birthday in another year, so the sun sits where it sits here.
What the chart says
John, according to the stars
Core essence
John feels everything, and it is the best and hardest thing about them. The core of John is imagination with a soft heart behind it: the daydream, the creative pull, the instinct that knows how someone is doing before they do. They absorb the mood of a room and give back something kinder. Their softness is not weakness, it is the whole point.
The vibe
Underneath, John feels more than they will ever show, and shows it to about three people. The Moon in Scorpio is deep water: loyal, private, slow to trust and impossible to fool. What John needs to feel safe is total honesty and the sense that a secret told stays told. Betray that once and it is a long way back.
How John wants to be loved
John wants to be loved as a friend first, and then as everything. Venus in Aquarius needs freedom, conversation and a partner who finds their strangeness delightful. Rules and jealousy make them cold; acceptance makes them devoted. Let John be fully themselves and they will never want to be anywhere else.
How John creates
How John makes things happen: they keep moving. A Yang Water day master is the river, curious, restless, going somewhere even when nobody knows where. John creates by exploring, by talking to everyone, by carrying ideas from one place to another. Hard to pin down, impossible to dam, and the best person to have on a long trip.
Instinct
Instinct: John is creative and kind, a Goat year, and their gut reaction is to make it beautiful. Artistic, gentle, easily moved, and the friend everyone confides in. The Metal year sharpens it: principled, determined, clear about what is right.
Purpose
Purpose: Life Path 7 is the seeker. John is here to understand, to go deep rather than wide, to keep a private inner world that most people never see. Thoughtful, intuitive, happiest with time alone, and learning to let the right people in.
Triggers
Triggers: feeling unsafe, or seeing their people treated badly. Mars in Cancer means John does not fight for themselves easily but will go to war for someone they love. The anger comes out sideways at first, then all at once. Protectiveness is the whole engine.
Computed from John's birth date. Working below.
Where John sits
Six lines
John’s dot comes from the chart; yours is where you put it.
You may run on a few close bonds rather than a crowd. Depth is your default.
You likely weigh most decisions but can move fast when it matters.
You likely share some feelings openly and keep others to yourself.
You may need space before addressing conflict. Cooling off comes first.
You may be drawn to big possibilities. The practical follows after the vision.
You likely warm up at a pace that depends on the person and moment.
Tap each line where you sit.
All twelve of yours, from your birth date →✦ A real star from their birth night
Dedicate a star to John McPhee
Three stars chosen from the real sky above Princeton on the night they were born. Choose the story that connects you.
A 9 p.m. reference sky, not the birth minute. Dedications are commemorative and confer no ownership of stars.
The sky over Princeton that night
Computed for 40.35°N, 9 p.m. local sky.
At 9 p.m. the star closest to straight overhead at Princeton was Castor, in Gemini, 79.2° up.
The brightest star above the horizon was Sirius in Canis Major, and 106 catalog stars were up in all.
From 40.4°N not one of the brightest stars stays permanently above the horizon — all of them rise and set.
The trade is at the other end of the sky: nothing south of −49.6° declination ever rises from here, which puts Canopus, Rigil Kentaurus, Achernar, Hadar, Acrux, Mimosa and Toliman permanently out of view.
Sun 34° below the horizon, Moon down and 72% lit at waning gibbous.
How unusual John's chart is
Chart pattern score
10 / 100 · Reassuringly normal
An AsterNym index built from stelliums, yods, grand crosses and chart shape. It is not a population percentile, and a high score is not a better chart. Without a birth time the houses are left out of it.
Score your own chart →John McPhee at a glance
Pisces Sun
Pisces SunKind, porous, easily flooded.
John McPhee's Sun was in Pisces for the whole of March 8, 1931, so no birth time is needed to settle it.
What Pisces means →Metal Goat
Metal GoatKind, and quietly tough.
John McPhee was born on March 8, 1931, which falls in a Metal Goat year of the Chinese calendar.
What the Goat means →Life Path 7
Life Path 7Solitary, curious, deep.
John McPhee's birth date, March 8, 1931, reduces to Life Path 7 under the numerology method AsterNym uses.
What Life Path 7 means →What stands out in John’s chart
- The tightest major aspect in John McPhee's date-only chart is Mercury trine Jupiter, with an orb of under 1°.
- Three planets, Mars, Jupiter and Pluto, sit together in Cancer, which astrologers call a stellium.
- Five of the ten planets fall in Cardinal signs, making Cardinal the strongest modality in this chart.
- John McPhee combines a Water Day Master in BaZi with a mutable Sun and a Life Path on the intuitive plane, the combination AsterNym calls The Tidal Seeker.
John’s birth chart
Reference chart · birth time unknown
Positions are checked across the whole date. The Moon ranges from 8° to 22° Scorpio depending on the hour.
No birth time, so the houses are a solar chart: the Sun’s sign counts as house 1.
Placements
Tap one to light it on the wheel.
The working: aspects, Chiron and the asteroids, dominant planets and configurationsshow
Aspects across every possible birth time
stableMercurytrineJupiter0.0° to 1.1° orb
John’s mind flows straight into their growth. Effortless, which is exactly why it gets taken for granted.
stableSuntrinePluto1.1° to 2.2° orb
John’s core identity flows straight into their depths. Effortless, which is exactly why it gets taken for granted.
stableSaturnoppositionPluto2.0° to 2.1° orb
John’s discipline pulls against their depths from across the wheel. Two ends of one rope.
stableSunsextileSaturn3.2° to 4.1° orb
stableJupitersquareUranus3.3° orb
stableUranussquarePluto5.0° to 5.1° orb
stableVenusoppositionMars5.2° to 6.3° orb
stableMercuryoppositionNeptune5.6° to 7.5° orb
stableSunconjunctionMercury6.1° to 7.0° orb
stableMarsoppositionSaturn6.5° to 6.6° orb
possibleMoontrineMercuryorb from 0.0° to 11.4° depending on birth time
possibleMoontrineJupiterorb from 0.0° to 12.4° depending on birth time
Chart signature
Elements
- Fire1 of 10
- Earth2 of 10
- Air1 of 10
- Water6 of 10
Modalities
- Cardinal5 of 10
- Fixed2 of 10
- Mutable3 of 10
Counted across the ten planets by sign: Water leads this chart.
John’s Chiron, Ceres, Eros, Hygiea and Lilith
What astrologers make of these five, at noon values.
⚷ ChironTaurus 14°59′ (moves 0.04° over the day)
centaur (2060) · the wound and what is learnt from it
⚳ Ceres ℞Libra 13°23′ (moves 0.16° over the day)
dwarf planet (1) · how a person nurtures and wants to be nurtured
♡ Eros ℞Virgo 6°43′ (moves 0.06° over the day)
near-Earth asteroid (433) · what draws them and how they desire
⚕ HygieaGemini 8°14′ (moves 0.18° over the day)
main-belt asteroid (10) · health, routine and what keeps them well
⚸ Black Moon LilithPisces 13°08′ (moves 0.11° over the day)
mean lunar apogee · the part that refuses to be tamed
Aspects to the asteroids and Lilith
- Ceres opposition Uranus 0.4°
- Chiron sextile Sun 2.2°
- Hygiea square Mercury 2.4°
- Black Moon Lilith conjunction Mercury 2.5°
- Eros conjunction Neptune 2.7°
- Black Moon Lilith trine Jupiter 2.7°
- Ceres square Jupiter 2.9°
John’s dominant planets
1. ♆ Neptune6 pts
rules the Sun sign, Pisces; disposes Sun, Mercury; 1 major aspect
2. ♄ Saturn5 pts
in its own sign, Capricorn; 3 major aspects
3. ☿ Mercury4 pts
disposes Neptune; 3 major aspects
Configurations in John’s chart
No stellium, grand trine, T-square, grand cross, yod or kite — the common case.
Minor aspects
semi-sextile, semi-square, quintile, sesquiquadrate, biquintile, quincunx.
- Neptune semi-square Pluto 0.3°
- Venus quincunx Neptune 0.9°
- Sun semi-square Venus 1.0°
- Venus quintile Uranus 1.4°
- Mercury sesquiquadrate Mars 1.8°
- Saturn sesquiquadrate Neptune 1.8°
More people like John
Other writers
- John Updike1932
- Gary Snyder1930
- V. S. Naipaul1932
- Richard Howard1929
- Tomas Tranströmer1931
- Ted Hughes1930
Born in United States
- Malcolm BrowneAmerican photographer and journalist
- David LeeAmerican physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
- William GoldmanAmerican novelist, screenwriter and playwright
- Frank Peters Jr.American journalist
- Burton RichterAmerican physicist
- James DeanAmerican actor
More charts like John’s
Fellow Pisces suns
- Johnny CashAmerican country singer
- Heinrich HertzGerman physicist
- Linus PaulingAmerican scientist
Born in Goat years
- Ben KingsleyEnglish actor (born 1943)
- Haya HarareetIsraeli actress
- Bengt EkerotSwedish actor and director
Also born on March 8
- Marjorie Estiano1982
- Warren Zaïre-Emery2006
- Kit Connor2004
- Benny Blanco1988
- Kat Von D1982
- Freddie Prinze Jr.1976
Fellow Yang Water day masters
- Morten P. MeldalDanish chemist (born 1954)
- Hiroshi AmanoJapanese doctor of engineering and physicist (1960-), 2014 Nobel laureate in Physics
- Wilhelm OstwaldBaltic German chemist
Other Pisces Goat charts
- Tristan VukčevićSerbian-Swedish basketball player
- Olivia RodrigoAmerican singer and actress (born 2003)
- Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al SaudSaudi Arabian businessman, investor and royal
- Francesco Gaetano CaltagironeItalian businessman
Other Tidal Seekers
- Ang LeeTaiwanese film director, screenwriter and producer (born 1954)
- Stanley KramerAmerican film director and producer
- Sydney PollackAmerican film director, producer and actor
- Mercedes RuehlAmerican actress
Famous people with Life Path 7
- Alexa PenaVegaAmerican actress
- Carrie UnderwoodAmerican singer and actor (born 1983)
- Martin SheenAmerican actor (born 1940)
From the journal: What if you don't know your birth time? · Fixed, cardinal, mutable: the modality cheat sheet
John’s cards
Computed from March 8, 1931. Tap to flip.
Birth tarot card
The TowerAsterNym identity card
The Tidal SeekerWestern zodiac
PiscesChinese zodiac
Goat 未Life Path
7 · Seeker♃ Ruled by Jupiter
Tin Sn
The working: BaZi pillarsshow
BaZi pillars
Day Master: yang Water.
Year
辛
yin Metal
未
Goat
Earth
roots & early life
Month
辛
yin Metal
卯
Rabbit
Wood
work & drive
Day
day master
壬
yang Water
戌
Dog
Earth
you & partnership
Where this comes from, and how it is worked out
John’s birth date and birthplace come from Wikidata Q1701049 (CC0), as do the occupations, works and awards above. With no documented birth time this chart is rated X on the Rodden scale, the astrological convention for how well evidenced a birth time is. The banner above lists what that leaves out. Entries are matched to Wikidata by entity id rather than by name, kept at day precision, and dropped where sources disagree on the date.
Tropical zodiac, whole-sign houses, modern rulers. Aspects on the western_v1 orb policy; minor ones at 1.5° to 2.5°, skipped where a major already holds. Minor bodies from JPL Horizons heliocentric vectors, Lilith as mean apogee. Dominance is an AsterNym score — rulerships, dispositors, aspect count — so other methods can name a different leader.
Portrait by The original uploader was H Debussy-Jones at English Wikipedia., Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons.
The same John McPhee at Wikipedia and IMDb.
Roster last reviewed September 10, 2026. The full method: how it works.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions, and not endorsed by John McPhee.
Quick answers about John McPhee’s chart
- How old is John McPhee?
- John McPhee is 95 years old, born March 8, 1931 in Princeton, United States.
- What zodiac sign is John McPhee?
- John McPhee is a Pisces: born March 8, 1931, which puts the Sun in Pisces for the whole of that day.
- What is John McPhee's Chinese zodiac animal?
- The Goat, with the Metal element, from the Chinese lunar year of the March 8, 1931 birth.
- What is John McPhee's Life Path number?
- Life Path 7, calculated in numerology.
- What is John McPhee's Chiron sign?
- Chiron in Taurus at 14°. Position from JPL Horizons.
- Where is John McPhee's Black Moon Lilith?
- Mean Black Moon Lilith in Pisces at 13°. This is the mean lunar apogee; the osculating Lilith some tables use can sit up to 30° away.
- What is John McPhee's dominant planet?
- Neptune, on AsterNym's dominance score (6 points: rules the Sun sign, Pisces; disposes Sun, Mercury; 1 major aspect). Saturn is second and Mercury third. Other sites weight rulerships and aspects differently and can name a different leader.
