There are so many break ups in the world. Maybe following Hollywood breakups is just a way to express our emotions about the break ups around us.

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are now calling it quits. As is my habit, I took a look at their charts.

While there are always many different aspects at play between any two individuals, at first glance of the two charts nothing popped out as “it” for why they might have broken up.

But that may be the very reason they broke up – nothing “it” enough to stay together. From the AP story I read, it appears they are parting amicably.

Rather than using left-brain analytical astrological talk, I thought I’d take the Chinese approach to looking at their charts. Chinese astrology, like Western, bases its imagery on the elements. Often the description of personality and behavior is more poetic and tied to those natural images.

First, the facts.

Lopez has sun and Mercury in Leo and squaring moon and Neptune in Scorpio. Saturn in Taurus squares the sun and Mercury. Her Mars is in Sagittarius, Venus in Gemini, Pluto in Virgo and Uranus/Jupiter conjunct in Libra.

Leo is a fixed fire sign. Scorpio is a fixed water sign. Combined is very INTENSE.

Anthony has five planets in Virgo (Jupiter, Pluto, sun and Uranus) and moon in Cancer. He’s also got a little bit of fire (Mars in Leo and Saturn in Aries) and little bit of air (Mercury and Venus in Libra). Anthony is also intense, but lowercase and in a different way.

Now the poetry, modern-style.

Lopez is both like a constant, strong flame such as the sun and also like fixed water such as a block of ice. Combined I think of the icy patch you use when you sprain a muscle. Is it hot or cold? It’s both and very intensely both.

Lopez is hard like a block of ice that is both hot and cold to the touch. She’s not the ice cubes you put in your gin and tonic. She’s hot, not cold. Her heat and passion is so extreme, it becomes its opposite – cold. My tai chi teacher explained that the sigmoid curve of the tai chi symbol represents that when a quality becomes extreme, it becomes its opposite.

Anthony’s Virgo is a mutable earth sign. Cancer is a cardinal water sign. Mutable earth is like the branches of a tree, swaying in the wind. They don’t break because they bend. Cancer is cardinal water, persistent but not forceful, like the dripping of a faucet. That persistent drip adds up to a lot of water if you put a bucket underneath. It’s a powerful drip, but you don’t notice its power because it’s the small adding up to the large.

Anthony is gentle but driven by the small details. He’s like a squirrel running around all day hiding nuts. Little by little he builds up his storehouse of food so he doesn’t have to worry (Virgo is a worrier) about winter.

Lopez is INTENSE about emotions and Anthony is intense about the little things in life. He says the picture frame is uneven she takes it off the wall, throws it at his head and says “I don’t care, show me you love me.”

Lopez is rightly a diva. Some are born this way; she is one.

Anthony was born with fine-tuned discrimination. He could be a piano tuner or scientist working with precision instruments. He could be a surgeon or cut pieces of sushi that are works of art.

Anthony’s confidence comes from his ability to do something so well that he can’t question himself. Lopez’s confidence comes from just being herself – no justification needed.

In societies that traditionally used astrology for matchmaking, they didn’t look for love. They looked for compatibility with the assumption the man would be the dominant force. In that way, these two are not necessarily compatible.

However, they do balance in qualities with Lopez focusing on larger-than-life and Anthony focusing on the details of life. Balance, however, is not always passion.