princess Di & eclipses -1

Magic of Seven SeptilesLady Di’s birth chart just tingled with septile aspects. I found that this aspect – made by dividing a circle into sevenths (51°26') – has something rather inspirational about it.[1] Diana had seven of these aspects, linking all but two of the planets in her chart. In fact, hers is the best septile chart you will ever see – just as Marilyn Monroe has the best quintile chart you’ll ever see. Queen of Diamonds, Queen of Hearts… The fate of both of these ladies was measured out by three cycles of Jupiter. In Di’s chart, the septiles are pointing towards the separating Jupiter- Saturn conjunction, an aspect traditionally very much associated with royalty.

Diana's birth chart (Placidus cusps)A ‘Finger of God’ configuration is also present in this chart, also pointing towards Jupiter, the royal star. As we shall see, this is very much the planet which made things happen in her life. Her Mercury-Mars sextile forms 150° aspects (quincunx) towards Jupiter. The stress, struggle and strife of her life appears in the T-square which her Venus makes to the Moon-Uranus opposition. Also, it was a starry chart: Regulus, Heart of the Lion, was conjunct her North Node, relevant to her producing royal offspring, and the star Spica, associated with plenty, abundance and good fortune, was conjunct her M.C., both within a degree, but Algol the terrible ‘Medusa’s head’ was conjunct her Venus to a degree and a half: she had two of the best stars, and one of the worst. Her antenatal eclipse (the last prior to her birth) fell on the degree of her Moon, 25° of Aquarius: a total solar eclipse six months before her birth, whose path swept across Europe, starting in France.
Golden GiftsAt the age of twenty, Diana married during a triple Jupiter-Saturn conjunction,[2] trining that at her birth. On the day of the wedding the Sun stood at 6° of Leo. Astrologically this was an image of brilliance but also of folly, because a total solar eclipse was due two days later. A total solar eclipse is a Bad Thing for a royal wedding. The full horror-scope of the situation started to dawn upon Diana some days before the wedding, when she insisted on unpacking a present to be given to Camilla, and found a gold bracelet inscribed with the questionable initials ‘G.F.’ What did they stand for? The account by Andrew Morton has Charles going to Camilla three days before the wedding to give this present to his old flame: "He took the bracelet lunchtime on Monday, we got married on the Wednesday",[3] (p.38). Diana believed that he spent the night with her just before the wedding.[4] Camilla’s ascendant was at 3° Leo, so the Sun was transiting her ascendant during this visit. Charles’s ascendant at 6° of Leo, opposed Diana’s Jupiter at 5° of Aquarius.
Diana asked if she could pull out of the wedding, as the truth dawned upon her, but her friends replied, "Bad luck, Dutch, your face is on the tea-towels" (p.124) so she had to go through with it. She later remarked, "The night before the wedding I was very, very calm, deathly calm. I felt I was a lamb to the slaughter. I knew it and couldn’t do anything about it" (p.125). Neptune, the ‘Divine Dreamer’ had just passed over Diana’s Ascendant, and she suddenly came to realise the awful illusion in which she was enmeshed, which she had believed to be love. But Neptune here signifies more than mere illusion, for the 'Queen of Hearts Show' was now up and running: the image of The Princess was to be manifested for a complete Jupiter-cycle – with her inner anguish as the driving force. Amidst the great pomp and splendour of the royal wedding, on July 29th, 1981, at 1 pm as the royal couple walked down the aisle, the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, exact within arc-minutes - i.e., to that very day - rose. The Jupiter theme of Gustav Holst’s planet-suite, ‘I vow to thee my country’ resounded in St Paul’s Cathedral. Diana’s natal Jupiter (spot on Charles’ descendent) was then harmoniously in trine to Jupiter within a degree (at 6° Libra), and opposing the Sun. In view of the later doom of her life, let’s quote the stirring words of this wedding-song:
‘… the love that asks no questions, the love that pays the price, and lays upon the altar, the final sacrifice.’Two days later, as the newlyweds spent their honeymoon at Balmoral in Scotland, Di was distraught to notice her new husband wearing gold cufflinks with ‘C & C’ inscribed upon them, a present from Camilla. This would have been more or less the day of the total solar eclipse at 9° of Leo - conjunct Camilla’ natal Saturn! This eclipse configuration over the wedding well displays the ‘eternal triangle’ in which they were enmeshed. Charles’ ascendant is locked in-between Camilla’s Saturn rising, and her Ascendant. Saturn is related to old age, as may help us to appreciate how Charles betrayed his wife for an older woman, as well as being relevant to a long-term relationship. The Sun moving over those key degrees of Leo, involving the three players at that doomed wedding, still today seems a staggering proof of how astrology really works: no evidence has appeared that the wedding date was chosen to accord with these heavenly configurations.
Camilla became the regular, every-night subject of Diana’s nightmares – with Camilla’s Moon right on Diana’s Sun, for a total eclipse of the heart, plus Camilla’s Venus spot-on Di’s Moon, for a dire female struggle. This woman could make her prince happy in ways that she never could. The compassion she radiated to others and for which we remember her required this domestic angst. But Charles’s Sun did oppose Diana’s Venus, completing the T-square in her chart;[5] and Charles’ Mars was conjunct her Ascendant, helpful for their smart public image. Her Pluto was within a degree of his Saturn, described by Penny Thornton as a ‘karmic link’ between them.
Princess for a Jupiter CyclePrince William was born on 21 June 1982 at 9.03 pm, with the Sun within arc-minutes of zero Cancer, i.e. at the Summer solstice; there had been a solar eclipse that noon, as fell within three degrees of his Descendent. His chart had ‘royal’ qualities, astrologers found, in terms of its Jupiter and Sun positions, but also Neptune was rising as could add a visionary or ‘New Age’ quality.
Astrologers had been quietly murmuring for years that Charles should not expect to become the monarch, because his chart lacked any solar aspects.[6] The eclipse at William’s birth was partial, and belonged to a Saros-family just petering out. Saros families are chains of eclipses that occur at 18-year, 10-day intervals. Bernadette Brady commented: "just a few more tiny partial eclipses around the South Pole are yet to occur,"[7] so that it would end in William’s lifetime. The radiant princess-image endured over one orbit of Jupiter. Diana ‘resigned’ from her function as the princess, after the royal wedding had come unraveled, as was formally announced in the House of Commons by the Prime Minister on December 9th, 1992. Jupiter at 10° Libra had completed its cycle. That very night, Britons saw a total lunar eclipse high overhead. As Geoffrey Cornelius commented, this "visually impressive phenomenon of the Heavens" was offering "a striking parallel to human events".[8] It was at 18° of Gemini, on her descendent within a quarter of a degree. Thus, the brilliant Jupiter-cycle of her manifesting ‘the Princess’ commenced with a solar eclipse conjunct Charles’ Ascendant and concluded with a lunar eclipse having the Sun conjunct her Ascendant. As the ‘fairy tale princess,’ a trine to Neptune was Diana’s strongest solar aspect, whereby she could appear as fulfilling dreams: "The public side, they wanted a fairy princess to come and touch them and everything will turn to gold and all their worries would be forgotten. Little did they realise that the individual was crucifying herself inside" (p.57) – as Di said to Andrew Morton. She would often seek psychic guidance and believed her deceased grandmother communicated with her (p.65) She liked water: "I always sit by water when contemplating" (p.64) She was herself psychic, and uttered premonitions which came true. Diana decided to do something about the way she was being treated by the Palace, and so she collaborated with Andrew Morton in producing a series of tapes. He published Diana, Her True Story on June 16th 1992, without acknowledging her as the source. Jupiter at 7° Virgo was then crossing over Diana’s Pluto: "As the publishing date approached, the tension at Kensington Palace became palpable. Her newly appointed private secretary, Patrick Jephsen described the atmosphere as ‘like watching a slowly spreading pool of blood seeping from under a locked door.’" (p.17), as would befit a Pluto-transit. In the months before the publication, as tension built up, Jupiter was also transiting her Uranus, North node and Mars. That was the nearest Diana came to an act of deception. The Uranus-Neptune conjunction of 1992/3 fell on the Queen’s Capricorn Ascendant where it acted quite negatively. 1993 was a disastrous year for the monarchy, as Pluto transited Charles’ Saturn and the Queen’s Sun, the year the Queen called her ‘annus horribilis’. These are conjunct within two degrees, which is why Charles always seems to do what the Queen tells him. Charles has a Venus- Neptune conjunction within two degrees, and Jupiter stood on the degree of his Neptune on January 12th, 1993, the day ‘Camillagate’ hit the headlines. If Venus-Neptune signified his dreams of love and romance, then Jupiter was here making them public. Intimate details of his liaison with Camilla Parker-Bowles ended up on the front pages of at least fifty national newspapers. The British press showed commendable restraint, only going public after the press Down Under released the story. Later that year Windsor castle went up in flames, by which time the marriages of the Queen’s children had all disintegrated.
The Panorama InterviewOn November 20th, 1995, Lady Diana Spencer gave her only public interview. It was on the BBC program ‘Panorama’ and two hundred million people watched it. A single, divorced woman talked quietly for an hour. Down under in Australia, it drew an audience larger than any previous TV program. On that day three planets in the sky had just crossed over Lady Di’s Ascendant: Venus at 22°, Mars at 23° and Jupiter at 20° Sagittarius. Astrologically these planets were appropriate for Diana revealing the secrets of her love-life (Mars-Venus) and commenting on the royal succession (Jupiter): she announced that Charles would not inherit the crown but that it would pass straight to William. The memorable phrases "a crowded marriage" and "Queen of Hearts" there appeared. Prince Charles was devastated by the program, not least because Di had told none of the Royal Family she was making it. With his Mars (21° Sag.) on Diana’s Ascendant, he found himself needing psychotherapy within a week after the program. Di too was having psychotherapy, from an American feminist, so the royal ex-couple were both receiving treatment in the aftermath of this triple conjunction - the Prince’s Mars-return. The whole nation discussed the program, but I heard no hint anywhere that a close, three-planet conjunction had just crossed over Di’s Ascendant. For comparison, a triple conjunction to eight degrees of orb in 6 B.C. was supposed to have heralded the birth of Christ (Saturn, Jupiter and Mars). Then in 1603 there was a three-planet conjunction in Ophiuchus, together with a new star, and Kepler wrote a book about it (400 years ago, in 1606).[9] Di’s ascendant lay in that Ophiuchus region, where the Serpentbearer steps onto the Scorpion.
Landmines: Diana's Nemesis?In January of 1997 Diana took the most courageous step of her life, walking through a prepared corridor of landmine-infested territory in Angola, as Jupiter transited her Saturn. Landmines are a chronic problem (Chronos- Saturn). Mother Earth had become severely infested with one landmine in place per sixty inhabitants of Earth. It was a situation one could only view with leaden, saturnine despair, until Di came along. On the fifteenth of January she made front-page headlines by calling for a total ban on landmines, causing a storm of controversy over her entry into politics. Diana arrived in Angola on the 13th, when her Jupiter-transit was within a degree, as too was a malevolent Mars-Saturn opposition in the sky, expressing the nature of the beast. This opposition was linked by trine and sextile to Jupiter, and Uranus was within a degree of her natal Jupiter. Thus the heavens were empowering her to grapple with the issue. On the 15th she walked through the field of landmines. The right-wing military and conservatives became annoyed with her on account of this cause, and she started to receive warnings. In February 1997 she received an ominous phone call from a ‘senior politician’ at Westminster, warning her "Don’t meddle in things you don’t know about. Accidents can happen". The therapist who worked with Lady Di revealed this to Scotland Yard experts, and added: "Diana believed she was going to be murdered. She always said she would die young in unnatural circumstances".[10] Her bodyguard Sergeant Barry Mannakee became too close to her, and did what a bodyguard isn’t meant to do, soon after which he ended up decapitated from a motorbike accident on May 14th, 1987.[11] Prince Charles informed her about this tragic event in a brutally casual manner a day or so later as she was getting out of a car to meet some photographers – close to or maybe on the day of Sun conjunct Algol! Di was distraught and was convinced that Mannakee had been bumped off by MI5. This was the time in her life when mortal fear entered her soul: with Pluto transiting her Neptune, Saturn on her Ascendant and the Sun crossing her Venus-Algol.[12] Her longest-lasting affair was with James Hewitt, and ended - he revealed to the BBC - after he received several warnings to discontinue his relationship with the Princess, lest a similar fate befall him.[13] An MI5 agent visited his London flat and warned him, "If you do not stop seeing Diana you will suffer the same fate as Barry Mannakee and die in a road accident".[14] He took the advice.
Hitting the 13th ColumnLike Mozart, Raphael and Marilyn Monroe; like Van Gogh and Bob Marley, Diana brilliantly fulfilled her life in six and thirty years, three cycles of Jupiter. In March of 1997 a conjunction of Uranus and Jupiter took place over Di’s natal Jupiter: her three Jupiter cycles were up! The last Full Moon she saw, on August 18th of that year, fell right on her natal Moon. Then, the separating Uranus-Neptune conjunction, seven degrees apart, was overshadowing the natal position of her Jupiter-Saturn. All of these natal transits were within half a degree. Diana felt close to death, read books about it, had attempted suicide on at least four occasions, and appreciated talking to people who knew they were dying (Her Sun-trine-Neptune). The car crash while she was being driven under ‘Pons d’Alma’ in Paris, the ‘Bridge of Souls’, just after midnight on September 1st 1997, had her 18° Sagittarius Ascendant on the descendent. (See chart below)[15] A solar eclipse the next day fell on the midpoint of her Sun-trine-Neptune to half a degree, conjoining her Pluto within three degrees (her Pluto was in sextile to both her Sun and Neptune). The event’s Neptunian quality ensured that the internet was soon heaving with conspiracy theories. Brady had perceptively described this Saros eclipse-series as having an ‘essence of brutality,’ a ‘case of death’ and ‘obsessiveness about news,’ adding "the astrologer can expect the expression of this eclipse to be heavy".[16] Flowers had to be imported, as there were not enough in England, for Britons to mourn. Jupiter in the month after the death moved retrograde, coming back into its third conjunction with Uranus, returning near to her natal Jupiter. The song by Elton John about Diana beat all previous records (even Bing Crosby’s White Christmas). Following on from the eclipse on her Pluto at death, the next Full Moon two weeks later became totally eclipsed soon after it rose. A crowd of us (on Hampstead Heath) watched it reappear, with grief in our hearts, with a sense of mystery amongst the mists, as if Diana’s image were becoming merged with that of the Roman Moon-goddess, her namesake. Her hopes of finding love in marriage were eclipsed at the wedding, her hopes of becoming queen faded at the lunar eclipse of 1992, then her life ended with a final solar eclipse. Eclipses glittered around the Jupiter-cycles that structured her life, somehow precisely located, in time and space. Her biographer Andrew Morton alluded to Diana’s sense that her life was deeply fated. The drama of Diana’s life is worth re-telling, but that does require an apprehension of its astrological structure. The synchronies involved suggest to us that her life was empowered by the macrocosm-microcosm concordance, which made her do things at the astrologically-correct times, only partially accounted for by her having an astrological advisor, whereby her individual life acquired a wider significance. In November/December 2005, Jupiter transited her natal Neptune, the planet of conspiracy theories. That November, the French government received a mandate from the European Court of Human Rights, instructing it to reply to a series of questions, such as why Di’s body was embalmed on the very night of her death (because they had removed a foetus?), and why the CCTV film of the crash site had never been made available. [17] Then in December new revelations emerged as to how the driver Henri Paul had not been intoxicated as had been claimed, with the blood sample evidence being discredited; and the above-quoted story about the death-threat made to Di also emerged. Prince Charles was interviewed by Lord Stevens of the Paget commission, and asked if he had murdered his wife. With some 94% of the British people now believing she was killed, this police commission can hardly afford to dismiss the ‘conspiracy theories.’
Diana represented something of such deep and lasting significance to us all. Something to do with hope.[18]
Notes & References: Birth chart: Princess Diana’s birth information is courtesy of AstroDatabank. Source information is from the Nov/Dec 1997 Astrological Journal, Vol. 39, No. 5, Nick Campion writes:
“When Diana’s engagement to Charles was announced her birth time was given as 2.00 pm on 1 July 1961, Sandringham. The time was then corrected to 7.45 pm and confirmed in a letter to Charles Harvey from the Queen’s assistant press secretary as being from Diana’s mother (note 15, p 168). Debbie Frank (Diana’s astrologer) told me that in the eighteen months before Diana died she raised the question of Diana’s birth time with her, and Diana was insistent that she “was born in the evening.” I would recommend that it remain the Princess’s officially recognized birth time.”

1 ]
N.Kollerstrom and Mike O’Neill, The Eureka Effect. Urania 1996. The seven sertiles, indicated on Diana's chart are: Sun-Mars and Mercury-Uranus, monoseptile Venus-Pluto, biseptile, Saturn-Uranus, Saturn-Mercury, Jupiter-Uranus and Jupiter-Sun, triseptiles. Back to text


2 ]
One in seven of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions are triple, however these do not recur at regular intervals: there were two in the 20th century. Back to text


3 ]
Page numbers are from Andrew Morton, Diana-Her True story In Her own Words, 1997. Back to text


4 ]
Penny Thornton, From Diana with Love US 1993, not published in UK. Back to text


5 ]
Penny Thornton’s 1982 Synastry found their Sun-opposition-Venus synastry ‘incredibly powerful,’ though it could lead to ‘block-busting rows’: p.142. Geoffrey Cornelius’ The Moment of Astrology, 1994, found her Tsquare ‘tremendously disruptive’, p.248. Back to text


6 ]
Charles may have some deep intelligence, seen in the Jupiter-Saturn trine in his chart, and moreover this is in trine to his Moon, enabling him to discern (now and then) the mood of the people, ideal for the business enterprise schemes he gets involved with; but, he can’t have ‘the glory’ because his chart has no solar aspects; Prince William in contrast does have royal-type qualities in his chart, e.g. Jupiter conjunct MC. Back to text


7 ]
Bernadette Brady, The Eagle and the Lark, a textbook of predictive astrology 1992, pp.234, 307. Back to text


8 ]
Cornelius ref (5), p.253. Back to text


9 ]
Johannes Kepler, De Stella Nova, 1606, described Saturn, Jupiter & Mars converging in Ophiuchus (Sagittarius) in 1603. Back to text


10 ]
The Daily Express 5 Dec 2005, ‘Diana’s death Threat’. Back to text


11 ]
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/65743/index.php No UK newspaper breathed a whisper of this event, until years later: I first saw this date in the Daily Express 9.12.2004. Back to text


12 ]
Kitty Kelley The Royals NY 1997, p.347: this happened ‘on the way to the Cannes film festival,’ on May 7th-19th that year. Back to text


13 ]
The Times 3.6.98, on the interview with Hewitt in that evening’s Panorama program, ‘Diana-Secrets of The Crash.’ Back to text


14 ]
The Daily Express 9.12.2000 Back to text


15 ]
To obtain the 18° Sag descendent, use the 48N52, 2E20 position at 22.25 GMT. Back to text


16 ]
Brady, ref. (6), p.232 (Saros series 18 North). Back to text


17 ]
The Daily Express ‘Diana’s Baby Secret: French in crisis’ 19 Dec 2005. Back to text


18 ]
Jon King & J. Beveridge, Diana The Hidden Evidence 2002 NY, viii. Back to text

See more articles by Nick Kollerstrom

Nick Kollerstrom has a Cambridge science degree and has worked as a physics schoolteacher. He is recognised throughout the astrological community for his pioneering studies that have brough his scientific background into exciting fields of research on planets, plants and metals. He has been actively involved in the study of planet-metal associations and other matters of a Hermatic nature for 30 years, and has lectured on these subjects since 1975. His work in medical research resulted in his book Lead on the Brain - a plain guide to Britain's No 1 pollutant. His investigation of lunar effects upon plant growth led in the 1980s to his gardener's guide Planting by the Moon and the popular annuals Gardening and Planting by the Moon. Nick Kollerstrom's latest title, Crop Circles: The Hidden Form, published by Wessex books, offers a new way of experiencing the crop circle mystery, through the geometry of the forms revealed in crops. You can contact Nick by email at nk(at)astro3.demon.co.uk