Have there been more celebrity deaths in 2016? It may be an optical illusion on the back of a highly uncertain year when all events were amplified by social and other media. If you look back to other years there were a fair number of notable passings. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/goodbye-celebrities-who-died-2011-98971
There’s nothing this year as there was in 2011 when Neptune was shifting sign, which did seem to be a signal for superstar film ladies moving up to ethereal thrones. See below for list of Neptunian leavings.
It’s certainly true that everyone – and some more than most – have taken quite a battering from the tr Uranus square tr Pluto in recent years, topped in 2016 by the low energy, illness-prone Saturn square Neptune. Plus several who have gone this year, came out of the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll generation whose lifestyle of excess was always going to catch up with them at some point. George Michael and Carrie Fisher seemed to have still been using when they went. Hard drugs are not heart friendly.
I was struck years ago when Diana Dors, the actress died. She had a Cardinal Grand Square in her chart of Libra Sun opposition Uranus square Saturn opposition Pluto – and had overcome the tr Saturn Pluto in Libra bouncing off all four ends of that. She died after those pounding, destructive influences passed over which seemed a shame as if she’d almost made it past the winning post. But it was all too much and she succumbed to cancer.
There wasn’t a higher death toll in general this year, so just an over sensationalised media making us more aware of what heretofore might have been mentioned in one para on page 10.
NEPTUNE changing sign.
1901: Neptune leaving Gemini – Queen Victoria dies.
1915: Neptune leaving Cancer – Mary Baker Eddy and Emily Davidson (suffragette who suicided by horse at the Derby). Florence Nightingale also died with Neptune in late Cancer (1911)
1929: Neptune leaving Leo – Emmeline Pankhurst (the great suffragette), Ellen Terry, Isadora Duncan.
1943 – Neptune leaving Virgo – aviator Amy Johnson, writer Beatrix Potter.
1957 – Neptune leaving Libra – Laura Wilder (Little House on the Prairie), scientist Irene Curie
1968 – Neptune leaving Scorpio – Helen Keller, Enid Blyton, Dorothy Parker, Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Little Mo, Sonja Henie, Gypsy Rose Lee, Sharon Tate.
1983 – Neptune leaving Sagittarius – Nathalie Wood, Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), Anna Freud, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Gloria Swanson, Ethel Merman, Lillian Hellman, Indira Gandhi.
1998 – Neptune leaving Capricorn – Princess Diana, Mother Theresa, Ella Fitzgerald, Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Evelyn Laye, Dorothy Lamour, Claudette Colbert, Marguerite Duras, Patricia Highsmith, Mary Leakey.
2011 – Neptune leaving Aquarius – Jane Russell, Elizabeth Taylor.
I think it was more the fact that 3 superstars died in a single year (David Bowie, Prince and George Michael) and all unexpectedly.
I agree, social media distorts things.
The listings by year do put 2016 into perspective.
I wonder too whether it has to do with a degree of incredulity from the “boomer” generation (of which I’m – just 1958 – part of). Our kind of ‘forever young and vigorous’ ethos is more shocked by the inevitability of mortality it seems, especially when involving our demi-god-like famous peers. But I also thought there seemed more well knowns this year and also agree with the thought that losing joy and laughter bringers felt all the more harsh given the gloom and instability of the year.
Thanks marjorie 🙂 Perhaps the illusion of frequency has been generated by the fact a lot of the deceased were more well known than usual this year thus resulting in the announcements of their deaths reaching the mainstream news? Usually when im reading the New Year orbituaries of those who have passed in the previous 12 months, i find a tiny handful of well knowns, some i’d forgotten about and many i’ve never heard of. This year, it seems the other way round.