The cultural obsession with Princess Diana, still ongoing nearly three decades after her death, is the subject of a new book – Dianaworld. Author Edward White gives ‘a deeply-researched account of the public fascination from royalists, republicans, lookalikes and sex workers and approaches Diana’s story through the people who saw themselves in her – the doppelgangers, opportunists and superfans who found parallels between the princess’s life of extraordinary privilege and their own.’
Were they all “parasocial relationships”, one-sided, delusional versions of love or did she have an ability to mirror the problems of everyday people through her family dramas and connect through her outreach to AIDS suffers, the homeless and landmine victims. She was an antidote to the British stiff upper lip so stalwartly adhered to by the Royal Family and her death was a watershed moment for good or ill which unleashed a hidden reservoir of overwhelming sentiment.
‘Some grieved, while others found the public spectacle coercive, seeing it as synthetic as the plastic wrapping on all those flowers.’
When she died on 31 August 1997, there were two astro-influences of note on the UK chart. The first was tr Saturn in Aries square the 10th house Cancer Moon, representing the ruling classes, which would bring grief for the loss of a ‘maternal’ figure who dominated the national culture.
Even more significantly – which was my strong sense living in London at the time – was the Solar Arc Neptune exactly square the UK Pluto. Ebertin describes it as ‘manias, self-torment, obsession, confusion, a grievous loss, peculiar states of soul experience.’ Neptune Pluto accompanies events of total devastation and has connections to the supernatural. There was a feeling in London as if something not quite real was ongoing – almost a psychological disintegration as emotional controls collapsed, which can sound healthy, but is not a good outcome if the boundary walls with the unconscious are breached.
Princess Diana, 1 July 1961 7.45pm Sandringham, England, (birth time Debbie Frank, her personal astrologer) did have her Mars in Virgo opposition the UK 5th house Pluto. Given that her ‘leadership’ North Node in Virgo and her ‘desperate, trapped’ Mars Pluto opposition Chiron also connected strongly with the UK Pluto her plight would arguably trigger strong feelings within the country. I confess I tend to overlook the UK’s Pluto but since it sits on the focal point of a yod inconjunct Jupiter sextile Uranus, it clearly plays a powerful role in the country’s psyche and destiny. [All the more important to pay attention to it since tr Uranus will square it in 2026.]
And now that I look her relationship chart with the UK also has a Plutonic yod of Moon Jupiter sextile Mars inconjunct Pluto – perhaps one reason the ‘relationship’ with her is so hard to let go. Pluto relationships never split easily or quickly. And the composite yod makes it a peculiarly fated connection.
Diana’s Cancer Sun also sat exactly on the UK’s Midheaven opposition the Sun and square the Libra Ascendant so she was a pivotal figure in other ways as well for the country’s direction and image.
She died three days before a Solar Eclipse in the 18th North Saros Series which has particular relevance for the Royal Family, not all negative . Its most recent occurrence in 2015 saw Queen Elizabeth break Victoria’s record as the longest monarch on the throne.
In 1997 when Diana died tr Pluto was also exactly square the UK yod focal point Pluto, having just squared Diana’s Mars with the UK Solar Arc Neptune in exact hard aspect as well. So quite a pile up of devastating influences.
Helpful to revisit old events and spot other angles.
The nation of shopkeepers. Gemini. The Gemini goddess versys the Sagittarius god. I think I read somewhere the Moon was considered especially powerful in the house of the goddess. Third house. When I read the chart of Hillary and Mount Everest, I found this pinnacle to really be the final action of the British empire. Chomolungma or Mount Everest is known as the “Goddess Mother of the World”. News reached QEII on her coronation day. The fire ships began under QEI. This was when I realized the goddess rules Britain but it seems this is even older than the empire. Wonderful history about St. Paul’s.
Diana always struck me as a merry olde king of England with her restoration of the royal touch.
William was born on an eclipse in the Saros of the English kingdom that probably will end in his lifetime because he will define the new Saros. He learned kingship from two images of the goddess, his imperial grandmother and his royal mother.
I have been writing a story that features Erce, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of earth, but we know almost nothing about her. Taciturn wrote of the Angles “the noteworthy characteristic of the English, to foreign eyes, was that they were goddess-worshippers; they looked on the earth as their mother.”
Is there anything else on goddess worship in England that might shed light on Erce?
Thanks Marjorie. The late Princess Diana became such an extraordinary icon, far removed from her actual humanity. I’ve always thought the UK Cancer Moon suggests a popular sympathy or even longing for a female goddess or hero of some kind – witness the deification/villification of Margaret Thatcher in some sections of the community! Other notable queens, Brittania, and Boadicea’s striking sculpture in London also connect.
Diana was named for the goddess of the Moon and the hunt, Diana. She married at St Paul’s Cathedral, where according to author and historian Peter Ackroyd:
“In the records of St Paul’s Cathedral the adjacent buildings are known as ‘Camera Dianae’. A 15th century chronicler recalled a time when ‘London worships Diana’. She was the goddess of the hunt, so perhaps linking with the ceremony “that took place at St Paul’s as late as the 16th century: a stag’s head was impaled on a spear and carried about the church; it was then received upon the steps of the church by priests wearing garlands of flowers upon their heads.”
Diana’s chart makes some interesting links with 1066. And that 1997 Solar Eclipse has the Moon’s Nodes conjunct the 1066 20 Virgo NN. The Eclipse itself contacts 1066 Jupiter, 7 Virgo, and Diana’s natal Pluto at 6 Virgo – with Virgo signalling more goddess-like vibes from her harvest goddess persona. 1066 Pluto was 3 Pisces, so squared by tr Pluto at the time of the Eclipse, and opposing Diana’s Mars.
So interesting, Jane. According to some sources a stag was ritually slaughtered each year in the old Cathedral up until the 15th century. That may well have been a remnant of the Diana worship on the site and her association with the hunt. Folklore has it that Britain is founded by Brutus of Troy who while staying on the island of Malta had a vision of the goddess Diana, who told him to found a ‘great white country’ which he then later recognised as he approached the cliffs on the South coast by sea, and he went on to found the temple in London. So the nation’s mythic associations carry on into the future, even when the memory of their original purpose is lost to time.
Diana died on the last day of August, a month associated with the goddess Diana’s festivities known as the ‘Nemoralia’, the so-called festival of torches otherwise known as the Hecatean Ides. Diana’s original shrine was at Lake Nemi in Italy – shades of Diana Princess of Wales’s burial place – but the cult of her festivities spread throughout other regions. People carried garlands of flowers and torches and the hunting dogs themselves were garlanded, also no animals are hunted or killed during this period. Diana’s association with the triple goddess Hecate is evident from coins of the period where a trio of goddesses stand side by side in a wood or grove, the celebrations took place under the dog star Sirius when the season was at its most scorching. There are all kinds of analogies to our mythic heritage and collective unconscious.
Yes, the amazing mythic heritage surfaces from time to time as you say, VF. When Princess Diana died so suddenly, it did seem to stir something in the collective that was powerful, for good or ill. The links to Hecate you mention connect to the Italian notion of the goddess Diana as the mother of the witches’ goddess, Aradia. Sirius is also a star linked with Isis in Egyptian mythology.
The temples buried beneath Roman London may be sending out all manner of messages! Cybele on the banks of the Thames near London Bridge, Mithras in the City of London, and so on. Perhaps it all is in the country’s DNA, sitting there until something sparks it off.