Princess Diana of Wales and the Posthumous Saturn Return

Princess Diana is such a behemoth public figure and will probably live on for centuries in the zeitgeist and culture. Very rarely does a human being seem to have a legacy that continues on for hundreds of years. Its a specific condition of some celebrities. I believe Princess Diana will be one of those few. So does examining current planetary transits against her chart make sense or seem weird? Her natal energy seems to continue on. This is the Saturn Return of a legacy.

Specifically, Princess Diana would have been in her second Saturn Return right now, having been born with the planet at 27 degrees of Capricorn. The Saturn Return is a time of taking stock, making hard but necessary adjustments, and acknowledging the passing of time. Looking back on how you spent the last 27-31 years, and how you intend to move forward. Both Saturn Returns, and the rare 3rd one, are maturing factors.

Astrologer Chris Brennan pointed out that Michael J. Fox and Barack Obama, both Saturn in Capricorn, have recently released memoirs. This is one function of a Saturn Return--the act of constructive retrospection. It got me thinking of how Princess Diana has been all over the news recently because of the newest season of The Crown. Don't get me wrong, I know Princess Diana is a permanent fixture in tabloids and other media outlets. But there is a clear uptick in articles re-examining her relationships, her fashion, her motherhood, her demise, etc., now that The Crown's 4th season is available. Princess Diana's natal Saturn was at 27 degrees of Capricorn. This is where Saturn is now, and where Saturn was when The Crown premiered its 4th season two days ago.

Is Princess Diana getting a posthumous Saturn Return? The media is doing the retrospection for her, clearly, but it is very symbolic nonetheless. Saturn also rules her Aquarius 3rd house, bringing in the theme of written communication.

In looking at her chart to support this narrative, I saw Saturn sitting in her 2nd house making a trine to Venus in Taurus in her 6th house. Venus also rules her Libra mid-heaven in the 11th house. The sign of Capricorn is all about legacy, hierarchy, how we establish in ways that stand the test of time. The trine to her Venus in Taurus is emblematic of things that just stick. Could this trine echo how Princess Diana is forever loved and remembered for her style, her beauty, her duty to causes, her work in the world, her daily life--what she did in it, what she wore during it?? How she is stuck in time, young forever? By itself, can Venus in Taurus come to represent her fixed, solid, and reliable nature in the eye of the public as it relates to her love affairs, her beauty and her fashion? This Venus rules her Libra MC in the 11th house of humanity. The only other aspect Saturn makes in her chart is a square to this MC, mitigated in part because Saturn exalts in Libra.

Season 4 of The Crown has just premiered with Mercury at 8 degrees of Scorpio. Princess Diana's natal Neptune was at 8 degrees of Scorpio as well. In thinking about romanticization of a person, other- worldliness, fame, scandal, television shows, binge watching, living on in the zeitgeist, and having a saintly kind of legacy--one must look at Neptune. For Diana, it was in her 12th house. Nothing interesting is happening to Neptune in her chart regarding this theory, but the current transits of the time seem to support my narrative. Transit Mercury in her 12th house conjunct her Neptune at the exact time a television series (a very popular one) seems to dredge up and examine (Mercury in 12th) her life again is compelling. The 12th house is one of loss, death, tragedy--and her Neptune there can cement that her particular loss of life in mortal form seems to takes on a spiritual quality, a porous and imaginative quality, and most importantly, one that embeds into the culture for eons to come. Neptune does things on that scale, it can transmute physical life forms into immaterial and immortal ones. Scorpio as her 12th house cusp also explains, sadly, our morbid pre-occupation with her tragic life, why films and documentaries and, now, television shows continue to be made about her. Mercury blew all of this into an observable and rather tidy form (a series), and also manifests as the increased media coverage of her life.