Astrologers might appear to be a sick bunch. Every time there’s an accident or a disaster, they go scurrying to their computers, to analyse what was going on in the heavens. This is even the case when scores of people are killed. I’m afraid it’s the nature of our profession – we want to know what happened, and how a similar event might be avoided in the future.
I’m therefore not going to apologise for looking at the horoscope of actress Natasha Richardson, who yesterday was critically injured in a skiing accident. Particularly as her accident was 101 stuff – any beginner astrologer would have told her it was a dangerous time, when activities such as skiing should have been avoided. This isn’t benefit of hindsight nonsense, it was obvious, and it makes me fairly certain that she didn’t consult an astrologer before taking her skiing trip.
Natasha Richardson is a Taurus, born on May 11 1963, a member one of Britain’s great acting dynasties. Her grandfather was Sir Michael Redgrave, her mother Vanessa Redgrave.
The sign Taurus is ruled by Venus, the planet of beauty, so it’s probably a good sign for an actress to have. Also, many Taureans have excellent voices, because Taurus rules the throat. And in Natasha Richardson’s horoscope Mercury, the planet of communication, is in Taurus, along with the Sun.
Her career prospects are further helped by a favourable, 120-degree aspect between Venus, the planet of female sexuality, and Mars. Not only is she attractive, but she also knows how to project herself.
The sexuality of Venus and Mars, and the earthiness of her Taurus star sign, are perhaps summed up by a comment she made to The Guardian newspaper in 2003:
I’m much more liberated in my own body and certainly with my sexuality, I think. There’s nothing like standing in front of an audience and singing and dancing half-naked to make you feel comfortable with yourself.
It’s true. Taureans are in tune with their bodies and they often love being naked.
Yet there’s a darker side to Natasha Richardson’s horoscope. She has the Sun in the Eighth House of death, making 90-degree aspects to Mars and Saturn. This is a tough configuration. Reinhold Ebertin describes Sun on the Mars-Saturn midpoint as follows:
Weak vitality, the inability to meet all demands or to master all situations, the necessity to overcome illness. – The illness or the death of members of the male population.
I’m not sure how well this fits Natasha Richardson, though in astrology, and particularly in a female chart, the Sun often relates to the father.
Natasha Richardson’s father, Tony Richardson, died of AIDS, and she has put considerable time and effort into fund-raising for AIDS research. So as a down-to-earth Taurus, with the Sun in the Eighth House, she was confronting the issues and getting involved.
Yet she appears to have ignored the stars when planning her skiing trip. She has the Moon at 22 degrees and 46 minutes Sagittarius, and at the time of the accident Uranus, the planet of accidents, was at 22 degrees and 53 minutes Pisces, while travelling through her Sixth House of health. In other words Uranus was making a precise, 90-degree aspect to her Moon. A classic signature of an accident, though I probably would have warned about a leg or foot injury, rather than anything life-threatening.
Also, Natasha Richardson in her horoscope has Uranus in the second degree of Virgo. At the time of the accident Mars was opposition her Uranus, in the second or third degree of Pisces – in astrology the signs Virgo and Pisces are opposite each other.
Of course this raises the question of whether the accident could have been avoided. She might have been a skiing beginner, but she had an instructor, and was on a beginners’ slope. In Indian astrology she is going through an extremely dangerous phase, lasting from February 2007 through to February 2014, when one could certainly say that her life was in danger. It’s ruled by Mars, which in turn rules her Eighth House of death. Furthermore this house, in Indian astrology, is covered by the sign Aries, which has a special connection with the head – and it was a knock to her head which caused the damage.
But the fact remains that if she had consulted any conscientious astrologer, even a novice, and she’d followed the astrologer’s advice, she wouldn’t have gone skiing and she wouldn’t have had her accident.
Copyright © 2009 Archie Dunlop
Keep visiting www.archiedunlop.com!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
No sign of an accurate birthtime, be very interested to know where you got an accurate birthtime for someone born in that year, it was extremely unusual for people to retain that information then unless they were astrologically informed.
Its not on UK birth certificates either. Wheres the chart?
“But the fact remains that if she had consulted any conscientious astrologer, even a novice, and she’d followed the astrologer’s advice, she wouldn’t have gone skiing and she wouldn’t have had her accident.”
Very dubious statement for so many reasons, she might not of gone skiing but I fail to see how that protects her from any other accident. This is not serious astrology this is smug scaremongering.
aqua,
Thanks for the comments.
Starting off with the birth time, it seems likely that she was born at 5 pm. Check the astro.com data bank:
http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Richardson%2C_Natasha
This gives the time a ‘B’ rating, on the Rodden scale. Not the absolute best, which would be an ‘AA’.
The ‘B’ rating tells us that it comes from a biography or autobiography. For the purposes of this article, I am happy to use the 5pm birth time.
I am certainly not scare-mongering. Predicting accidents is very difficult, and transits, progressions and dasas can manifest in a number of ways.
However in Natasha’s Richardson’s case there was a clear, unambiguous signature of danger from accidents. She also, by the way, had her secondary progressed Sun exactly semi-square her natal Mars.
If you look around the internet, you will see that a lot of astrologers have written about her accident, and the same signatures for accidents have been highlighted. In other words, there was a broad consensus, regarding the key astrological triggers. Transiting Uranus square the Moon, transiting Mars opposition her Uranus.
As to whether or not she could have avoided the accident, in one sense that’s a philosophical question. However I maintain that any Western astrologer worth their salt would have warned her not to go on a skiing trip this week – unless they had got side-tracked by psychological considerations, for exampling telling her that skiing was a good way to work off her problem transits.
Of course you might argue that whatever she did, a tragic accident would have happened, that one can’t escape one’s fate. And I do respect that view, as I believe that there are some things that can’t be avoided. She could have slipped and fallen downstairs, and the end result could have been the same.
Yet… when you relocate Natasha Richardson’s horoscope to the skiing resort where she had her accident, Mars was very close to the Ascendant, and Saturn was in the Seventh House – she had a Mars-Saturn opposition in her horoscope. For her, this was a dangerous part of the world, and if an astrologer had done a relocation chart as well, they would have been in a position to give a very clear warning. And if she’d insisted that she wanted to go skiing a less dangerous location could have been found.
On the other hand, the relocation set for New York City still has Mars and Saturn on the Ascendant-Descendant line, and if she’d been appearing on Broadway instead she wouldn’t have been much less vulnerable.
Just to say thanks for astro-commenting on Richardson’s chart and death. It’s such a shame such a brilliant person is gone. I was wondering about that and what might have “caused” the tragedy astrologically.
Many people don’t consult astrologers before they go about their lives’ events and that’s pretty much like having a precious book on your shelves that carries all the answers, which you never look up. Maybe, as you said, she was destined to have an accident anyway no matter where she was or what she did. Maybe it didn’t have to result in death…
Her chart shows the tendency to an accident but not necessarily death. Right? You may be right that if she had not gone skiing, she could still have an accident at home or while walking down the street, but it may have been easier to attend to it on time.
Again such a tragic loss; she was young and vibrant and so worth living.
Thanks for your insight.
Serena,
As I said in my original article, I don’t think I would have predicted her death, though from 2007 through to 2014 her life was in danger. I would have associated the Uranus and Mars transits with an accident – for example a broken leg or a sprained ankle. And if she’d stayed at home she might have still knocked her head and died.
Yet fatalism has a silver lining. If Natasha Richardson was destined to die, there’s no need to regret the years which she supposedly lost. She’d accomplished what she had to accomplish in this incarnation, even though she was only forty-five, and it was time for her to move on, to new challenges.
Moving on to “new challenges” presupposes that there’s after-life. But yeah this is very comforting to think of it this way. If she was destined to die, losing her (especially if you are family or close friend) from this plane of existence is to be regretted regardless. Thanks again for offering an outlet for these thoughts.
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