Natasha Richardson

Natasha Richardson, born May 11, 1963 in London, died today from a ski accident in Canada after a head injury she suffered on a beginner’s slope. Natasha was a Taurus with a Sagittarius Moon and Libra rising. Her Sun in Taurus was part of what is called a Fixed Grand Cross, which is a configuration where four planets are all 90º apart, and they included her Sun in Taurus, Mars in Leo, Neptune in Scorpio and Saturn in Aquarius. The Grand Cross gave her a very strong will, but it also made it difficult for her to change unless it was her own idea.

Yesterday, I saw a special about volcanoes on The History Channel, and what happened to Natasha can be likened to a volcano erupting. Transiting Mars, one of the planets making up this fixed energy in her chart, transited to an opposition to Uranus, and that combination of energies is an explosive, unpredictable energy. At the same time, transiting Pluto in Capricorn, the planet that rules Scorpio and death, made a hard aspect to her progressed Mars in Libra. In addition to these aspects, there were also other stressful aspects involved in her death, one of which was the ongoing Saturn/Uranus opposition which has been forming a t-square to her Moon for months. Uranus had recently moved to an exact square to her Moon, adding to the accumulation of tension going on in her life.

From looking at her chart, it was clear that she was at a point in her life where she needed to make some kind of a major change and her resistance to that need to change caused a great deal of energy to build up inside of her. In her case, because she didn’t find a release and an outlet for that energy, when it erupted, it caused an accident that subsequently killed her. I think the image of a volcanic eruption is a fitting description for the violent energies that entered Natasha’s life yesterday.

As an aside, Venus in Aries, which is now retrograde, ruled Natasha’s first house of her physical body and her eighth house of death, and it was transiting in exact opposition to her first house cusp (her ascendant) at the time of the accident. Aries rules the head.

She was a gifted actress, well loved by her husband Liam Neeson, family, friends and fans, and she will be greatly missed.