“It Was a Bit Crowded”

Charles’, Diana’s and Camilla’s Personal Name Asteroids and Sabian Symbols Fill the Palace with Meaning

by Duncan McCollum

Personal Name Asteroids

One of the biggest challenges of reading natal charts is understanding how a person sees themselves, whether they are a client or public figure. Astrologers know that without the context of knowing a person well, it can be very difficult to discern their self-image. How one views and relates to themselves is a critical element in understanding behavior, but it is information not often revealed to others except close friends, partners, or therapists.

One way to gain some insights into a person’s self-image is to use a personal name asteroid in the birth chart. A person’s first name is perhaps their most personal self-identifier. It is what friends and family call them and how a person typically introduces themselves to others in social situations.

Similarly, personal name asteroids associated with people one is close to describes something personal about the nature of their relationship from the point of view of the native. Nona Gwynn Press, an early and thorough researcher of personal name asteroids, writes that they are “descriptive of your relationship to yourself if it is your name; or to that other person, if it is their name.” (1)

These asteroids work in the natal chart, transits, progressions, Solar Returns, and in any way other Solar System objects are used. Their placement in a transit chart for significant events reflects something personal about the person’s relationship to the event in the case of their own name asteroid or their relationship to another person during the event in the case of the other person’s name asteroid.

An interesting characteristic of personal name asteroids is they don’t have to carry the exact name in order to work in the chart, although the best choice is the one closest to the person’s given first name. Asteroids bearing a name that is spelled differently but sounds similar or is a variant of the name: Salli 1715 for Sally, Janice 2324 for Janet or is from a different language Charlier 8677 for Charles both work well. Names that are the opposite gender: Donna 3085 for Donald, Roberta 335 for Robert, are a nickname used by a person whose name has no asteroid: Barry 1703 for Barack, or even are related to the original derivation of the name: Aphrodite 1388 for April also are reliable.

Asteroids named for one specific, usually notable, person by combining their first and last names often carry both personal and public meaning when placed in a chart (Tomhanks 12818 or BradPitt 29132). With all these possibilities it is almost always possible to find a usable personal name asteroid.

Sabian Symbols Provide Meaning

Marc Edmund Jones, about 1915

The Sabian Symbols are metaphorical word pictures of the meaning of each degree in the Zodiac. They were the brainchild of astrologer Marc Edmund Jones (1888-1980) who was inspired by Welsh seer John Thomas, known by his pen name Charubel. Thomas had published interpretations of each degree that Jones found useful but biased by moral judgments (2). Jones worked with Elsie Wheeler, a gifted psychic who was one of his students, to obtain the Symbols. Over the course of a day in 1925 in San Diego’s Balboa Park, Jones pulled index cards randomly from a deck representing each of the 360 degrees and wrote down the imagery that Wheeler received without revealing which degree they represented. Jones didn’t publish his first interpretation of the Symbols until 1953, although he gave permission to Dane Rudhyar to incorporate them into his 1936 book, The Astrology of Personality (3).  In 1973 Rudhyar published a detailed reformulation of the Symbols’ meaning in An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformations and Its 360 Symbolic Phases.

Combining personal name asteroids with their Sabian Symbol meanings provides valuable details about how individuals perceive themselves and others in different circumstances.

For example, we will explore the complex relationships between Charles, Prince of Wales, his first wife, Diana Spencer, and his long-time lover and second wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles to illustrate these dynamics.

Prince Charles’s Natal Chart

Charles’s marriage to Diana was covered by the media in excruciating detail and their natal charts are used by many astrologers to illustrate a variety of relationship dynamics. Charles’ on-again, off-again relationship with Camilla was the main reason his marriage to Diana ended in divorce. Love relationships are challenging for most people, but none more so than for those who are forced to conduct them under public scrutiny. Adding the three personal name asteroids, Camilla 107, Charlier 8678, and Diana 78, to their birth and wedding charts and examining the asteroids’ Sabian Symbol meanings confirms much of what has been written about the nature of the relationship that Diana infamously described with the words, “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”  (4)

Chart 1 – Charles, Prince of Wales, November 14, 1948, 9:14 p.m., Buckingham Palace (AstroDataBank)

In Charles’ birth chart, asteroid Charlier is at 21 Pisces in his 9th house of meaning, beliefs, and authenticity. The Sabian Symbol for this degree is A prophet carrying tablets of the new law is walking down the slopes of Mount Sinai. Rudhyar interprets this as, ”The need to bring down to the level of everyday existence the clear realizations made manifest in a great ‘peak experience.’ (5) Here is Charles, the future king living in the highest level of entitled royalty and tradition, in his well-known, self-appointed role as advocate for non-traditional, Piscean practices like homeopathy, herbal medicine, organic farming, and environmental awareness. He literally brings spiritual concepts (9th house) down to Earth from his lofty position in the planet’s best-known royal family.

Asteroid Camilla is exactly opposite Charlier at 21 Virgo in Charles’ 3rd house. The opposition reflects the intellectual (Virgo, 3rd) and on and off nature of their relationship between the early 1970s and their marriage in 2005. Tightly squaring the Charlier/Camilla opposition is Mars in Sagittarius in Charles’ 5th house of romance, a fitting representative of the level of passion, energy, and disruption their affair brought to his life. The Mars influence also appears in Camilla’s birth chart, where asteroid Charlier is opposite her Mars.

The Sabian Symbol for asteroid Camilla at 21 Virgo in Charles’ chart is, A royal coat of arms enriched with precious stones, described as “The certification of aristocratic status, at whatever level ‘nobility’ expresses itself in cultural eminence.” (6) One of Charles’ roles in her life ultimately was perfecting (Virgo) Camilla’s royal status when he married her, and the Queen made her Duchess of Cornwall.

The third member of this triad was Diana, represented by asteroid Diana at 5 Sagittarius in Charles’ 4th house of home and family. Diana is exactly square his Saturn at 5 Virgo in the 2nd house of values. Charles’ Saturn brings him an extremely strong set of required responsibilities and duties that must be fulfilled as core values. Diana’s need for personal meaning and authenticity (Sagittarius) within a rigid royal family (4th house) that often found her wanting was a constant challenge that he could not understand. The Sabian Symbol for asteroid Diana’s position is right on the mark: A game of cricket. Rudhyar’s comment, “Where this symbol is found, the value of making individual-will or ego-will subservient to collective cultural patterns is emphasized,” (7) clearly expresses the role that Charles, through his family, believed Diana had to fulfil.

Diana’s Natal Chart

Chart 2 - Diana, Princess of Wales, July 1, 1961, 7:45 p.m., Sandringham, UK (AstroDataBank)

In Diana’s birth chart, asteroid Diana is at 15 Scorpio in her 11th house of long-term hopes and dreams with the Sabian Symbol, A girl’s face breaking into a smile. Diana was well known for the beautiful public smile that masked her inner conflict and despair (Scorpio). Asteroid Charlier, conjunct Pluto at 6 Virgo has the Symbol, A harem, with the meaning, “A fateful (even if sought after) subservience to the vagaries or desires of the emotional nature,” a fitting description of the marriage she described as “crowded.” (8)

Charles’ and Diana’s Wedding Chart – Camilla Was There, Too

Chart 3 – Inner Chart, Charles; Middle Chart, Diana; Outer Chart, Charles’ and Diana’s Wedding, July 29, 1981, London (AstroDataBank)

Personal name asteroids in the wedding chart of Charles and Diana also provide clear clues to the nature of their union. Most dramatic is the exact conjunction of transiting Venus and asteroid Camilla at 5 Virgo in the 11th house of long-term hopes and dreams. Its Sabian Symbol, A merry-go-round, represents the cyclic and vacillating nature of emotional life and the challenge of capturing the “ring” to receive a reward. Camilla’s “presence” in the marriage was going to be about who captured the love (Venus) of Charles. Asteroid Diana is at 2 Leo in the 10th house of public status and appropriately reflects her public (10th) ascension to royalty (Leo) as the presumed next queen consort. The Sabian Symbol, A middle-aged woman, her long hair flowing over her shoulders and in a braless youthful garment tells a different story of Diana seeking to “claim her right to experiences of youth which may have been denied to her.” (9) Diana was only 20 at the time of her wedding and always represented youthful ideals challenging royal family traditions.

Charles, the prize and the director of this nuptial event, is in the wedding chart as asteroid Charlier at 17 Leo in the 11th house. The Sabian Symbol seems a bit obscure, A chemist conducts an experiment for his students, but Rudhyar has a meaningful explanation that fits the circumstances: “Here we reach the level of intellectual analysis and the human ability to control natural processes. This ability is based on the inherited knowledge acquired by a community of men, generation after generation.” (10) It sounds like the intellectual Charles assuming that tradition will prevail over the complex emotions in this marriage.

Pluto and the Asteroids Herald Difficulties

The dramatic divorce of Charles and Diana followed by her tragic death at age 36 is shown by several Pluto aspects in their charts. In Diana’s natal chart, Pluto is exactly conjunct within 9 minutes to asteroid Charlier at 6 Virgo and both are opposite her retrograde Chiron at 6 Pisces. After their separation, Diana divulged in her revealing 1995 interview with Martin Bashir of the BBC that her battle with bulimia (Virgo/Chiron illness) was largely due to the emotional stresses (Pluto) of her marriage to Charles when she said, “It was a symptom of what was going on in my marriage.” (11) On the day of that interview, transiting asteroid Diana was in 6 Gemini (communication) and exactly square and retrograde to her natal Pluto/Charlier.

In the synastry between their charts, Diana’s Pluto is square Charles’ asteroid Diana and Diana’s asteroid Diana is square Charles’ natal Pluto, both within a degree. Diana’s asteroid Camilla is square Charles’ Lunar Nodes. On their wedding date, July 29, 1981, transiting Venus and Camilla were exactly conjunct Diana’s natal Pluto/Charlier and transiting asteroid Charlier was conjunct Charles’ natal Pluto. If the royal family had employed an astrologer who used personal name asteroids it is hard to believe all those Pluto contacts wouldn’t have raised a flurry of red flags about the potential course of this marriage.

Charles’ and Camilla’s Wedding

Chart 4 – Charles’ and Camilla’s Wedding, April 9, 2005, 12:30 p.m., Windsor, UK (14)

At the time of Charles’ and Camilla’s wedding on April 9, 2005, things looked a bit better. Transiting Sun was exactly conjunct transiting asteroid Camilla at 19 Aries (Sabian Symbol: A young girl feeding birds in winter carrying the theme of “The transmutation of life into love”). (12) Asteroid Charlier was at 26 Pisces conjunct the marriage asteroid Juno (Sabian Symbol: The harvest moon illuminates a clear autumnal sky, that Rudhyar summarizes as, “The light of fulfilment that blesses work well done”). (13) Let’s hope that the happiness they seem finally to have found lasts through the rest of the autumn of their lives.

References:
1 Nona Gwynn Press, New Insights into Astrology (San Diego: ACS Publications, 1993), 212
2 Marc Edmund Jones, The Sabian Symbols in Astrology (Boulder and London: Shambhala, 1978), 133
3 Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformations and Its 360 Symbolic Phases, (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 391
4 Transcribed interview with Martin Bashir, November 20, 1995, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/diana/panorama.html, retrieved January 13, 2020)
5 Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala, 282
6 Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala, 264
7 Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala, 213
8 Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala, 154, 20
9 Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala, 133
10 Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala, 142
11 Bashir Interview, November 20, 1995
12 Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala, 64-65
13 Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala, 286
14 Time of arrival at Windsor Guildhall for ceremony from AstroDataBank in Charles’ Biography section (no Rodden Rating cited); Alternate Source – Arrived about 12:25 p.m. for ceremony

Published in: The Career Astrologer, June 2020.

Author:
Duncan O. McCollum is an Evolutionary Astrologer who is passionate about the use of astrology to empower us to understand ourselves and our life path. He has been a student of astrology since 2002, a professional practitioner since 2009, and is a graduate of Maurice Fernandez’ School of Astrology of the Evolution of Consciousness. Duncan has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history and worked many years as an archivist and records manager. He became interested in personal name asteroids when he discovered that his wife’s name asteroid in his birth chart falls exactly on his North Node, and his name asteroid in her chart is exactly conjunct Venus. Personal name asteroids work! saipan56@gmail.com

Images:
Self-image smartphone: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Marc Edmond Jones: uncredited / Public domain
Charts taken from AstroDatabank

© 2020 - Duncan McCollum - The Career Astrologer

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