The podcast “Celebrity Book Club” recently had a fascinating discussion about Diahann Carroll, a beautiful actress who broke through barriers to become the first black woman to star in her own TV show. If we look at her chart, we can see that Diahann Carroll was born to find her gifts and success in public life, graced with the ability to project her well-crafted and disciplined beauty and magnetism out towards an audience whose adoration made her become even more lovely and powerful. With Jupiter, which brings expanding blessings, shining at the top of her chart, she tenaciously pursued every opportunity to keep her star shining as she aged yet stayed relevant and exciting to her audience.
We all receive mixed blessings, however. Born with the Sun in Cancer placed the area of the chart which suggests toil and struggles, she would find that the tranquil domestic life a Cancerian typically seeks, where she would feel loved and supported and cared for, would elude her. With the Sun in challenging aspect to Mars, which can rule men in a chart, she had the tendency to be drawn to men who were exciting and dynamic but who were not capable of being the life partner she initially thought them to be. And with the Sun in the dark shadow of the planet Pluto, she could even be drawn to dangerous and abusive partners, or those who would use her for their own ends.
A Cancerian does eventually learn, thank heavens, and develops a hard shell which protects its vulnerability. It seems that Diahann after her fourth marriage and divorce focused on her own self-care and on the people who truly had her interests at heart. Her heartbreak and disappointment served a strange kind of purpose in making her as strong a presence in her private life as she was in her public persona.
But we cannot look at the chart of a Cancerian without considering the placement of the Moon, which rules the sign of Cancer. The Moon was rising in the sign of Aquarius at the moment Diahann was born. Aquarian moons seek the emotional freedom which emerges once we rise above pettiness and self-sabotaging feelings to embrace the belief that we can all do better and will do better, collectively. Learning to use her fame to help women who were struggling with alcohol and drug addiction or who were trapped in a life of prostitution was Diahann’s path to expressing the power of her Aquarian Moon.
And, with that Moon rising so close to her as she took her first breath, Diahann Carroll will be remembered for her luminous beauty, for her magnetic talent, and, at a time when black actresses were only considered for roles as domestics, for her bravery in demanding – and winning – her right to play any part open to women. She will be remembered as a goddess.
