The Grimaldi family has a chequered marital and parental past. Profligate. The current reigning prince, Albert II, has two illegitimate children, and his grandmother was also born illegitimate but adopted by her biological father otherwise the princely line would have died out. Even further back are numerous divorces and marriages for money. No longer satisfied with these now rather tame scandals and arrangements, one of Albert’s sisters ran off and joined a circus. Disreputable, they don’t have the cachet that usually comes with a reigning house. Out of this rather unpromising past comes a tale for the ages. The Libra Neptune – Leo Pluto age that is. The fairytale marriage (Libra Neptune) to a powerful Prince (Leo Pluto). The Irish-German American film actress Grace Kelly married His Serene Highness Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
Grace Kelly had the class that the Grimaldis did not and she wasn’t tainted by rumors that she was barren unlike Prince Rainier’s previous love affair. She was a very suitable bride and it was this image of high status and glamour that captured Prince Rainier’s attention. Of course, her MGM crafted image and who she was were two quite different things. At her death, she owned her grandfather’s three room house in Ireland that he had left to emigrate to America. It had become a ruin. MGM, a fairy godmother if there ever was one, was still making sure there were no cinders in Grace’s hair as she slipped down the aisle to her religious wedding, the second of the event.
Analysis of the Big Three
The astrological point of a wedding chart is best described by its big three; Sun, Moon, and Ascendant. The Monegasque civil wedding had a Cancer Ascendant showing a primary focus on the past, home and country, heredity and the family. The main action was to form a family. Aristocratic and royal families often choose Taurus to play a prominent role because there is a desire for an heir but the prominence of the Cancer zodiac shows that the future of the Grimaldi family was the purpose of this marriage.
The Aries Sun is related to the formation of a relationship. Aries, ruled by Mars, is one half of the war axis. This axis Aries-Libra together forms the basis of relationship between a couple. From the context of the wedding, Prince Rainier was acting as the Aries Sun. He was the prince (Sun) in military uniform (Aries) doing his duty (10th house). The Sun was opposing the retrograde Libra Neptune in the 4th house. Grace Kelly is the fairytale (Neptune) bride (Libra). The Sun-Neptune opposition focuses on an apex planet, the Cancer Uranus, creating a T-square. The familial (Cancer) mavericks (Uranus). Those would be the children of the union; Caroline, Albert and Stephanie.
The Leo Moon is the ruler of the Ascendant and as such represents the groom in this wedding chart. Once again, Prince Rainier is the actor. The Leo Moon is trine the retrograde Sagittarius Saturn in the 5th house. Grace Kelly is the partner of the Moon and we find her the past (retrograde) foreign (Sagittarius) breadwinner (Saturn) on the stage (5th house). She had to provide the Prince a $2 million dowry from her earnings as a film actress and an advance on her inheritance from her father. As Saturn, she oozes status and class. The trine relationship between the two shows Grace Kelly easily transitioning to the Leo Moon herself, the royal (Leo) mother (Moon). This works for Prince Rainier as well as her class rubs off on him and elevates his status.
The wedding shows that the marriage was by the Grimaldis for the Grimaldis. Grace Kelly is just the prop needed to produce the next generation of this maverick princely family.
Prince Rainier III As The Sun
Weddings usually revolve around the bride, not so for Prince Rainier. Although there is no evidence that this wedding was elected, the astrological formation points to only one central character, Prince Rainier himself. As the Aries Sun he is influencing three planets in the horoscope; the Leo Moon, Leo Jupiter and retrograde Leo Pluto. Grimaldi Family (Moon). Monte Carlo Casino Expansion (Jupiter). Past Monegasque Inheritance (retrograde Pluto).
The Leo Jupiter and retrograde Leo Pluto are in the 2nd house of wealth. The princely estate was crumbling and Rainier had his eye on a massive expansion (Jupiter) of his material assets (2nd house). The Pisces Ceres sits in the 9th house where horizons are broadened. Cashing in on the Piscean fairytale. No Monegasque can step foot on the Monte Carlo casino floor. Owned by the Société Anonyme des Bains de Mer et du Cercle des Etrangers à Monaco (Society of Sea Baths and of the Circle of Foreigners in Monaco), the name tells the tale. The casino is for the foreign guests.
Rainier orchestrates his moment. A big, extravagant MGM produced wedding to a glamorous silver screen goddess was how a prince shakes his moneymaker. No longer some outmoded Victorian era resort, Monaco was back in a big way. The setting of The Wedding. Big as in Jupiter. The Casino filled to the brim with glitzy foreigners (Leo Jupiter in the 2nd). Extravagant. Finally receiving the princely inheritance (retrograde Leo Pluto in the 2nd).
The Taurus Mercury is on the Sabian symbol “a woman sprinkling flowers”. All the press, all the talk, Monaco has become a type of Disneyworld where the flowers were watered and every dead leaf removed just minutes before you walk past them. On this stage, Prince Rainier placed Princess Gracia. She’s the fairytale princess. Cinderella. The end of the Leo Pluto – Libra Neptune era associated with the birth of the Baby Boomers is upon the world. No longer Orphan Annie being adopted by Daddy Warbucks during the Great Depression, a Virgo Neptune – Cancer Pluto fairytale. Woops, I meant Rainier’s illegtimate mother Charlotte adopted by her princely father making her a princess in 1919, a fairytale of the Cancer Pluto – Leo Neptune age. Prince Rainier III taps into the ethos of the age and it culminates in the romantic fairytale of marriage to a Prince. The majority shareholder at that time of the Monte Carlo casino, Aristotle Onassis, sends a floatplane over to sprinkle roses on the arriving bride whose cruise ship takes her directly to Monaco with her entourage. No royal wedding would ever be the same again.
Pocahontas Died at Gravesend
At the time of the wedding, Monaco had lost its lustre and its princely line didn’t have the heft needed to restore it. Within the wedding chart, Cancer Uranus is rising. The Sabian symbol of Uranus is 28° Cancer, “a modern Pocahontas”. Pocahontas had a strong intercessor role. As part of her native culture, she saved Captain John Smith in a ritual that the native tribes practiced to build adoptive family relationships. After that appearance, she was taken captive and taught Christianity where she was baptized as Rebecca and was then allowed to marry John Rolfe. She traveled to England and died on her way home at Gravesend but not before producing a son who went on to have numerous descendants among the First Families of Virginia. These descendants have often carried her name, Matoaca or Matoaka. Matoaca began by adopting an Englishman establishing peace for a time and ended by being baptized and marrying an Englishman establishing peace for a time. Dissolving peace. Libra Neptune.
At her civil wedding, Grace went through a 15 minute ritual where she married Prince Rainier. During this time, the Ascendant changed from Cancer to Leo. Prince Rainier III of Monaco (Leo Moon), the reigning prince of the House of Grimaldi, married Grace Kelly (Sagittarius Saturn), the foreign high status master, forming a family (Cancer Ascendant). Grace Kelly is highlighted early to say her one word, oui, as the Ascendant touches the Cancer Uranus. The Ascendant next passes into Leo, ruled by the Aries Sun who is Prince Rainier and is partnered with the Cancer Uranus, Grace. The rest of the ceremony is the 25 minute recitation of Grace’s new name and titles. His partner Princess Gracia (now represented by the Cancer Uranus) slips into the 12th house. She enters the Grimaldi House as a princess in the tower expected to produce children. She has become a Grimaldi.
This event brought together two cultures and attempted to merge them together. Like Pocahontas, only one culture continued, that of the profligate Grimaldis, with Grace Kelly leaving little trace on the family that remains. The fabulous wedding fairytale dissolved slowly. Neptune was transiting Libra. It was a grand marketing campaign for Monaco. At Graves-end, Pocahontas died. Princess Gracia died too near the end of the Pluto transit of Libra. All marriages end one way or another. That was Pluto’s message when he was in Libra. The Grimaldi family remains. Still disreputable. Rebellious. Profligate. Individualistic. Children of Uranus and the Pluto transit of Aquarius has arrived.