Month: May 2018

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Tom Wolfe, author of The Bonfire of the Vanities and instigator of the more subjective and literary New Journalism, has died. He was a chronicler of the “Me Decade” and satirized the greed, ambition, racism and social class of New York in the 1980s. He supported GWB but denied he was conservative, writing about a wide spectrum of American society.

Born 2 March 1930 2.21am Richmond, VA, he had a full 3^rd house as befits a journalist with a Pisces Sun and Venus there as well as an Aries Moon. He would be quick-witted, keen to be admired for his intelligence and ability to communicate. His Sun was in a confident and expansive square to Jupiter in chatty Gemini.

He also had the signature generational Saturn in Capricorn opposition Pluto square Uranus in Aries, which would give him a resilience as well as innovative tendencies, always keen to push back the boundaries. His Mercury in outspoken Aquarius was in a combative conjunction to Mars and inconjunct Pluto, which would give his writing a sarcastic, at times bitter edge and he never shied away from controversy.

His creative 5^th and 7^th Harmonics were strong as was his writers’ 21^st H.

Melania Trump is in hospital having undergone surgery for what the White House describe as a benign kidney condition.

She does look fairly stressed this year though living in the DC goldfish bowl with scandals swirling that’s hardly surprising. She does have tr Uranus square her Mars/Pluto midpoint exactly now which is a considerable challenge and scary, repeating on and off into 2019 – though there could be other reasons for it when it returns. Oddly enough she also has tr Uranus opposition her Jupiter which normally provides a welcome break. Though since her Jupiter is tied into her Sun, it may have a jolting effect as well. Her Moon may be in early Capricorn with her Progressed Moon in Libra, which tr Saturn is hard-aspecting this year. The Moon can be about the body as well as home and family life. Plus she has a really tough Solar Arc Pluto opposition her Saturn in Taurus. So life will feel it is weighing down on her for a variety of reasons. She should bounce more enthusiastically in September and October.

Margot Kidder, who played reporter Lois Lane in four Superman movies has died aged 69. Born 17 October 1948 in Yellowknife, Canada, she grew up in remote locations, moving frequently through childhood. After Superman she played in The Amityville Horror, but suffered from bi-polar disorder and had a highly publicized breakdown in the 1990s. She latterly became an outspoken environmental and anti-war activist.

She had her Sun in Libra on the focal point of a mini-Grand Trine to Jupiter in Sagittarius trine Pluto so she would have confidence, also supplied by Uranus in an adventurous opposition to Jupiter.

But she had an ‘unloved’ Venus Saturn in Virgo with her Saturn square Mars with Mars inconjunct Uranus – not an easy life, especially emotionally. She had three marriages, one lasting only a few days.  Her Sun was probably opposition an Aries Moon which wouldn’t help on that score either.

Christopher Reeve who played Superman, 25 September 1952 3.30am New York, was also a Sun Libra with Mercury, Saturn, Neptune, Venus stretched out through Libra. His Venus Neptune was conjunct her Sun Mercury and her Jupiter was conjunct his Mars, so it was a reasonable though not necessarily close match.

Edward St Aubyn’s much lauded and harrowing Patrick Melrose novels have been turned into a tour-de-force tv drama series starring Benedict Cumberbatch. St Aubyn fictionalised the poisoned legacy of his upbringing in a highly dysfunctional upper-class family. He was raped by his father very young for three years, either with the complicity or wilful ignorance of his mother. By the time he reached Oxford University he was a heroin addict, alcoholic and a user of every drug on the black market barring LSD. Only after he went into psychoanalysis in his mid 20s did he start to clean up and become a successful professional writer.

Although the subject matter is grim, he has a caustic wit about the futility of the very rich and his out-of-control addictions, which it’s a miracle he survived.

Born 14 January 1960 in Cornwall, he’s a Sun Capricorn with Mercury Saturn and Mars spread out through Capricorn as well; and Saturn Mars trine Pluto, sextile Neptune in Scorpio. He’s got ambition and initiative which would help to haul him out of that grim combination of Saturn Mars and Pluto. What probably saved his sanity (or allowed him to recover it) is Jupiter and Venus in Sagittarius trine Uranus, which would give him optimism.  His Moon is late Cancer or early Leo, probably opposition his Sun.

His father Roger, son of an alcoholic Brigadier (friend of the Duke of Windsor who drank himself to death in Monte Carlo) was born 9 June 1906 and had his Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and a Mars Pluto conjunction strung out through Gemini; with his Sun, Mercury, Jupiter square Saturn – so cruel, ruthless, with his own demons.

The relationship chart between Edward and his father had a highly stressed Mars trine Pluto and inconjunct Uranus. Which isn’t dissimilar to the relationship chart between Roger (father) and his father Edward Geoffrey St Aubyn, with a composite Mars Venus sextile Pluto Neptune and trine Saturn, and Mars square Uranus.   These patterns of violence and abuse tend to roll down the generations until one individual steps out of their role, usually in therapy, and breaks the chain.

When Edward St Aubyn went into analysis in his mid twenties  his chart was awash with Uranus – his Solar Arc Sun opposing his natal Uranus; his Solar Arc Uranus square his Venus and then Jupiter which also had tr Uranus conjunct his Venus Jupiter. Uranus is traditionally the torcher-bearer, shining a light into the unknown and bringing light to darkness. It would be a very long haul but he’s held up as an example of someone who managed through mental health care to extricate himself from a damaged childhood.

Benedict Cumberbatch says it was the one role he always wanted to play (apart from Hamlet). His Sun Cancer is possibly conjunct St Aubyn’s Moon; with his Jupiter trine St Aubyn’s Sun so a good connection.

Edward St Aubyn has a strong though strained writers’ 21^st Harmonic; several quintiles and septiles from the creative 5H and 7H; an aggravated victim/healer 12H; and a tough-struggle breakthrough 13H.

Serial killer Dennis Nilsen, who killed at least 15, mainly homeless young gay men in the 1970s and 1980s, has died in prison. He was arrested when human remains were found in blocked drains at his London home. He was serving a life sentence after his conviction in 1983.

Born 23 November 1945 4am Fraserburgh, Scotland, with an alcoholic, largely absent Norwegian father and a strictly religious mother, who favoured his siblings, he gained most support from his grandfather who died when he was six. He was involved in a near fatal drowning when he was an older child. He spent 11 years in the army in catering, and latterly became a civil servant working in job centres.

He was a Sun Sagittarius trine Mars in Leo, sextiling onto a 12^th house Neptune. He did drink heavily to cover his shyness and to hide his homosexuality, which fits with an escapist/addictive Neptune in the 12th. But what is most striking about his chart is a difficult combination of a Cancer Moon conjunct Saturn, with Saturn conjunct MC and Mars, and Mars conjunct Pluto, both in the 10^th. It suggests a childhood with little love, a rigidly disciplinarian mother who was bossy and controlling. The Mars Saturn conjunction is cruel; Mars Pluto ruthless. He also had a passionate Venus in Scorpio square Pluto and widely square Mars, which would make him a) possessive and b) insensitive.

It’s thought his first victim met his death in late 1978 when tr Pluto was moving across Nilsen’s Ascendant, exacerbating his need for control; and his Solar Arc Pluto was moving to square his Uranus as he moved into a new phase of his life. His Solar Arc Neptune was also exactly square his Pluto, moving to conjunct his Venus, so amplifying megalomaniac and sexually perverse tendencies. He would enjoy the power. There was one theory that he was in part replaying the death of his grandfather whom he saw in an open coffin after his death, after which he became a more withdrawn child.

Ted Bundy was another Sun Sagittarius with Venus in Scorpio square Pluto.

On Tuesday Uranus moves into Taurus for the first time in 84 years. It spends seven years per sign and we’ve recently been through Uranus in fiery Aries, an explosive and rebellious combination.

The detailed post below is from October 2017. But I wondered whether looking back to the mythology might help to shed light on possible outcomes.

Uranus was the sky god married to the earth mother Gaia. He came down every night to mate with her and produced a huge brood of children, none of whom he liked – too brutish, too earthy. There were the twelve Titans of whom Saturn (Cronus) was one; the Cyclops (ugly one-eyed monsters); and the hundred-handed Giants (even uglier). Uranus so disliked the Cyclops and Giants that he imprisoned them underground and in revenge Gaia persuaded Saturn to castrate his father. Out of his blood spilled on earth sprang the avenging Furies and his genitals landing in the sea were transformed into Aphrodite (Venus). As an addendum Saturn re-imprisoned his younger brethren and was then cursed by his mother.

Not all sweetness and light, which is borne out by the below examples of previous Uranus in Taurus. It’s an odd mix since Uranus is light, airy, not comfortable with nature, the body, the earthy material realm. And Taurus is the most rooted of signs in all things physical and material. There will be innovations, since Uranus is nothing if not inspired and experimental. Trade will be a primary and possibly hot topic as the money-gatherers put profit before humanity.

October 2017 post:

Uranus, on its 84 year cycle, moves into Taurus May 15^th 2018 staying for 7 years, the first time since 1934 to 1941.   Uranus is inventive and experimental and Taurus is earthy and practical, so no surprises that on previous occurrences there were new discoveries. In the later 1930s there were major advances in technology in aviation, radio, and film. On a previous occasion, in the late 17^th Century, street lighting was introduced in London. There was also widespread exploration across the globe and major advances in astronomy, including the first sighting of Uranus (which was mis-named). Taurus being earthy and quite anal, no surprises either that sewage systems and toilets came to the fore.

Taurus is also acquisitive for money and possessions so from past experience trade became a pressing and not always compassionate drive. During the Uranus in Taurus of 1600 England starts trade with Asia; two Uranus in Taurus later it moves into Bengal with catastrophic results for the population; 2 million die in a famine and the East India Company raises their taxes and ships the revenues out of the country. The same Brit company then takes over the North American tea trade, which leads, due to their punitive taxation, to the American Revolution.

The Bengal famine narrative repeated in a different location during the mid 19^th Century Uranus in Taurus in Ireland. The potato crop failed, which starved a million to death and a million emigrated, with the British overlords, who were partly the cause of the population’s reliance on one crop, continuing to send foodstuffs to the UK. And that is a wound which has never healed.

Although it isn’t easy to extrapolate the effect of Uranus in Taurus from other influences ongoing. The mid 19^th Century Uranus in Taurus came on the back of a Saturn Pluto Uranus conjunction in late Aries/Taurus, so was always going to be a time of upheaval and devastation.

The most similar to this one would be the 1767 Uranus in Taurus with Pluto in Capricorn about to oppose Saturn in Cancer, with Neptune in Virgo. Apart from the horrors of the Bengal famine, James Watts’ steam-engine inventions drove the Industrial Revolution into being; and the first mechanical spinning frame for fabric weaving also appeared.

The most recent 1935 to 1941 Uranus in Taurus came on the back of the Great Depression of the decade following 1929, with widespread poverty and unemployment leading to authoritarian regimes emerging in several countries, most notably German with Hitler rising to power from 1933; and Stalin’s Great Purge of 1936-38 with 600,000 being executed in Russia by the state.

In 1935 Uranus was just over the square to Pluto in Cancer, so not dissimilar to now – and it ended with a Saturn Uranus conjunction trine Neptune in Virgo in 1941. Territorial greed is clearly also one of its manifestations; as well as inhumane methods in the pursuit of power.

So the overall conclusion would be good and bad. Innovative yes. Power and money hungry also.

Georgina Chapman, separated wife of Harvey Weinstein, is attempting to clear her name with a Vogue interview and photo-shoot. She said she knew nothing of his proclivities and assaults and is heart-broken about what the effect will be on their two children.

Born 14 April 1976, she is a fashion designer, so no doubt hoping she can resurrect her business. She’s a Sun Aries perhaps opposition a Libra Moon square Saturn in Cancer. Low in self-esteem and driven to succeed with such a strong Saturn. Her Venus in Aries opposition Pluto square Mars in Cancer would attract her to a dramatic emotional life with a powerful/dominating partner, given the Mars Pluto square added onto Saturn.

Weinstein’s Jupiter is conjunct her Sun, so he or his influential position would boost her morale; though with his autocratic Saturn square Uranus sitting exactly on her Pluto square Mars, their home life would have some very rough edges.

Their relationship chart has a composite Mars Pluto opposition Venus which hints at a very intense emotional interaction; with Venus trine Neptune which usually starts ethereal and romantic and can end in disappointment as illusions and delusions are blown out of the water.

She looks on better form in 2019 with plenty of Jupiter around.

The first skirmish in what may or may not be an all-out Iran Israel war seems to be over. Iran fired at the Israeli border on Golan with little success and Israel retaliated with a massive attack on Iranian positions in Syria, setting back their plans to consolidate their military base there. Israel clearly had Russian support for their action, given Netanyahu’s warm welcome in Moscow this week. There’s a feeling that Iran does not wish to escalate (at the moment).

Next Monday the US Embassy opens in Jerusalem which can only inflame the already heated mood, peaking on Tuesday, Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe) on which Palestinians mourn their ousting from their ancestral homelands. The ‘March of Return’ protests on the Gaza border have been building for the past seven weeks with so far around 34 Palestinian dead, over 4000 injured as Israeli troops fired on them. There have been solidarity demonstrations in Morocco.

Israel does look stressed with tr Uranus square the Solar Arc Sun from the 16^th of this month onwards; and the aggressive/insecure tr Uranus trine the Israel Mars again late in the year into 2019. With considerable unrest both amongst the Israeli leadership and population through 2019 with tr Uranus opposing the 10^th house Moon.

What interested me was the USA/Israel relationship chart which is under its most severe stress in 2019/2020 for nearly forty years. In 1981 Israeli bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor which was heavily criticised globally and in the US with the New York Times calling it ‘an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression”, and the Los Angeles Times calling it “state-sponsored terrorism.” The following year Israel invaded Lebanon starting a three-year war (which triggered the founding of Hezbollah).

The same tr Pluto opposition the composite Mars is in place on the USA/Israel relationship chart. Even before then from now onwards tr Neptune opposes the composite Saturn and squares the composite Uranus (this June) and then squares the Sun, running into 2020. So whatever Trump’s intentions, the USA as a nation is becoming increasingly unhappy about events on that front.

The USA/Saudi Arabia relationship chart is blocked in June; jolted in July to September and running downhill thereafter into a chilly 2019.

The NK/USA chart is pushing on through heavy mud in 2018/19; with a turnaround in 2019 which could go either way. But looks easier than the two above.

The shifting alliances are dizzying.

Two days before his birthday on 12^th June Trump will be the first US leader to meet a NK supremo – if all goes to plan. Kim’s leadership chart will still be in a discouraging dip from tr Saturn conjunct the Sun Pluto. Though tr Uranus has been boosting the Jupiter from mid May. They are miles apart on what denuclearization means. For Trump: it’s ditch the lot; for Kim: it’s stop missile testing while keeping his security blanket intact, with an eye on what happened to Libya’s Gaddafi when he gave up the nukes. There’s nothing too informative astrologically on June 12 though there’s a slippery Sun square Neptune and inconjunct Pluto – so no doubt much tap dancing going on both sides. But likely no concrete outcome.

Trump’s personal chart has nothing of note on transits, odd blips on midpoints and the high-drama Solar Arc Uranus conjunct his Mars. It’s been pointed out that he does have his Progressed Venus conjunct his Jupiter in effect now and over the meet and beyond for a few weeks/months. At best this indicates peace and harmony, popularity, honours, and being invited into a prestigious social group. But it’s a combination that has a downside. Often associated with the fashion business, it has that all-for-show, superficial charm, more style than substance feel.  Super-indulgent, it stimulates a need for pleasure, for more, more more. It can lead to film-star mannerisms and over-promising.

Across June as well tr Uranus squares his Saturn Pluto which requires courage and grit and could bring violence. He has an emotional hiccup July to mid-September. Late October through to the year end he has tr Neptune opposition his Jupiter/Pluto midpoint, which Ebertin describes as: ‘general disappointment, losses, deception, cheating.’

Where his problems really pick up are from mid February 2019 to late 2020 – with first tr Pluto opposition his Mars/Uranus – violent interventions, test of nerve, struggle for survival. Then from late March tr Pluto opposition his Saturn which is an uphill struggle and opposition his Mars/Node usually involving a violent separation. Those three run till early July, and repeat on and off thereafter through across the following year.  And from 2019 till late 2020 he has tr Pluto opposition Sun/Mars, Mercury/Pluto and Venus/Saturn – which is a whole load of grief – enormous strain, enraged, frustrated, under considerable mental pressure, lonely, can be violent.

From April 2019 onwards as well he has tr Neptune square his 10^th house Uranus, which will make him highly-strung, confused, clinging onto not always rational ideas with fanatical fervour.

His Solar Return from June 2019 to June 2020 has Saturn Pluto (10^th) opposition Mars Mercury (4^th).  Plus a ‘false happiness’ Sun Jupiter Neptune.

His relationship chart with the USA starts to show real aggravation from March 2019 to late 2020 with tr Pluto opposition the composite Mars; as well as major upheavals and disruptions in 2019 from tr Uranus opposition the Pluto.

Part of the above could conceivably be because of actual violence either on the streets or in military action abroad.  The likelihood is that 2019 will see a global recession because of the Saturn Pluto conjunction in Capricorn, perhaps triggered in part by rising oil prices with trouble in the ME; and the USA chart has the discouraging tr Saturn opposition Sun then; as well as tr Pluto starting to oppose the US Mercury for angst-ridden and bitter debates.