Brazil has said farewell to “the nightmare” of the past four years under the Bolsonaro administration during which nearly 700,000 died of a mishandled Covid outbreak, millions were plunged into poverty, and Amazon deforestation soared. Lula da Silva the incoming president declared a war on hunger when he was inaugurated just after 3pm yesterday.
The Brazil 7 September 1822 4.08 pm Piranga chart does have tr Uranus crossing the IC into the 4th house which suggests a decisive change of direction both domestically and in terms of future direction. But it won’t be easy with the global economic crunch undercutting Brazil’s finances with tr Neptune opposition the 8th house Mercury. And the Bank of Brazil, 31 December 1964, is coming down to earth with a bump as their over-optimistic Jupiter opposition Neptune is rattled by tr Uranus; with a panicky tr Neptune opposition Mars all year as well. There’s a chance of an ill-advised over-confident push to revive the economy in 2024 but it will be knife edge for some years to come.
Lula was sworn in at 3.04 pm with practical, sensible, well-organized Saturn on the Midheaven. There will be unrest from subversive movements with Uranus in the 12th and the Bolsonarists will be in there fighting their corner. A 9th house Pluto suggests international tussles which may arise from Lula’s multipolar approach to foreign policy. He disapproves of sanctions and will clash with Biden’s push back against authoritarian regimes, wishing to have relations with everyone. There may well be friction between Brazil and the USA over the next two years.
Lula himself, 27 October 1945 8am (from memory) Ribeira, Brazil, who was president between 2003 and 2010, is a Sun Scorpio with a charming, if over-hopeful Jupiter, Venus, Neptune in Libra and a tough-minded Saturn Mars (Moon) in Cancer. He’ll run into the buffers by 2026 when his Solar Arc Sun opposes his Saturn Mars and his Pluto is conjunct his Sun – which is when the Bank of Brazil is flagging up major problems as well. But before then he’ll certainly be a major improvement on what went before.
The coming (already here) recession appears to be acutely sensitive ahead to the decisions of Jay Powell, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, described by one of the broadsheets as ‘the most important person in the world right now.’ “Money makes the world go round —- and he has his hand on the most important lever.” Central banks are stuck between rock and a hard place forced to choose between increasing interest rates to bring inflation down but in so doing suppressing chances of economic revival.
Decades back in the worst recession since WW11, Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US FedRes raised interest rates from 11.2 per cent in 1979 to 20 per cent in 1981 and drove the US economy off the cliff with global repercussions. There was a recovery after three or more years, as there always is, though long-term effects contributed to the Latin American debt crisis, long-lasting slowdowns in the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan African countries, and the later failure in the US savings and loans businesses.
“ Will Powell change direction too early, too late or, by some miracle, at just the right time? The health of the US economy (and by extension that of the rest of the world) depends on the answer to this question.”
Powell, 4 February 1953, Washington, DC, is a steady and stalwart Sun Mercury in Aquarius opposition Pluto, trine (Moon) Neptune (Saturn) in Libra. He has a Yod of Saturn Neptune sextile Pluto inconjunct Mars in Pisces. His Mars is being sucked into a swamp by tr Neptune conjunct from mid May 2023 onwards into early 2024. That is usually accompanied by a sense of panicky failure.
Tr Pluto will continue to square his Saturn from 2022 till late 2023 which is an uphill slog and usually discouraging. With his Solar Arc Mercury and then Sun opposition his Saturn now till 2025. And 2023 also sees tr Uranus square his Sun, Mercury and Pluto from now into 2024. All in all a white-knuckle ride ahead for him with no signs of great success.
His relationships with other top economic and political figures also reflect high anxiety. With Joe Biden, panic will set in through February and will peak as tr Pluto moves into Aquarius in late March through April.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, looks very fraught and aggravated with Powell in March and onwards; as well as mighty confused by his decisions.
Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, is equally floundering vis a vis Powell at the moment and throughout 2023 and stuck in late January.
Kristalina Georgieva, IMF chief, is at odds with Powell from April onwards into 2023.
Andrew Bailey, chairman of the Bank of England, is in turmoil with Powell from February onwards, descending into devastating confusion from late March as tr Pluto squares their composite Neptune. UK PM Rishi Sunak, himself a financier by background, will be hopping up and down from March onwards in his relationship with Powell and that extends through the year. UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is not looking too supportive either throughout 2023.
Transits to composite charts can show up splits in relationships and pressures; or a challenging situation both are facing jointly. But one way or another it looks like a rocky road ahead economically.
See previous post: Pluto into Aquarius – shock waves through central banks. 10th September 2021.
Lying to look good is common enough but fabricating an entire fantasy around a never-happened CV and life history takes deception to a whole different level. George Santos, the newly elected Republican congressman for Long Island claimed to be a wealthy, biracial, Ukrainian descendant of Holocaust survivors whose mother died in 9/11. He claimed to have worked at companies that never employed him and to be a graduate of two universities, only to admit later that he has no college degree at all. In two previous political campaigns he pitched himself as a gay man of Brazilian descent and pro-Trump. His claims of wealth don’t appear to be backed up by evidence and his mother died in 2016.
He recently admitted to being guilty of “résumé embellishment” but insisting the larger story about his life is true: “I’m not a criminal who defrauded the entire country and made up the fictional character and ran for Congress.”
He was born 22 July 1988 in New York state with Brazilian parents from a family who had lived in Brazil for at least three generations.
He is possibly/probably a Sun Leo at zero degrees and has two wide-ish yods in his chart. His Sun is sextile Jupiter in Gemini inconjunct Neptune; and his Jupiter sextile Mars is inconjunct Pluto (Moon) in Scorpio. A yod onto Pluto (Moon) does hint at a difficulty with wielding power; and a yod onto Neptune would certainly indicate illusion, delusion and possible deception. Neptune Pluto together as the markers of his chart hint at stratospheric ambition.
He also has an emotionally changeable/unstable Venus in Gemini opposition Uranus Saturn in Sagittarius.
There may be repercussions ahead for his wild claims and questionable tactics with tr Pluto opposing his Sun and tr Neptune squaring his Saturn Uranus this year.
His mendacity is so flagrant it is almost funny and maybe even a wake-up call for a political class that has in recent years cut itself loose from truth, honour and decency.
Another mass killing, another perverse and destructive whackjob running amok. Killers charts tend to follow similar astro-patterns but some stand out as particularly notable. Bryan Kohberger just arrested for the knife murders of four students in Idaho in mid November has a chart that certainly makes a statement.
Born 21 November 1994 in Pennsylvania, he is a graduate student at Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology. According to relatives he was an obsessive vegan as a teenager and a Libertarian politically = believes in the rights of the individual to be free from coercive powers of the state.
He is a Sun Scorpio conjunct Pluto and Jupiter – so super-charged confidence and a belief that rules don’t apply to him. All ramped up by his Sun, Pluto, Jupiter and Mercury in Scorpio all being in a volatile, argumentative square to a flamboyant Mars in Leo and sextile a highly-strung Uranus Neptune in Capricorn. He would have problems with authority figures and was sitting on a boiling reservoir of anger.
His Cancer Moon may have been in a Water Grand Trine to Saturn in Pisces trine Venus in Scorpio – Water Grand Trines can be detached from reality, living in their own bubble.
When the murders took place on 13 November, a week before his birthday, tr Uranus was exactly opposition his Mercury; and the transiting Jupiter Neptune in Pisces square Mars was in hard aspect to the Solar Arc positions of his Sun, Pluto, Jupiter, so pumping up his sense of entitlement to do as he pleased. Plus tr Saturn was conjunct his Solar Arc Neptune which would not do much for his grip on his sanity.
His DNA was evidently found at the scene and there may also have been an accomplice but that is not yet clear.
Barbara Walters, the pioneering US TV news presenter, has died aged 93 after a career spanning half a century. She survived a roller coaster childhood with a nightclub manager/showbusiness producer father whose fortunes fluctuated and he eventually went bankrupt. Her career in television started slowly and she worked her way up a male-dominated milieu to become the first US female network news anchor in 1976; and retired from a 52-year career in 2014 with a last appearance on her daytime show, The View. Over her career she interviewed world leaders including UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Cuban President Fidel Castro as well Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
She was born 25 September 1929 6.50am Boston, Massachusetts, with a charming and cool Libra Sun on her Ascendant which was opposition a 7th house Uranus and square a knowledgeable Saturn in Sagittarius in the communication 3rd. Uranus rules television so that fits and is also a pointer to her less successful attempts at marriage. She had an influential and controlling Pluto in her career 10th in a do-or-die-determined square to Mars Mercury in Libra in her 1st house, making her well-equipped to talk seriously with powerful people. She had a confident Jupiter Moon in Gemini in the communication 9th so extended her interests onto the international scene and was well-designed to cope with a constantly changing agenda.
Her marriages were short-lived with the third one becoming the fourth after a divorce and remarriage but that didn’t stick either.
Israel facing a historic moment on its path with a Nodal Return and a liberating Uranus conjunction to its Taurus Sun has turned its face against progress and doubled down on the worst of the past.
Benjamin Netanyahu, still facing charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, was sworn in yesterday as prime minister, heading the most right-wing administration in the country’s history, made up of Jewish ultranationalist and religious parties. He has promised to overhaul the judicial system, accelerate settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and highlight Jewish identity in public life. These and other plans have drawn unprecedented criticism from the defence establishment, business community, education system, LGBT+ rights groups, legal officials.
Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich, an ardent supporter of Jewish settlements, is set to be finance minister, with a second post in the defence ministry with sweeping administrative controls over the occupied West Bank.
Ben-Gvir, convicted of incitement to racism in 2007 and a former disciple of the anti-Arab ideologue rabbi Meir Kahane, will serve as national security minister with expanded powers over the Israeli police and responsibility for border police who operate in the West Bank. He has advocated that that soldiers receive blanket legal immunity from prosecution.
Avi Maoz, an extreme religious nationalist known for his anti-LGBT+ views, will serve as a deputy minister with some responsibilities over education curriculums in secular schools.
2022 has already seen Israeli forces kill more Palestinians in the West Bank than in any year since the United Nations began systematically recording fatalities in 2005, after the last major Palestinian uprising. The bloodshed has been blamed by Palestinian and Israeli rights groups and U.N. experts on Israel’s excessive use of force and open-fire rules as well as rising assaults by settlers in the West Bank.
Israel’s chart always did reflect an impossibly and obdurately stubborn country with an 8th house Taurus Sun square Mars in Leo and a 10th house war-like, unyielding Saturn, Pluto, Moon conjunction. To expect it to adapt to pressure, self-awareness or even shame was never a productive hope.
It was always heading into a turbulent phase now, keyed up by tr Saturn square the Israel Sun and opposition the Mars this January/February. But really blowing up into an explosively stormy patch with tr Uranus square the Saturn across mid March to early April and then conjunct the Sun from August 2023 onwards into 2024. The Israel violence-attracting Mars/Pluto and Mars/Saturn midpoints will be triggered across the middle to late this year (2023) as well. Then by 2025 tr Uranus will square the Israel Mars as well which will shake the country’s pride and cause over reactions.
Netanyahu’s relations with Joe Biden will be tense and bitter but relations with the USA are likely to be defused by there being too many battles to be fought elsewhere. Relations between Israel and Iran look more fraught over the next four years; and with Palestine/Gaza, when 2023 and 2024 will see a rapid deterioration in mood.
The First and Second Intifada of 1987 and 2000 both kicked off with brutal, destructive Mars Pluto aspects with a dash of Jupiterian expansiveness added in. The nearest this coming year has of similar note will be May 2023 when there is Mars in Leo opposition Pluto square Jupiter – which somewhere or other on the globe is causing to cause major problems.
Certainly with this Israeli government in place there is guaranteed, as the outgoing Defence Minister said, to be ‘blood spilled.’
Benjamin Netanyahu, 21 October 1949 10.15 am Tel Aviv, will not have an easy ride ahead with his ruthless Pluto Mars in Leo being upended by tr Saturn opposition in February and then Uranus rattling up both planets which will shake even his nerve, extending into 2024. Tr Pluto is also squaring his Sun through 2023.
ADD ON:
His government was sworn in around 4.30 pm on 29 December 2022. If the time is accurate it puts an impractical and indecisive Neptune on the Midheaven with a confident (overly so) and dependent 7th house Sun square Jupiter Moon in the 10th and trine Uranus. Plus the ratchety, impatient Uranus square Saturn of the moment.
It’s not particularly destructive as charts go though Pluto on the cusp of the 8th and Mars in the 12th might point to a fair amount of nefarious, behind-the-scenes dealings.
Vivienne Westwood, the pioneering British fashion designer who made a name for herself as the queen of punk in the 1970s, with her androgynous designs and irreverent anti-establishment attitudes has died.
She brought her eccentric and provocative creations into the mainstream, being worn amongst others by Princess Eugenie for various elements of the wedding of William and Kate Middleton; and her designs were featured in the movie Sex and the City.
She caused a stir in 1992 when she collected an OBE from the Queen, without wearing underwear, and twirled round in the courtyard to reveal all. And in 2006 when she was made a Dame, she opted again not to wear underpants and went to Buckingham Palace wearing a pair of silver horns.
She was born 8 April 1941 1am (unverified) Glossop, England into relative poverty and started in fashion creating jewellery which she sold at a market stall as a sideline to teaching. She left an early marriage when she met Malcolm McLaren, band manager of the Sex Pistols, who spear headed the 1970s social-rebel, shock-tactics protest movement in the music business.
She had a Sun and Venus in pro-active Aries and a flamboyant Leo Moon so was always going to make her mark with a statement. She was one of the Jupiter Saturn in Taurus generation with Uranus close by, so was earthy, stubborn, idealistic (sometimes) and materialistic at others. She had the inspirational Uranus trine Neptune of that era which produced many creative types.
Although her Uranus was reasonably prominent being also square her Moon and sextile Mercury it is not as highlighted as I might have expected from her status-quo upsetting tendencies. What does stand out is a volcanically angry Mars in Aquarius opposition Pluto which would give her a deep dislike of authority figures and she built a career around taunting them and what they represented.
Malcolm McLaren tapped into this underground reservoir of compulsive rage with his Aquarius Sun conjunct her Mars and opposition her Pluto; add in his Mars Saturn in Cancer square her Sun Venus and it adds up to a very scratchy relationship – a masochistic twosome. Though their relationship chart did indicate a good deal of affection with a composite Sun Venus as well as a power-couple Jupiter Pluto combination which would help them have a considerable impact. That they lasted a decade together is a miracle but they did shift the culture. For the past thirty years she has been married to another fashion designer, 25 years her junior. He is another Sun Aquarius.
Her activism in later years focused on climate change and support for Julian Assange.
The death of Brazilian footballer Pele, known as The King, has brought an outpouring of grief and adulation. He was regarded in his own country as a demi-god and Brazil’s iconic monuments, Christ the Redeemer and the Maracana were lit up on the news of his passing. He is thought of as the greatest footballer of all time and scored a record 1,281 goals in 1,363 career appearances. He was the only man to have won the World Cup three times – in 1958, 1962 and 1970. He married three times – the last when he was 75 – and had many affairs, producing at least seven children by different mothers.
Born 21 October 1940 3am Tres Coracoes, Brazil (birth certificate) into a poor family with a footballer father he started playing professionally from his mid teens.
He had a Libra Sun (oddly enough quite an athletic sign) in his financial 2nd house trine a public-career 10th house Moon Gemini. What gave his chart weight was an exact Jupiter Saturn conjunction in Taurus in a determined square to Pluto with his Pluto also square his Sun. His Mars was in Libra (same as Kylian Mbappe) and in Pele’s case was conjunct his North Node in Libra, tying him into the zeitgeist. He also had a prominent Neptune in his 1st house in an inventive trine to Uranus in the international 9th house, square his Moon and sextile his Mercury.
His global super-star 22nd Harmonic was notable. He died at 3.27pm in Sao Paulo, Brazil on the 29th December when the transiting Node had just crossed over his Jupiter. In certain cases Jupiter Saturn conjunctions have a capacity for giving the individual an iconic status out in society as Jupiter’s expansive, zeus-like energy combines with Saturn’s ability to ground the vision and make it real. John Lennon was born earlier that October.
