A rollicking, rumbunctious dramatic rendering of the lives of great courtesans is begging Netflix for a long running season or several. Not all women through the ages were caged house pets. Some rose to great prominence and glided easily through the corridors of power.

 Harriet Howard was one.  The daughter of a bootmaker, she ran away from home at 15 to go on stage, lived in style with a famous jockey, moved on at 18 to a fabulously wealthy married major, who made her rich for life after she bore him a son.  They lived together in London and entertained the cream of society. Which was where she met Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, recently escaped from prison and pretender to a throne of his uncle, Napoleon I, that no longer existed. At 23 she left her married lover and devoted her fortune, which she took with her, to the Napoleonic cause. His family name and her money got him elected as president in 1848. Four years later after a coup manufactured by him, paid for by her, he stepped up to become emperor, naming  himself Napoleon III. Having pawned all she owned to hoist him to glory, she got the title of the Comtesse de Beauregard for her trouble and was then cast aside as he married and moved on to other mistresses.

 Born 13 August 1823 in Brighton, England, she was a Sun Mercury in Leo as befits a lady who aimed for a five star lifestyle and it squared Saturn opposition a Scorpio Moon – passionate, obsessive and ego-centric. She also had a super-charged Cardinal Grand Cross giving her initiative by the shed load and a restless temperament – with Venus in Libra in a seductively charming and manipulative opposition to Pluto square slippery and highly-strung Neptune Uranus in Capricorn in an ever-optimistic opposition to Jupiter.  

In modern times Pamela Harriman described as “the greatest courtesan of the 20^th century” by one onlooker and “a world expert on rich men’s bedroom ceilings” by another” galloped through an astonishing number of marriages and affairs and still ended up a highly respected figure in political circles.

 She was born 20 March 1920 4.30am Farnborough, England, into a wealthier background than Harriet Howard but like her was an accomplished horsewoman growing up. She married Randolph Churchill, who had an illustrious name but a serious gambling habit. She went on to marry a Broadway producer and have affairs with Edward R. Murrow, Prince Aly Khan, Alfonso de Portago, Gianni Agnelli, and Baron Elie de Rothschild amongst others. Latterly she married W. Averell Harriman, a former lover and Democratic politician, then 79 years old and recently widowed, moved to Washington DC and started her political career.

 She had a final degree Pisces Sun conjunct Moon; and like Harriet Howard a highlighted Venus.  Her Venus in Pisces was conjunct changeable Uranus and in a Water Grand Trine to a seductive Pluto trine a determined Mars in Scorpio and her Venus was opposition Saturn. Her calculating charm would be her talent. She also had a strong Jupiter Neptune as did Howard, in her case conjunct and trine Sun square Mars. Jupiter Neptune has a tendency towards scandal, is a dreamer, eternally optimistic and good at glossing over unpleasantness.

  Though she did have legal problems with Harriman’s children after the inheritance after he died.

Lady Jane Digby, 3 April 1807, London, the daughter of wealthy Admiral, was married first to an earl, thence through affairs with a first cousin and Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg. After a scandalous divorce which ruined her family, she moved to Germany became the lover of Ludwig I of Bavaria but married a German baron, before finding a new lover in a Greek Count followed by Greece’s King Otto and then a Thessalian general. Finally she travelled to the Middle East and fell in love with a Sheik 20 years her junior. Their marriage was a happy one and they lived together in a tent until her death 28 years later. She had four children, three of whom died young.

  She was a Sun Aries, again with a super-charged Venus in Taurus. It opposed Saturn in Scorpio, which isn’t as damped down as it sounds since it often coincides with ‘sex addiction’. That opposition which includes a constantly-changing Uranus squared onto Jupiter in broad-minded Aquarius and was in a passionate trine to Mars. Her Mars was in a determined and courageous opposition to Pluto widely square Neptune. A wildly impulsive, none-too-stable personality who headed straight for hat she wanted. Tr Pluto in Taurus was crossing her Venus when she met the Sheik who finally settled her down.

  I must confess to having a sneaking admiration for women like these who threw caution to the winds and took what they wanted. Though their adventuring ways did cause a great deal of grief along the way. The goddess Venus ever was a fickle creature.

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There’s a media melodrama over Finland’s young prime minister Sanna Marin being filmed enjoying herself at a private party. She’s been forced to take a drug test to prove she wasn’t imbibing or snorting anything questionable. She took over in 2019 to become the youngest serving prime minister at 34, at the head of an all-woman coalition.

  She was born 16 November 1985 and is a determined Sun and Saturn in Scorpio with a charming and persuasive Venus Pluto in Scorpio in an indulgent square to Jupiter; with her Jupiter trine Mars and sextile Uranus. Mars Jupiter Uranus will make her adventurous and high-spirited; Venus Jupiter enjoys parties; and Jupiter Pluto exudes confidence.

   It’s all a storm in a teacup amidst much more serious concerns given Finland’s proximity to their troublesome Russian neighbour and the tensions arising from the accession protocol to join Nato, signed six weeks ago.  

  Tr Saturn is square her Sun this year and tr Uranus opposing it from mid 2023 onwards, so it’ll be a bumpy ride ahead with disappointments and disruptions, with  mid October to early November this year particularly edgy with external challenges. Her Solar Arc Sun is conjunct her Neptune this year which will be uncertain but again that may not be personal matters.

  Her Term chart, 10 December 2019, is under its heaviest pressure exactly now from the tough-conditions Saturn Pluto closing by Solar Arc.

  I’m getting as paranoid as everyone else – wonder if it was a Russian leak of the video from the party?

Scott Morrison, deposed PM of Australia, has attracted outrage and derision in equal measure as it transpires during the pandemic he made himself overlord of everything without bothering to inform his ministers he had taken over their portfolio.  Anthony Albanese, the present PM, accused him of an “unprecedented trashing of our democracy” by becoming  minister of health, finance, resources, home affairs and the treasury to add to his prime ministerial duties.

  Born 13 May 1968 he is a stalwart Sun Taurus – one of the favoured signs for dictators – and it opposes a slippery Neptune and trines Pluto Uranus giving him added layers of stratospheric ambition. Neptune Pluto is associated with megalomaniac power. As if that wasn’t enough his Sun opposition Neptune squares a grandiose and self-aggrandising Jupiter in Leo – which is Boris Johnson on steroids.

  He is refusing to resign as of this moment and is blustering a self-justifying and admit-no-guilt defence. But he does look boxed into a corner until early December and fairly frozen; with career losses in late September through October and again into 2023.  He will be slipping and sliding and discouraged with tr Saturn hitting his Sun this year and Jupiter, Neptune early next year. Followed by jolts and jangles bringing sudden change from tr Uranus conjunct his Sun from mid 2023  onwards.

Brad Pitt does make odd choices in romantic partners. Superficially his matches glow with the appearance of affection, deep attraction and the aura of an enviable perfection. Scratch the surface and what is revealed is not so much a can of worms as of writhing snakes.

 I’ve always been misled by his Jupiter in the 4^th into assuming he had a charmed and supportive childhood, giving him a solid foundation for a settled adult home life, making his subsequent marital turmoil seem strange.

  However on closer examination his Sun/Moon midpoint, the marriage significator, is conjunct his Mars and his South Node in Capricorn which will draw him towards fiery women and argumentative bonds as well as ones which appeal to his less evolved Capricornian side. He’ll put money and status above caring and compassion. Plus his North Node is in the 8^th which tends to make for turmoil in sexual encounters, with a lack of self-control when it comes to need and greed and has a habit of dragging him into long-drawn out financial and emotional tussles. Letting go isn’t something that comes naturally to him.  

  His cool Capricorn Moon and Venus are both conjunct his Sun/Saturn midpoint, making him emotionally clamped down and all the more so with Saturn in chilly Aquarius.

  His marriage to Jennifer Aniston, supposedly the flawless fusion of love’s dream, in reality had a superficial sheen of bliss with an underlying streak of aggravation running through it. Her Moon was conjunct his Sun which is good, her Venus was conjunct his Jupiter for a veneer of good feelings and her Jupiter Uranus in his 10^th would bring career benefits. But none of that could balance out her Aquarius Sun square Mars colliding with his Saturn with a continual grate of irritations and blockages. Her Pluto on his Midheaven would put her in the driving seat.

 Their relationship chart was impossibly bad which made all the fan-magazine gush a nonsense. There was a composite Saturn opposition Pluto Uranus square Mars with Uranus Pluto trine Sun – unfair, one-sided, unkind, never stable, volcanically angry underneath.

  His engagement to Gwyneth Paltrow was no more understandable except in career terms. Her controlling (and influential) Pluto Sun fell in his 10^th. Her Moon did fall on his Descendant which is good though her chilly Saturn in Gemini also in his 7^th house of relationships hinted at problems and both squared his chaotic Uranus Pluto. His Saturn blocked out her Venus in opposition; and her Uranus was in an argumentative volatile, needs-space square to his Mars, Mercury, Moon, Venus.  That was never going to hold.

   Their relationship chart was focused on career and money but with an ego-clash writ large in the centre. Neither wanted the other to outshine them.

  After the Jolie split he evidently got a grip of his drug/drink issues and went into therapy to stop running from his feelings. That was when transiting Saturn was moving across his Sun and down through the middle of his First Quadrant, often a time when unresolved psychological issues surface to be sorted out. More recently tr Pluto has been moving across his Moon and Venus, again giving him a chance of a major clear out of old emotional patterns. So it is possible the chain has been broken and he’ll choose more sensibly ahead.   

Concern that the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power station will become a casualty of the unrelenting hostilities between Russia and Ukraine is rising. Ukraine has warned that Russia is planning to stage a false-flag attack on the plant which is controlled by President Putin’s troops. Video drone images showed Russian ammunition trucks being moved into the reactor turbine halls. If an accident does occur radioactive material could be showered over Germany, Poland and Slovakia.

   The European Nuclear Society says it is unlikely that missiles will penetrate the ten metres of concrete that shields the reactors. But the risk is the vulnerability of the cooling systems and the possibility of a reactor meltdown, a version of the 2011 Fukushima disaster rather than the cataclysm of Chernobyl. The Kremlin is getting wound up about any Ukrainian attempt to reclaim Crimea so the rhetoric – and risk of an accident – is becoming ever more apocalyptic.

 The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant started construction on 1 April 1980 and the first unit was commissioned on 25 December 1985.  The 1980 chart flags up great uncertainty from late October to early January; but there is nothing that looks cataclysmic.

  When The Fukushima meltdown occurred in 2011, tr Pluto was conjunct Mars on the plant chart with tr Uranus opposition the Pluto so it was flagged up clearly.

  The Ukraine country chart, 24 August 1991 2.31pm Kiev, is struggling forward with the undermining tr Neptune opposition Mars running on and off till early February 2024; and a jolting, disruptive tr Uranus opposition the 10^th house Pluto now until April 2023.  Where it starts to gain heart and renewed vitality – and luck – is from mid 2024 onwards and for several years thereafter.

 Putin’s 4^th term chart won’t be without enthusiasm, determination or moments of success over the next two years; but will start its period of greatest instability from February 2023 onwards till late 2024 with tr Pluto square the Uranus and be completely trapped with Solar Arc Pluto conjunct the Mars, exact in July/August 2023. Which doesn’t mean he won’t take desperate measures if he feels his grip is crumbling. But it may be that 2024 sees the end of him.

The never ending saga of the Jolie-Pitt split drags on into its sixth year with accusations and counter-accusations flying.  Earlier this year he sued her for selling her stake in their co-owned French vineyard to a Russian oligarch – a “vindictive and unlawful” move he says that was spurred by an unfavourable custody ruling she received last year. She has now dragged in the FBI to open the case files on the 2016 plane journey which precipitated the divorce after a noisy argument erupted. The investigation had previously found no case to answer against Pitt and his lawyers say she has already seen the files.

  What a tangled web is woven in Hollywood dream matches.

  Pluto figures heavily as the main culprit. She has an extraordinarily difficult chart with her Gemini Sun trine Pluto and opposition Neptune; with her Pluto in a compulsive, do-or-die-determined opposition to Mars Moon Jupiter in Aries widely square Saturn. She had a troubled childhood with self-harming and drug problems, an absent father and an over-permissive mother.

  Her Pluto falls in Pitt’s 10^th house so she will feel compelled to control him – and with her Pluto opposition his Jupiter and square his Mars it will be an ongoing struggle for the upper hand.  His Pluto Uranus is also square her Sun which will make him not exactly detached either.

  Their relationship chart has a composite Sun opposition Pluto which will tie them together till the bitter end. Splitting Plutonic relationships is always messy and hostile. And this dragging-out-the-agony is likely to run until at least 2024 if not beyond.

  She had a tortured on-off on-again and off-again relationship with actor Jon Voight, her father. His Pluto falls on her Ascendant and squares her Uranus; with his Saturn in Aries sitting on her Moon, Mars, Jupiter and opposition her Pluto – so her relationships with men from square one have never been easy.

  Her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton, just prior to Brad Pitt, produced a relationship chart with a composite Moon opposition Uranus, Saturn, Pluto square Mars Jupiter – and that is truly toe-curling in its strains and stresses.

  What has always intrigued me – since it is out in the public domain and he is now mature – is her first adopted child Maddox, who was involved in the 2016 plane argument.  In her late teens she had been struggling with an eating disorder, and began using drugs, including heroin. She had episodes of depression and planned twice to suicide; at 24 she had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Two years later, she adopted a toddler from a Cambodian orphanage. Later she said, “I knew once I committed to Maddox, I would never be self-destructive again.” Which is quite a burden to land on a young child from an already unstable and risky background.

  If his birth date is accurate at 5 August 2001 he is a Sun Leo opposition Neptune; but also has the bleak, deprived Saturn opposition Pluto of that year tied into Mars which makes sense of his early experiences. Saturn Pluto Mars is a tough set of aspects likely to engender deep-seated anger and hostility. That falls right across her Sun opposition Neptune – which is hardly coochy coo and nurturing. The date may be wrong, of course, but if it isn’t, then it is one aggravated interface. Though it does mirror the torment on her own chart.

  This year and next she has tr Pluto opposition her Venus and square her 4^th house Uranus which will be emotionally intense and turn her domestic life upside down. Pluto then moves into her 7^th making the next few years even more possessive and intense on the relationship front which is exhausting even to contemplate.

  Not sure why all this matters but it was littering up my Astro-inbox and is a matter of continuing amazement to me.

Add On: From early on Maddox has evidently had an interest in guns and knives, a passion that Jolie was happy to cultivate, repeating a pattern from her own childhood when her mother bought her daggers when she was 11 or 12. She also revealed in a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly that Maddox had drawn a machine-gun on his Mother’s Day card and it had been made into a necklace for her. She described it as “really sweet. It’s really cute.’   ??????? Yikes.

  The FBI report into the alleged altercation on the plane which ended the Jolie-Pitt marriage contains Brad Pitt’s remark that one child: ‘Looked like a f***ing Columbine kid.’ This is thought to refer to Maddox, whose chart with that horrifically difficult Mars Pluto Saturn aspect does mirror the Virginia Teck shooter Seung-Hui Cho’s chart which has Mars, Pluto and Saturn all together in Scorpio. Eric Harris, one of the Columbine school shooters has a Sun, Mars in Aries opposition Pluto and trine Neptune – so hints of the same.

The woman is diseased. Not that Brad Pitt is much better facilitating up to the point where he didn’t.

Michael Collins, lionized for his part in Ireland’s struggle for independence, as a revolutionary leader, soldier and politician, was assassinated at the tragically young age of 31 a century ago on August 22. He fought in the Easter Rising in 1916 and negotiated the  Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 after the Civil War ended, in which he had been Irish commander in chief. It would establish the Irish Free State but depended on an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. He viewed the treaty as offering “the freedom to achieve freedom”. Months later he was killed in an ambush by anti-treaty forces, though there is a good deal of speculation about the whos and whys.

  He was born 16 October 1890 at 2.30 am Clonakilty, Ireland, when his father, a farmer and amateur mathematician was 75. He had a strongly Air chart, often the sign of a crusader and passionate believer in a cause. His Sun was in Libra conjunct rebellious Uranus.  But more significantly the Neptune Pluto in Gemini of that generation was on his Midheaven trine Jupiter and trine Mercury, formed into a Kite by Neptune Pluto opposition a patriotic Venus on his IC. The IC rules roots and family lineage, the foundations of his life – and that central configuration channelled its considerable energy and ambition towards his Venus. Neptune Pluto can engender stratospheric ambition and boosted by a confident Jupiter, it’s no surprise he made fast progress to prominence.

  His Saturn in hard-working Virgo trine his Mars in his flamboyant 5^th house which help with his military career but really he was a politician, thinker and orator. His Moon was in passionate Scorpio.

  Despite being warned that it was risky to travel to Cork in 1922 which was an IRA stronghold he insisted on going. He died on the day of a Leo New Moon and a bleak Saturn square Pluto though there was remarkably little showing on his chart at that point.

  He did leave an enduring legacy so no surprises that his historical-footprint 17^th Harmonic was strong as was his global-presence 22H.       

  The anguished, tragically short life of Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani is the subject of a new Johnny Depp film project as director, with Al Pacino producing. He became renowned for his pictures of nudes with elongated faces and limbs as well as his vagabond lifestyle in bohemian Paris in the early 20th Century, succumbing to drug and alcohol addiction.

  He was born on 12 July 1884 8.10 am Livorno, Italy, into an educated, once wealthy Jewish family who has fallen on hard times. His mother was instrumental in nurturing his talent through an illness-ridden childhood with bouts of pleurisy, typhoid fever and the tuberculosis which finally killed him aged 35.

He had a creative Sun, Venus, Mercury in Cancer with artistic Neptune in Taurus on his Midheaven and an influential Pluto as well as a hard-working Saturn in his 10^th. These 10^th house planets all suggest a mother who would instil discipline, expectations and be a driving force in his life. His Saturn was square an explosive Mars Uranus in Virgo so he wasn’t the most stable of temperaments; and he had a sensitive Pisces Moon in his 7^th house of close relationships square his Pluto. He had several affairs and several children by different mothers.

  His escalating reliance on drugs and alcohol may have been a way to ease his physical pain and to mask his tuberculosis from his acquaintances.  Tuberculosis — the leading cause of death in France by 1900 was highly infectious with no cure, and those who had it were ostracized. Modigliani thrived on company and would not let himself be isolated. The film will focus on the year of his only exhibition in Paris in 1917 which was a sensational success, though controversial because of his nudes. Despite his growing reputation he made little money and died in poverty three years later of tuberculosis.

  It’s no surprise that Johnny Depp was drawn to Modigliani since his North Node is conjunct Modigliani’s Sun, Venus and Mercury and his Venus Mercury are conjunct AM’s Midheaven and Neptune. Depp also has the explosive Mars Uranus in Virgo of his art idol, in his case conjunct Pluto, with AM’s Pluto also being highly prominent. Depp’s Gemini Sun is conjunct AM’s 10^th house Saturn for a workmanlike connection and perhaps a hope from Depp that he might pull himself out of the sleaze of the Heard libel trial and gain a little gravitas. He is also playing King Louis XV in French director Maïwenn’s historical love story Jeanne du Barry, which started shooting in late July and is Depp’s first feature in three years.

 He does have a long career ahead though with humps and bumps in 2023/24 along with some success but certainly won’t be disappearing into obscurity any time soon.

Freedom of speech has been dragged centre foreground again after the attack on Salman Rushdie and has triggered a spat in the Society of Authors, who of all people should have been waving the banner for the right to speak up or write without fear of retaliation. Joanne Harris, the chairperson, best-selling author of Chocolat, put out a tone-deaf tweet about writers receiving death threats, assumed to be a sideswipe at J.K.Rowling with whom she has had a long dispute over her stance on gender identity.

 Rowling in response said that Harris had “consistently failed” to defend female authors who disagreed “with her personal position on gender identity ideology”. She had  allowed the women to be intimidated into silence, citing Rachel Rooney and Gillian Philip, who had suffered “severe personal and professional harm” because they dared to “challenge a fashionable ideology which has been remarkably successful in demonising those who protest against the current attack on women’s rights”.

  Joanne Harris, 3 July 1964, no birth time, in Barnsley, England, was born two weeks after Boris Johnson and has the same high-wire, argumentative and beyond-stubborn Mars in Gemini on the point of a T Square to Saturn opposition Uranus Pluto in Virgo. Like him she had a turbulent upbringing with a French mother and English father and respective families who didn’t speak each other’s language. One of her recurrent themes not surprisingly is identity as well as mother/child relationships, the emotional resonance of food, the outsider in the community.

  Her Cancer Sun, Mercury and North Node are in a wide Water Grand Trine to Neptune and Saturn in Pisces – good for creativity, not always for interfacing with reality. Her Neptune also opposes indulgent Jupiter in Taurus, hence her love of food, and a tendency to be a dreamer.   

  She has a son who came out as transgender this year.

  Harris’s focal point and aggravated Mars in Gemini is conjunct Rowling’s North Node so it is a fated and inflammatory interface. Their relationship chart hints at a tendency to oneupmanship tussles and ego-clashes.

 The Society of Authors, founded 18 February 1884, has its Neptune at 18 degrees Taurus agitated at the moment by tr Uranus (Mars North Node) conjunct – with tr Saturn wending backwards and forwards till early 2023 in hard aspect to the Aquarius Sun, Neptune, Scorpio Moon and Pluto – a downbeat time. With tr Pluto in a disruptive trine to the Uranus this year and next; plus tr Uranus hitting on the Fixed T Square 2023 to 2026 – so the Society will be going through a major upheaval.

  Joanne Harris, facing calls for her resignation, has tr Uranus conjunct her Jupiter (opposition Neptune) at the moment and repeating into early next year, which like BJ, may bring her down to earth with a bump.  Her Solar Arc Neptune is also in an undermining opposition to her Sun; and tr Saturn is dampening her enthusiasm as it squares her Jupiter in October/November. Not her shining hour.

   J.K. Rowling, 31 July 1965 9.10pm (rectified) Bristol, England, is moving into a lower profile few years with tr Saturn dipping below her Ascendant though she shows no sign of stepping back from voicing her opinion and supporting her pet causes. Death threats made after Rushdie’s latest assault may cause her to pull back if visibility becomes too obvious a risk. Tr Neptune is opposing her Virgo Moon this year into 2023 and she has a frustrating, blocked and scary Solar Arc Mars square her Pluto exact in 18 months.