Jeffrey Epstein, ‘the man who never dies’ has arisen from his sarcophagus again to cause a bitter split between Trump and his biggest MAGA fans. They have complained vociferously about Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, closing the book on Epstein’s files saying there is nothing to see, having previously hinted at a big reveal earlier in the year. He died apparently by suicide in jail six years ago while facing trial for sex trafficking and minors.

 FBI director Kash Patel has denied swirling resignation rumours over his reported unhappiness and the Deputy Director Dan Bongino according to one report is hopping mad.

 The FBI-DoJ did discover “a significant amount of material”, including more than 300GB of data including images and videos of victims who appear to be minors plus illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography. But significantly no client list.

 The MAGA zealots – Laura Loomer, Steven Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene etc – are obsessed with the notion of a powerful cabal of paedophiles protected by “the deep state”.  You don’t have to buy into their fanaticism to be sceptical about the blanket official denials, given Epstein’s financial dealings and modus operandi.

 Epstein’s sidekick and helper Ghislaine Maxwell is also back in the spotlight for a ‘do or die’ moment tomorrow when the US government seeks to block her bid for a retrial with their lawyers arguing her case is meritless. Musk retorted on X that without a client list it makes no sense that she is in prison.

 Round and round it goes.

  Two points of interest that can be tracked astrologically.

One: – is Epstein’s relationship chart with the USA which has a composite Mars, North Node Venus opposition Pluto. If this was a married couple, the interpretation would be a long, bitter and toxic split, acrimonious, aggravated and frustrated in 2025/26 and extending on till the end of this decade. This one is not going to lie down and die anytime soon.

Two: Cracks amongst the faithful. The fanbase leaders already on edge with the Iran attack and no Israel/Ukraine peace after blowhard promises about no foreign wars and the certainty of an immediate Nobel prize; and trepidation over financial/debt problems ahead, are clearly in no mood to hold back on criticism.

Trump’s relationship chart with

Laura Loomer: Undermined exactly now, nerve stretched over the winter and worse in 2026/27.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Deflated at the moment and more so in 2026, devastated by 2027.

Steve Bannon: 2026/27 will not bring peace and contentment between the two.

  Trump’s relationship with Pam Bondi, 17 November 1965, Florida, is in a state of running turmoil and upheaval now and throughout the winter and across 2026 as well with tr Uranus square the composite Pluto ands tr Pluto opposition the Uranus.

 With Kash Patel, FBI head, and Trump there is a rattled and fractious mood this August with tr Uranus square the composite Mars, repeating in 2026.

 Trump’s relationship with with Epstein looked close with a composite Sun trine Pluto and sociable with composite Venus square Pluto; as well as slippery with a composite Sun opposition Neptune; and a streak-of-cruelty Mars square Saturn. There is nothing much coming up until 2027/2029 when tr Uranus will blast the Mars square Saturn.

  Trump’s relationship chart with Ghislaine Maxwell in many ways is more tortuous and interlocked with a composite Sun and Scheat trine Pluto and Alphard; composite Saturn opposition Neptune Mars square Uranus North Node. And most significantly of all –  a yod of Pluto sextile Mars Neptune inconjunct Sun and Scheat. A relationship bound together by fate which will affect the destiny of both.  Most of the heavy activity on this chart has been over the past three years with not much showing as of now. Though if birth times are accurate then tr Neptune Saturn will conjunct the Midheaven at the moment and through 2026 suggesting disappointment and discouragement.

ADD ON: Ghislaine Maxwell is willing to speak in front of Congress about The Epstein Files, sources tell Daily Mail. Maxwell, 63, is the only person behind bars – serving 20 years on child sex trafficking charges – despite the fact that paedophile Jeffrey Epstein allegedly controlled a web of underage girls. Additionally, Epstein’s victims alleged they were passed around as sex toys to his wealthy friends and billionaire business associates who regularly visited his homes including his private island, Little Saint James.

Now a source said: ‘Despite the rumors, Ghislaine was never offered any kind of plea deal. She would be more than happy to sit before Congress and tell her story.
President Trump’s former ‘First Buddy’ Elon Musk sensationally claimed there is a cover-up because Trump is mentioned in the Epstein Files, something sources close to Maxwell say ‘is a false flag.’

‘President Trump was photographed with Epstein several times and they ran in the same circles but Trump was one of the first to break all contact with Epstein because they fell out over a business deal and Epstein’s treatment of women,’ the informed source said.
‘There are no big shocks about President Trump in the Epstein Files. But there are a lot of powerful men involved and a lot of money and it will come down to following the money.

The four elements of Fire, Air, Earth and Water; plus triplicities of Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable; plus 12 houses; plus 10 planets (and North Node and Fixed stars) all in different houses and in varying aspects to each other and the chart axis – and it adds up to a great deal of information to be gleaned from a birth chart. 2500 pieces of insight someone once worked out.

  Trying to prioritise out of a blizzard of facts and pull together a coherent portrait of a personality and its potential is not easy. So in the learning stages of astrology it helps to separate the different strands and treat them in isolation. Remembering that not everything is as straightforward as it seems.

 At a super-simple level:

Air = thinking and communicating, emotionally detached, ideologues. Gemini, Libra, Aquarius.

Earth = grounded in the material world, the body, nature, pragmatists and realists, builders in life. Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn.

Fire = inspirational, confident, strong belief in luck and their guardian angel being there, not always realistic, entrepreneurial. Aries, Leo, Sagittarius.

Water = self-protective to guard against being emotionally swamped, creative, dreamers. Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces.

 Carl Jung believed the element we lack is not an irrevocable deficiency but our gateway to transformation.

  Which may go a way to explaining why strongmen/bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Steve Reeves and Charles Atlas have either 1 or no Earth in their charts which seems counter-intuitive. Likewise the great protagonists for emotional health, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung had less emphasis on Water in their charts than the other elements.

 Others follow their main element. Henry Ford, the initiator of mass production with his automobiles, had 4 Fire signs as befits an entrepreneur. Only 2 Earth and 4 Air for enthusiasm and marketing.

  Jeremy Corbyn, the UK left-wing politician has 6 Air signs which fits an advocate for a dedicated ideology. Though Jorg Haider, the late Austrian very far-right politician, was also awash with Air, so it need not necessarily dictate the content of the ideology.

 Oddly the ‘thinkers’ who promoted communism – Marx, Lenin and Stalin had Earth tilted charts. Marx had no Air in his chart.

  Most birth charts have a mix of elements usually with two predominating.

Fire Air – a hot air balloon, inspirational, over talkative,  unrealistic.

Fire Earth – a bulldozer, super-charged energy and determination.

Fire Water – excitable, combustible, creative – fire makes water boil, while water puts fire out. Tricky balance to strike.

Earth Air – cool, detached, sensible.

Earth Water – creative and practical, can make dreams come true.

Air Water – a tricky balance to strike between head and heart, between thinking and feeling. Tends to wobble from one to the other.  

  What also has to be taken into account are the chart houses which themselves can be labelled according to the elements.

Fire houses – 1^st, 5^th and 9^th

Earth houses – 2^nd, 6^th, 10th

Air houses – 3^rd, 7^th, 11^th

Water houses – 4th, 8th, 12^th

 A Fire Sun will operate differently for example in a Water house than it would in a Fire or Air house. So an 8th house Leo Sun will not have the same exuberance as a 5th house one.

  So the elemental balance of a chart can give a ready rule-of-thumb description of the personality. But like everything else in astrology it is not the end of the story.

  Once all 2500 piece of insight are gauged it then depends – to a degree  – on intuition as to what stands out as most significant. Or at least with practice what seems like intuition is really experience of what works.

A touching story about the once-split now reconciled marriage of Pam Shriver, former tennis pro, and actor George Lazenby. What brought them back together after a bitter split was his advancing dementia (and their three children).  She said they had a turbulent relationship: sometimes tender, sometimes toxic. “There were times, after our divorce, when we could not bear speaking to each other.” He is in an assisted living facility but she says they have rediscovered the mutual admiration that originally drew them together and talk every day. He has become a softer version of himself and has mellowed. “There was a moment, earlier this year, when he was caught up in the Los Angeles wildfires and only made it out by a whisker. That day, I realised how much he still means to me.”

  She was born 4 July 1962 in Baltimore, Maryland; he on 5 September 1939 in New South Wales, Australia.

 She is a Sun Cancer in a Water Grand Trine to Jupiter in Pisces trine Neptune in Scorpio, formed into a Kite by a super-confident Jupiter opposition Pluto. She also has Uranus conjunct Alphard square a Taurus Mars and Algol – so a strong minded personality.

  While he has an Earth Grand Trine of Mars in Capricorn trine Uranus (Moon) in Taurus trine Neptune in Virgo – and a Virgo Sun Venus, with Saturn in Taurus conjunct his South Node square Pluto. She described him as super-critical which will be his Virgo Sun but his heavily aspected Pluto and hair-trigger Mars trine Uranus would not help.

 A Water Earth combo is in itself helpful though he lacks Water altogether so would have problems empathizing with her point of view. Her Mars square Uranus also collided with his Uranus Moon square Mercury for running flare-ups.

 Their relationship chart has a truly difficult composite Saturn, Jupiter, Mars conjunction trine Mercury and inconjunct Pluto – and reports at the time of the divorce suggest each gave as good as they got.

  When they split in 2008 in the run up the tr Pluto in late Sagittarius square tr Uranus in late Pisces were both bearing down on their composite Saturn, Jupiter, Mars which would put their relationship under intolerable pressure.

 What I had never realized was that after his Bond movie he turned down a contract to do six more. He was on his Saturn Return then and found the pressure of the movie overwhelming. His decision did considerable damage to his later career.

 For good or for ill Donald Trump’s bond with the USA is a close one, not easily pulled apart. But all political careers end in failure runs the saying. He too will pass one way or another though it is difficult to predict when his time at the top will give way to the ravages of time and fate.

 There is a composite Sun trine Pluto sextile Saturn in his relationship chart with the USA which is chained together. Although tr Saturn Neptune in Aries will make a concerted effort in 2026 (and 2027) to undermine solidarity and support; with a jolting, tension-erupting tr Uranus square the composite Saturn in 2026/27 and tr Pluto square the Pluto in 2025/6 – so there will be heavy pressures and strong headwinds which will make even the most faithful of fans wilt.

 Looking across the country relationship charts of other politicians who eventually gave into gravity – Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, General Franco, Richard Nixon, Pinochet, Videla of Argentina – there was a mix of Uranus influences (= freedom) and South Node aspects when they departed.  Apart from tr Uranus rattling up the composite Saturn for Trump in 2026/27, what is notable is that the Lunar Eclipse of autumn 2028 will catch Trump’s composite South Node with the USA which may well be significant.

  The key aspects affecting the USA national chart ahead.

1. Tr Neptune will square the USA financial Venus from this month onwards joined in 2026 by tr Saturn – which suggests a downbeat mood on the money front. Tr Saturn in 2026 will also dent confidence in square to the USA Jupiter, joined in 2027/28 by the bubble bursting tr Neptune square Jupiter which will undermine unrealistic optimism. By 2031/32 tr Neptune will square the USA Cancer Sun for a slipping, sliding, indecisive and not confident phase.
2. The history-changing collision between the USA Cancer Sun square Saturn in Libra in its Solar Arc positions and the USA Mars in Gemini square Neptune in Virgo picked up last year and will run on into early 2027. After which the setbacks and anxieties thrown up by it should fade.
3. However the USA Saturn in Libra and Cancer Sun will remain under pressure for some years. A stuck Solar Arc Pluto will square the Sun in 2033 and bring hardship in conjunction to the USA Saturn in 2034. With major setbacks from the Progressed Mars conjunct the USA Saturn in 2032.  Which could be a future government trying to pick up the pieces of previous bad government, financial and judicial, or it could be external events.
4.  And the next two elections in the 2030s will be contending with Solar Arc Saturn conjunct the USA Venus and Jupiter which will be downbeat – or at least forcing a few realities into the foreground.

As to similarities to the Mcarthy era: From an old post. There certainly were when Trump was first elected in 2016 when tr Uranus was impacting the USA’s obsessive, paranoid and hostile Mercury opposition Pluto – but the mood lingers on with the Solar Arc Mercury opposition Solar Arc Pluto catching the changing of the celestial guard with tr Saturn Neptune in hard aspect and tr Uranus and tr Pluto in sextile/trine for several years ahead.

2016 post:

“Remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists,” tweeted former KKK leader David Duke in response to Donald Trump’s half-hearted attempt to blame both sides for the white supremacist violence against peaceful protesters in Charlottesville. And the Washington Post is now directly comparing Trump’s modus operandi to Joseph McCarthy (URL below).

  Both of which lock in to the key astrological transit on the USA chart from 2016 to early 2018. Transiting Uranus is squaring the USA Mercury in Cancer opposition Pluto, as it was in 1953/54 when McCarthy, having lied, smeared and ramped up hatred through his anti-Communist hearings, was finally tumbled. When he finally crashed and burned tr Uranus was exactly square the US Pluto.   

  Mercury opposition Pluto does exacerbate suspicion, paranoia, is associated with demagogues and those guilty of fraudulent misrepresentation, promotes over-intense debates with a drive for domination and little latitude for compromise, can teeter on the brink of nervous collapse through strain. Uranus is on an 84-year cycle of transits, so hard aspects come round every 21 years.

  Trump, of course, learnt his McCarthy playbook from his mentor Roy Cohn (See post: March 7 2017). At the time, former president Harry Truman lamented “the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spread of fear and the destruction of faith in every level of our society.” A Post reporter Murray Marder described “a period of national turmoil. It was the closest we ever came to a real totalitarian atmosphere.” It wasn’t the media who brought McCarthy down since they’d been exposing his lies in the preceding years. In rural and low-income areas, he was deemed to have been unfairly vilified and gained support. Ultimately it was when the politicians turned against him and there was sufficient of an upswell of public opinion that his platform was demolished.

During another tr Uranus square the US Mercury opposition Pluto in 1973/4, Watergate was raging, escalating and ended with Richard Nixon’s resignation to avoid impeachment charges, as tr Uranus squared the US Mercury for the final time. VP Spiro Agnew had previously resigned faced with tax evasion charges.

Nixon died under the next tr Uranus hard aspect to the US Pluto opposition Mercury in 1994, then in Capricorn conjunct Neptune, so a very high-tension mood, as the Whitewater Investigation into Clinton financial dealings got underway, which although it fizzled out, did prepare the ground for the later impeachment of Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky affair. Jackie Kennedy also died, Superman Chris Reeves was paralysed, the Oklahoma bombing killed 169; and Newt Gingrich as Republican leader took over both houses, under a Democrat president.

   Oct 1973 to Oct 1974 – VP Spiro Agnew resigns faced with tax evasion charges. Watergate is raging, escalating and ends with Nixon’s resignation to avoid impeachment charges, as tr Uranus squares the US Mercury for the final time in August 1974, tugging on the US Pluto.

On a previous occasion – April 1933 to April 1933 – President Franklin D Roosevelt declares a national emergency to come off the Gold Standard; and the Business Plot was uncovered which was an attempted coup d’etat against the government and Roosevelt’s progressive policies, by a group of fascist veterans and wealthy businessmen, wanting to ally themselves to Hitler’s Germany and Italy. At the time it was written off as a hoax but there did seem to be some wild scheme in place.

So this influence definitely attacks both the government and US democracy, either by dragging scandals into the open or letting loose hard right-wing fanatics.

  So it has always been a significant and risky time in the US for presidents and the national morale, with the Republicans centre-stage.  Back it comes round again and Trump is under multiple investigations which could lead to Federal indictments or impeachment ultimately; and the US is seeing an upsurge in far-right vitriol. 

www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trumps-approach-to-the-press-mirrors-another-politicians-joe-mccarthy/2017/08/11/80186b0e-7c6f-11e7-a669-b400c5c7e1cc_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.943fec294de9

Christian Horner has been dropped by Red Bull as CEO  a year after allegations surfaced of him sending texts to a female member of staff of which he was cleared at the time. But patience at the top has finally snapped. A sports reporter wrote: “While he has achieved success and clearly has many qualities, I am not sure there has been a leader in any sport who has alienated so many people, both within the ecosystem and beyond it.”  Any time in the past he has been criticised even with good cause he has lashed back or played the victim however ludicrous his claims.

 Born 16 November 1973, he has a Scorpio Sun and Mercury with a confident, super-ambitious Pluto trine Jupiter in Aquarius, sextile Neptune. What probably causes the lash backs are two aspects. One is an explosive Mars in Aries opposition Uranus making him short-fused, uncompromising and drawn to a high-adrenaline sport. Added to that (and a Scorpio Sun Mercury) is a focal point Pluto square Saturn opposition Venus. Such a Pluto never lets go, has a chip on the shoulder, can be resentful and contemptuous, confrontational and tends to attract resistance.

Oddly enough Geri Halliwell, 6 August 1972 2.30pm Watford, a Sun, Mercury, Mars (and Alphard) in Leo also has Pluto on the focal point of a T square to Venus opposition Jupiter. But she’s obvious learned to suppress her need to control.

 Their relationship chart has a composite controlling Sun Pluto conjunction with a Mars Saturn conjunction which usually suggests a fractious relationship where one partner has to bite their tongue and suppress their identity to keep it together.

 Their togetherness looks to be rattled by arguments late this October to the end of the year and undermined through 2026/27 – first by tr Saturn square the Mars Saturn and then tr Neptune Saturn opposing the composite Sun Pluto. I would be surprised if that held together.

Please add below. Older posts under News on top bar or in search.

The Texas flash floods in the early hours of the 4^th July have claimed over a hundred dead, including a number of children at summer camp, with more than 160 people still missing and numbers rising.

 The previous Lunar Eclipse of March set for Texas has Neptune and (shipwrecking) Scheat on the IC with Moon close to the Midheaven, all of which make sense of a devastating watery disaster close to home. With a regretful Sun Saturn in Pisces trine an 8^th house Mars. [Houses are not supposed to matter for eclipses but my experience is the 8^th house often crops up for disasters.]

 The upcoming September Lunar Eclipse set for Texas has the Sun Mercury close to the Midheaven with Moon on the IC and an exact Uranus on the Descendant – with hard questions being asked in the aftermath about whether cuts to government agencies had led to damaging delays in alerting residents.

 The flood happened with the two aggravated Pluto and Mars yods still in place; and Venus Uranus conjunct the destructive Fixed star Algol as well.

Zionism was the dream of Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl who believed antisemitism could not be defeated or cured, only avoided, and that the only way to avoid it was the establishment of a Jewish state. He argued that the Jewish people should leave Europe for Palestine, their historic homeland. They possessed a nationality; all they were missing was a nation and a state of their own. His ideas ran into opposition from members of the Orthodox community and those seeking to integrate in non-Jewish society. Earlier ideas for a homeland included South America and Africa.

 His public utterances tended to give the impression that the non-Jewish residents of a future Jewish state would be well treated as he tried to win international support for his idea. But in his diary he wrote: “We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.’

 Which is not far removed from the present defence minister, Israel Katz’s stated plans for a “humanitarian city” into which  Palestinians in Gaza would be forced. Prof Amos Goldberg, a historian of the Holocaust, described it as “a concentration camp or a transit camp for Palestinians before they expel them”. The “emigration plan” which Mr Katz says “will happen”, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is in fact an ethnic cleansing plan. No departure can be considered voluntary when the alternative is starvation or indefinite imprisonment in inhuman conditions.

  The World Zionist Organization was founded at the congress on 29 August 1897 in Basel, Switzerland and is its legislative authority. Its stated aim:- “Strengthening Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state and shaping it as an exemplary society with a unique moral and spiritual character, marked by mutual respect for the multi-faceted Jewish people, rooted in the vision of the prophets, striving for peace and contributing to the betterment of the world.”

 In more recent times, the ultra-nationalist Religious Zionist Party was formed with Bezazel Smotrich, the far-right settler leader at its head, and is driven by notions of Jewish supremacy and anti-Arab racism.

 Theodor Herzl, 2 May 1860 1.30 am Budapest, Hungary,  had an intense, determined Sun Pluto in Leo in his communicative 3^rd house widely square Saturn in wannabe-important Leo in his 7^th. He had an enthusiastic and motivating Jupiter in Cancer opposition Mars square Mercury; and a dreamer’s Neptune in Pisces opposition Moon square Venus in his 5th.

  With his North Node on his Aquarius Ascendant and Chiron in his 1^st house he would be lacking in self-esteem and obsessed with his image.

“He imagined himself as a great statesman creating a dynasty for his family in Palestine once a Jewish state was established, where his father would be its foundational senator, and his son a doge.”

 In the event he died young at 44, followed soon after by his wife, to whom it was reported he had given gonorrhea. His three children led troubled lives, one dying of a heroin overdose, one of suicide and one in a concentration camp during WW11.

  When Israel was founded four decades after his death his ‘ghost’ chart recorded a Saturn Return; with tr Uranus triggering his dreamers’ Neptunian T square in its Solar Arc Positions. His Solar Arc Sun was conjunct his South Node (exactly) which may have been a hint that his ego and vanity (SN in Leo) had won out over his humanitarian Aquarius North Node.

 The Zionist Congress 29 August 1897 in Basel, Switzerland, had a Virgo Sun square Pluto in Gemini and Jupiter in Virgo square Neptune – so was born out of the Neptune Pluto conjunction in Gemini of the time which produced visionary, religious and ambitious plans. Neptune and Pluto together create a fey, mystical mix of energies, both wonderful and terrifying at the same time. Neptune in its visionary aspect, mixing with Pluto’s power drive, creates a delusional though often devastatingly effective megalomania.

  There was also a can-be-autocratic Uranus Saturn in Scorpio which was inconjunct Neptune. With a devoted-to-a-cause Aquarius North Node.

 When Israel was founded in 1948 the Zionist Solar Arc Pluto as well as the transiting Pluto were conjunct its South Node in Leo – again promoting ego and selfish glory over humanitarianism.

  Much water flowed under the bridge after Herzl’s death with the 1917 Balfour Declaration agreeing to a Jewish homeland in Palestine though stipulating the rights of the indigenous population should not be affected; the rise of fascism and anti-semitism in Europe; increasing unrest in Palestine with an influx of Jewish immigrants and the rise of Jewish militant groups, the Arab-Jewish War of the mid 1930s, the Holocaust and on.

  There’s nothing new to say that has not been said here before with little indication of peace in Israel as tr Pluto in Aquarius makes its inexorable progress in opposition to the Israel Moon in 2026/27 – and through the 2030s opposing the 10^th house Saturn Pluto and eventually square the Israel Sun and opposition Mars before it exits in the early 2040s. That looks like an unending, recycling two decades of extreme pressure and jeopardy.

Repeating a thought from a previous post:

Savage ironies are writ large in the intractable, never-ending Dante’s Inferno of the Israel/Palestine saga. The Jewish people never forgot the homeland they had been ejected from two millenia ago and yet the Israelis set their faces obdurately against any suggestion that the 700,000 indigenous Palestinians who were forcibly severed from their homes after the creation of Israel should be allowed to return.  The 1948 order to expel an entire population “without attention to age” was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister. The lone voice of an opposition politician Meir Ya’ari spoke out against it. He noted “how easily” Israel’s leaders spoke of how it was “possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the road with them because such is the imperative of strategy. And this we say . . . who remember who used this means against our people during the [Second World] War . . . I am appalled.”

Richard Burton regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation was born 100 years ago. His memorable performance as Hamlet in 1964  cemented his promise as “the natural successor to Olivier”.  His failure to live up to those expectations disappointed many with his heavy drinking and much-publicised turbulent relationship with Liz Taylor leading to regret about a great performer who had wasted his talent.

 In his middle years he was smoking 100 cigarettes a day and drinking three to four bottles of hard liquor a day as well. He said that he turned to the bottle for solace “to burn up the flatness, the stale, empty, dull deadness that one feels when one goes offstage”. His unhealthy lifestyle led in his forties to cirrhosis of the liver and kidney disease. He died at 58.

 He was born 10 November 1925 3pm Neath, Wales, the twelfth of thirteen children with a coal miner father who was also a heavy drinker and gambler, and a barmaid mother who died when he was two years old. Richard was subsequently brought up by his elder sister.  He was the first member of his family to go to secondary school and had an excellent speaking and singing voice, with an interest in poetry as well as English and Welsh literature. A school master Philip Burton took him under his wing and nurtured his singing and acting talent.

He had a depressive and intense 8^th house exact Sun Saturn conjunction in a creative Water Grand Trine to a 12^th house Uranus in Pisces trine Pluto in Cancer in his 4^th, with his Pluto opposition Jupiter in Capricorn – a mix of emotional overload, self-doubt and supreme confidence. His charming Venus in Capricorn was in his career 10^th trine a Virgo Moon which sat with his Neptune in Leo in his 6^th house of health. A 6^th house Moon can connect emotional state to physical wellbeing – and a 6^th house Neptune needs to treat health with kindness, abuse of any kind has a damaging impact.

 He also had a wide yod of Mars in his 7^th sextile Neptune inconjunct his Uranus.

 A talented and tormented man.

 His relationship with his schoolmaster Philip Burton, 30 November 1904, was the pivotal one in his life with Philip Burton’s Uranus falling on his pupil’s Midheaven and his Pluto square Richard Burton’s Uranus and his Jupiter in RB’s 1^st – a catalyst who bolstered the youngster’s confidence and sent his life on a different track.

   Burton’s relationship with Liz Taylor was hardly well-starred with her Scorpio Moon conjunct his 8^th house Sun Saturn and his Virgo Moon conjunct her Neptune and opposition her Sun, Mercury, Mars in Pisces.

 Their relationship chart had a controlling/possessive composite Sun Mercury opposition Pluto which did not sit well with her need-for-constant-change Venus Uranus conjunction in Aries or his troubled-loner temperament. It also had a cruel-treatment, short-fused Mars Saturn conjunction. Couldn’t live with each other or without. Two marriages, two divorces.

  I’m not altogether convinced about her 2.30am birth time 27 February 1932 London (it is marked as birth certificate except England did not normally record birth times). It explains certain things with a powerfully influential 8^th house Pluto in a disruptive square to Venus Uranus in Aries in her 4^th pointing to a constantly changing domestic life. But it says little about the health problems which plagued her life.  She was a Sun Mars Mercury in Pisces opposition Neptune so well suited to the film business. And her Jupiter in flashy Leo clearly appreciated the high-life.

Add On: One week before he died at 59, Richard Burton poured his heart onto paper for Elizabeth Taylor—just eight months after he’d married Sally Hay, and in the final year they never saw each other again. When Liz returned to her California home after his funeral in Switzerland, she found this letter waiting for her:
“I want to know how you are, my hatred, my face and my cross, my shadow and my light, my dove and my raven…
It’s Sunday afternoon. I drink… My loneliness is a great empty house, as useless as this one.
If you could answer me… if it’s not too late for this drunken sailor longing for his harbor…
You are like rain and memory, clear and dark, weapon and wound, false and beautiful, burning and cold…
There is no life without you.
You are the bone and the vein, murky and clear, the wall and the ivy, the grass that will kiss my grave.
Deep down, we were never apart. And I think we never will be…”

Norman Tebbit who has died aged 94, was a highly effective minister for Margaret Thatcher, regarded as a political bruiser and parliamentary thug and was once famously described by Michael Foot as a “semi-housetrained polecat”. He turned out to be a politician of substance, grudgingly admired even by those on the left.

 Born on 29 March 1931 into the Depression in London in a lower-middle class family, his father lost his job which gave rise to Tebbit’s oft quoted words, to “get on his bike and look for work”.

 His career was cut short by the IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the party’s 1984 conference. He was  severely injured and his wife Margaret – for whom he cared devotedly – was paralysed for life. He left the government prematurely in 1987 after a stint as party chairman to spend more time with her, and up to her death in 2020 he woke twice every night to turn her.

 ‘He came closest in her government to mirroring Mrs Thatcher’s visceral feelings, and he took pride in articulating them – to the delight of the man in the street. He shared her deep beliefs in the virtue of hard work, the need to take on the trade unions (he had himself been a union official), the damage to families resulting from sexual licence, the innate un-Britishness of Europe and the subversive nature of the BBC.’

He had an Aries Sun conjunct North Node Uranus in Aries conjunct the UK’s North Node so he would resonate with shared issues and be a catalyst for change. He also had a powerfully confident Jupiter Pluto in Cancer in a tough minded opposition to Saturn and squaring his innovative Sun Uranus; with his Mercury in Aries in an argumentative square to Mars in late Cancer. Pro-active, a go-getter, not subtle but to the point.

 He mirrored much of Maggie Thatcher’s chart, 13 October 1925 9am Grantham, England, with her Sun Mars in Libra square Pluto opposition Jupiter which could have turned out to be a tussle for the upper hand – but they held it together to make an influential couple.  Their relationship chart had a friendly composite Sun Venus in a possessive/controlling opposition to Pluto square Jupiter. Together they were a force to be reckoned with.

 The Brighton Bomb went off at 2.54 am on 12 October 1984 with the Taurus Moon was exactly conjunct the UK’s 8^th house Mars (to within five minutes of a degree). And the UK chart was on a Solar Arc Half Return putting the country on alert.

 There is not much showing on Norman Tebbit’s chart without a birth time. But it undoubtedly rattled Maggie badly. She was on her Second Saturn Return with tr Saturn crossing her Ascendant starting a downhill slide.

 Margaret Tebbit, his wife, paralysed from the chest down in the bombing, was born 24 May 1934 and died in 2020. Her Venus in Aries chimed with her husband’s Aries Sun and their relationship chart had a lively composite Uranus triune Jupiter sextile Mars with a workmanlike Sun square Saturn.

    Her natal Mars in Taurus (square Saturn) was conjunct Algol both of which were catching the approaching tr North Node in Taurus in 1984, pulling her into one of the worst political atrocities on the UK mainland.