Melania Trump was flying solo this week on behalf of her anti-drugs campaign in Washington, brushing aside questions about impeachment. She’s a mysterious figure as First Lady, often invisible, away presumably at Mar-A-Lago, or as an adjunct to the president as a spectacularly chic piece of silent arm-candy. Stories from Mar-A-Lago have her locked in conversation with Trump for three hours on their own over dinner; while one celebrity who dined with them said she spoke for 0.1% of the time which sounds more likely.

That she likes the good life is not in doubt with an acquisitive Taurus Sun opposition Jupiter in money-magnet Scorpio; and a super-indulgent Venus Mercury in Taurus trine Pluto.

Her relationship with Trump is based on control and possessiveness with a composite Sun square Pluto and perhaps Moon trine Pluto as well. Plus there’s a superficially frivolous Venus trine Jupiter. There’s a fair amount of disappointment and concern coming up between them from mid November, worsening in February 2020 with tr Neptune square the composite Saturn. And there’ll be a sense of major crisis come June 2020 with tr Uranus square the composite Mars/Pluto midpoint, which runs into 2021.

Her own chart has tr Uranus conjunct her Taurus Sun which was around earlier this month when impeachment proceedings ramped up; and that repeats next April. And she’ll be seriously aggravated late this December and on and off throughout 2020.

Her relationship with Ivanka, never good at the best of time, is under heavy strain with tr Pluto opposition the composite Mars exactly now till mid November; and then into disaster-territory from late March 2020 for two years as tr Pluto opposes the composite Mars/Saturn midpoint.

She’ll do OK though there will be forced changes for a year or two. She signed the contract, got the gilded life, got her parents’ visas and almost certainly has the back-up exit plan that will leave her well off.

All is well in Euro-land as highly respected Mario Draghi exits the Presidency of the European Central Bank, with internal appreciation of the single currency at a high. But behind the rosy facade is the reality that none of the underlying problems have been fixed since the 2008 crash. The divergences between efficient, high-earning, high-saving countries such like Germany and inefficient nations with low GDP-per-capita such as Italy and Greece have widened not narrowed. Christine Lagarde, Draghi’s replacement on November 1, will soon either have to cut back the recent quantitative easing programme which will shock the already fragile economies of the poorer nations. Or persuade the Germans they need to pay out more towards the Mediterranean economies, which is hardly likely to go down well with the country in technical recession. If there is another global downturn which seems likely the euro is not well placed to withstand the crisis.

There are tremors of early quakes running at the moment, through 2020 but it’s really 2021 to 2023 that the real pain bites. The Euro 1 January 1999 chart is muddled at present; has a catastrophic tr Pluto square Mars/Saturn from late March 2020 till late 2021; is under assault from Solar Arc Mars square Uranus in early 2021; with a financial bubble-bursting, false-confidence-denting tr Neptune conjunct Jupiter square Mercury from 2021 into 2022 by which time the deprived, grinding-struggle tr Pluto square Saturn picks up for two years.

Christine Lagarde’s Term, 1 November 2019, has a relatively similar timeline – with jolts and jangles from tr Uranus opposition the Sun from mid 2020; a frustratingly blocked tr Pluto opposition Mars/MC in 2020/21. But the real agony comes by 2022 with a totally trapped Solar Arc Mars square Pluto; a disappointing tr Neptune square Jupiter; and a cornered and scary tr Pluto square Sun/Mars midpoint in 2022/23.

The EU chart itself, labouring at present under the financially devastating Solar Arc Pluto conjunct the 2^nd house Neptune; and a blocked Solar Arc Midheaven conjunct Pluto; moves into an uncertain and panicky 2020/21 with tr Neptune square the EU Saturn. Where the real financial hitches and glitches will come is from July 2020 into 2021 as tr Uranus is conjunct the 8^th house Moon and square the Uranus suggesting major jolts and forced changes of direction. By 2021 the recession-attracting tr Saturn in Aquarius square tr Uranus will also be affecting those two planets; and in 2022/23 tr Uranus will square the EU’s 5^th house (of speculation) Venus.

So it looks like a rough ride with economic and financial jeopardy. Christine Lagarde is exceptionally tough, 1 January 1956, a Capricorn with a Saturn Mars in Scorpio square Pluto Moon Jupiter. But she’s not reckoned as smart an operator as Virgo Draghi.

“The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.” Lewis Carroll

The latest bright Boris idea is to proceed with all haste towards an election on December 12^th – IF Westminster agrees and IF the EU pronounces a delay on Brexit. It’s a risky choice for both Tory and Labour, since the known unknowns include an anti-Brexit SNP, a resurgent Lib Dem Party, never mind Northern Ireland and Wales who are seriously unhappy. If they all pick up more votes it’ll be messy coalition time.

December 12^th was certainly not a date selected by an astrologer since it has a Full Moon squaring onto Neptune which is much of a muchness with Theresa May’s lacklustre, indecisive 2^nd Government chart which ended up fizzling like a deflated balloon having wasted two years. Tr Saturn is exactly opposition the UK Moon for a depressed populace.

Boris’s own chart is road-blocked, panicked, undermined and generally in a lie-down-in-a-darkened-room-until-it-blows-over place and for some weeks after as well. Not a great choice. If the election does come to be decided with certainty I’ll do a more detailed run down of the relevant key personnel. But as everything Brexit-connected it’s a never-ending saga with no decisive turning points.

“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.” Lewis Carroll

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” ― Lewis Carroll

The remains of dictator General Franco, still glorified as a heroic figure by the right-wing in Spain, are being relocated to a low-key grave to fulfil a key pledge of the socialist government. In 1939 Franco won the civil war, which had claimed almost half a million lives, extending his dictatorship to the whole country. What followed was a period of repression of political opponents and dissenters, with between 100,000 and 200,000 dying in forced labour and executions in concentration camps. He ruled for almost four decades, nurturing a cult of personality, initially as a totalitarian regime though that gradually softened and he introduced social and economic reform which brought prosperity. Many believe Spain has never faced up to its fascist part while others still hold him up as a figure of reverence.

Born 4 December 1892 at 12.30 am, he certainly had an unpleasant and cruel chart. His Sagittarius Sun opposed an alarming collection of Neptune Pluto Moon in Gemini in a hyperactive square to Mars in Pisces; with a Mystic Rectangle of Saturn in Libra opposition Jupiter in Aries sextile/trine his Sun and Pluto Neptune Moon.

Sun Neptune Pluto gives stratospheric ambitions and in square to Mars goals are accomplished through violence and publicity (Mars Neptune). It’s a surprisingly scattered chart for a personality who seemed enduring. Though the unyielding Saturn trine Pluto and sextile his Sun would help to anchor him.

His wife, Carmen Polo, was an influential figure in Francoist Spain, appearing at her husband’s side, always elegantly dressed with jewels. Born 11 June 1900, she had the same Gemini Sagittarius emphasis he did. Her Gemini Sun was conjunct Pluto and Neptune; and she had Jupiter Uranus, maybe Moon in Sagittarius. Her Mars was in rock solid Taurus. Their relationship chart had an affectionate Sun Venus conjunction in a wild and way out square to Neptune Pluto; plus a power-couple Jupiter trine Pluto Neptune sextile Mars.

That Neptune Pluto at the end of the 19^th Century had a lot to answer for in terms of the brutality of the century that followed. From my Astrological History of the World.

“These two planets together in the same sign coincide with the rise of great powers, often led by brutal dictators, and a consequent dissolving of previous empires, starting with the fall of the Roman Empire and Britain’s decline into the Dark Ages in the fifth century.

Attila the Hun (born c. 406), who devastated the Eastern Mediterranean in a campaign of terror in the fifth century, and Joseph Stalin (born 1879), the revolutionary Marxist whose brutal purges led to the death of some 20 million Russian peasants by execution or famine in the 1920s and 1930s, were born 1400 years apart but both under the sway of a Neptune–Pluto conjunction in Taurus. Adolf Hitler (born 1889) and Mao Tse Tung (born 1893), the other two major destructive power figures of the 20th century, were born with Neptune close to Pluto in Gemini. When the 14^th-century conjunction was at its peak, Tamerlane the Great was terrorizing the Middle East.

More recently, in the final 20 years of the nineteenth century, the Englishman Cecil Rhodes was forcefully attempting to create a British colonial African super-state from south to north. In a chilling pointer to the holocaust of the next century, the British invented concentration camps during the Boer War. In North America, the Native American Indians were finally driven into total submission, and America was established as an imperial power, having won the Spanish-American War. Germany, now reunified, was rising steadily under Bismarck to become a super-power.

Neptune in its visionary aspect, mixing with Pluto’s power drive, creates a delusional though often devastatingly effective megalomania. Both planets in their negative roles are chillingly inhumane. Neptune puts the dream above reality, writes off human sacrifice as a necessary cost to gain the end. Pluto as the arch controller reduces individual humans to objects, pawns on the chessboard; the puppet-master reigns supreme.”

Cameron Douglas, former drug addict and con, scion of the leading Hollywood dynasty of Kirk and Michael Douglas has written a frank memoir Long Way Home. It winds through his seemingly privileged but in reality tumultuous childhood with inadequate and erratic parenting, both parents being unfaithful and his father doing drugs. He started on marijuana as a young teen and graduated to heroin, liquid cocaine and crystal meth, was dried out myriad times and ended up in prison for dealing, with his sentence lengthened when he was found with drugs inside. He eventually served seven years with two in solitary confinement.

Born 13 December 1978 in Santa Barbara, CA, he’s a Sun conjunct Neptune in Sagittarius in a creative and neurotic square to Saturn in Virgo and perhaps opposition a Gemini Moon – very scattered and unfocussed as well as addictive prone with Sun close to Neptune.

His father Michael Douglas, 25 September 1944 10.30 am New Brunswick, New Jersey, is also a Sun conjunct Neptune, in his case in Libra, square Saturn. He’s got more Cardinal planets with Mars Venus also in Libra, a Capricorn Moon and Saturn in Cancer, so is blessed with more initiative and a self-starting drive. Michael’s partial excuse for not being a better role model for Cameron was that he was trying to get out from under the shadow of his own father Kirk Douglas.

Kirk, 9 December 1916 10.15 am New York, is a hard driving and aggressive Sun Sagittarius, with a ruthlessly determined Pluto opposition Mars in Capricorn which falls on Michael’s Capricorn Moon  and square Michael’s Libra Sun Neptune – so he would make Michael feel trapped and scared.

What may not have helped, though they are very different temperaments, is that Cameron shares several of his grandfather’s planets – Sagittarius Sun, Mars in Capricorn and Venus in Scorpio. And Cameron’s Saturn is also conjunct Michael’s Jupiter in the 10^th, so he’d dent Michael’s confidence and undermine his reputation.

What a complicated family. Kirk Douglas’s tough beginning in a poverty-stricken New York childhood, son of a ragman, straightened his spine but it didn’t make life easier for what came next.

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Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s greatest architect whose ‘Prairie Style’ brought nature indoors had the most hair-raising private life. He abandoned his first wife and six children to live with the wife of a client, who was subsequently murdered along with her two children by an axe-wielding servant who set fire to the house that Lloyd Wright had designed for himself. His second wife was a morphine addict, and during his third marriage the house was burnt down for a second time because of an electrical fault.

Born 8 June 1867 5pm Richland Center, Wisconsin, he had an intense 8^th house Gemini Sun square a 10^th house Virgo Moon – so he would be wayward and never sure what he wanted. The grass would always be greener with a Sun square Moon. He also had a passionate, possessive Venus Pluto in Taurus opposition Saturn in obsessive Scorpio squaring onto a flamboyant Mars in Leo. Talented he may have been, amiable he wasn’t. He’d be cruel with Mars Saturn, insensitively determined on his own needs with Venus square Mars, ruthless with Mars Pluto. He also had Uranus in the 8^th which would not help to keep him stable emotionally either. His Moon was trine Venus Pluto, a hint of the relationship with a mother who spoilt him.

His leaving-a-legacy-for-history 17^th Harmonic was strong and his breakthrough/genius 13H.

He’s the subject of a new biography by Paul Hendrickson.

Christina Hendricks of Mad Men, more recently Tin Star and Good Girls, is divorcing her husband of ten years Geoffrey Arend of Body of Proof and Madam Secretary. They put out a ‘conscious uncoupling’ piece of Hollywood schmooze on Instagram saying they “will always work together to raise our two beautiful dogs.” They don’t have any children.

She was born 3 May 1975 at 8.12 am Knoxville, Texas and is a Sun Taurus square an Aquarius Moon on her Midheaven. She has an influential and controlling Pluto in the entertaining 5^th in a pushily-confident opposition to Jupiter in pro-active Aries square Saturn in Cancer. She’ll be quite a toughie and not always good at sharing the driving seat.

He was born 28 February 1978 in New York and is a charming, adaptable though elusive Sun, Mercury, Venus in Pisces square a filmic Neptune; with his Moon conjunct Uranus in Scorpio.

It was always an odd match with his Uranus opposition her Sun, his Saturn in her 4^th and his Mars in her 3^rd square her Uranus. It would be sparky at the start with her Mars conjunct his Venus and superficially sweet with his Jupiter conjunct her Venus.

The relationship chart has a possessive composite Sun opposition Pluto; a needs-space Venus opposition Uranus squaring onto a high-tension and chilly Saturn. With a high enthusiasm (seemed like a good idea at the time) Mars Jupiter conjunction.   It’ll have been in trouble for some years with the tr Uranus square tr Pluto hammering away at the composite Sun Pluto – and now tr Uranus is upending the Venus Saturn T Square.

Tr Neptune is conjunct her Mars at the moment till early 2020 so she’ll feel the failure deeply; and tr Neptune is also conjunct his Venus this year and next for a sense of emotional loss and disappointment.

Jennifer Lawrence, one of the highest grossing actresses for Hunger Games and much lauded for Silver Linings Playbook and Joy Mangano, has married her boyfriend, art gallery director Cooke Moroney. Born 15 August 1990 3.20 pm Louisville, Kentucky, she is a Sun Leo with a restless Gemini Moon and a highly-strung collection of Uranus, Neptune and Saturn in Capricorn; plus a fearsomely determined, bulldozer Mars in Taurus opposition Pluto squaring onto her Sun. She evidently grew up tough, hyper-active and unsettled until she found acting. She’s got a practical, business-like Earth Grand Trine of Saturn trine Mars trine Mercury in Virgo, focussed into a Kite making influential and controlling Pluto her driving planet. Quite a complicated lady with a charming 7^th house Sun and a sugary-sweet, frivolous Venus in flamboyant Leo conjunct Jupiter added into the mix.

Cooke, 3 July 1984 (net sources) is a creative and home-loving Sun and Venus in Cancer in an expansive opposition to Jupiter and trine a hard-edged Saturn Mars in Scorpio. His Moon is in Virgo. His Sun Venus oppose her Capricorn triple conjunction which won’t always be easy with her jitterbug tendencies though his Jupiter may mellow her out a touch. His Mars conjunct her Pluto will lead to some deadlocks since both will be stubborn.

Their relationship chart has a wide-ish affectionate composite Sun Venus and probably a composite New Moon with Moon perhaps conjunct Venus – which is excellent suggesting a complementary pairing = more whole when together.

The wedding chart for Saturday has a Moon opposition Saturn square Mars which doesn’t sound exactly smooth-flowing, so there will be some wrinkles to iron out.

The Harry-Meghan duo appear to be struggling, not with each other, but against a threatening and under-supportive world at large. He seems afraid that his mother’s fate will be repeated, ignoring the fact that Diana roped the media in at every opportunity; and talks of his mental health struggles, which he seems to attribute solely to her early death, as being ongoing.

Blaming the UK media (which can be rancid) is a touch unfair since most of the initial troublesome publicity came from the USA and was stoked up by the disaffected side of her family. None of which was helped by their own choices – the obscenely expensive baby shower, a taxpayer-funded Frogmore Cottage renovation, a publicity-attracting Vogue edition; and South of France/Italy jet hopping while claiming green credentials.

What was always worrisome about he and Meghan’s relationship chart was the composite Moon square Saturn Pluto. Saturn Pluto in a relationship chart suggests a dynamic within the relationship of feeling trapped which is often projected outwards, so circumstances or other people’s actions are blamed. Whereas the key to resolving the pervading sense of being stuck in a deprived universe, is to sort out what is going on within the relationship that brings these feelings up – and which would be there whether they chose to live in a Botswana mud hut or rented a Clooney holiday mansion away from the public eye for five years.

It could also indicate heavy pressures from both families on the relationship. Moon Saturn can also feel unloved and Meghan has that natally with a Moon conjunct Saturn. And Harry has a wide Moon opposition Saturn.

Harry is emotionally intense at the best of times with an 8^th house Virgo Sun as well as volatile with an impulsive Sun square Mars and impractical with Sun square Neptune. And he’ll be even more so at the moment with his Progressed Moon going through his 8^th for the next two years which is a time of inner conflict, can be draining and will intensify his responses acutely at times. Plus he has tr Neptune square his Mars until February 2020 which will give him a sense of panicky failure. Tr Saturn is moving now through his lower profile First Quadrant for several years ahead so he is being nudged towards a quieter, less visible time. Though he’ll find any unresolved psychological issues come to the fore especially when tr Saturn goes through his 2^nd from 2021 for four years.

Meghan’s Progressed Moon is also about to move into and through her 8^th within three months, staying there for two years plus. And the tr Saturn Pluto conjunction will cross her Descendant and start moving through her 7^th house of close relationships thereafter – so there will be a fair amount of adjustment needed in partnerships.

Life in the goldfish bowl isn’t easy which is why William and Kate disappeared off to Wales, the Queen and Philip went to Malta. And stayed silent.