“Beautiful Boy” starring Timothée Chalamet out mid January is a harrowing and uplifting tale of a high-achieving boy’s descent into hard drugs and his journalist/writer father’s anguished efforts to save him through years of relapses.
Nic Sheff was born 20 July 1982 6am Berkeley, California and his parents split when he was 4. He grew up seemingly happy, bouncing between the two parents. But he started smoking marijuana when he was 12, began drinking heavily and by 18 he had moved on to crystal meth, sometimes combined with heroin. He stole from everyone, including his little brother and his grandparents, prostituted himself, lived in a park, overdosed, nearly lost his arm to an infection, and almost died from convulsions brought on by repeatedly injecting himself with cocaine.
He said more recently: ‘If I’m not living on the verge of death, I feel like I’m not really living.’ Now 36, he has been clean and sober for eight years. There was addiction in the family with an alcoholic grandfather who drank himself to death, and mental illnesses like bipolar disorder on both sides of the family. The film is based on two best-selling memoirs by father and son.
Nic has a New Moon in Cancer on his Ascendant in a ferociously difficult and frustrated square to a 4th house Mars Pluto Saturn which does suggest extreme emotional reactions connected to his home and roots. His Neptune opposition Venus, inconjunct his Moon and sextile Mars Pluto would exacerbate his escapist tendencies.
His creative 7th harmonic is strong which can also be on a fine mental balance. His pleasure-seeking 9H and victim/healer 12H are also marked; as is his get-it-together 5th Harmonic. The film offers no easy answers for a happy-every-after story and he will face challenges with tr Pluto hitting his New Moon square Mars Pluto for several years ahead.
His father David Sheff, 23 December 1955, Boston, Massachusetts, is a hugely determined Sun Capricorn with Saturn in Scorpio square Pluto in Leo and Jupiter in Virgo; with an innovative Uranus inconjunct his Sun and trine his Saturn. He’s also got an emphasised Neptune on the point of a T square to Venus opposition Uranus, giving him a creative streak and escapist tendencies as well.
David’s Sun opposes Nic’s Venus for an affectionate bond, with David’s nurturing Moon in Nic’s 10th promoting him to find a better direction for his son’s life. David’s Uranus is also conjunct Nic’s Cancer Sun which isn’t an easy combination but perhaps gave him the insight to overcome Nic’s hyper-emotional responses to his life.
Their relationship chart has an affectionate composite Sun opposition Venus; with an adventurous and lucky Jupiter Uranus; plus an angry, unfair composite Mars Saturn. But happily there was enough positive there to hold them together through the worst of times.
Mike Pence is the fallback Plan B for the White House if Trump were to fall off his perch for whatever reason, impeachment being the least likely since it would need a two-thirds vote in the Republican controlled senate.
Pence does pick up tr Pluto sextile his Jupiter in Scorpio from February 2020 for two years which will bring confidence and a degree of success, though it could always be success in a different sphere since Scorpio tends to be money-minded. However running at the same time is one catastrophic midpoint transit, so not all good. This year he has the droopy, undermining tr Neptune square his Gemini Sun until late January 2020; and a fair number of jolts and jangles from, tr Uranus square his Venus from March onwards, trine his Pluto, then square his Mars, opposition his Neptune and trine his Saturn up to mid year, repeating from mid September onwards – so there will be change, insecurity, anxiety and high tension. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that he gets dragged into the Mueller Investigation.
His relationship chart with Trump is a sight to behold with an extreme-control composite Mars Pluto very marked, giving rise to bitter underlying resentment; and a slippery Neptune. There’s confusion aplenty through this year with tr Pluto square the composite Neptune and worse in 2020 with tr Neptune square the composite Sun. With a feeling of relief mid 2019, again early 2020.
The puzzle in the Pence jigsaw is wife Karen, whose religious zealotry isn’t a good match with Trump antics. She’s a stalwart Sun, Venus, Jupiter in Scorpio opposition Mars in Taurus square Uranus so is no one’s pushover. If gossip is correct she was never that politically ambitious and regarded the VP as all hubby’s wish and doing.
She looks edgy in the extreme over this New Year; and although confident now and in 2019 is also kicking against restrictions and not altogether content. Her relationship with her better half is undergoing the same shifts and upsets as his personal chart through this year.
Handling Nancy Pelosi would be no easier for Pence than for Trump with a relationship chart in which one-upmanship power struggles are central, along with aggravations and an inability to share the same space without arguing.
Though Mike Pence’s problems with Pelosi pale into insignificance compared to Karen with Nancy, which is a hotbed of hostility and dislike – that relationship chart has a composite Pluto opposition Saturn Venus square Mars, and it doesn’t get much worse than that. Both are formidably strong women with Mars in Taurus. 2020/2021 will see them facing off with clenched teeth as tr Pluto trines the composite Mars.
There are times when it would be easier if astrology were clairvoyance producing a few helpful pictures of events to come, rather than a morass of possibilities and maybes.
Vivien Leigh’s ravishing beauty and her high-profile, power-couple marriage to Laurence Olivier, have tended to obscure her undoubted talent as an actress on screen and stage. She is best known for playing Scarlett O’ Hara in Gone with the Wind and twelve years later Blanche DuBois in Streetcar Named Desire, for both of which performances she won Oscars. But her life was marred by the tragedy of her bi-polar condition which led to increasingly erratic and high-risk behaviour, and the tuberculosis which eventually killed her aged 53. A new biography is out next month Dark Star by Alan Strachan which fills in some gaps.
Born 5 November 1913 5.16 pm Darjeeling, India, with a Scottish father and maybe Armenian mother, she was sent to convent school in the UK aged six, and later travelled round Europe with her parents. An early marriage to an older barrister did not stop her move into acting or her affair with Olivier. She was highly-sexed, obsessively so, and in later years took to having sex with strangers in London parks.
She was a Sun Scorpio square a 10th house Aquarius Moon, which is a tricky combination of intense desire and avoidance of intimacy. Her Moon was in an Air Grand Trine to Venus in Libra trine Saturn, which would further detach her from her feelings. It’s an Air Water chart – which can bring problems as the individual wobbles between thinking and emotional responses. With Uranus on her midheaven she was destined for a different kind of career and in opposition to Neptune would make her highly strung. Her Neptune in Cancer was in a showbizzy conjunction to Mars.
It’s not quite chart I would have expected from stories about her life and temperament. Apart from the intense Scorpio Sun and overly-excitable Mars in Cancer, it doesn’t seem too descriptive. Though her creative 7th Harmonic, pleasure-seeking 9H, actresses’ 15H and super-star 22H were all strong.
Her relationship with Olivier, 22 May 1907 5am Dorking, England, was a very Neptunian affair. His Venus in Aries was square her Mars, Neptune and her Uranus, so it was a passionate, if not always sensitive, match, one which required space and would be prone to eruptions and ultimately disappointment.
Their relationship chart had a tumultuous Uranus opposition Neptune Venus square Mars opposition Jupiter – so it would be in constant turmoil.
In contrast to her Air Water chart, he was mainly Earth with a Taurus Sun Mercury, a Virgo Moon and Mars Uranus in Capricorn – and had his own inner demons to contend with.
Behind the glitter lurks all manner of personality problems.
What came to be known as Tecumseh’s Curse laid on US presidents who were elected in years divisible by twenty by an irate Shawnee Native American chief does spookily appear to hold good. Tecsumeh was angered by dirty dealings over native land by William Harrison who became president in 1840 – and died in 1841. And the mishap pattern did repeat – though the ‘curse’ itself may have been a retrospective invention and the catastrophes more connected to the recurring Jupiter Saturn conjunction, which comes round every 20 years.
Jupiter is associated with Zeus, the fiery and arrogant god of Olympus, who soars above all else, while Saturn, the grim reaper, symbol of mortality, cuts down to size. The combination of the pair can occasionally precipitate an Icarus-like fall – for those who fly too close to the sun, challenging the power of the gods, their wings melt and they plummet.
Excerpt from my book The Astrological History of the World:
American presidents
Jupiter–Saturn has a special relevance to the United States and American history. One of the key dates after the Declaration of 1776, when hostilities with the British came to an end and American independence was formally recognized in 1783, fell during the Saturn–Jupiter conjunction in Capricorn.
More tragically, every American president in the past 200 years who has been inaugurated on a Jupiter–Saturn conjunction has either been assassinated or survived an assassination attempt or else has died while in office; only two, Thomas Jefferson and James Munroe, are exceptions to this rule. And GW Bush though 9/11 happened on his watch which arguably soaked up the energy.
F. Kennedy, elected in the hope of a new ‘Camelot’ in 1960, with Jupiter–Saturn in Capricorn, was dramatically shot in 1963 in Dallas. Ronald Reagan, elected on a ticket to reduce taxes, deregulate the economy and strengthen defences, was a Hollywood-style president, bringing flamboyant promises after Jimmy Carter’s lacklustre term of office. Reagan, inaugurated under Jupiter–Saturn in Libra, survived serious injuries sustained in an assassination attempt in 1981.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the reforming president, was voted in for an unprecedented four terms, the second of which, in 1940, fell during Jupiter–Saturn in Taurus. He created a mood of hope with his uplifting ‘fireside chat’ style of radio broadcast. He died in office three months after his fourth inauguration in 1945, aged 63.
Warren Harding, elected in 1920 with Jupiter–Saturn in Taurus, an unremarkable compromise candidate, represented a desire for normality after the unsettled years of the First World War. His sudden, early death at the age of 58 in 1923 was attributed to the shock of learning of the imminent exposure of corruption in his Cabinet, on a scale unprecedented in White House history.
William McKinley, voted to a second term of office in 1900 under Jupiter–Saturn in Capricorn, was an expansionist president who added to America’s colonial empire and aggressively boosted trade on a global scale. He survived less than a year of his second term, being shot by an anarchist on 19 September and dying eight days later; he was 58 years old.
James Garfield, elected with Jupiter–Saturn in Taurus in 1880, upset his party by insisting on the freedom to make political appointments as he chose, and was shot by a deranged admirer of his critics in the July of his inauguration year, dying two months later from the wounds, aged 50. He was succeeded by Chester Arthur, whose health suffered badly under the strain of office.
Most famously of all Abraham Lincoln, elected for his first term of office on the Jupiter–Saturn conjunction of 1860 in Virgo, promoted national unity and declared an end to slavery. He survived through the years of the Civil War to his second term, but was shot by an actor in April 1865, months after his second inauguration; he was 56.
Elected in 1841 on the run-up to the conjunction in Capricorn, William Henry Harrison campaigned on his military reputation as a log-cabin frontiersman and victor over the Native Americans. He caught pneumonia at his inauguration and died a month later.
Intriguingly Thomas Jefferson, born in 1763 and one of only two presidents to survive a Jupiter–Saturn election, has the conjunction in his birth chart in Leo and Virgo. Roosevelt, who was born in 1882 and who survived through to his fourth term, also has a Saturn–Jupiter conjunction in Taurus in his chart.
Jupiter Saturn conjunction
Jupiter—expansive, idealistic, high-minded, a soaring energy—is usually described by astrologers in glowingly positive terms. It brightens, keeps optimism high, boosts confidence, smooths rough edges and produces pots of gold at the end of the rainbow. The downside is a tendency to impracticality, or paradoxically to narrow-mindedness when its lofty philosophy moves into self-righteousness. Mythologically connected to Zeus, the supreme deity (who fathered myriad children—many of them illegitimate, to the intense aggravation of his wife, Hera), it is an energy that brings Olympian aspirations. The thunderbolt and the eagle were Zeus’s symbols, although Jupiter as ruler of Sagittarius is also connected with Chiron, the centaur, the wise but wounded healer, philosopher, teacher, who helps others but cannot cure himself.
The Jupiter–Saturn mix is an interface of opposites. Idealism versus materialism; high-flying boundless ambition versus melancholy awareness of the inevitable limitations of life; the urge for immortality versus the Grim Reaper at the core of the human condition. The birth of a new messiah for the culture, or an upsurge of optimism, are usually seen as the outcome of Jupiter–Saturn conjunctions, which occur every 20 years and whose influence spans about 12 months. Saturn’s ability to give structure and apply self-discipline has the capacity to ground Jupiter’s soaring vision, but the balance is difficult to strike. Disappointment can follow the heady new beginnings, as Jupiter’s tendency to attempt too much too soon crash-lands. The combination of energies is symbolized by the myth of Icarus, who ignored his father’s advice and flew too close to the Sun, which melted his wax wings and caused him to plummet to earth and die.
Jupiter–Saturn can, then, tell a cautionary tale about the dangers of inflated ambition. This has uncanny resonances in the assassinations or untimely deaths of American presidents and other major figures, such as Princess Diana and John Lennon, and even Queen Victoria’s consort Prince Albert, who were raised to mythical status only to be cut short in their prime.
Cultural icons – and death
The zeitgeist, or spirit of the age, is often carried by personalities, whose lives seem marked out in some special way by destiny. Messiahs in their own sphere, they bear the hopes of their era, often reflected in these conjunctions. The most influential pop group of all time, the Beatles, was centred on John Lennon, a Liverpudlian Catholic born in 1940 with Jupiter–Saturn in Taurus; Lennon became the unlikely hero of a generation, with his wit and his songs of peace and protest. The Beatles’ debut occurred on the 1960 conjunction in Capricorn, and Lennon’s shocking death on the conjunction in Libra in 1980. He was a legend, who died at the age of 40, and whose life was seemingly fated by these paradoxical conjunctions to rise high only to short-circuit.
Similarly, Diana, Princess of Wales was born in 1961 on a waning Jupiter–Saturn conjunction in Capricorn and Aquarius, and was married in 1980 during the exact Jupiter–Saturn conjunction—fittingly in the relationship sign of Libra—in a fairy-tale wedding watched by 700 million TV viewers around the globe. Tragically, high hopes disintegrated through the unhappy and increasingly scandal-prone years that followed, ending in her sudden death in a Paris car crash in 1997.
The attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II also occurred in 1981 on the Jupiter Saturn in Libra conjunction.
Queen Victoria’s much-loved consort Prince Albert died at the early age of 42 from either typhoid or cancer, sending his widow into seclusion for years on Jupiter Saturn in Virgo. Victoria herself died during the Jupiter–Saturn conjunction in Capricorn in 1901, after a long and successful reign.
Mitt Romney, former Republican presidential candidate against Obama in 2012 and about to be Utah senator, has written a scathing op-ed about Trump and his inability to rise to the mantle of the office. “A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. … And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring,” he wrote.
Which has given rise to the thought that Romney might pitch himself in again for the Republican 2020 candidacy instead of Trump (or replacing him if he disappears in a puff of smoke).
What is intriguing is how upbeat Romney’s chart looks over the election and inauguration. It doesn’t mean he’ll stand or win but he surely looks in good spirits over the Inauguration.
Born 12 March 1947 9.51am Detroit, Michigan, he’s a Sun Pisces trine Moon Jupiter in Scorpio and square Uranus – confident, intuitive, innovative. Though he’s also cool with three planets including Venus in Aquarius in Air signs, and he has a stubborn Saturn Pluto in Leo.
In January 2021 tr Pluto will conjunct his Sun/Jupiter midpoint as it has been doing on and off since early 2020 which is mega-successful. Tr Jupiter will be conjunct his midheaven at the Inauguration as well as conjunct his 10th house good-for-PR Venus. And between the election and the inauguration he has the in-luck tr Uranus trine his Jupiter/Uranus. Even if it isn’t him for the WH hotseat it looks less likely that it’ll be Trump, given Romney’s good humour.
His relationship with Trump looks rattled till mid February 2019 and is jolting and jangling thereafter. With major upheavals in 2020.
One of the UK’s worst maritime disasters, occurred 100 years ago yesterday and was doubly tragic with the loss of 201 lives, most sailors returning home after the end of World War One. HMS Iolaire sank just off Stornoway Harbour on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland in bad weather, perhaps because of a navigational error. The impact on the small island community, which had already lost more men than most other UK regions, was devastating.
It occurred at 2.30 am on 1 January 1919 when watery Neptune was exactly conjunct the Midheaven opposition Mars. There were two other oppositions – a high tension Saturn opposition Uranus; and an over-the-top the Sun opposition Jupiter Pluto.
The early December 1918 Solar Eclipse located to Stornoway had the Sagittarius New Moon conjunct the Descendant and it was also conjunct the Scotland 1034 Sagittarius Sun – so critical for the location and the country. The Lunar Eclipse of mid December 1918 had Neptune conjunct the Ascendant set for Stornoway. Planets on the chart axis usually indicate a crisis for that geographical region.
It would have been bad enough at any time but to come after the end of the war makes it all the more heart-rending, wiping out practically a generation of young men.
Nicola Sturgeon and Prince Charles attended a memorial service with 201 carnations were cast into the sea in remembrance.
Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s new far-right President, a deeply divisive figure and infamous for his racist, homophobic and misogynistic remarks, was sworn in at 4.50pm on January 1st in Brasilia. A former army captain he was voted in on a ticket of promising to free the country of corruption, crime and economic mismanagement. He was shot and wounded during the campaign and still has further surgery to come.
His Term chart isn’t inspiring with a nebulous Neptune in the 10th in an over-hopeful square to Jupiter, hinting at promises made and not delivered. With a hidden Sun Saturn Pluto in the financial 8th suggesting not only considerable economic problems but also dirty dealings out of sight. Pluto opposes the North Node squaring onto innovative, revolutionary Uranus – so there will be radical changes for good or ill.
Born 21 March 1955 2.45pm Sao Paulo, he has a formidably strong, power-hungry and ruthless chart with an ambitious 10th house Mars in a hard-edged opposition to Saturn in Scorpio square Pluto opposition Venus and Moon in Aquarius.
His chart sits exactly on top of the axis of the Brazil 7 September 1822 4.08 pm Piranga chart, so he clearly strikes a chord with an essential strand of the country’s psyche. That chart does have the same military/cruel Mars opposition Saturn which is sextile/trine Neptune Uranus in Capricorn and is no stranger to military regimes.
The Brazil chart shows signs of upheaval, disruption and aggravation from May 2019 onwards with tr Uranus opposition Mars; and a swampy sense of confusion till late 2019 with tr Neptune opposition the Virgo Sun.
Bolsonaro looks conflicted over the next few months which could be health as well as other issues from a couple of unhelpful Solar Arcs; but will push ahead bullishly nonetheless and will start throwing his weight around in 2020 with a perhaps over-confident series of initiatives. This will lead into a sharp change of direction in 2020 as tr Uranus is conjunct his midheaven.
Actress Keira Knightley has been letting fly in all directions with some fruity and forthright opinions on the status of women, banning her daughter from watching Cinderella – waken yourself up, don’t wait for a rich guy to come along. She’s been acting since she was six, was a tomboy as a child, had a breakdown after too much success in her early twenties and doesn’t see why she shouldn’t tell it like it is. She was in Stars Wars at 13, Pirates of the Caribbean at 17, then Bend it Like Beckham, then Pride and Prejudice.
Born 26 March 1985 in Teddington, London, she’s not surprisingly a feisty Sun Aries square Neptune; but what drives her chart is a do-or-die determined Mars in Taurus opposition Pluto square Jupiter in Aquarius (similar to Antarctic solo explorer Colin O’Brady: see post Dec 27.) Plus her Mercury in upfront Aries conjunct Venus is trine Uranus, which will give her a charming and direct way of speaking.
Nasa’s New Horizons space probe has survived its attempt to carry out a record-breaking exploratory mission four billion miles from Earth. The probe has made contact with Earth to confirm its successful flyby of the icy Ultima Thule space rock, a new record for the furthest object ever explored in the Solar System about a billion miles beyond Pluto, which was until now the most faraway world ever visited up close by a spacecraft. Ultima Thule is unique because it is a relic from the early days of the solar system and could provide answers about the origins of other planets.
The initial launch was on 19 January 2006 from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 19 hrs UT. This gives a final degree Capricorn Sun trine a Virgo Moon; with an adventurous Mars in Taurus opposition Jupiter squaring appropriately onto cosmic Neptune in Aquarius which is opposition Saturn – a Fixed Grand Cross for endurance and perseverance.
The harmonics are descriptive with a strong get-it-together 5H; an even more notable seeking-and-searching 7H; genius/exploration/breakthrough 13H; stamina 16H; and superstar22H.
Brian May, lead guitarist, with Queen released a new song celebrating New Horizons’ spirit of inquiry, adventure and discovery.
