The coronavirus lockdown in China has extended to more cities affecting 56 million inhabitants. Confirmed cases in China are officially given as 1250 with 41 deaths, though that is assumed to be an under estimate; with further cases in other countries. The Daily Mail is, naturally, on an alarmist kick with headlines about a possible 65 million deaths.

The previous SARS epidemic in 2003 was contracted by 8000 people with 775 dying, mainly old and very young.

There is remarkably little showing on the China 1 October 1949 chart apart from tr Saturn Pluto moving through the 12^th conjunct Jupiter as the outbreak started; and Progressed Moon conjunct the 7^th house Pluto (Mars) which will pass by reasonably quickly.

The China 1 January 1912 chart for the creation of the Republic (Nick Campion) is more illuminating. The tr Saturn Pluto conjunction was opposition the Neptune earlier this month which suggests devastation and confusion; with a disruptive Solar Arc Sun square Uranus approaching within a few months to exact; preceded by a jolting tr Saturn conjunct the Uranus in late February and on and off all year. Plus a high-risk tr Pluto trine Mars picking up late February running till late 2021.

When the similar SARS epidemic occurred in 2003 there was a Saturn opposition Pluto and a very wide Saturn trine Neptune. Traditionally major epidemics were connected to Saturn Neptune conjunctions of which there is one up and coming in 2026 in Aries. But it isn’t around at the moment. This year certainly looks high stress with Saturn Pluto and Mars crashing around in Aries but not Saturn Neptune. So cross fingers it may be like SARS and peter out eventually.

Below excerpt from The Astrological History of the World:

The dual face of Saturn–Neptune in providing practical care for the suffering and in the insidious undermining of the body’s health both find a place in world history. An epidemic of St Vitus Dance (chorea) broke out in Europe in 1021 when Saturn and Neptune were together in Aquarius; the disease causes involuntary jerky movements and leads to brain deterioration, and was so called because victims prayed to St Vitus, the patron saint of dance.

The plague that devastated Europe and Asia during the 1340s was marked by the Saturn–Neptune conjunction in Aquarius of 1344, and the Uranus–Pluto conjunction at the same time. The outbreak of bubonic plague in London in 1665 and the Great Fire of London a year later both took place when Saturn and Neptune were together in Capricorn.

In 1846 in Aquarius, widespread famine in Ireland followed the failure of the potato crop. During the 1917 and 1918 conjunction in Leo, there were massive casualties in the First World War, especially at Passchendaele, and the Spanish ‘flu epidemic of 1918 killed 20 million in Europe, the United States and India. By the conjunction of the late 1980s in Capricorn, the AIDS virus was running amok, causing countless deaths in Africa, Europe and the United States.

Medical advances are also highlighted under Saturn–Neptune, with the physicians’ meeting place in Rome, the Schola Medicorum, being set up in ad 17 in Sagittarius; in 1739 in Cancer, the London Foundling Hospital was established; and by 1881 in Taurus, Louis Pasteur had discovered the anthrax vaccine.

I cut my teeth in internet debate in the 1990s, off the deep end, in a peculiarly toxic child abuse discussion group. It pitted the deniers, who used every trick in the Trump playbook to distract and destroy when evidence was produced, against therapy professionals and survivor group leaders. It was scarily similar to what is ongoing in the political and social media arena today – a full-on assault on reality and the truth, like falling down the rabbit hole into a malign Alice in Wonderland where everything was stood on its head.

What I learnt through bruising experience was that confrontation doesn’t work with a certain temperament. The more you argue, the happier they are. They’re generally narcissistic so like the attention and are fuelled by rage, so combat stokes their fires. The absolute ‘tell’ when they communicate is contempt. The need to put down, smear, contaminate and ultimately destroy those who speak out against them – which has to be Pluto, wanting to be superior, a compulsion to have the last word, to be the only one left standing.

Another professional on that first discussion group said she resisted starting up her laptop in the mornings because she knew a stream of poison would download into her email box – another Plutonic attribute. This forum I do because I enjoy it and I hope that regulars do too. What I will not have is disrespectful, bad-mannered, contemptuous posts because it plain isn’t enjoyable.

A limited amount of political comment is fine since astrology works within a context. But it gets really tedious when flash point figures or subjects come up – Hillary for one who attracts lovers and haters; Scotland for two which evokes a deluge of fevered no-other-viewpoint is tolerated responses.

I have just blocked a couple of recent posters and another blockee from the past emailed to say isn’t it hypocritical to criticize closed cult groups for silencing dissent when I do the same. Well it falls into the same category as not tolerating the intolerant.

The I Ching says somewhere that sharing knowledge should be refreshing and revitalizing which would be my hope here.    All of us stumble along a path of unknowing  and astrology can offer a framework of understanding – if you keep an open mind and kick Pluto’s worst tendencies into the long grass.

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This is a thinking-on-paper ramble without a clear astrological context at the debut but hopefully one might emerge.

The general tenor of debate in society (western) is bileful, contemptuous, over-heated, polarised and permeated with outraged disbelief that any other viewpoint could have even partial validity. No middle ground, no capacity for complex thinking. Each group acts as a closed system where no doubt is allowed and nay-sayers are attacked with denigration, character assassination, caricaturing – in order either to silence them or damage their credibility to ensure no one listens. It’s how cults and fascist states operate.

It is also how science arguments work when new knowledge appears. Forget the notion that scientists are on an open-minded voyage of discovery. They live in a closed box circumscribed by what the revered elders believe and woe betide anyone who steps across the line. Arthur Schopenhauer memorably said: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Kuhn talking of paradigm shifts, when old theories have to be replaced, talks of a period of turmoil during the ridicule-and-violent opposition phase when the new ideas are put through a gruelling stress-test. Those who hang grimly onto the old theories can be driven almost to nervous breakdown point – as indeed can those arguing for the new knowledge when they meet overwhelming resistance.

In the howling cauldron of twitter and social media what is it the scornful screamers are trying to block out? Something is trying to emerge which they perceive as threatening the security and stability of their mindset.

Assuming Trump and Boris Johnson are there for a reason – given Kissinger’s point about them being the kinds of personalities who turn up at the end of an era – what greater purpose does it serve that both are, amongst other things, egregious liars (granted, all politicians are liars but they do seem to be extreme examples.) While both trumpet their role as torchbearers into a brave new future, the opposite can be argued that both are clinging onto a long-gone past – a white supremacy, misogynistic, climate-change-denying, tax-light USA, and the British (English) colossus again striding the globe.

To stick with the paradigm shift analogy – are they defenders of the old mindset, heaping scorn on anyone who threatens the supremacy of their position? Which can have a surprising and positive benefit since retrograders on occasion act as a necessary catalyst to those who stand against them. To give an example – in the 1990s there was an outpouring of vitriolic denial of child sexual abuse. It was devastating for those fighting to support victims, but what it initiated was an intense and fruitful few years of research, proving a bedrock for future treatment, which would never have happened had it not been for the campaign of flagrant lies. Change most often comes out of crisis.

Change and transformation are words bandied about blithely in the astrological and spiritual communities. In reality, changing a mindset is a high-risk, scary business which is why so many resist it with rage-fuelled desperation when it threatens to destabilise their sanity. Mindsets are more like houses of cards than expandable balloons. To change involves dismantling the old outlook which means staring into a void before a new outlook is built up.

This might point to the Trump/Johnson duo being a precursor of the shift into Pluto in Aquarius in 2023/24, keyed up next year by Saturn Jupiter moving into Aquarius. And propelled further along by Uranus moving into Gemini and Neptune into Aries in 2025. The second half of this decade will be radically different with a completely new set of ideas in common currency.

It’ll be more obvious in the USA with their Pluto Return and therefore fought with greater hostility with destructive lasers turned on those who stand up against the old guard and genuinely try to lead the way into a better world.

Not sure if this helps but it kinda makes some sense to me. If only because there has to be a reason why the fates dropped two such whopping fibbers in our midst. Maybe truth will out with Pluto in Aquarius. Maybe.

Going quietly into the night clearly isn’t in Hillary Clinton’s DNA except that now, stripped of all office, she seems happy to show how bitterly resentful she is. The old anodyne comments of her time in office have been replaced by resentful barbs. ‘Old and angry’ is how one commentator described her as she faces a lawsuit for defamation from Tulsi Gabbard whom she wrote off as a Russian asset; and then dismissed Bernie Sanders, who arguably skewered her 2016 chances, saying ‘nobody likes him.’

Hillary’s Scorpio Sun is just finishing the tr Uranus opposition which ran through last year and it will have opened her up and knocked her off the old track. Her Solar Arc Jupiter is also moving to oppose her bitter, do-or-die-determined Mars Pluto conjunction now and through 2020, which will remove some of her inhibitions and tempt her into overly forceful words and deeds.

Both Gabbard and Sanders have Aries planets which trine her Saturn Mars Pluto – Sanders Moon Mars in Aries, and Gabbard Mars, Sun, Venus and Midheaven in Aries – which will rattle her up. Sanders’ Pluto is also in a power-struggling square to her Sun which won’t suit her very Scorpionic temperament at all.

Her relationship chart with Gabbard is horrifyingly bad with a composite Mars square Saturn Uranus Pluto conjunction – and that is being undermined by tr Neptune in hard aspect all year. Her chart with Sanders isn’t much better with a volatile, explosive Mars Uranus conjunction which is being chipped away at also by tr Neptune square the Mars. There’s also a deeply suspicious, slightly paranoid composite Sun Neptune square Saturn.

You’d think she’d save her ire for the Republicans.  A touch of dog-in-the-manger attacking your own side.

Billionaire Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman, has been accused of embezzlement and money laundering by prosecutors in Angola. She was controversially appointed head of the state oil firm by her father, then President, who himself was denounced as leading one of the most corrupt regimes in Africa, amassing wealth for his family and silencing his opposition. Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves but one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world, with infant mortality among the highest. Nearly 70% of the population lives on less than $2 a day. She currently lives in the UK and denies everything.

Born 1 April 1973 Baku, Azerbaijan, she has an Air Fire chart with an Aries Sun Venus sitting as the driving planets on a wide-ish Air Grand Trine of an adventurous Mars Jupiter in Aquarius trine Saturn in Gemini with Pluto and Uranus in Libra. Her Sun Venus are also trine Neptune which in turn opposes Saturn and squares onto Moon Mercury in Pisces. An overdose of Air will make her emotionally detached; Fire will make her attention-seeking and entrepreneurial; and her only Water planets are in evasive Pisces. She has no Earth in her chart.

She is facing one major setback ahead from her Progressed Mars square her Neptune around now; with maybe problems from tr Neptune conjunct her Solar Arc Mars Jupiter over the next three year. But that apart is looking upbeat with tr Pluto conjunct two of her Jupiter midpoints till late 2021.

Her Sun Venus fall in Angola’s 8^th house of business finances with her controlling Pluto in the Angola’s 2^nd house; and her opportunistic Mars Jupiter opposition the Angola Saturn and square its Uranus Mercury.

The tragedy of Africa – first the colonials and then the gangster governments – with immense resources that could feed, educate and produce a decent standard of living for their populations.

Pic: Nuno Coimbra

Surreal comedian Terry Jones, a driving force behind Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the movie The Life of Brian, has died. He was the most scholarly of the Pythons, writing books on Chaucer, presenting History Channel documentaries about gladiators, the crusades and barbarians. He was born 1 February 1942 11am Colwyn Bay, Wales with a bank clerk father. At Oxford University he met Michael Palin and started his performing career, which after Python success led onto directing two of the movies.

In 2005 he left his wife of 26 years to live with and eventually marry a Swedish student, who was 41 years his junior. In recent years he suffered from frontotemporal dementia that impaired his ability to communicate.

He was a charming and eccentric 11^th house Sun Venus in Aquarius opposition a Leo Moon and Pluto in the performing 5^th house with his Sun Venus in a confident trine to Jupiter as well. Certainly intense, attention-grabbing but never entirely sure what he wanted with a Full Moon and not an easy temperament. His Sun was also in a full-on, upfront square to Mars in heavyweight Taurus; with Saturn Uranus also in Taurus in an outspoken square to his Mercury and in a creative trine to Neptune.

He had erratic Uranus and extravagant Jupiter in his financial 2^nd house, which led him to rollick through the Python millions forcing him latterly to agree to a stage appearance in 2014 for money which turned out to be an embarrassment.

Michael Bentine of the Goons, who preceded Monty Python in off-the-wall humour, was also a Sun, Venus and Mercury in Aquarius – 26 January 1922 3am Watford, England..

Luvvie land is all atwitter since a spawn of a revered acting dynasty went off reservation and blasted the new ‘woke’ culture on racism and sexism. Laurence Fox’s eruption on Question Time was not to the liking of the notoriously left-wing union Equity but he has gained sympathisers amongst those relieved that finally someone had the guts to say what they’ve been thinking.

Born 26 May 1978, his father James Fox is an actor as is his uncle Edward Fox and cousins Emilia and Freddie Fox. His uncle Robert and grandfather are/were theatrical agents. He’s best known for playing Detective Hathaway in Lewis for nine years till 2015 but has only appeared sporadically since and has dabbled in music with two albums without much success to excoriatingly bad reviews.

He’s a Sun Gemini with maybe an Aquarius Moon which latter might make sense of a controversialist. But what really lights his fuse is a Mercury in Taurus opposition Uranus square Mars (Saturn) in Leo – so he will be short-tempered, inclined to blurt out his opinions without much thought. He’s also got a pushily-confident Pluto square Jupiter (Venus) in Cancer.

He’s looking fairly wound up at the moment with a Solar Arc Sun square Pluto and a Solar Arc Pluto approaching the square to his Saturn over the next few months.

Climate change is no laughing matter but there is something deliciously funny about Greta Thunberg facing off Trump. Called the ‘tiny Swedish climate change demon’ by Australian cartoonist First Dog on the Moon, she has perfected her death stare for the denier-in-chief’s benefit. At Davos he is decrying ‘the prophets of doom’. She later responded saying the world “in case you hadn’t noticed, is currently on fire.”.

And their charts are a masterclass in synastry. Her deeply serious Saturn in Gemini opposition Pluto sits on top of and squelches his Sun Uranus opposition Moon. Her reforming Uranus opposes his Mars Ascendant for an explosive chemistry – with her unbudgeable Mars Venus in Scorpio square his Mars and on his IC. Her idealistic and tricky-to-pin-down Neptune opposes and undermines his 12^th house need-to-be-in-control Pluto.

Their relationship chart has an argumentative and competitive composite Sun trine Neptune and opposition Mars with a downbeat square onto Saturn perhaps opposition the composite Moon; and Mars in a hostile, power-struggling conjunction to Pluto.

Blissful to see him skewered by a teenage girl.

The fateful day is approaching at speed as Boris Johnson merrily hums ‘Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.’ 11pm London time on January 31 is when the UK officially leaves the EU (give or take a transition period or several)

This puts the Saturn Pluto conjunction on the IC with Pluto in Capricorn exactly opposition the Midheaven, exact to within minutes of a degree. Uncompromising, unco-operative Uranus is close to the final degree Aries Moon in the 7^th square Saturn Pluto  for a sombre and unsentimental mood.

The Moon Uranus is also on the focal point of a T Square to MC opposition Saturn (Pluto). A final degree anaretic Moon in Aries will exhibit the most extreme attributes of the sign and house which will double or treble up with it being focal point – so hyper-sensitive and overly impulsive. It’ll veer between dither and delay and reckless action. What’s also odd is Moon in the 7^th is dependent on partners, yet Uranus is the opposite. So there’s great ambiguity in the chart.

Mars is in a publicity-grabbing and impulsive but not too realistic square to Neptune and Venus.

On the UK chart tr Uranus is still sextile the Pluto until early February which looks too mild to cause this kind of disruption, but obviously not. There’s also confusion and uncertainty from tr Neptune square the Solar Arc Mercury; and Solar Arc North Node conjunct the 2^nd house financial Neptune. The country isn’t half as gung-ho as the present No 10 resident and his mad Svengali adviser.