The devastating 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, has killed at least 832 people with fears the final death toll could be thousands. The Red Cross estimates that more than 1.6 million people have been affected which it described as a tragedy that “could get much worse”. The previous worst quake and tsunami with 100 foot waves in December 2004 was a 9.1 magnitude which killed nearly 230,000 along the Indian ocean coastline.

Indonesia, 17 August 1945 10 am Jakarta has tr Pluto squaring the 10^th house Saturn and midheaven (and midpoints) now, which is significantly discouraging and creating major challenges. With the July Cancer Eclipse also conjunct both Saturn and MC. That Solar Eclipse located to Palu has Saturn conjunct the IC.

The 2004 quake had Pluto conjunct the Ascendant with the Libra Solar Eclipse in square to the Indonesia Saturn MC.

With tr Pluto continuing to make a hardship-square to the Indonesia Saturn till late this year and tr Neptune squaring the Mars Uranus in Gemini until late 2019, there could be a difficult and long-drawn out aftermath.

Brand Beckham took another dent with David slithering out of a speeding charge through a technicality, which according to the Daily Mail will botch a much-longed-for knighthood. He’s shrugged off a fair number of scandals over the years and still managed to maintain his ordinary-guy image despite being superstar-wealthy. The sense is the public are starting to sour over the Beckhams’ flagrantly expensive lifestyle and their parading of the kids to ensure the brand stays in the spotlight. David is worth around £350 million which isn’t bad going for a footballer whom Alex Ferguson didn’t reckon world-class. Recently he’s been supporting his sour-faced wife Victoria’s failing fashion line.

Born 2 May 1975 6.17 am London, his chart does indicate a fair amount of pressure on his status, reputation and career in coming years. His Capricorn Moon on his midheaven is catching tr Uranus square for the second time this November and against next February, which could be emotional, but will also affect his standing. Depending on how accurate to the minute his birth time is (biography) he also has tr Pluto moving to conjunct his midheaven around 2022, though it could come before, which often accompanies a fall from grace.

This year and next he also has a panicky, undermining tr Neptune conjunct his 11^th house Mars suggesting uncertainty about future plans. Plus he has a downbeat tr Saturn in hard aspect to his Cardinal T Square of Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn later this year and through 2019. That will give him pause for thought about what comes next.

2019/2020 always did look like a scrunch point for his marriage, see post below. And by 2020/21 he has tr Neptune conjunct his Sun/Moon midpoint which doesn’t necessarily suggest a terminal split more major dissatisfaction and (further) drifting apart. He does look frustrated and trapped in 2019/2020; though being Beckham he’s also got good luck, and confidence, extending into the early 2020s.

Post June 11 2018

Heavy denials about celebrity marriage problems accompanied by lovey-dovey red-carpet cuddles are usually not a good sign. David and Victoria Beckham managed both which did nothing to quell the rumours.

The astrology always pointed to 2018/2019 as a danger point with tr Uranus conjunct first the composite Venus now, then Mercury in July and moving backwards and forwards over these into 2019 when tr Uranus will be conjunct the composite Sun and Mars. That looks exceptionally disruptive. Then tr Pluto will also square the composite Uranus in 2021 so it’ll be a rough ride ahead for several years. They are fairly lashed together because of the commercial brand mirrored in a composite Saturn square Pluto, which aspect is also being weighed down by tr Saturn this year, so a separation wouldn’t be simple.

There’s likely to be separations during all those Uranian firecrackers.   His chart has tr Uranus square his 10^th house Moon through into early 2019 so he will be rethinking his domestic life as well as career direction. And he does look directionless and less than confident about future plans with tr Neptune conjunct his 11^th house Mars in 2018/2019.

Victoria looks under huge pressure around 2020 and just after as tr Pluto squares her Aries Sun opposition Uranus.

My impression is he’s supporting her fashion business which isn’t doing well financially and they have led fairly separate lives.

NB Her birth time is unverified.

Lacking a twitter nanny to censor his more idiotic posts Elon Musk is now in a deep hole having been slapped with a lawsuit by the US Securities and Exchange Commission accusing him of securities fraud. This the result of a wild and erroneous tweet saying he was taking Tesla private, sending shares soaring. The worst-case scenario is he pays a considerable fine, and is banned from being a company director. When Martha Stewart faced a similar ban she became creative officer in her company.

Born 28 June 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa (sadly no birth time), he has a creative and experimental Cancer Sun Mercury square Uranus. like Julian Assange born five days later; and a head-in-the-clouds, high-finance Jupiter Neptune opposition Saturn; and an adventurous, uncompromising Mars in Aquarius square Jupiter.

Musk was in line for two collisions this year – one from Solar Arc Sun opposition his Mars and the other from Solar Arc Mars square his Sun, and by 2021 opposition his Uranus – which makes for a very bumpy ride.

Tr Saturn is also dampening his self-esteem this year as it hard-aspects his Sun and Uranus, and Mercury throughout 2019. He looks edgy in the extreme later this year; with Neptunian sinkers through until 2021. There will be a few moments of luck and relief in 2019 but not enough to outweigh the rest. And won’t really get back into gear before 2022.

For self-inflicted wounds the 10^th Harmonic is usually an indicator – and his is extraordinarily strong tying together Mars Pluto and Uranus and Jupiter and the North Node – a ruthless and desperate drive for progress, innovative and adventurous. The 10H usually indicates a rise and a fall.

His get-it-together 5H, often the sign of a creative businessman, is strong; as is his ‘seeking soul’ 7^th, which sometimes comes with a tinge of instability. His breakthrough/genius 13H is notable; even more so his leaving-a-legacy-for-history 17^th harmonic.

The Tesla IPO 29 June 2010 9.30am New York is also showing the strain over the next three months with a chart not dissimilar to Musk’s with a Cancer Sun Mercury opposition Pluto square Jupiter Uranus – all picking up tr Saturn dampeners till this December. The Solar Arc Midheaven is conjunct the destructive Fixed Star Algol right as of now.

And Tesla Motors, 1 July 2003, is similarly afflicted with a Sun, Mercury, Saturn in early Cancer – it hints at major upheavals in 2019 with Solar Arc Uranus square the Pluto. And Musk’s relationship chart with his company looks on a downhill slide from this year through till the early 2020s.

Genius comes at a price.

See previous posts: August 18 2018, Feb 8 2018, Nov 19 2017.

Pic: Steve Jurvetson

Northern Ireland has double trouble with the Brexit headache looming large and no functioning cabinet. It’s more than 600 days since the power-sharing government collapsed into stalemate and Theresa May has not stepped into to take charge through direct rule, because her hare-brained reliance on the DUP in Westminster would give rise of concerns about bias in their favour. Civil servants are overseeing a budget of more than £10 billion and problems are piling up because of a backlog of decisions which civil servants have no authority to take.

The Northern Ireland, 7 December 1922 3.28pm Belfast chart, certainly shows a panicky, uncertain and blocked phase picking up two years ago for both Brexit and the political impasse. Solar Arc Saturn made a discouraging opposition to the Moon, and there was a jolting Solar Arc Uranus opposition the NI Sun at that point. Then an undermining tr Neptune started to square the NI Sagittarius Sun and Mercury running on till late 2019; with a dead-halt Solar Arc Pluto conjunct the NI Saturn exactly now; plus a financially worrisome Solar Arc Neptune conjunct Venus, exact in early 2019. 2019 as well sees tr Pluto opposition the NI Cancer Moon for high angst and emotional responses from the no doubt fed-up population till late 2020.

There won’t be much joy until 2020 when tr Uranus opposes the Jupiter for a sigh of relief; and expansive tr Jupiter moves through the NI 8^th house of business finances for a year. And even then tr Pluto is moving closer to conjunct the midheaven (start time being accurate) in 2023/2024 which suggests a critical point in the Northern Ireland’s destiny with massive changes to status, reputation and direction in the years following.

The relationship charts between UK 1927 and UK 1801 with Northern Ireland both indicate considerable pressures at the moment and through 2019; but more major and ominous challenges (for Unionists) into the 2020s from 2022 onwards for two or three years.

Politicians everywhere are beyond a dead loss.

A truly terrifying expose of the chaos, incompetence, ignorant and wilfully uncaring transition into Trump’s shambolic administration comes in Michael Lewis’s The Fifth Risk out in October. He’s the author of The Big Short, made into a Brad Pitt film, which managed to make understandable the impenetrable complexities of the over-leveraged banking derivatives which led to the 2008 crash.

Transition preparations are mandatory for both presidential nominees in the months before the election to ensure the machinery of government with 2 million employees runs smoothly. When this was explained to Trump, according to Lewis, he responded ‘Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law.’ At one point he turned to Chris Christie and said: “Chris, you and I are so smart that we can leave the victory party two hours early and do the transition ourselves.”

“Trump was going to handle the transition more or less by himself. Not even Bannon thought this was a good idea. “I was fucking nervous as shit,” Bannon later told friends. “I go, ‘Holy fuck, this guy [Trump] doesn’t know anything. And he doesn’t give a shit.’”

“The election happened,” remembers Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, then deputy secretary of the Department of Energy. “And then there was radio silence.”

Lewis was born 15 October 1960, New Orleans, the son of a corporate lawyer and a community activist, started out studying art, then economics, worked for the investment bank Salomon Brothers and became finally a financial journalist. He is a Sun Libra sextile Jupiter in crusading Sagittarius; with a Half Grand Sextile of a tough Saturn in Capricorn opposition Mars, sextile/trine Neptune and Pluto – not short of discipline, determination or ambition. He also has in addition to Neptune, Mercury and Venus in Scorpio (good for research) square Uranus (outspoken).

His relationship chart with Trump has a composite power-struggling Sun Pluto; with a suspicious composite Neptune Saturn in a can-be-fanatical square to Uranus. It’s under heavy pressure now with tr Pluto square the Saturn and rocking n’ rolling through 2019 with tr Pluto opposition the composite Uranus and square Neptune. Plus an explosive tr Uranus square the composite Mars Node from April 2019 onwards.

Worth a read of the excerpt below, which includes an intriguing nugget about the Pences.

Excerpt: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/27/this-guy-doesnt-know-anything-the-inside-story-of-trumps-shambolic-transition-team

Add on 2 October 2018: An interview with Lewis in The Times says he can imagine two ways in which the Trump era ends in calamity. One is he defaults on US sovereign debt, as he often walked away from his company’s debts in business. “He could precipitate a financial crisis that would make the 2008 crisis seem trivial.” And a run on the dollar. “We have $20 trillion in debt and he’s jacking up the deficit in ways that we haven’t seen in a long time and he has no compunction about stiffing creditors.”

The second stems from his disinterest in how the US government works and its ability to cope with major crises, so if one arose he would be exposed. He has “a lot of strange mental deficiencies, and one of them is he really doesn’t learn. He’s intimidated by any kind of complexity.”

‘I think that he’s not that interesting. I think he’s a very simple character. I think there’s not much there. This isn’t an electronic device, it’s a mechanical device. It’s an on-off switch kind of thing. You can understand it pretty easily.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/michael-lewis-trump-could-trigger-a-financial-crisis-b3lqbw0ks

Canada is getting the full brunt Trump’s venting over their dairy and auto industry tariffs. The US made a Nafta deal with Mexico last month and is under pressure to make it three-way to include Canada. But Trump appears to have taken a dislike to the Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who has been leading the negotiations and has turned down a meeting with PM Justin Trudeau. He also said he is still willing to put a “motherlode” tariff on Canadian auto parts, which could affect $200bn of Canadian exports to the US – and deeply upset parts of the US auto industry who depend on them.

The Canada chart does look on tenterhooks and discouraged with tr Saturn opposition their Cancer Sun Uranus and conjunct their midheaven before the end of the year and square Neptune on and off through 2019, which will be panicky and uncertain; plus their resolutely stubborn Saturn opposition Pluto has moved by Solar Arc to sit squarely on their Neptune and Ascendant/Descendant, picking up in 2017 and running on for another three years. Saturn Pluto is associated with hardship and difficult conditions; on top of Neptune it’ll bring major confusion and concern.

The Canada/USA relationship chart is being sharply elbowed for the next six months or so from tr Uranus opposition the composite Saturn; with angry outbursts November till next April.  And a definite gulf in this December.

Trump’s relationship with Justin Trudeau will hit a further low late this October till the New Year; and is anyway never going to be a bro-romance – quite the opposite.

Trump’s relationship with Canada is also aggravated at best (did they turn down one of his hotels?) and is split and bumpy into 2019.

The Bank of Canada chart, 11 March 1935, is moving into an acutely challenging, frustrating and scary few years from early 2019 with tr Pluto square the Mars and opposition the Pluto and then on to square the Uranus.

Chrystia Freeland, 2 August 1968, has her Leo Sun exactly conjunct Trump’s 12^th house Pluto so he’ll enjoy pulling her strings. Her Mars in Cancer is conjunct his Saturn for more aggro; and she has one of these tricky Yods of Pluto Uranus sextile Neptune (Moon) in Scorpio inconjunct Saturn in Aries which will make her self-reliant to the nth degree, which possibly presses his female-issues buttons as well as whatever beef he has with Canada.

There doesn’t seem much hope of a rapprochement any time soon.

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The second Royal wedding of the year on October 12^th will have a mother-of-the-bride of a different order to the last one. Rumbustious, overly-excitable with a tendency to trip over social niceties, Sarah, Duchess of York, will be given more of a spotlight than she’s had in years.

What’s always been puzzling about her relationship with both her daughters is how she’s turned them into best buddies, going off clubbing together. Her 5^th house Moon, which both Eugenie and Beatrice also have, suggests that children are there to mother mother. So one escaping off into marriage may cause a ripple of unease, perhaps why Sarah has tr Saturn square her Aries Moon in the aftermath, making her feel under-nurtured.

Oddly enough neither daughter has an easy relationship chart with their mother, despite the social smiles. Eugenie’s relationship chart with her has a cool, dutiful Sun Saturn; with a complicated composite Moon opposition Jupiter square Mars Neptune – superficially affectionate, good for showbizzy outings but essentially not mutually supportive. With Beatrice, there’s a composite Mars trine Moon and Sun for an irritable, competitive streak, kept well hidden.

Sarah’s relationship with Tequila Brand manager Jack Brooksbank, the groom, is again friendly on the surface, but with undertones of an ego-clash.

On the day itself Sarah looks very gung-ho which might be a worry with a super-confident tr Pluto square her Jupiter/Pluto midpoint; and an equally upbeat tr Jupiter through her 1^st house. The aftermath looks less chirpy with a nervous crisis through December and January; and much the same late October till the New Year with tr Uranus and tr Neptune criss crossing against Sun midpoints.

She is in general moving through a very pressured few years, just through her Second Saturn Return which faces her up to what she’s going to be doing with the next phase of her older years.  Plus a challenging tr Pluto square her Libra Sun in 2018/2019, then even more strained square to her Sun/Mars in 2019/2020 and square her Mars in 2021/2022 which looks trapped and frustrated.

The wedding itself, starting at 11 am, looks confidently exuberant and expensive with Jupiter Moon on the Ascendant; though pressured with Sun square Pluto; and prone to arguments and disruption from Uranus opposition Mercury square Mars in the 3^rd.Not surprising for a wedding of that magnitude but it will be edgy.

Trump was at his favourite sport at the UN, blowing his own trumpet, praising autocratic rulers apart from Iran and China, and slamming into anything that smelt like global co-operation. All the old John Birch Society fears of the UN being a “One World Government” came tumbling out as he lauded patriotism and slammed globalism.

The UN formed four months after he was born shares some similarities in its chart. Both have Uranus in Gemini at the same degree, both have Neptune and Jupiter in Libra; the UN’s Gemini Moon is conjunct his Sun; but the real problem comes from the UN’s Mars Saturn in Cancer colliding with his Venus Saturn for a gritty interface. The relationship chart is bitterly hostile with a composite Mars Pluto.

There’ll be high wire and undermining moments between them in 2019 from April onwards through 2020 as tr Neptune squares the Uranus on both charts and the relationship chart; moving on to oppose the composite Moon in 2021. If Trump (!??!) sticks around for a 2^nd Term, 2021/2022 is when the sh** really hits the fan as tr Uranus squares the composite Mars Pluto.

The USA/UN relationship chart is fairly stressed at the best of times with a composite Mars trine Pluto, sextile Saturn – and that is in for a fair pummeling from tr Uranus in 2019/2020.

The UN chart itself looks on edge exactly now and in early 2019 with tr Uranus opposition the Scorpio Sun; with disheartening moments late November through December this year. But it’s 2020/21 when it really has to face considerable challenges with tr Pluto opposition the 4^th house Mars Saturn. That looks like a forced rethink of its direction and status with massive internal changes.

US comedian Bill Cosby, formerly ‘America’s Dad’ has been sentenced to three to 10 years for sexual assault and categorised as a sexually violent predator, meaning he must undergo counselling for life and be listed on the sex offender registry. A former university basketball administrator described how Cosby, whom she had viewed as a “mentor”, had given her pills that left her “frozen” and unable to stop his assault. “After the assault, the shame was overwhelming. Self-doubt and confusion kept me from turning to my family or friends as I normally did.’ She wrote that she had stopped eating, sleeping and socialising. Tormented by nightmares, she finally told her mother the truth about what had happened. She said “Bill Cosby took my beautiful, healthy young spirit and crushed it. He robbed me of my health and vitality, my open nature, and my trust in myself and others.”

Born 12 July 1937 12.30am Philadelphia, he has a controlling 4^th house Sun, Mercury, Pluto in Cancer in a pushily confident opposition to a successful 10^th house Jupiter. With Sun, Mercury, Pluto is in a determined trine to Mars in ultra-determined and vengeful Scorpio which in turn is in a high-octane opposition to Uranus, which would make him erupt if anyone defied him. He’s also got an Earth Grand Trine of Uranus trine Neptune Moon in Scorpio trine a Capricorn MC and Jupiter – with Mars in Scorpio the driving planet of a Kite from that Grand Trine. It’s a heavyweight chart and then some.

He’s also got a sparsely aspected 12^th house Saturn in self-reliant Aries which can be hard and unsympathetic. In the 12^th it also suggests the lack of a strong male role model and lack of brakes. His father was away in Navy service during his early childhood. Interesting his Moon Neptune given his MO of drugging before assaulting. An almost unaspected Venus, apart from a sextile to Saturn, hints at a lack of perspective, and an inability to consider others’ needs, tending to act compulsively without restraint or moderation.

His reputation came crashing down as tr Pluto crossed his midheaven a few years back, though allegations had been circulating for years. Tr Saturn is now joining Pluto from later this year to put the final nail in the coffin of his career. Saturn moving through the 10^th can consolidate success but it can also have the opposite effect of bringing chickens home to roost. Tr Saturn was crossing Nixon’s 10^th as Watergate raged.

The trickster in his chart is his Jupiter which gives him confidence despite all and it is picking up the tr Pluto conjunction from early 2019 for two years, so he’s likely to be bullish in the face of his disgrace and incarceration. He’s not looking too happy at the moment and considerably edgy and accident-prone in this December and January 2019; with more serious setbacks next year.

He’s now 81 and legally blind and will probably go to his grave swearing he’s been badly done by.

Add on: His 5th Harmonic is exceptionally heavily aspected – it’s the get-it-together one, but can be dominating as the individual tries to remake the world according to their wishes. He’s also got an emotionally intense and manipulative Venus Pluto Sun T Square in his Wheel of Fortune, rise-and-fall 10th Harmonic. And interestingly a marked 18H which is often found with serial killers, so maybe it points to psychopathic traits.