An all too predictable media storm followed Taylor Swift’s engagement announcement to Travis Kelce on Instagram which raked in over 1m likes in less than 10 minutes, now currently over 18m.
Born within two months of each other, she is a Sun Sagittarius with the triple conjunction of Uranus, Neptune, Saturn in Capricorn plus Mercury. Her Moon in Gemini/Cancer (the birth time is not known) possibly close to Jupiter in Cancer. Her Venus in friendly Aquarius stands in contrast to her Mars and Pluto in determined (vengeful) Scorpio.
Travis Kelce, 5 October 1989, is a Sun Mars in Libra (often a sporting sign oddly enough) which squares her Jupiter for a supportive bond. He also has the marginally chaotic triple conjunction in Capricorn. His Sagittarius Moon chimes with her Sun and his Venus in passionate Scorpio is exactly conjunct her Mars for a strong attraction.
It won’t always be an easy interaction since his Sun Mars will square her Saturn Neptune Mercury. But the relationship chart has a tightly bonded, possessive and controlling composite Sun Pluto Mercury conjunction. The composite Jupiter which will smooth round a few rough edges as it is trine the composite Mars and Sun Pluto as well as opposing the composite Uranus Neptune Saturn. Jupiter hints at mutual support and boosts optimism.
There may be a few upsets through the winter with tr Neptune Saturn (and the Solar Eclipse) square the composite Venus in final degree Sagittarius. With some tough moments in 2026/27 with tr Pluto square the composite Mars for some frustrations and difficulties.
Maintaining a public relationship as well as juggling that amount of fame is no easy matter.
France has the misfortune to be in the centre of the calamitous Scheat storm in coming months. The government may fall next week if a confidence vote fails with Left and Right catching the prime minister in a vice as he attempts to address the problem of a massive national debt by controlling spending, cutting the number of public holidays, freezing income tax thresholds and limiting the rise in social security and pensions.
France this year had the third highest debt pile in the eurozone — after Greece and Italy — at 114 per cent of GDP. It’s budget deficit is the highest in the single currency area. With already high rates of taxation the problem is not revenue raising but swathes of inefficient and unproductive government spending.
Youth unemployment is over 15 per cent (UK 9 per cent); and the French are in a permanent state of anxiety over migration and the failures of integration.
France, 21 September 1792 3.30pm Paris, has its final degree Virgo Sun catching this September’s Virgo Solar Eclipse exactly for a full blown crisis before in in the following months. Plus over the winter tr Saturn and tr Neptune both square the France Virgo Sun for setbacks and high uncertainty.
The Banque de France chart with Uranus in late Virgo is also in line of the Eclipse and tr Saturn Neptune – so financial woes will mount.
Emmanuel Macron, 21 December 1977 10.40am with his Sun Mercury in final degree Sagittarius catches all of the above in hard aspect plus his Solar Arc Mars at 29 Virgo will be in a car-crash square to his Sun now and for the rest of this year.
His Second Term chart, 13 May 2022, has a Mars Neptune conjunction which is now closing to exact – which will turn a publicity-attracting term into an embarrassing failure.
If the PM Francis Bayrou’s confidence vote by a miracle survives he faces even more acute pressure in 2026.
There are increasing murmurs that the bond (debt) markets will be the ones who force decisions not just in France but also the UK and even more so the USA.
The Trump trail of tears and terror continues to lengthen as he retreats from saving the world in the face of Putin and Netanyahu’s intransigence and instead turns his vengeful laser on home targets – Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve, John Bolton, former ally turned critic, and Democrat-run cities which he deems killing zones because of the murder rate.
Chicago is next in his sights despite have a lower mortality rate than many GOP run cities which has envigorated the Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, a potential Democratic presidential hopeful, into mounting a stalwart defence against any prospect of federal troops being sent in.
A commentator said: “This clash runs deeper than a short-term political spat. It might develop into a full-blown crisis between a Republican White House and a major Democratic-run city and state. Likely legal challenges could turn on core values of republicanism in a dispute between a president with a monarchical sense of power and a state that rejects federal duress.”
Trump has already dispatched troops onto the streets of Los Angeles and Washington, DC, and is clearly pushing his testing of the limits of executive power and a way of normalizing the idea of khaki-clad soldiers conducting domestic law enforcement.
The Chicago mayor said ““What the president is proposing is military occupation of the city of Chicago and cities across America.” California governor Gavin Newsom has accused the president of using the military as a “private army.”
J.B. Pritzker, 19 January 1965 1.01 pm Palo Alto, California, is a billionaire businessman and politician. He is a final degree Capricorn Sun with a formidable Mars, Pluto and Uranus in Virgo as well as a Virgo Moon opposition an executive 10th house Saturn – and an 8th house Venus Mercury in Taurus. Plus a high-finance Jupiter in Taurus opposition Neptune. There’s nothing much to suggest success in 2028. But his relationship with Trump which is riddled with dislike at the best of times will be turned upside down this December and mid March to early April 2026.
Chicago will be a worthy foe for Trump, 4 March 1837, since its Mars Jupiter in Leo is conjunct Trump’s 12th house power-hungry Pluto. That relationship chart hints the war of words will escalate over the winter with continued pressure beyond that.
Trump’s relationship with John Bolton and Jerome Powell also show considerable unrest and turbulence when Uranus retrogrades to late Taurus from this November to April 2026. With Powell’s woes continuing into 2026. Gavin Newsom/Trump will also creak and groan now through 2026 and on.
I wondered – for the umpteenth time – precisely what drives Trump – astrologically speaking. Gemini like all signs has its trickier side and can be unfeeling. A Gemini North Node tends to rush around like a bull in a china shop. Mars in Leo is bombastic and a flagrant attention-seeker, can oddly be petty when it feels ignored, but Leo itself is not renowned as a sign with a vengeful streak. Uranus in the 10th demands freedom and dislikes having to submit to rules. All of which suggest a temperament veering towards the chaotic and impractical with no Earth signs – but not of a Stalinesque dictator or a Viktor Orban for that matter (Sun Gemini square Pluto with Mars opposition Saturn.)
There are two other ways of approaching a chart. One is with midpoints and his, unsurprisingly, has a super-confident Sun square Mars/Jupiter and Jupiter square Sun/Pluto. But he also ominously has his 12th house Pluto sitting on the midpoint of Mars/Saturn which has overtones of brutality and destruction and will give him a capacity for great unkindness (cruelty). Especially so with a 12th house Pluto which can have a deep, dark reservoir of intense over reactions.
The other approach is via Fixed stars.
Trump has Mars conjunct Alphard, the Hydra water snake which is associated with – trouble and scandal through love affairs. “This conjunction brings out the dynamo in the native. Properly directed it brings them to leadership. However, the native may bring on sorrows and possibly scandals due to their actions. These natives are generally daring and foolhardy, defiant and stubborn.” He shares this with Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ascendant conjunct Regulus – a splendid and illustrious life; glorious, mighty and commanding nature; fame, busy with many activities, bountiful resources, well known or feared. Illustrious generals who subjugate regions and cities, are inclined to speak frankly, have a taste for fighting. Great honour and wealth, and violence and trouble, acute disease, benefits seldom last, victory over enemies and scandal.
Manilius a Roman poet of AD 30 is quoted.:
‘But when the Lion shews his ravenous Jaws
Prepared for Rapine, and unsheaths his Paws,
A Spendthrift’s born, who minds himself alone
—
So fast his Gluttony, his Lust so wild
That he devours himself, yet is not fill’d.’
Midheaven conjunct Algol: A splendid and illustrious life. Both negative and positive influences. The darker side is bigoted, secretive, subject to violence, either to or by the native, a propagandist. Mass vandalism, fanaticism, tragedies, ruthlessness. Algol has has a long tradition as a troublemaker.
Saturn conjunct Procyon he shares with the Marquis de Sade, Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua dictator), George W. Bush, Itamar Ben-Gvir (Israel minister of National Security), John F. Kennedy.
The 2025 Inauguration chart which has a dictatorial, intimidating Sun Pluto opposition Mars – also has Jupiter conjunct Aldebaran: This position brings recognition or glory that has not been earned. Unless a conscious path is followed all will be lost eventually.
And Mars conjunct Procyon: The native can become involved in statements that are open to question or debate. There may be a complete lack of compassion for others. Scandalous actions and insensitive, cruel actions, prideful and of a controversial nature.
For Fixed stars see Astrology King website. V helpful.
James Dobson, the Conservative preacher once called “the nation’s most influential evangelical leader” with an entrée to the White House under Reagan has died. He believed in the notion of the traditional family with a male breadwinner and a female caregiver, thought spanking children aged 15 months and on was advisable with switches or belts kept on the child’s dresser as a reminder of authority, was against LBGT+ and pro-conversion therapy, was against abortion and feminism and opposed teaching about evolution. His wiki entry is an eye-opener.
He was born April 21, 1936 with a travelling evangelist father and a mother who was ‘was intolerant of “sassiness” and would strike her child with whatever object came to hand, including a shoe or belt; she once gave Dobson a “massive blow” with a girdle outfitted with straps and buckles. He later became a child psychologist by training.
A Sun, possibly New Moon in Taurus conjunct Uranus with Mercury Mars also conjunct in Taurus, he would certainly be fixed and traditionalist in his outlook – though his Uranus clearly had its own idiosyncratic tilt and not in the direction of progress. Uranus like Aquarius, which it rules, can have a rigid, intolerant streak. And underneath Taurus’s indulgent persona there often/always lurks a desire for power.
He also surprisingly had Neptune opposition Saturn which can be creative and often lacks decisiveness, but clearly not in his case. His Jupiter in crusading Sagittarius was virtually unaspected which can indicate a lack of judgement with a strong sense of disconnection and a need to keep searching for answers. It will depend on the house position which is not known but could give him the zeal to push his message.
His Capricorn North Node according to Schulman would tend to make him ‘a self-appointed hallmark of tradition.’ But it would also root him in immaturity since this Node hates letting go the past. ‘The soul has become fixated at one point in early growth.’ With an abusive childhood and parents he could neither face nor walk away from, he turned traumatizing children into a virtue with a cosmetic dollop of Christian purity as a way of avoiding facing up to his own damage.
The only aspect of Jupiter is a minor quincunx to Pluto in Cancer which latter plugs into the USA Mercury in Cancer opposition Pluto which opens the country up to coercive individuals who bulldoze them into listening to/accepting fixed opinions which are not open to rational discussion.
[Years back I talked to Ellen Bass who wrote Courage to Heal for abuse survivors. In conversations (no doubt heated) with Ralph Underwager, a preacher, who defended accused child abusers and went to ludicrous attempts to do so, she reckoned the key difference between their viewpoints was – he thought children were born evil and had to be ‘made’ good. While she thought the opposite. One gets that impression with other religious zealots – a very odd belief.]
Piper Alpha, the world’s worst offshore oil and gas accident on 6 July 1988, in which 167 men died 120 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, is the subject of a new BBC documentary.
What is significant astrologically is the prominence of Scheat at the disaster, often connected to shipwrecks, in the previous March 1988 Solar Eclipse and in the Aberdeen charter chart.
The 18 March 1988 Total Solar Eclipse in late Pisces conjunct Scheat was square Saturn Uranus in early Capricorn.
At the disaster in July 1988 tr Mars was conjunct Scheat and the March Solar Eclipse New Moon and all were in an accident prone, explosive square to Saturn Uranus in Sagittarius. Jupiter in Taurus was conjunct the destructive Fixed star Algol and both were conjunct the IC. And the Cancer Sun was conjunct Sirius.
The Aberdeen city charter of 10 December 1319 JC has a late Sagittarius Sun square Saturn in late Pisces – all of which was being rattled by the 1988 Solar Eclipse.
There are similarities with this year since the Solar Eclipse this September is in final degree Virgo Solar Eclipse which is exactly opposition Scheat and Saturn in Pisces – key factors are being repeated.
The indomitable Helen Mirren is 80 and not only still going strong but has a super-abundance of films on offer this year because of the covid pile-up – the second series of 1923 with Harrison Ford, the London gangland series MobLand and is now back alongside Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie for Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club.
She was born 26 July 1945 2am London with a Russian father from an exiled aristocratic family who escaped the Revolution in 1915 and she started acting on stage aged 18 and has never looked back. Her ambition was to be a serious classical actress but it was the TV cop drama Prime Suspect which first brought her to prominence in the UK. Her notable films include The Long Good Friday, Excalibur, The Mosquito Coast, and The Cook, the Thief, The Madness of King George, Gosford Park, Elizabeth II in the drama The Queen and four of the Marvel franchises. Multiple awards on stage and screen followed.
She is a Leo Sun conjunct Pluto – like Princess Anne, so has the same powerful personality. An Aquarius Moon on her Midheaven suits her for a public career and her 12th house Mars, Uranus, Venus will give her emotional depth and a creative streak. Her Mars is in a showbizzy trine to Neptune, sextile her Sun.
She had a relationship way back with Liam Neeson and has been married to her long-time partner producer Taylor Hackford for twenty years. She has no children and says she never wanted them – for which Neptune on the cusp of her 5th might be an indicator.
In an interview recently she said she was in New York on 9/11 to open a play macabrely called The Dance of Death by Strindberg. At that point tr Neptune was opposition her Sun/Pluto midpoint and her Solar Arc Pluto was conjunct her Neptune for a devastating experience with oddly the midheaven for the first plane crash exactly conjunct her Saturn.
At the moment tr Pluto is opposing her Sun (from 2024 till late 2025) which will have been pressured but brought rewards. Money will flow through this year with tr Jupiter through her 2nd and tr Saturn will continue her high profile career phase as it moves through her 10th and then upper quadrant for some years ahead.
Her creative, get-it-together 5th Harmonic is exceptionally strong.
Fame is a fickle creature even when rooted in talent as actor Noel Clarke has discovered for the second time. In 2021 he won the outstanding BAFTA as actor, writer, producer, director for his contribution to British cinema. The Guardian then ran several articles and a podcast featuring more than 20 women accused him of sexual misconduct. BAFTA suspended him and his career ground to a halt.
His choice at that point with no criminal charges involved would have been to keep his head down and hope over time the heat might die down enough to allow him to seek penance through good works and indications of contrition. Instead of which he has doubled down and then some, issuing a libel writ against the Guardian alleging there had been a conspiracy amongst the 26 women who gave evidence. The judge has finally ruled the newspaper had succeeded in both its defences – of truth and public interest.
What intrigues me is why in these circumstance he was unable to ‘read the room’ and continued to bulldoze ahead, no doubt at considerable cost financially into a no-win court case with multiple witnesses lined up against him. What in Greek plays used to be known as ‘hamartia’ otherwise known as the hero’s tragic flaw – a personality trait or mistaken judgment that leads to downfall, causing their destruction or profound suffering. This weakness can be an excessive virtue taken too far, such as pride (hubris), or a negative trait like uncontrolled rage or jealousy, ultimately leading to the character’s ruin.
He was born 6 December 1975 4.40pm (from memory) London, and has a creative though unrealistic Sun Neptune, Mercury conjunction in Sagittarius. With a rules-don’t-apply-to-me Jupiter in pro-active Aries opposition Pluto. A hard-working Capricorn Moon opposition Saturn in wannabe-important Leo square Venus and Uranus will make him charming, creative, emotionally unpredictable, at times cool and defensive. His assertive Mars in Gemini on his Ascendant is trine Venus giving him an added spark of passionate enthusiasm, romantic and otherwise.
It is not a hard chart but the confidence and drive which made it possible for him to succeed may also have gone along with a streak of hubris and lack of self-awareness – an over-developed sense of self-importance which became his Achilles Heel.
He also has a Scorpio North Node which can carry a message that the road to transformation is only obtained by losing everything – overcoming the acquisitiveness and power-hungriness of the Taurus South Node. Hamartia also hints that redemption comes through facing one’s flaws and learning lessons from the downfall.
The 10th harmonic, exceptionally strong in his case, carries much the same message. In his 10H there is a Mars Saturn Jupiter conjunction on the apex of a yod inconjunct Venus sextile an intransigent Uranus Neptune – over-forceful and over-confident, tied into romantic impulses, with Uranus Neptune unable to face up the evidence of being in the wrong. And a Pluto Venus Sun T square doubling up on the pushiness. Mars Saturn carries a double message of can-be-unkind and resentful about being treated unfairly.
The 10th harmonic is the harmonic of the wheel of fortune, which can run over us as well as turn in our favour, contains the seed of both the rise and fall, good and bad.
Additional thoughts on it – TEN lacks in its character the idea of service to others. The emphasis is on self-interest, achievement, business.
Skipping around a few other notables who feel from high position, not all in the frame of sexual misbehaviour, but several keen to sue to ‘clear’ their names which backfired.
Rolf Harris 10H – Jupiter Pluto, MC, Sun T square, with Jupiter Pluto sextile Mercury inconjunct Venus. Saturn opposition Uranus square Venus. Proud, autocratic, pushy.
Kevin Spacey 10H Pluto opposition Moon square MC, Jupiter opposition Neptune.
Harvey Weinstein 10H Mars Saturn opposition Moon; Sun inconjunct Jupiter Neptune.
Mel Gibson 10H Sun Midheaven opposition Uranus square Pluto.
Lance Armstrong 10H Uranus opposition Sun Saturn square Moon; Venus trine Uranus sextile Mars Neptune. Uranus opposition Sun Saturn.
Jonathan Aitken 10H Sun trine Mars trine Saturn.
Noel Clarke has tr Pluto opposition his Saturn till the end of this year which is discouraging plus a devastating Solar Arc Neptune opposition his Saturn this year as well. Tr Saturn will square his Mars bringing setbacks through this coming winter, followed by an insecure Solar Arc Uranus opposition his Mars in 2026. His birth time is ‘memory’ so could be questionable.
“The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” is a new documentary about the legal fiasco which saw her imprisoned for a murder she did not commit in Italy. It was followed by an acquittal, subsequently overturned, before being dismissed categorically and compensation paid after an EHCR ruling that her rights had been violated in the initial interrogation without a lawyer or interpreter present. In all she went through a gruelling marathon from the murder of her flatmate Meredith Kercher in 2007 until 2019.
There were odd resonances throughout in particular her bizarre behaviour after finding Meredith’s body and a media frenzy which labelled her as Foxy Knoxy, putting her on the wrong side of public opinion. After she returned to the US after her prison sentence, she finished a degree, and wrote a book about her case and became an activist for the wrongfully accused.
She married and has recently produced two babies and had an active social media presence with copious photos of her in her underwear which hardly helps to boost her gravitas.
Born 9 July 1987 2.47 am Seattle, Washington, she has a 2nd house Sun, Mercury and Venus in Cancer in opposition to Neptune in Capricorn in her 8th and square an Aries North Node in her 11th. Neptune in the 8th occurs in film stars’ charts, giving them an unconscious ability to project an aura. In her case it clearly propelled her onto the public stage in a different way; and may also account for her ‘dissociated’ or spaced-out behaviour after the murder.
Her Sagittarius Moon in the needs-a-partner 7th is conjunct a self-willed, irritable, high-tension Saturn Uranus conjunction so she won’t find relationships easy. She also has a Mars in flamboyant Leo square Pluto in Scorpio which carries overtones (or undertones) of acute frustration, anger and fear. It will tend to attract her consciously or unconsciously to dramatic and risky situations.
Plus she has a yod onto Pluto inconjunct her North Node sextile Ascendant.
Meredith Kercher, 28 December 1985, also had a hard Mars Pluto in a conjunction with her South Node and conjunct Knox’s Pluto – so quite a tangle. And Meredith’s Capricorn Sun was exactly conjunct Amanda’s 8th house Neptune. There was some weird karma going on in there even if the murder was all drifter Rudy Guede’s doing.
In the aftermath of the murder, Knox had tr Pluto moving through her trapped 8th until 2019 when she was finally offered compensation for her botched interrogation, prosecution and conviction. She also had her Solar Arc Saturn conjunct her 8th house Neptune in the immediate aftermath, with her Solar Arc Uranus, Moon and latterly Saturn all opposing her Cancer Sun through the years-long ordeal which followed.
When it finally came to an end in 2019 with the EHCR compensation ruling tr Uranus was conjunct her Jupiter for a sigh of relief.
Her scapegoat 12th harmonic is powerfully aspected with a 12H Grand Cross of Sun opposition Mars square Uranus opposition Mercury; and a Grand Trine of Sun Jupiter Pluto. The meaning of this number is sacrifice – being sacrificed or becoming a victim to other persons’ intrigues. 12 warns against being a victim of circumstances or dragged into other people’s affairs to suffer the consequences. It can be the harmonic as well of the victim/healer.
Mars Pluto can also carry the meaning of having the misfortune to suffer brutal assaults.
I am still puzzling about what drew her into the centre of a media storm and made it all too easy for the public to project onto her their prejudices – apart from her 12th harmonic I mean. Her 8th house Neptune North Node would be part of it plus Mars square a yod apex Pluto. The way the story was spun plus her own odd behaviour made her difficult to warm to.
The US stock market has lost $1 trillion in just four days as a sell-off of tech companies deepened amid fears that an AI-powered stock market rally could be about to collapse. The drop-off has been fuelled by concerns that AI companies are overvalued, with some claiming they have little to show for the billions of pounds of investment that have been ploughed into companies such as OpenAI.
Stock Market prediction is an even less exact ‘science’ than electoral forecasting though some rules do hold good. One is that Jupiter Neptune is a harbinger of bubble-bursting as was the case for the 2000 DotCom bust when there was an exact square. One occurred earlier this year and the next hard aspect is due mid 2028. But on its own it happens relatively frequently so more must be involved.
Looking across various stock indexes and AI/tech companies involved, 2028 does flag up as a period of major disruption with a fair amount of upheaval between now and then. By 2028 there is not only Jupiter opposition Neptune but also Saturn in Taurus square Pluto which might hint at a major war somewhere on the globe which could affect trade and economics. In 2028 tr Pluto will also oppose the US ‘leadership’ Leo North Node which is a sensitive point. Tr Neptune opposed it at 9/11 – I am not suggesting anything similar merely that it will affect the USA’s status through 2027/28.
The Nasdaq 8 February 1971 9am New York, has tr Uranus opposition its Neptune Jupiter in 2026/27 along with tr Saturn Neptune square the financial Venus in 2026 into 2027; with a major jolt of insecurity in 2028 as the Solar Arc Uranus is conjunct the Mars.
S&P 500 4 March 1957 will be up and down through the coming winter, edgy, confused and unsettled in 2026/27 and most at risk of panic/failure in 2028.
The FTSE (UK) 3 January 1984 again looks unsettled in 2026/27 with tr Uranus opposition the Venus; and most agitated in 2028 with SA Neptune square Saturn and SA Mars conjunct Uranus.
Notable companies involved in this sector of the market – Nvidia, Intel, Palantir, Meta, Amazon – all look to be following the same pattern with a bumpy road for two/three years peaking in significant challenges by 2027/28.
ADD ON: A doom warning about a fool’s paradise is also being issued about crypto currency, described by an FT journalist as ‘either genius financial engineering — or a Ponzi scheme upon a Ponzi scheme or a CDO-squared’.
Charles Ponzi had raised as much as $20mn in seven months a century ago in a scam investment scheme that promised to double investors’ money in 90 days.
CDOs are collateralised debt obligations — the mortgage derivatives that boomed in the years up to 2008. Like crypto, they were a hyped asset class with little fundamental value. ‘As the fever peaked, CDOs were so hot that financial engineers dreamt up the CDO-squared — made from an amalgam of other sliced-and-diced CDOs, which in turn had sliced and diced the original ropey mortgages. Disaster, predictably, ensued.’
A skip through a few crypto charts also highlights 2028 as a year of upset and alarm with a fair few upheavals and setbacks before then.
