Marjorie

Concern that the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power station will become a casualty of the unrelenting hostilities between Russia and Ukraine is rising. Ukraine has warned that Russia is planning to stage a false-flag attack on the plant which is controlled by President Putin’s troops. Video drone images showed Russian ammunition trucks being moved into the reactor turbine halls. If an accident does occur radioactive material could be showered over Germany, Poland and Slovakia.

   The European Nuclear Society says it is unlikely that missiles will penetrate the ten metres of concrete that shields the reactors. But the risk is the vulnerability of the cooling systems and the possibility of a reactor meltdown, a version of the 2011 Fukushima disaster rather than the cataclysm of Chernobyl. The Kremlin is getting wound up about any Ukrainian attempt to reclaim Crimea so the rhetoric – and risk of an accident – is becoming ever more apocalyptic.

 The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant started construction on 1 April 1980 and the first unit was commissioned on 25 December 1985.  The 1980 chart flags up great uncertainty from late October to early January; but there is nothing that looks cataclysmic.

  When The Fukushima meltdown occurred in 2011, tr Pluto was conjunct Mars on the plant chart with tr Uranus opposition the Pluto so it was flagged up clearly.

  The Ukraine country chart, 24 August 1991 2.31pm Kiev, is struggling forward with the undermining tr Neptune opposition Mars running on and off till early February 2024; and a jolting, disruptive tr Uranus opposition the 10^th house Pluto now until April 2023.  Where it starts to gain heart and renewed vitality – and luck – is from mid 2024 onwards and for several years thereafter.

 Putin’s 4^th term chart won’t be without enthusiasm, determination or moments of success over the next two years; but will start its period of greatest instability from February 2023 onwards till late 2024 with tr Pluto square the Uranus and be completely trapped with Solar Arc Pluto conjunct the Mars, exact in July/August 2023. Which doesn’t mean he won’t take desperate measures if he feels his grip is crumbling. But it may be that 2024 sees the end of him.

The never ending saga of the Jolie-Pitt split drags on into its sixth year with accusations and counter-accusations flying.  Earlier this year he sued her for selling her stake in their co-owned French vineyard to a Russian oligarch – a “vindictive and unlawful” move he says that was spurred by an unfavourable custody ruling she received last year. She has now dragged in the FBI to open the case files on the 2016 plane journey which precipitated the divorce after a noisy argument erupted. The investigation had previously found no case to answer against Pitt and his lawyers say she has already seen the files.

  What a tangled web is woven in Hollywood dream matches.

  Pluto figures heavily as the main culprit. She has an extraordinarily difficult chart with her Gemini Sun trine Pluto and opposition Neptune; with her Pluto in a compulsive, do-or-die-determined opposition to Mars Moon Jupiter in Aries widely square Saturn. She had a troubled childhood with self-harming and drug problems, an absent father and an over-permissive mother.

  Her Pluto falls in Pitt’s 10^th house so she will feel compelled to control him – and with her Pluto opposition his Jupiter and square his Mars it will be an ongoing struggle for the upper hand.  His Pluto Uranus is also square her Sun which will make him not exactly detached either.

  Their relationship chart has a composite Sun opposition Pluto which will tie them together till the bitter end. Splitting Plutonic relationships is always messy and hostile. And this dragging-out-the-agony is likely to run until at least 2024 if not beyond.

  She had a tortured on-off on-again and off-again relationship with actor Jon Voight, her father. His Pluto falls on her Ascendant and squares her Uranus; with his Saturn in Aries sitting on her Moon, Mars, Jupiter and opposition her Pluto – so her relationships with men from square one have never been easy.

  Her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton, just prior to Brad Pitt, produced a relationship chart with a composite Moon opposition Uranus, Saturn, Pluto square Mars Jupiter – and that is truly toe-curling in its strains and stresses.

  What has always intrigued me – since it is out in the public domain and he is now mature – is her first adopted child Maddox, who was involved in the 2016 plane argument.  In her late teens she had been struggling with an eating disorder, and began using drugs, including heroin. She had episodes of depression and planned twice to suicide; at 24 she had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Two years later, she adopted a toddler from a Cambodian orphanage. Later she said, “I knew once I committed to Maddox, I would never be self-destructive again.” Which is quite a burden to land on a young child from an already unstable and risky background.

  If his birth date is accurate at 5 August 2001 he is a Sun Leo opposition Neptune; but also has the bleak, deprived Saturn opposition Pluto of that year tied into Mars which makes sense of his early experiences. Saturn Pluto Mars is a tough set of aspects likely to engender deep-seated anger and hostility. That falls right across her Sun opposition Neptune – which is hardly coochy coo and nurturing. The date may be wrong, of course, but if it isn’t, then it is one aggravated interface. Though it does mirror the torment on her own chart.

  This year and next she has tr Pluto opposition her Venus and square her 4^th house Uranus which will be emotionally intense and turn her domestic life upside down. Pluto then moves into her 7^th making the next few years even more possessive and intense on the relationship front which is exhausting even to contemplate.

  Not sure why all this matters but it was littering up my Astro-inbox and is a matter of continuing amazement to me.

Michael Collins, lionized for his part in Ireland’s struggle for independence, as a revolutionary leader, soldier and politician, was assassinated at the tragically young age of 31 a century ago on August 22. He fought in the Easter Rising in 1916 and negotiated the  Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 after the Civil War ended, in which he had been Irish commander in chief. It would establish the Irish Free State but depended on an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. He viewed the treaty as offering “the freedom to achieve freedom”. Months later he was killed in an ambush by anti-treaty forces, though there is a good deal of speculation about the whos and whys.

  He was born 16 October 1890 at 2.30 am Clonakilty, Ireland, when his father, a farmer and amateur mathematician was 75. He had a strongly Air chart, often the sign of a crusader and passionate believer in a cause. His Sun was in Libra conjunct rebellious Uranus.  But more significantly the Neptune Pluto in Gemini of that generation was on his Midheaven trine Jupiter and trine Mercury, formed into a Kite by Neptune Pluto opposition a patriotic Venus on his IC. The IC rules roots and family lineage, the foundations of his life – and that central configuration channelled its considerable energy and ambition towards his Venus. Neptune Pluto can engender stratospheric ambition and boosted by a confident Jupiter, it’s no surprise he made fast progress to prominence.

  His Saturn in hard-working Virgo trine his Mars in his flamboyant 5^th house which help with his military career but really he was a politician, thinker and orator. His Moon was in passionate Scorpio.

  Despite being warned that it was risky to travel to Cork in 1922 which was an IRA stronghold he insisted on going. He died on the day of a Leo New Moon and a bleak Saturn square Pluto though there was remarkably little showing on his chart at that point.

  He did leave an enduring legacy so no surprises that his historical-footprint 17^th Harmonic was strong as was his global-presence 22H.       

  The anguished, tragically short life of Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani is the subject of a new Johnny Depp film project as director, with Al Pacino producing. He became renowned for his pictures of nudes with elongated faces and limbs as well as his vagabond lifestyle in bohemian Paris in the early 20th Century, succumbing to drug and alcohol addiction.

  He was born on 12 July 1884 8.10 am Livorno, Italy, into an educated, once wealthy Jewish family who has fallen on hard times. His mother was instrumental in nurturing his talent through an illness-ridden childhood with bouts of pleurisy, typhoid fever and the tuberculosis which finally killed him aged 35.

He had a creative Sun, Venus, Mercury in Cancer with artistic Neptune in Taurus on his Midheaven and an influential Pluto as well as a hard-working Saturn in his 10^th. These 10^th house planets all suggest a mother who would instil discipline, expectations and be a driving force in his life. His Saturn was square an explosive Mars Uranus in Virgo so he wasn’t the most stable of temperaments; and he had a sensitive Pisces Moon in his 7^th house of close relationships square his Pluto. He had several affairs and several children by different mothers.

  His escalating reliance on drugs and alcohol may have been a way to ease his physical pain and to mask his tuberculosis from his acquaintances.  Tuberculosis — the leading cause of death in France by 1900 was highly infectious with no cure, and those who had it were ostracized. Modigliani thrived on company and would not let himself be isolated. The film will focus on the year of his only exhibition in Paris in 1917 which was a sensational success, though controversial because of his nudes. Despite his growing reputation he made little money and died in poverty three years later of tuberculosis.

  It’s no surprise that Johnny Depp was drawn to Modigliani since his North Node is conjunct Modigliani’s Sun, Venus and Mercury and his Venus Mercury are conjunct AM’s Midheaven and Neptune. Depp also has the explosive Mars Uranus in Virgo of his art idol, in his case conjunct Pluto, with AM’s Pluto also being highly prominent. Depp’s Gemini Sun is conjunct AM’s 10^th house Saturn for a workmanlike connection and perhaps a hope from Depp that he might pull himself out of the sleaze of the Heard libel trial and gain a little gravitas. He is also playing King Louis XV in French director Maïwenn’s historical love story Jeanne du Barry, which started shooting in late July and is Depp’s first feature in three years.

 He does have a long career ahead though with humps and bumps in 2023/24 along with some success but certainly won’t be disappearing into obscurity any time soon.

Freedom of speech has been dragged centre foreground again after the attack on Salman Rushdie and has triggered a spat in the Society of Authors, who of all people should have been waving the banner for the right to speak up or write without fear of retaliation. Joanne Harris, the chairperson, best-selling author of Chocolat, put out a tone-deaf tweet about writers receiving death threats, assumed to be a sideswipe at J.K.Rowling with whom she has had a long dispute over her stance on gender identity.

 Rowling in response said that Harris had “consistently failed” to defend female authors who disagreed “with her personal position on gender identity ideology”. She had  allowed the women to be intimidated into silence, citing Rachel Rooney and Gillian Philip, who had suffered “severe personal and professional harm” because they dared to “challenge a fashionable ideology which has been remarkably successful in demonising those who protest against the current attack on women’s rights”.

  Joanne Harris, 3 July 1964, no birth time, in Barnsley, England, was born two weeks after Boris Johnson and has the same high-wire, argumentative and beyond-stubborn Mars in Gemini on the point of a T Square to Saturn opposition Uranus Pluto in Virgo. Like him she had a turbulent upbringing with a French mother and English father and respective families who didn’t speak each other’s language. One of her recurrent themes not surprisingly is identity as well as mother/child relationships, the emotional resonance of food, the outsider in the community.

  Her Cancer Sun, Mercury and North Node are in a wide Water Grand Trine to Neptune and Saturn in Pisces – good for creativity, not always for interfacing with reality. Her Neptune also opposes indulgent Jupiter in Taurus, hence her love of food, and a tendency to be a dreamer.   

  She has a son who came out as transgender this year.

  Harris’s focal point and aggravated Mars in Gemini is conjunct Rowling’s North Node so it is a fated and inflammatory interface. Their relationship chart hints at a tendency to oneupmanship tussles and ego-clashes.

 The Society of Authors, founded 18 February 1884, has its Neptune at 18 degrees Taurus agitated at the moment by tr Uranus (Mars North Node) conjunct – with tr Saturn wending backwards and forwards till early 2023 in hard aspect to the Aquarius Sun, Neptune, Scorpio Moon and Pluto – a downbeat time. With tr Pluto in a disruptive trine to the Uranus this year and next; plus tr Uranus hitting on the Fixed T Square 2023 to 2026 – so the Society will be going through a major upheaval.

  Joanne Harris, facing calls for her resignation, has tr Uranus conjunct her Jupiter (opposition Neptune) at the moment and repeating into early next year, which like BJ, may bring her down to earth with a bump.  Her Solar Arc Neptune is also in an undermining opposition to her Sun; and tr Saturn is dampening her enthusiasm as it squares her Jupiter in October/November. Not her shining hour.

   J.K. Rowling, 31 July 1965 9.10pm (rectified) Bristol, England, is moving into a lower profile few years with tr Saturn dipping below her Ascendant though she shows no sign of stepping back from voicing her opinion and supporting her pet causes. Death threats made after Rushdie’s latest assault may cause her to pull back if visibility becomes too obvious a risk. Tr Neptune is opposing her Virgo Moon this year into 2023 and she has a frustrating, blocked and scary Solar Arc Mars square her Pluto exact in 18 months.    

Singer Darius, of Pop Idol and West End Musicals renown, who has twice before survived near death experiences, has died at the young age of 41. No cause has been given. In 2010 he broke his neck in a car crash which could have paralysed or killed him. Then he was left seriously ill in 2017 when he went into a near-fatal coma after drinking Thames sewage water while promoting water filters for a charity which left him with bacterial meningitis and severe brain swelling.

  He shot to fame in 2001 and after Pop Idol appeared on stage in Chicago, Guys and Dolls and Funny Girl. He was married to actress Natasha Henstridge from 2011-2018 and was weeks away from a reunion tour with his former co-stars.

   Born in Glasgow, Scotland on 19 August 1980 2.34pm, he had a Scottish mother and Iranian father, and started singing as a teenager, appearing at Covent Garden with Scottish Opera.

  He had a lucky/talented Jupiter in Virgo on his Midheaven with a hard-working, well-organised Saturn in Virgo also in his career 10^th. His entertaining Leo Sun was conjunct his North Node and Mercury in Leo in his communicative 9^th house trine musical Neptune and square an independent-minded Uranus on his Scorpio Ascendant. His adventurous Sagittarius Moon was in his 1^st house and – most significantly for his high-risk life he had Mars Pluto conjunct.

  At the moment his Mars Pluto had moved by Solar Arc to cross over his Moon which would bring considerable challenges both physical and emotional. His Progressed Mars was also exactly conjunct his Uranus for a shock and a collision of sorts; and his Progressed Moon through his 8^th would bring an intense time psychologically.

  In 2010 when he had his car crash he was on his First Saturn Return; with his Solar Arc Mars just over the conjunction to his Uranus which can accompany accidents; with Solar Arc Pluto to follow; and his Solar Arc Neptune was in a devastating square to his Pluto.

  When he contracted meningitis in 2017, tr Pluto was square his Pluto for the start of his mid-life/individuation crisis; with his Solar Arc Pluto  approaching the square to his Sun; and his Solar Arc North Node was conjunct his Saturn.

  His outer planets did seem to mark up his major life events strikingly; with the transitions – Saturn Return and Individuation crisis – seemingly difficult to negotiate. Next year he was heading for his Uranus opposition which is the end of the Individuation phase from late 30s to early 40s.  

Liz Cheney, the surprising adversary-in-chief of Trump and demolisher of the stolen-election lie on the Jan 6 investigation, is about the pay the price for deserting the GOP’s party line.  She is facing  defeat for her Republican seat as her Trump-backed rival now has a 29-point lead over her.

 Cheney isn’t unique in that most of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump have lost renomination or opted to leave.

  What is so extraordinary is that she came from a family entrenched in Republican ‘values’, sniped at Obama when he was in residence, supported Trump when he was elected and during his term. It was only in the aftermath of the 2020 election that she flipped and has come to be seen by Democrats as a principled politician while her own party have stamped her as a “swamp rat”.

  There is some pressure on her to go for an anti-Trump run for the 2024 Presidential election. She is uncommitted as yet and it is reckoned such a run would be a kamikaze stunt, not successful individually, but perhaps an effective wrecker of DT’s chances.

  She was born 28 July 1966 11.57pm  (birth certificate) Washington, DC and has an expansive Jupiter in Cancer on her IC and a flamboyant Sun Mercury in Leo also in her 4^th – roots, family lineage all important to her; and has an enthusiastic Venus Mars in Cancer in her communicative 3^rd house. She is married with five children which fits the Cancer emphasis.

  The rebellious, mould-breaking Uranus Pluto conjunction of the mid 1960s is trine her Capricorn Midheaven so it may not be so odd that she stepped away from political obedience to speak her mind. Her Sagittarius Moon sits in her 9^th house suggesting she will live abroad at some point so a future ambassadorship is not out of the question.

  Tr Uranus is now moving through her first house since 2018 till 2026 which will make her independent-minded and uncaring about others’ reactions; and tr Saturn moving through her upper quadrant until April 2028 will see her at her peak, working hard and shouldering responsibility. Though it won’t all be successful with a downbeat Solar Arc Sun and then Mercury opposition her 12^th house Saturn this year and next. Tr Neptune conjunct her Saturn from 2024 to January 2026 will be uncertain and undermining; and her Progressed Mars square her Neptune exact over the 2024 election won’t be encouraging.

 2026/2027 look more upbeat and successful with her Solar Arc Jupiter conjunct her Pluto and then Uranus. At that point she will be under exceptionally heavy pressure with tr Pluto opposition her Mercury and Sun. By 2028 Saturn is ready to dip below her Ascendant into a lower-profile few years – which doesn’t mean she couldn’t win. Macron won the last election on similar but it tends to bring a lacklustre career patch of a few years with sagging motivation and energy.

  She’s certainly not making headway in 2024.  

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Trade unionist Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the Rail Workers and promoter of the recent strikes, is striking fear into the heart of the government and right-wingers about a return to the bad old days of constant disruption. Although there is widespread unease about financial hardship amongst the wider population which should garner sympathy for wage claims, he has two major problems. One is ‘Spanish practices’ in sections of the rail industry which halt modernisation; and the tilt towards Russia which has always been the trade unions’ Achilles Heel. He recently said the EU had provoked trouble in Ukraine, when asked about the Russian invasion and has long-standing sympathies for the pro-Putin separatists who have been fighting in the east of the country for almost a decade.

 Lynch was born 10 January 1962 (Companies House) in London and like Arthur Scargill, the miners leader who jousted with Maggie Thatcher, he is a Sun and Venus Capricorn – almost on the same degrees. Both have Jupiter in humanitarian Aquarius. Lynch also has a do-or-die-determined and ruthless Mars in Capricorn trine Pluto, sextile Neptune.

  Lynch’s Sun and Scargill’s oppose the UK’s 10^th house (= ruling classes) Moon with Lynch’s Mars, Venus, Saturn also in the UK 4^th which represents the masses and the UK’s roots. His Pluto falls in the UK’s 12^th so he’ll be drawn to wielding subversive power. His Neptune opposes the UK’s 8^th house Mars so he could undermine the UK’s commercial ambitions.

  Doing a quick skip round other UK and other trade union notables and campaigners for workers rights. Wat Tyler, who led the 14^th century Peasants’ Revolt may also have been a Capricorn.

  There is a fair smattering of Aquarius through the charts, not Sun, but other planets. Bob Crow, 13 June 1961, had Jupiter in Aquarius as had Stalin (tho’ he was hardly humanitarian). Jack Jones and Ernest Bevin had Mars in Aquarius.    

  Marx and Lenin were Sun Taurus – and there is a fair smattering of Taurus through the other charts as well.

  Mick Lynch ahead will be pushing on with confidence and running into massive resistance. He has several lucky and enthusiastic Jupiter midpoints being triggered for the next three years. Plus a discouraging tr Pluto conjunct his Saturn in 2023/2024 as well as a sinking Neptunian Solar Arc into 2024 alongside a Solar Arc Pluto conjunct Neptune which won’t be encouraging.  He’ll win some and lose more than a few.

  He may well be a significant player in the UK’s rocky ride through the blocked Solar Arc Pluto square Sun, exact in 3 months; and tension-erupting, can-be-rebellious Solar Arc Saturn opposition Uranus, exact in 18 months.  Plus tr Saturn conjunct the UK Pluto from early 2023 and recurring throughout the year which will also be seriously stuck. Plus all the rest of the financial and economic jangles from transiting Uranus on the UK Neptune and Venus into 2023.

  Eventually the storms will pass but it won’t be a smooth passage for a year or several.

Pic: Steve Eason.

Anne Heche has been declared dead as a result of injuries sustained in her self-inflicted car crash becoming the fourth of five siblings to die; and still estranged from her religious mother.  

  The family upbringing was damaging to put it politely. Nancy Heche, 10 March 1937, Vinita, OK, married her childhood sweetheart, lived with her family in an Amish settlement, lost one child early on to illness and her husband in 1983 to AIDs, with an 18 year old son dying in a car crash soon after.  Her husband was a closet homosexual, whom Anne said abused her as a child and declared  that her mother knew but dismissed her story. Since her husband died, Nancy has become a Christian therapist and motivational speaker intent on “overcoming homosexuality.” Not surprisingly the gulf between mother and daughter widened when Anne became the poster child for lesbianism in her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres in the late 1990s.  

  A reviewer of Nancy Heche’s memoir The Truth Comes Out said “faith in her Bible-sanctioned marriage made Nancy blind, deaf and stupid”.

   Nancy has an extraordinarily difficult chart with a Water Grand Trine of Sun Saturn in Pisces trine Mars in unrelenting and unforgiving Scorpio trine Pluto; with Pluto in a pushily confident opposition to Jupiter. Plus her Sun Saturn opposes Neptune. A Water Grand Trine can be healing though with Mars, Pluto and Saturn involved it is likely to be as far from sentimental as you can get – unkind, vengeful, hard-edged, unyielding. There is a tendency to live within a bubble of a self-created imaginary world and not interface well with reality.

  There are three African dictators born early that month with a similar configuration – March 8,  Juvénal Hayarimana, president of Rwanda (1973-94), a totalitarian dictator, nicknamed “invincible”. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algerian President accused of running a police state, fraud and vote-tampering, corruption. And Olusẹgun Ọbasanjọ, President of Nigeria, accused of human rights abuses, interested in consolidating his personal power. The negative side of this Grand Trine is not all about peace, love and healing for sure.

 With Nancy’s megaton Pluto sitting on Anne’s Midheaven she’d be a controlling and smothering mother, clearly intent on imposing her own values. Nancy’s depressed and critical Sun Saturn in Pisces opposed Anne’s Jupiter Pluto Moon in Virgo, denting her daughter’s confidence. Nancy’s Mars was conjunct Anne’s Neptune and opposition Anne’s Sun – giving rise to another battle of wills. And Nancy’s Uranus in Taurus was conjunct Anne’s Saturn for a clash of viewpoints and attitudes.

  No wonder the poor kid turned out a confused mess.

  Their relationship chart has an afflicted needs-space, rebellious Uranus and a tussle for the upper hand Jupiter square Pluto so was never going to be an easy connection.

With such a tragic life one should feel sympathy for Nancy Heche but she’s not a temperament that attracts compassion and at least some of the misery could have been alleviated if she had not been so brain washed and blinkered.

For details on Anne Heche see August 6 2022 below.