Serena Williams Miss Jnr – a rocket propelled Virgo

   

 

Serena Williams, the Grand Slam tennis player, had a baby girl on September 1st in Florida (no time as yet). Despite have a Virgo Sun opposition Neptune, junior is going to be a powerhouse. She has an entrepreneurial, inspirational and very confident, not to say flamboyant Fire Grand Trine of Mars Mercury Node in Leo trine Uranus trine Saturn in Sagittarius, formed into a Kite by Uranus opposition Jupiter. So expansive, lucky, super-optimistic And Jupiter will funnel all that fiery energy out into the universe. Her Venus is also in sociable Leo; and her hard-working Capricorn Moon is almost certainly conjunct Pluto, giving her a possessive mother.

What’s more junior’s Pluto is conjunct Serena’s Midheaven exactly, so there may be a tussle for attention and power over mother’s busy schedule. Junior’s Mars is also square Serena’s 7th house Uranus which will bring some heated interactions.

The relationship chart does have an affectionate composite Sun Venus and a well-aspected composite Jupiter which will smooth round the rough edges that a composite Saturn square Uranus and square Mars will throw up. Fitting a baby into a constantly-travelling, practising and playing competitive tennis career and presumably high-pressure promotional time after she retires won’t be easy.

Father Alexis Ohanian , 24 April 1983, is a Sun Taurus which chimes well with the baby’s Virgo Sun and Capricorn Moon, though he’ll find that she makes a profound change in his life since her Uranus is conjunct his Sun and opposition his Saturn Pluto.

North Korea – stop me if you dare

 

Kim Jong Un may be mad and nasty but he’s also smart and is pushing on in the face of global condemnation with amazing sang froid. The signs are that he’s about to launch a ballistic missile. He’s hit China at an awkward moment as they head for the five year Congress after mid October, when President Xi Jinping wants to consolidate his power base. He doesn’t need the distraction, certainly not a situation where he doesn’t have any more good options than the US. Supporting the US is unthinkable; as is the prospect of a destroyed North Korea pouring refugees across the China border; and trade retaliations for his inability to shut Kim Jong Un down would damage the China economy at a critical time. South Korea and Japan are on high alert, as is Guam.

If I had to guesstimate when flash point would be, I’d go for November which crops up on a good many of the relevant charts – South Korea, the Japanese Prime Minister, the South Korea/NorthK relationship chart, the South KoreaPM Term chart, as well as Defense Secretary James Mattis. Mattis looks extraordinarily stressed through 2018/19 as well.

It could come sooner, since often events precede exact aspects. The US chart certainly looks aggravated at the moment with tr Saturn opposition the Mars and then across late September to mid October tr Saturn squares the US Neptune – so an extended few weeks of high uncertainty.

Xi Jinping’s Presidency chart looks to be facing a setback at the October 19th Congress with tr Saturn square the Sun and tr Uranus conjunct the Solar Arc Moon; which is reflected on his own chart with jolts, jangles, shocks and total upheavals; with worse in 2018.

Tom Jones – a talented double Gemini

 

 

Singer Tom Jones has postponed an ambitious American tour until spring 2018 because of health concerns.

Born 7 June 1940 12.10am. he has a Sun Gemini (favourite sign of pop singers) in his performing 5th house; with a Gemini Moon also there squaring onto an iconic 8th house musical Neptune. His passionately enthusiastic Venus Mars in Cancer are in his hard-working 6th house; with an idealistic though also money-magnet Jupiter Saturn in Taurus in his 3rd along with maverick Uranus. His Pluto sits on his Descendant, so he’d have intense interactions with his public as well as with his long-suffering wife. She stood by him through numerous affairs and sadly died last year which hit him hard.

He’s at an age when problems will catch up with him and his Solar Arc Mars is about to square his Moon within weeks which also has tr Saturn in opposition at the same time. So it’s stopping him performing and affecting his body. Tr Saturn is also about to square his Neptune, so an uncertain time for him. He’ll need to slow down for a while which won’t be easy for a temperament as restless as his.

Relocating his chart to Los Angeles where he lives now puts influential Pluto on the midheaven which can be tricky to handle but has clearly worked for him.

Saudi Arabia – moving backwards to surge ahead

 

 

Saudi Arabia is the country most directly in line of fire from the 2019 tr Saturn Pluto conjunction followed by tr Jupiter, since it has Saturn, Sun Jupiter at 19 and 24 degrees Capricorn. If the past experience of the 1819 Saturn Pluto Jupiter conjunction repeats, then it will be collapse followed by resurgence and a complete economic transformation. (See post August 30 2017).

This fits with the kingdom’s privatisation plans, under the young Crown Prince Bin Salman, aimed at diversifying and privatising their economy, which will change the country out of all recognition. There is a “for sale” sign on virtually every sector of Saudi economic life: oil, electricity, water, transport, retail, schools and healthcare. With oil stuck around the $50 mark, and $75 being the break-even point, the budgets are creaking and deficits are widening.

The idea behind the Vision 2030 strategy, is that Saudi Arabia will be financially stable, with a more dynamic economy and society, less reliance on oil and government spending, and with a thriving private sector. It’s an ambitious plan though it will run into resistance from the old guard especially the Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalists, who will regard an influx of foreign ownership as threatening their power over the monarchy.

In 2017/2018 tr Pluto is conjunct the Saudi Saturn, leading to cutbacks and comparative hardship, as well as a tough struggle to push ahead with plans. By 2019 tr Saturn will be on its Return and conjunct Sun Jupiter for more dampened enthusiasm. By 2020 tr Pluto will conjunct the Saudi Sun Jupiter with tr Jupiter following suit in 2020 for a major surge of confidence and success.

So reverse, then fast forward.

North Korea – on a road to perdition

 

 

Kim Jong Un has called Donald Trump’s ‘fire and fury like nothing the world has ever seen’ bluff by detonating an underground hydrogen bomb, five times more powerful than the atomic one at Nagasaki which killed 70,000 instantly in 1945.

North Korea is undoubtedly a hot spot for Trump, since relocating his chart to Pyonggang puts his bombastic Mars in Leo on the Descendant. But a military retaliation from the US would bring not only devastation to the region but myriad consequences vis a vis the Chinese.

One solution being floated by Angela Merkel and others is to leverage China into accepting a complete embargo on North Korea, by threatening the largest Chinese banks for laundering money for the Kim regime. Trump could designate them “primary money laundering concerns” which would deny them the ability to transact in dollars – essentially a death sentence. That would throw the Chinese financial and political systems into turmoil.

Kim Jong Un’s leadership chart, 29 Dec 2011 11.57am Pyonggang is heading for complete disruption and upheaval anytime over the next six months as the Solar Arc Uranus moves to square the Sun and then Pluto. So he’s not going to be allowed to continue as is whatever happens. This December and January 2018 look times when his administration will run into major setbacks and high-risk. Tr Saturn will conjunct the MC and square Ascendant; and then tr Pluto will trine Mars.

China looks exceptionally on edge at the moment financially; and insecure in other ways with the Solar Arc Uranus conjunct their 8th house Saturn in Virgo, which tr Neptune is also opposing in 2017/2018. So a highly uncertain phase for them. They are certainly pulling away from North Korea more decisively from late this October to early December with tr Saturn square the composite Sun, Venus, Mars. Their relations with the USA look high-tension and jangled through September, and at daggers drawn in December with tr Pluto opposition their composite Mars.

Given the chaos within the Trump administration and the lacklustre Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, described in the media as worse than useless, it’s anyone’s guess what comes next. On the USA chart tr Saturn is in the aggravating opposition to Mars now and moving to square the Neptune from late September into October – which looks like setbacks and then confusion in the next few weeks.

[See post Aug 9 2017]

Harmonics – the mysterious power of numbers

Harmonics may sound like astro-mumbo-jumbo but modern physicists inspired by cosmologist Max Tegmark, who has done research on dark matter and the Big Bang, now working on AI with Elon Musk, has leanings in the same direction. Though he’d probably be horrified to hear it. His sole postulate is: All structures that exist mathematically also exist physically. “There is only mathematics; that is all that exists.” “Our external physical reality is a mathematical structure.” Dig deep enough into the fabric of reality and you eventually hit a seam of pure mathematics.

Below is a precis from Hamblin/Harding/Harvey (see previous post) with their thoughts on Harmonics. There is general agreement on some Harmonics and differences of opinion on others; mainly they cover 5,7,9 with mention of research on others. There is much to be learned so it is as well to keep an open mind on interpretations. Vendla’s numerology interpretations fit in remarkably well with the astrological thinking.

5TH Harmonic: Deliberate forging of links; putting together form and matter – making, arranging, building, constructing, bringing order out of chaos – to make art, a successful career in politics, medicine, law, business. Can also be power hungry, since being able to arrange matter into a form of one’s choosing gives control over it. Where 3 (trines/sextiles) is happy with the way the world is, 5 strives to change the world.  Oppositions and squares in the 5H lead to obsessive or compulsive behaviour, as do squares. Conscious, personal choice, the power to create and shape our world. Powerful will. Knowledge is power. Quality of Mars sheer purposive energy for good or ill.

7th Harmonic: Magical, mystical, cosmic secrets, fantasies, what inspires us/turns us on; wild, fertile unpredictable imagination, not of permanence but of transcience, sudden flashes of light and darkness. Luck and good fortune, a message to convey. Living in a world of their own, distorted view of reality. Often never fully realised inner dream. Savage destructiveness or immense creative achievement. The base and the numinous can merge; the highest ideal and the darkest longings are of 7. Needs personal awareness otherwise our inner fantasies take over, fated. Artists and scientists/inventors who have eureka moments. Clergymen.

9th Harmonic: Follow your bliss. Non-assertive. Deep power that flows from simply being truly oneself. True to our simple essence. The higher vision of ourself which draws us; we can grow effortlessly if we can but see it. The image of the oak tree which informs the acorn. Discover the person who we already are. Not will driven since we cannot become other. Needs clarity of vision and adherence to inner truth. Some don’t realize until it shortly before death; some not at all. Our greatest joy comes from following our lodestar, our guiding light. Individuation. Initiation, wisdom and spiritual knowledge. Joy, happiness, peace, accepts the world as it is and spreads happiness around. Humility.   Psychic powers – Rudolph Steiner, Edgar Cayce, Uri Geller, Carl Jung. An ideal to strive towards which will bring  joy and peace. Albert Schweitzer. Personal enlightenment. Psychic powers, mystic joy.

11H Excess, double-binds; deep internal longing, steadily burning obsessive dream.

12H How we integrate our heart and will.

25H prominent in doctors.

***

Twoness and multiples thereof – problems with outside world to be overcome. 4th Harmonic – at war with the world, requires effort to overcome problems. 8H = results of effort, achievement; 16H = maximum concrete manifestation, also open conflict leading to/or stemming from separateness.

Threeness is associated with the individual’s pleasure and making connections. 6th Harmonic is three by two – 3 is passive, needs two to make it manifest. Outward expression of joy of life, effort towards pleasure and connectedness.

Threeness seeks the ideal balance between the external world and internal.

5th impose own order and structure, dominate the world and rearrange it to suit our own needs.

7th impose our own imaginative meaning.

 

 

Louise Hay – a lucrative crusade for optimism

 

 

Louise Hay, the hugely successful American motivational writer and founder of Hay House publishing which produced her own mega-million selling books as well as those by Deepak Chopra, Doreen Virtue, Wayne Dyer amongst others, has died. She had a difficult childhood with a single mother, a violent stepfather, was raped at five by a neighbour, had a baby at 16 which was adopted, and took to positive-thinking religion which she said helped her cure her cervical cancer.

Born 8 October 1926 at 12.30am Los Angeles, she certainly had a challenging and ambitious chart. She had a quick-witted, communicative 3rd house Sun in Libra as well as Venus, with her Sun trine Jupiter in Aquarius, and her Jupiter in an enthusiastic, risk-taking square to a hard-driving 10th house Mars in Taurus. Her Mars was opposition a 4th house Saturn, pointing to her abusive and unsupportive childhood, squaring onto an idealistic (and flashy) Neptune in Leo, so channelling all her angst into visions and dreams. It forms a wide Fixed Grand Cross, which would give her considerable stamina and power to persevere, with the always-hopeful Neptune opposition Jupiter attracting her to positive thinking as a cure all.

She had three planets in each of the Water signs, so it made a wide Water Grand Trine of an insightful 12th house Pluto trine Saturn trine Uranus on the cusp of the 9th (= New Age publishing) – it would make her healing for others if not always for herself.

She was praised for her work with AIDs victims, though her metaphysical counselling attracted criticism for her view that people’s mental attitudes created their own illness; and that genocide victims had bad karma, so brought their destruction on themselves for past life misdeeds.

Theresa May – no cheer in sight

   

 

‘Like the Living Dead in a second-rate horror film, the premiership of Theresa May staggers on oblivious.’ Even given former Chancellor George Osborne’s personal axe-grinding, his words do strike a chord amidst growing alarm of UK voters and businesses about the non-progress of the Brexit negotiations. There are two views about the Brussels contest of wills between the chosen chefs Barnier and Davis. One view says the EU are incapable of negotiating anything, which was Greek finance minister Yanis Yaroufakis’ experience; he said early on ‘just walk away’. The other is that May’s cabinet is so riven with dispute they can’t agree on anything much and she’s running a rudderless Government, in office but not in power. Both may well be true.

Theresa May’s Government chart, 9 June 2017 12.35pm, London, does not generate confidence with a split Full Moon of Gemini Sun opposition Moon on the MC/IC axis square Neptune on the Descendant – conflicted, confused, delusional, impractical, uncommitted. There is an inspirational Fire Grand Trine of Saturn trine Uranus trine Node, but all in hidden houses, formed into a Kite with Saturn opposition Sun = difficulty of turning dreams into reality and bedevilled by delays and setbacks.

Senior Tories are muttering publicly she has no chance of making it to the next election and with tr Neptune in the panicky-failure conjunction to her Mars (early 2017, repeating March 2018 and again late Oct to end December 2018); and tr Neptune in an enthusiasm-denting opposition to her Jupiter in 2019/2020, they are almost certainly right. But as to when she’ll actually jump ship or more likely be pushed isn’t clear, given there are no obvious successors and with the risk that an early election might shoe-in Jeremy Corbyn. She does have Solar Arc Uranus conjunct her Sun, anywhere from the end of this year to late 2018, depending on her birth time. That usually coincides with a considerable jolt which pushes her off track.  Certainly her 2018/2019 looks shockingly difficult with tr Pluto conjunct her Mars/Saturn midpoint from March 2018 onwards till late 2019, which presages disasters.

Where her government chart looks in most trouble is by 2019 when tr Neptune squares the Sun and Moon. That’s the point where tr Pluto squares her personal Jupiter/Saturn midpoint, which usually coincides with career losses.

Her relationship chart with the Conservative Party is at nerve-stretch at the moment, in a mood of explosive insecurity in Dec/Jan 2018, devastated and confused in 2018/19 and desperate to separate again next April. They’d happily feed her to the fishes now.

May is keen to sidestep Barnier and negotiate directly with Merkel, but that relationship chart is jolting and jangling from this October onwards, more so in 2018, and thoroughly ill-humoured in 2019.

Best guesses would be that she goes in 2019 when the Brexit impasse ends up in a heap on the floor.

Michel Barnier, EU negotiator, 9 Jan 1951 4.40pm La Tronche, France, is also swamped by Neptune with tr Pluto square his Neptune and conjunct his Sun in 2017/18; and then conjunct his MC in 2019. So he’s not winning too much.

It could actually come down to a ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ – which means the EU has a huge hole blown in its budget; and the hardline Brexiteers have to put their money where their mouths have been and create a self-starting independent UK with no trade agreements in place.

Taylor Swift – on a Trumpian never-my-fault roll

 

 

Taylor Swift having retrieved her reputation over the DJ groping court case has now brewed up a storm of agitated comment over her latest musical offering ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ that scored a record-breaking 28 million views in its first 24 hours. Described by one commentator as ‘an amazing tour de force of deflective petulance: It’s essentially a catalogue of every public feud she’s had that, without naming them, manages to extend, mock, and, most important, commodify them.’ It hits the Trumpian mood of the moment – I’m never to blame, it’s always someone else’s fault.

The cynical view is that controversy creates cash, and the much-hyped feuds between Taylor and sundry other high-rollers in the music business is as much fake rage as the Mayweather/McGregor boxing brouhaha which rolled in $700 million.

Though a combination of factors in her chart might suggest it also fits her temperament. What dominates her chart is an opposition between Moon Jupiter in self-defensive Cancer opposition Uranus, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn. Oppositions often set up an internal tug of war between competing forces and this is most often lived out by projecting the less favored end of the opposition onto AN Other. This way the inner turmoil of trying to hold opposing needs together is lessened. Except it doesn’t work. Blaming the Other for what she dislikes about herself is self-defeating.

She also has an unaspected Sun, which tends to produce an overdose of pride and high self-regard; and less need of others’ approbation, so intensely self-centred.

Add into this zodiac soup, a vengeful Mars in Scorpio, which is sparsely aspected with only an out of sign sextile to Venus – and that adds to the self-centredness or lack of awareness of the effects of her aggression. It will also make her hyper-active.

Her birth time is questionable but on 8.36am it gives her an influential and highly controlling Pluto in the 10th, which does like to invade the space of others, especially rivals, in order to mark the territory as her power domain.

She’s on her Nodal Half Return with the August Lunar Eclipse falling conjunct her Aquarius Node. This lesson here is to abandon pride (Leo South Node), stop looking condescendingly down on others and to learn to walk lightly. Might not be as lucrative, so unlikely.

(See also post Aug 12 2017)