Marjorie

Another oldie who has no intention of settling into his slippers is explorer Ranulph Fiennes. At 72, having suffered two heart attacks and double bypass surgery in 2003, he is now more than halfway to completing the Global Reach Challenge in aid of Marie Curie – to become the first person to climb each continent’s highest mountain and cross both polar ice caps. He has already crossed both polar ice caps and climbed Mount Everest in Asia, Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, Mount Elbrus in Europe and Mount Vinson in Antarctica. This week he will attempt to climb Aconcagua, South America’s highest mountain. The low oxygen levels at the peak will be particularly challenging as he suffers from a respiratory condition. To complete the feat he still needs to summit Mount Carstensz in Australasia, and Denali, the highest peak in North America.

Born 7 March 1944 12.30pm Windsor, England, he has a 10^th house Sun in Pisces (a common explorer’s sign) which is square a hard edged, fiercely-disciplined Mars Saturn in Gemini. He also has Pluto conjunct a leadership North Node in Leo on the focal point of a mini-Grand Trine to Uranus and Neptune. Prince Charles described him as ‘mad and marvellous’ and his mother said when he was growing up she knew he’d either be ‘mad or bad.’ Impossible doesn’t seem to cross his mind.

His Moon Jupiter in Leo are opposition Venus in Aquarius; and sextile his Mars Saturn, softening a few of his rougher Mars Saturn edges.

It’s a chart which strangely lacks Earth signs, given the physical endurance required for such dangerous and stamina-stretching expeditions. But both his get-it-together 5^th Harmonic and his strength-and-stubbornness 8^th Harmonic have Earth Grand Trines and both feature Jupiter, which has brought him extraordinary luck on what appeared to be semi-suicidal exercises. His superhuman, death-defying-fortitude 16^th is also strongly aspected.

His first wife, Ginny, 9 July 1947, a childhood sweetheart, who died in 2004,  prompted him to start his high-risk career and helped organise his trips. She was a Sun Cancer with a Pisces Moon conjunct his Sun so a strong resonance. Her Saturn was conjunct his Pluto North Node which could have made a normal marriage difficult but together they could co-operate on large-scale enterprises. His trans-globe expedition took seven years planning. Her Mars in Gemini was conjunct his Uranus; and his Mars Saturn conjunct her Uranus – which in a 24/7 bourgeois lifestyle would have been a disaster, hugely volatile. But it suited their high-excitement life, often separated.

I’m not sure of his schedule, but I’d imagine he’ll have to slow down by 2018 when tr Neptune is conjunct his Sun, then moving on to square his Saturn Mars.

Megyn Kelly, the prime-time Fox News presenter, who clashed with Donald Trump during his campaign and was the highest profile of the women who alleged inappropriate behaviour by Roger Ailes (which he denies), is moving to daytime NBC. She said it was to allow her more time with her three children. It’s always tough switching channels and can often go wrong; with the added hazard of moving onto a different audience during the day.

She was born 18 Nov 1970 in Syracuse, New York, she became a lawyer first before moving into television. She’s a confidently determined and charming Sun Jupiter Venus in Scorpio opposition a stalwart Saturn in Taurus; with an excitable Mars Uranus in Libra. Her Sun is also conjunct Neptune; and her Moon is Cancer/Leo.

Sadly it looks as if it will be extraordinarily difficult for her in 2017/18 with tr Pluto in a highly frustrating square to Mars and trine Saturn – and that is a real uphill struggle; with her Solar Arc Neptune in a sinking square to her Mars in 2018. Looks like a car crash to be honest. She’ll bounce more enthusiastically by late 2018/2019 when her Solar Arc Pluto is conjunct her Jupiter.

Lest Americans (some) feel they are alone writhing in embarrassment at the calibre of their political leadership, fear not. Cast a glance over Jean Claude Juncker, President of the EU Commission and former PM of Luxembourg. Leaked documents show Juncker has spent years blocking EU attempts to crack down on the tax loopholes in his native Luxembourg for the benefit of corporate giants such as Amazon. And he has also vetoed any public disclosure of these discussions.   Because of EU rules demanding unanimity, Luxembourg with 00.1% of the EU population has the power of veto over any suggestions they don’t like. Shades of Wallonia (who blocked the recent Canadian trade deal).

As Robert Hardman put it: “Despite crystal-clear demands for greater EU transparency and accountability, the man in charge of the EU apparatus has been rumbled as the architect of a huge tax avoidance cover-up.”

Juncker took over as EU Commission President on 1 November 2014 with a flamboyant Jupiter on Leo on the Ascendant, which figures; and a brutally ruthless Mars Pluto in the showboating 5^th on the focal point of Uranus opposition Mercury Node. Pluto has moved by Solar Arc to exactly square the Uranus at the moment, suggesting a massive jolt to his position. Though Mars Pluto tends to be a) shameless; and b) fairly unbudgeable.

Juncker himself is a Sun Sagittarius with a lucky Jupiter Uranus in Cancer in a can-be-fanatical square to Neptune; and a Pluto opposition Mars. His Mars Pluto anchors into the EU Pluto square Mars in Sagittarius – so he’s emblematic of the dark side of the EU. Mars Pluto can be corrupt or criminal, certainly intent on gaining its own ends by force or compulsion.

He looks bullishly-confident as per usual through chunks of 2017 though with odd patches of major disruption and great insecurity, with over-reactions when he feels threatened.

His relationship chart with the EU looks totally jammed-up through 2017/18 with tr Pluto conjunct the composite Mars from this March onwards; undermining tr Neptune opposition the composite Jupiter; and a separating tr Saturn conjunct Sun late in 2017. It’s a moot point whether his drinking/health removes him from office before internal pressure does.

Veteran war photographer Don McCullin has been awarded a knighthood in the New Year Honours list. Described as one of our greatest living photographers and a photojournalist without equal, he spent 60 years documenting the poverty of London’s East End, and the horrors of wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Lebanon, Congo, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iran. Last month, aged 81, he travelled to Iraq to photograph the Battle of Mosul and took another trip to Palmyra in Syria in early 2016. He has vowed to continue with his work until he “can’t press that button any more”.

Born 9 October 1935 in London he had a tough upbringing with a violent mother, a sick father, evacuation during the war, frequent truancy and a youth of street fighting and local gangs. He described Finsbury Park in north London where he grew up as a place of ignorance, bigotry, poverty and violence. During his National Service he became a cameraman but couldn’t pass the theory exams (he’s dyslexic). A commission from the Observer picture editor when he was 23 got him started on his long and distinguished career more by accident than design. He covered wars in Vietnam, Biafra, Cyprus and Northern Ireland but focused on its terrible effects on people rather than on the fighting.

He says: “Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.”

Actor Tom Hardy will reportedly play him in a film, based on McCullin’s autobiography, Unreasonable Behavior.

He’s a Sun Libra sextile Mars in adventurous Sagittarius; with a confident Jupiter in Scorpio trine Pluto in Cancer; and a Mystic Rectangle of Venus in Virgo opposition Saturn (Moon) in Pisces which is trine/sextile Uranus opposition Mercury in Scorpio. His Neptune is in a publicity-seeking square to Mars. Mercury in Scorpio is often found in research journalist’s charts and has the ability to dig deep and see below the surface.

His chart is replete with creative quintiles and septiles. His get-it-together 5^th Harmonic is focussed on Mercury and the war-signature Saturn Pluto. His 7^th Harmonic is pulled to military/situations of cruelty, with Mars Saturn prominent focussing onto filmic Neptune. His enduring, endless-struggle 8^th Harmonic is enormously strong; as is his ‘breakthrough’, genius 13H.

From unlikely beginnings he pulled himself away from his roots with a world-class talent and a mix of determination and luck. Though admittedly Jupiter Pluto has a reputation for creating its own good fortune.

The Queen is to miss the New Year’s Day church service at Sandringham, having already missed the Christmas Day one for the first time in forever, due to a lingering cold which has kept her indoors throughout the festivities.

There’s remarkably little showing on her chart except for an irritable tr Pluto trine Sun/Mars through December which disappears tomorrow late to be replaced by a much more upbeat tr Pluto trine Moon/Jupiter. She does have three Neptune transits to midpoints – Mars/Uranus, Jupiter/Uranus and Uranus/Neptune – but they’ve been running from late September and will go on till January 10^th. Plus a marginally edgy tr Uranus sextile her Mars, running through Dec/Jan 2017.

Her Sun/Moon midpoint does have the tr Saturn opposition for the last few days of 2016 until Jan 5^th which for a public figure can mean separation from their audience, and perhaps from other family members if she’s been out of the party spirit. And she’s recently lost two of her oldest childhood friends which will also be part of this.

Her Solar Return for the year from April 2016 does have Sun and Uranus in the 6^th house of health; and an accident-prone Jupiter opposition Neptune square Mars Saturn; but it’s also fairly robust with an Earth Grand Trine onto Jupiter in the 10^th. Nothing on the Lunar Return.

She is handing over more of her charity duties to younger Royals as tr Saturn approaches the cusp of her 12^th late in 2017. Tr Pluto is already in her 12^th as she has cut back on far flung travels, though with Uranus through her 3^rd for many years ahead, she won’t sit still easily.

Her Coronation chart of 2 June 1953 has been stressed over the past couple of years and continues to be so with some setbacks in the next six months, and greater challenges and confusion in 2018 to 2020.

Prince Charles’ 10^th house Taurus Moon gets the tr Uranus conjunction in 2018/early 2019 which would suggest a definite change in direction/status.

The Queen will never abdicate but as she progresses into her 90s she’ll undoubtedly hand over more of the reins to Charles. The UK’s 10^th house Moon in Cancer at 19 degrees is certainly stressed by tr Pluto opposition from this March on till late 2018, which is associated with rulership and the Monarchy.

Urgh, the uncertainty of Brexit is bad enough, if the Queen is forced into retirement, the country will feel rudderless.

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The much loved and revered actress Judi Dench is still going strong having just celebrated her eighty second birthday. For decades she played Shakespeare on stage to much acclaim and multiple awards. Only the movie Mrs Brown (Queen Victoria) in her mid sixties brought her to international recognition, and she then proceeded on to become M in Bond films for 17 years, was a seven time Oscar nominee for Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth 1, Chocolat, Philomena etc. Harvey Weinstein, the US producer, who ‘discovered’ her with Mrs Brown asked what she’d been doing before! Such is the cachet of film roles and the oblivion of careers not paraded on the red carpet.

Born 9 December 1934 with a putative time of 7.55pm (astrotheme), she has a lively, adventurous and witty Sun Venus in Sagittarius in the performing 5^th house trine Uranus on her Aries Midheaven. With Jupiter in Scorpio in her 4^th, a testament to her happy childhood with a General Practitioner father who was interested in amateur dramatics, and her subsequent long and happy marriage to actor Michael Williams.

But it is not an easy chart. Theatre director Richard Eyre remarked in a documentary celebrating her career that, beneath the jokes and immense talent of her craft, she had a ‘troubled soul’. She has three Yods which do suggest strain, focussing on to Pluto, Mars and Saturn – and that is a great deal to live up to. A focal point 12^th house Pluto allows her to tap in great depths psychologically. A focal point Saturn requires great dedication to work and responsibilities. Mars tends to be overly scattered but a fast-changing, varied career would soak that up, and she admits to not being good at sitting still and being passive.

A hard-working Capricorn Moon opposes Pluto squaring onto her Uranus, so she’ll be emotionally changeable, able to connect to a wide range of feelings, dark and light. Her Mars in earthy Virgo is square her Venus, trine her Moon, sextile her Pluto and inconjunct Uranus – so very get-up-and-go with a huge reservoir of restless energy. Without a peripatetic actor’s lifestyle , allowing her to live out quite destructive emotions on stage, it’s difficult to see how she could have handled that fairly explosive chart. But her home life would always be underpinned by that contented Jupiter in the 4^th.

Her actors’ 15^th Harmonic is marked; as is her hope-and-faith, destined-for-immortality 17H. Next to her 15H, her stamina-and-stubbornness 8^th harmonic is the strongest. Long may she continue.

Vera Rubin, the astronomer whose tireless stargazing provided the first confirmation for the existence of dark matter and paved the way for women in science, has died aged 88.

She was born in Philadelphia on 23 July 1928 with an electrical engineer father, also an amateur astrologer, who constructed her first telescope when she was 14. Despite great resistance from male-dominated science faculties, she persevered to become one of the foremost astronomers of her generation.

Her ground breaking discovery came from observing that the stars in the outer regions of a spiral galaxy were moving just as fast as the ones closer to the centre, apparently in defiance of Newton’s laws of motion, which predicted that the inner stars would be moving faster, just as the inner planets of the solar system are moving faster around the Sun than the outer planets. She and her partner concluded that the effect was real and must be the result of some inexplicable extra gravity, the only force that could account for such an observation. And wherever there is gravity, there must be mass. It was this missing mass — and its gravity — that was keeping these spinning galaxies glued together. [Times obit.]

She was a Sun Venus in Leo square Jupiter in Taurus, trine Uranus, so charming, stubborn, innovative. Her Mars in determined Taurus was also sextile Pluto (Mercury) in Cancer which would give her the grit to stand up to attacks within her profession. Her Mercury was in an inventive square to Uranus.

As expected her two strongest harmonics were the 13H, known for genius, exploration and breakthrough; and her leaving-a-legacy-for-history 17H. The harmonics do add an invaluable dimension to a chart, which on the surface might not look too unique.

President Obama’s belated move against Russian interference in the USA election by expelling diplomats is deemed to have been undercut by Putin’s oily and scathing non-retaliation in anticipation of Trump’s coming. In reality it has thrown a spanner into the heart of the Republican Party, traditionally very anti-Russian, which it’ll be more than interesting to watch play out.

Everyone is playing games. Putin wants a Trump friendship since Trump is perceived to be anti-NATO/EU and thus won’t kick up a fuss if Putin makes further moves in eastern Europe and consolidates gains in the Ukraine/Crimea. Trump can’t admit the Russians interfered with the election since it would tarnish his glorious personal victory. But it’ll be harder to deny given that the Germans are now on high alert with evidence of Russian cyber interference in preparation for their forthcoming elections.

Obama has pushed Trump into a corner since any moves to forge closer ties with Russia is likely to meet fierce resistance from a bipartisan coalition in Congress, who have promised even tougher measures against Russia, with or without the President’s approval. Republican senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio would certainly go for an all-out confrontation with Trump. One commentator even went so far as to say that if Trump went too far off message that the Republican leadership (Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell) could get him impeached (no shortage of smoking guns), which would put the more traditionally conservative Mike Pence in situ in the White House. So it wouldn’t even need a Democratic majority after the 2018 elections.

Trump’s relationships with senior Republicans:

Paul Ryan – an irritable relationship at best with a composite Mars Saturn, it is sagging disastrously through 2017 with tr Neptune square the composite Saturn Mars from April 2017 to late 2019; with indications of a stand-off in 2018 as tr Uranus is conjunct the composite Venus, and opposing Neptune in 2019.

Mitch McConnell – marginally friendlier than Ryan, but power-struggling and not on a common agenda. Again 2018 looks like cutlery-in-the-air time with tr Uranus conjunct the composite Sun and then Venus; with a spat earlier in late April/May, November 2017.

Mike Pence, VP – simmering hostility with a composite Mars Pluto; suspicion and doubt from composite Sun trine Saturn Neptune; differing agendas from Uranus square Saturn Neptune. A high-anxiety, confused 2017 with tr Pluto square the composite Saturn/Neptune midpoint, worsening in 2018 with perhaps scandals emerging into an even more chaotic phase between them; with emotional outbursts and distancing from tr Uranus square the composite Venus.

John McCain – outright dislike and power-struggling with a Saturn (Uranus) opposition Jupiter square Mars Mercury Venus; and a controlling Sun Pluto conjunction. Will be jousting through 2017 with tr Pluto sextile the game-playing Jupiter; with some low blows from tr Saturn square the composite Neptune. And worsening dramatically in 2018 with tr Pluto trine Saturn and tr Uranus square the composite Sun.

Lindsey Graham – again active dislike and hostility from a composite Mars Pluto; and a disruptive Uranus conjunct Sun, Venus and square Neptune. Will sag through 2017, becoming even more pessimistic about damage in 2018.

Marco Rubio – aggravated through 2017/18 with tr Pluto sextile the composite Mars; and undermined with tr Neptune square their composite Sun through 2017/18.

Mitt Romney – again 2018 is highlighted as high-noon time; with tr Uranus conjunct the composite Venus (which is conjunct Sun square Pluto) and tr Uranus square Saturn.

A President at war with his own party? In politics there are always egos clashing but the Republicans have landed themselves with an enormous problem in Trump. And the Democrats won’t be shy about pointing out that the GOP own him and his nominees – and all their back stories. If it wasn’t so important it would be blackly funny and good spectator sport.

Child prodigy composer Alma Deutscher, 11 years old, has been given a standing ovation in Vienna for the premiere of her two-and-a-half hour long opera Cinderella. She scored her first piano sonata at 6, followed by a short opera, then a violin concerto. She was born in England in February 2005 (no date unfortunately) to two amateur musician parents and she plays piano and violin herself as well. Not surprisingly she’s being hailed as a wunderkind and the new Mozart – he started composing when he was 5 years old.

I’ll do her more fully when someone comes up with a birthday. But just for fun I had a look and if she’s born mid February she has Sun, Mercury, Venus, Neptune in Aquarius, Uranus in Pisces, Pluto in Sagittarius and Jupiter in Libra.

Mozart, 27 Jan 1756 8pm Salzburg, had four planets in Aquarius – Saturn Sun, Mercury Venus; Uranus in Pisces, Pluto in Sagittarius and Jupiter in Libra. So strong similarities.  What fun.