Astrology of Today’s News

The radiantly handsome Paul Newman with the flawless marriage, an object of envy to most, is an exquisite example of how astrology gives the lie to a well-polished image, revealing the dark secrets that lie behind.

  When celebrities are alive it is often not possible to be blunt about what the chart says; and even astrologers get bamboozled by an ethereal aura and tone down their suspicions.

  Only after his death has it emerged what a tortured life Paul Newman had with a mother he described as a ‘monster’, who alternately cooed over his looks and then for no reason beat him. His parents were in constant conflict and his weak, alcoholic father an emotional dead space. Not surprisingly Newman himself developed a serious drinking problem which ruined his first marriage. His inadequacies as a parent to his first three children haunted him with guilt in later life.

  Newman, 26 January 1925 6.30am Cleveland Heights, Ohio, had a hard-working, conscientious Saturn in Scorpio in his career 10^th in a creative Water Grand Trine to Pluto Descendant trine Uranus, with Pluto opposition Venus, Mercury, Jupiter in Capricorn on his Ascendant. Venus Jupiter on the Ascendant would exude enthusiasm and give him an upbeat and clearly false persona. But Saturn Pluto is bleak. Add in Uranus for instability and it would send his Water Grand Trines into an alternative bubble of reality since the one on offer was too desolate. His Sun was square Saturn for the unsupportive father.

   His unaspected Pisces Moon suggests dysfunctional nurturing, making him vulnerable and traumatized. It was conjunct his enthusiastic Mars/Jupiter midpoint and square his Mars/Pluto and Uranus/Node which encapsulates the confusing, double-messaging mother –  one moment all over him, the next savagely cruel and unstable.  Saturn in Scorpio in the 10^th also represents the cold, ungiving, spine-straightening mother – which can occur with also with Moon Saturn.

  Theresa Garth Feltzer, 25 July 1894, was a Sun Leo with a hard-edged and can-be-cruel, short-tempered Mars in Aries opposition Saturn in Libra square his Pluto and his Venus. So all of her pent-up resentment at the injustices of her own life would be acted out on him.

  It is a miracle he stayed upright and as good looking as he did for so long. When he threw his mother out of his life at one point during his marriage to Joanne Woodward he said he felt a weight had been lifted from him.  After she died in 1982 he started to record his memoir tapes and his daughter Clea said he he evolved immensely in the last quarter of his life, freed by his mother’s death. In 1982 tr Uranus just into Sagittarius was square his Moon which is classic transit for emotional changes concerning mother figures and a freeing up of old emotions trapped in the past.  

In later life after he gave up drinking he took to racing cars which fitted with his 3rd house Mars in Aries but also suggests a need to flirt with death, and for the adrenaline kick that would waken dead emotions.

Another example of the gap between public adulation and the private reality is Jan Morris, the journalist and travel writer, lauded for her writing talent and courage as an early trans woman. She has been described after her death as “selfish, self-serving and unkind”. With a Sun Libra square Pluto; and Mars in Taurus opposition Saturn in Scorpio square Neptune (Moon) opposition Jupiter – there’s every reason to believe the description holds water.  

  Always reassuring to have the mysteries of charts illuminated after death.

See previous posts: Saturn mothers – 3 September 2022

Marriage to Joanne Woodward 27 July 2022.

Jan Morris 21 November 2020

Please add below. Older posts under News on top bar.

153 people have died in a crush in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, with another 82 injured as huge crowds gathered in a popular nightlife area for Halloween. Most victims were teenagers and adults in their 20s and the crush began in a narrow alley when people in a crowd fell over.

The upcoming Lunar Eclipse located to Seoul has Mars in Gemini on the Ascendant suggesting an accident. The Mars is emphasised/afflicted being inconjunct Pluto sextile Venus in Scorpio.

 These kinds of disasters occur all over but often they are advance (synchronous) warnings of more major events and upheavals to follow. The South Korea chart, 15 August 1948 12am, is being seriously rattled by tr Uranus square the 4^th house Pluto just after this New Year with tr Saturn opposition the Sun before New Year and then the Mercury, Saturn, which tr Uranus moves to upend from June 2023 onwards into 2024 – so a bumpy eighteen months ahead. At the moment the Solar Arc Mars is opposition the Uranus for high tension and possible accidents plus Solar Arc Saturn is conjunct the SK South Node.

  What is causing great alarm in the region are indications that North Korea may be about to launch a nuclear test, the first in five years. Recent US, South Korea and Japanese large-scale military exercises have antagonised Kim Jong Un.  Over the past month the North has fired a missile over Japan, launched several other ballistic missiles, flown warplanes close to its border and fired hundreds of shells of artillery into the sea, which have landed in a military buffer zone.

An analyst said: “We have never seen this audacity and aggression before, it is different. It is the North acting like a nuclear state.”  On Thursday, the US Department of Defense warned that a nuclear attack by North Korea would result in the destruction of its regime. “There is no scenario in which the Kim regime could employ nuclear weapons and survive,” it said.

 Kim Jong Un’s motivations are, as usual, opaque but it could be a gesture to prove NK’s readiness to stave off invasion; or a ploy to get the US to negotiate on sanctions.

  Kim Jong Un’s Leadership chart, 29 December 2011 11.57am P’yonggang is on red alert over coming months with the explosive Solar Arc Mars opposition the Uranus, exact in 3 months but in effect for several more. It also, worryingly, has an over-confident, power-hungry tr Pluto square the Jupiter from late March 2023 on and off till late 2024 so he could go rampaging across the line of common sense and caution, believing he can’t lose.

A savage attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband leaving him with a fractured skull has raised concern not only about this incident but about the increase in threats of violence against lawmakers, judges and political candidates with tensions rising before the midterm elections on November 8th. Threats against  members of Congress are up by a multiple of three since 2017. Both left and right politicians have faced threats but over the past decade rightwing extremists have committed three quarters of the 450 political murders, compared with 4% attributed to leftwing extremists.

 The attacker in this case who was disarmed and arrested has a blog, website and social media accounts filled with anti-Semitic memes, Holocaust denial, references to far-right websites and conspiracy theories such as QAnon. He also posted debunked allegations of election fraud. He appears to be a nudist activist and Green Party member.

  After breaking into the Pelosi house he shouted “where’s Nancy?” echoing the January 6 Capitol Hill rioters.

  The USA chart is still labouring under the Pluto Return and highlighting the fanatical Mercury opposition until late 2023. It is moving towards a Mars Return on November 25^th, inflaming the vocal USA Mars in Gemini and sparking off the Sun/Uranus midpoint over the election which could lead to injuries and accidents. More significantly tr Uranus is square the US Mars/Saturn and Sun/Neptune midpoints exactly now from October 10^th to November 7^th – which is prone to explosive violence and disasters, as well as being nerve=stretched and leading to emotional crises.

 Paul Pelosi, born less than three weeks after his wife on 15 April 1940, is not having his best year with a drunk driving conviction after a crash in May though he is expected to recover from these recent injuries. The multimillionaire founder of a venture capital firm, he is a confident, lucky, go-getting Sun Jupiter in Aries square Pluto; with his Sun also conjunct Saturn in Taurus square Pluto so tough-minded and unyielding. His Solar Arc Saturn his squaring his Jupiter at the moment denting his confidence; and his Solar Arc Pluto is conjunct his North Node for his brush with the dark side.

   The Mercury Pluto on the US chart which has been under heavy pressure since 2020 (until late 2023) does make the national US temperament a sucker for demagogues, rabble rousers and agitators. Trump’s narcissistic rage of the thwarted man-baby has touched a chord amongst those of similar inclinations and given them tacit permission to run rampant. Pluto in Aquarius has to restore some balance and sanity – please!

Jerry Lee Lewis, the rock’n’roll pioneer whose frenetic, raucous music and chaotic personal life scandalised the older post-war generation, has died aged 87. He was idolised by the pop stars of the day and responded by pouring contempt on their success and insisting he was the king, greater even than Elvis.

  He said: “We only got one life to live. I know what I am. I’m a rompin’, stompin’, piano playing sonofabitch. A mean sonofabitch. But a great sonofabitch.”

 He was born 29 September 1935 at 3pm Ferriday, Louisiana and raised in rural poverty on the borders of the Mississippi river. His family attended the Assembly of God church, and spoke in tongues. His cousin Jimmy Swaggart sang with Lewis during their childhoods and would go on to become one of America’s most famous Television evangelists (felled by sex scandals). All of his life Lewis struggled with a profound conflict between Old Testament notions of faith and temptation – as he went on to live a life marred by drunkenness, drug addiction, womanising and seven marriages.

  His biographer wrote of his life: “havoc inevitably reigns: in-laws go mad or become accident statistics, offspring die horrible, mangled deaths, wives drown or suffer inexplicable fatal overdoses … record people are terrorized, audiences verbally and physically attacked, promoters bankrupted, journalists threatened with broken bottles … while The Killer just keeps on rocking”.

  His career stalled after it emerged he had married a 13 year old second cousin, which was not thought odd in the milieu of his upbringing and he was unrepentant, eventually clawing his way back to the top as king of Country & Western.

  Like many old rock’n’rollers it is a miracle he survived with a crippling drug habit in the 1960s and rampant alcohol consumption causing a near fatal stomach rupture in the 1980s, in and out of rehab and a stroke in 2019.

  He had an intense, deeply buried 8^th house Libra Sun on the focal point of a Yod to Saturn in Pisces sextile Uranus in Taurus. This would give him problems with his ego – too much and too little, so he’d swing between self-doubt and then overdo the overwhelming self-confidence with a tendency to abuse his dominance.

  His Pluto was strongly aspected in square to Moon and Mercury and trine a lucky, successful Jupiter on his Midheaven – emotionally possessive, dogmatic in his opinions and pushily self-assured.

  Plus an ambitious and scattergun Mars in Sagittarius in his career 10th in a hard-edged, not-always-kind square to Saturn opposition Venus – no surprises his emotional life was a constant war zone. His Mars was also sextile his Sun and in a showbizzy square to an 8^th house musical Neptune. Such a Mutable Mars would give him high-levels of dynamic energy and nervous tension but would tend to send him off in a frenzy of impatience.

  He certainly changed the course of musical history in an extraordinary way.

Prince Harry’s pact with the devil – media and money – is creaking towards a crescendo with every indication that he will regret selling his gripes for fame, fortune and vindication. Apart from anything else tedium is setting in and were it not for the damage his personal wrecking mission could cause to the monarchy few would care – in the UK at any rate.

 It is thought that hopes he would tone down the approaching Netflix documentary and his memoir aimed for January have been overblown. Commercial considerations will no doubt have dictated that sensationalism trumps decency. In titling his book ‘Spare’ he’s walking in Princess Margaret’s footsteps – born to immense wealth, privilege and status with an array of choices 99.99% of the population could not dream of, they whine about having to walk behind a sibling.

  His own chart has this week’s Solar Eclipse in Scorpio conjunct his Pluto for a transform or stagnate choice; with his Solar Arc Sun also conjunct his Pluto now for a frozen-to-the-spot few months. The November Lunar Eclipse is also catching his Midheaven and Saturn in Scorpio for a sharp reality check and a crisis of direction.

  Late this October to early January tr Neptune will oppose his Sun for a discontented and discouraging run; with a separated-from-family and feeling under-supported tr Saturn square his Taurus Moon across this Christmas. Nothing that looks like a singing and dancing success.

 His father Charles is downbeat across the New Year with tr Saturn square his Sun and feeling devastated from January 12^th onwards till mid February with tr Pluto square his Mars/Saturn midpoint. His relationship chart with Harry also looks highly stressed in the second half of January.

  His relationship with Camilla is also under a cloud over the January 10^th publication date, worsening through 2023 and more so in 2024.

 The deep freeze with brother William won’t thaw anytime soon. Princess Anne looks unamused by her nephew’s bleatings.

  King Charles looks the most affected and Camilla which will put additional pressure on them running into the coronation.

  Harry really is on a hiding to nothing since his only currency is trash-talking the family to whom he owes his status. Once the public tire of the incessant whining and/or the Royals finally remove his title, it’s difficult to see how he can stay afloat.   

Add On: This storm-in-a-teacup melodrama with tragic overtones sent me back to look at the wedding chart of 19 May 2018. The late Taurus Sun was at 28 degrees which in modern terms is wide of the orb for a conjunction to the destructive Fixed Star Algol, though it would have been acceptable in traditional astrology. More significantly there was an explosive, no-compromise Mars in Aquarius square Uranus.

   Tr Pluto moving into Aquarius from late March 2023 will light a fuse and cause major eruptions for the next three years – as it is square the Uranus and then conjunct the Mars. That could be rancorous either within the marriage or acted out on others or more likely both. It will bring to a head the pressures building up since tr Pluto opposed the Wedding Cancer Moon in 2019.

  Nothing that looks like peace breaking out anytime soon.   

Lost-in-cyberspace Mark Zuckerburg, so focused on the alternative Meta universe he forgot to pay attention to the economic realities of the here and now, has seen FB/Meta shares down 60% from the start of the year, wiping hundreds of billions off the company’s value. Profits have halved, investors and advertisers are pulling back but there’s no indication that Zuckerburg has woken up to face facts.  He’s writing it off as “near-term challenges” and looks to a strengthening in future though many investors fear the company has lost its way.

 The Eclipses are certainly trying to hammer home a message to Zuckerburg,  emphasising that changes need to be made. Whether his four Scorpio and two Taurus planets are capable of listening is another matter. The Solar Eclipse was conjunct his Pluto  which poses a choice between transformation on the one hand and decay/stagnation on the other. Continuing as before won’t be a good idea. The Lunar Eclipse in early November will rattle up his financial/acquisitive Venus in Taurus denting his image, making him feel unloved, and creating emotional upsets. Plus it also hits his congregation of Saturn, Moon and Mars in Scorpio – a bad- tempered time when mistakes boomerang and come home to roost. Plus the ratchety tr Saturn square tr Uranus is also moving across all his Fixed planets this year and throughout 2023 into early 2024.

  He’s tough and never going to be looking for tomorrow’s breakfast but seeing his dream crumble will hurt.

 The Meta rebrand was announced on 28 October 2021 with an early Scorpio Sun also catching this week’s Solar Eclipse for a wake-up crisis and tr Pluto is also in a frustrating, trapped square to the Mars through till late 2023. Heavy pressures will continue in the latter half of this decade with tr Pluto square the Sun and opposition the Saturn.

 Facebook, 4 February 2004, has Mars in Taurus also in line of this week’s eclipse for major conflagrations and arguments. And is on a nodal return.

  All the astro-indications are screaming a need for a radical rethink of future direction.

Add On: Twitter’s IPO chart is also under Eclipse pressure with tr Uranus adding its jolts and jangles as ‘Chief Twit’ Elon Musk steps in as new owner and sacks a raft of top executives. He has hinted at plans to turn Twitter into an “everything app”, perhaps similar to China’s WeChat, which has 1bn users and combines instant messaging, video calls and mobile payments.

 The IPO chart, 7 November 2013, with Mercury at 3 Scorpio and Saturn Sun at 14/15 degrees Scorpio is catching both Eclipses and tr Uranus opposition the Saturn Sun through from this December to March 2023 which will all add up to a high-stress few months.

  Both the IPO and the original Twitter chart, 21 March 2006, like Facebook show up the tr Neptune Saturn conjunction in 2025 as a financially crippling and potential game-changing time. The Brave New World ahead may not suit the social media giants of the past two decades.

 

Rishi Sunak proclaimed integrity and unity as the only way forward after being sworn in by King Charles at around 11.15 am on the 25th. He took office less than an hour before the Solar Eclipse so it was a day of fevered anticipation and might be expected to be a singular term ahead.

  RS’s Term has a charming and friendly New Moon conjunct Venus in the 11^th though with an assertive, argumentative, ideologically-rigid and chilly Air Grand Trine of Mars in the 7^th trine Mercury trine Saturn in Aquarius; with a dogmatic, hostile-debate Mercury square a financial 2^nd house Pluto. What helps marginally is Mars having moved out of the financial 8^th as it was for the Truss Term as she tanked the economy. His PM chart is less weighed down by dirty-dealings-behind the-scenes as it was for BJ’s 2^nd Term which had Saturn Pluto Venus in the 12^th. 

  The Saturn square Uranus guarantees a bumpy ride and a constant tug of war between opposing political views. Panic about failed policies will set in around mid March into April 2023, again from the autumn right through till February 2024 as the Mars is undermined by tr Neptune in square.

  Although in contrast to BJ he seems sane and sensible there are questionmarks about his past judgement. A true believer in Brexit he failed to anticipate the costs and overrated the ease of making up the shortfall elsewhere. Covid fraud also occurred under his remit.

  He is also stepping into a mare’s nest of a mess and restoring economic stability, constitutional rectitude and national morale at a time of global austerity will take the shine off trouncing his peers for a win.

  On his personal chart, this December will rack up his woes with tr Saturn back to square his Mercury, Sun and then Uranus through till mid January. Plus a panicked, failed-plans tr Pluto square his Mars/Neptune midpoint from early in December until mid January, followed by another similar through till mid February, both of which repeat from August 2023 to the New Year. Tr Uranus picks up the high-tension, sudden jolts conjunction to his Sun Mercury from June 2023 on and off till early 2025 – so it’ll be a stormy ride.

  He does have an enthusiastic, go-getting Jupiter Mars conjunction in early Virgo. His Solar Arc Pluto square the Jupiter now gave him a surge of luck to propel him into No 10, and his enthusiastic drive will see him through Solar Arc Pluto square his Mars/Jupiter midpoint in 2023. But what might be his undoing will be the Solar Arc Pluto square his Mars in 2024 which can bring progress to a halt.

  His Cabinet choices have pulled together left and right, friend and foe which makes a change from Truss and BJ’s fans-only selection. There are fewer Mutable scattergun types than before.  Hunt is a Scorpio; Rabb (Deputy PM) is a Pisces; Braverman (Home Secretary) an Aries; Cleverly (Foreign Secy) a Virgo; Wallace (Defence) a Taurus; Zahawi Gemini; Dowden Leo; Barclay (Health) a Taurus, Badenoch a Capricorn, Jenrick (Immigration) a Capricorn, Victoria Prentis (Attorney General) an Aries.

 Braverman is a mistake, having recently blotted her copybook over a personal email issue and only hauled in because of her right-wing ERG ties. Robert Jenrick is also deeply questionable because of past planning scandals. Though now that I look both have immigration on their plate so RS may hope to land the blame on them for failed attempts to crack the impossible problem ahead.

   One theory is he put together a ‘broad church’ to calm early dissension and may well reshuffle down the road.  

Add On: Understandably Suella Braverman’s appointment has caused ructions, taking the edge of Sunak’s proclamations about rectitude. She’s a Sun Aries opposition Pluto which is not quite as bad as Priti Patel’s Aries Sun opposition Pluto square Jupiter but heading that way. Her Solar Arc Sun is square her Mars, possibly still to come within months which can signal a considerable setback; and she is into a run of uncertain, panicky Neptune transits undermining her Saturn, then Mars/Pluto midpoint, then Pluto/Node and Jupiter/Pluto throughout 2023 into 2024 – all of which will dent her confidence and standing. Her relationship chart with Sunak shows up similar disappointments and losses from this coming January onwards.   

Haiti has descended to the lowest circle of hell with 150 to 200 gangs warring for control of the capital Port-au-Prince-  with extreme sexual violence against women and children rampant, widespread starvation and outbreaks of cholera. Conditions have become particularly dire in recent months as the gangs have blockaded the country’s fuel terminals. Amid severe food and water shortages, the country’s economy has been paralysed and hospitals forced to close.

The government has requested UN armed forces to help – the president said “the whole country has been taken hostage” – but NGOs warn that foreign military intervention to restore order will only cause more bloodshed. UN missions in Haiti have quelled violence in the past, but it returned once they departed and is not a long term solution.

 UN peacekeepers sent to respond to the 2010 earthquake left behind hundreds of fatherless children and were accused of systematic sexual abuse and exploitation of Haitian women and it introduced a cholera outbreak which killed 10,000 and took nine years to eradicate. The UN apologised for sparking the deadly outbreak but never formally accepted responsibility.

  The Haiti independence chart of 1 January 1804 7.17.am Gonaives, Haiti has a tough, setback and violence-prone Sun Mars in Capricorn square Saturn; with a constantly-changing Sun Mercury square Uranus. There’s also a confident Pluto trine Jupiter in Scorpio sextile Mars Sun, so there is potential there.

  The devastating 2010 earthquake which caused billions in damage and killed nearly a quarter of a million people hit the country hard. That was when transiting Pluto was conjunct the Haiti Mars and square the Haiti Saturn with tr Saturn on its Return and square Mars – catastrophic.

  The present socioeconomic chaos has worsened since  President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021 when the Solar Arc Pluto was square the Haiti Sun.

  At the moment the Solar Arc Sun is conjunct the Haiti South Node which seems fitting for a time of hitting rock bottom.

 Tensions will run high through 2023/24 with tr Pluto conjunct the Venus and tr Uranus opposition the Neptune. The one glimmer of hope is tr Pluto square the Jupiter in 2024/25 which could suggest an upsurge in national confidence and a push to regenerate.

  Whatever happens everyone agrees the answer must come from within Haiti and not imposed from the outside.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/18/haiti-un-talks-gangs-hunger-cholera

Today’s Solar Eclipse at 2 degrees Scorpio is in a Saros Series hinting at forceful even manic activity intent on taking power – and huge efforts in group activity. The following Lunar Eclipse at 16 Taurus is likely to be even more powerful with the Eclipsed Full Moon in close aspect to Uranus square Saturn.

 Looking back over previous occurrences of similar 6 South Saros Series Eclipse there were events of considerable magnitude, none falling on the day itself though shortly before or after.  Eclipses are thought to have around six months of influence. To be remembered in all examples there are always other influences in play as well which can make a significant difference.

Solar Eclipse – October 14 2004:

On September 1 – the Beslan school siege and botched hostage rescue with 333 dead in Russia

November 22 – the Orange Revolution in Ukraine erupts after corrupt elections.

26 December – Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami leaves quarter of a million dead.

Solar Eclipse – October 3 1986:

November – the Iran-Contra leak

Solar Eclipse – 22 September 1968:

August 20 – invasion of Czechoslovakia

September – Arthur Ashe wins US Open and Tet Offensive in Vietnam ends.

October 5 – Irish Troubles start after Derry civil rights march.

Solar Eclipse – 12 September 1950

June 25 – Korean War starts.

Solar Eclipse – 31 August 1932

July – Dow Jones hits lowest level of the Depression

July 31 – Nazis become largest party in Reichstag.

September – Soviet famine starts with 5 to 8 million dead, Stalin blamed.

November – hurricane kills 2500 in Cuba.

Solar Eclipse – 21 August 1914

June – Archduke Ferdinand assassinated

July – World War 1 starts.

  Before panic sets it it should be pointed out that in 1914 Pluto was just into Cancer with Saturn rapidly approaching a conjunction. Saturn Pluto is usually around for major wars and isn’t at the moment.