Pulitzer prizewinner Cormac McCarthy, deemed one of America’s finest novelists for his gritty portrayal of the backwoods of the US and the outcasts who operated beyond the mores of respectable society. Some criticised his work as too macho, violent and nihilistic, feeling that his books “floodlit the dark underside of the American dream”.
In his personal life he was reclusive and austere, driving away his first two wives because of his obsession with writing over earning money.
He was best known for The Road and No Country for Old Men – in the latter, which was turned into a Coen movie, his cowboy hero was a Vietnam War veteran turned drifter who stumbles on a large sum of money in the desert, a discovery that brings into play a psychotic hitman, a sheriff straight out of High Noon and a bounty hunter. ‘If it doesn’t concern life and death,’ Mr. McCarthy once told Rolling Stone, ‘it’s not interesting.’
He was born 20 July 1933 and despite writing continuously since his twenties didn’t come to public acclaim until he was 60, after which it all took off.
He was born 20 July 1933 Providence, Rhode Island, and was a Sun Pluto in Cancer square Uranus – creative, controlling, rebellious, not destined for a conventional life. His Saturn in Aquarius opposed his Venus and Mercury in Leo, squelching any inclination he might have had to the high life or playing to an audience.
It is a chart that really needs a birth time to make sense of his life.
When he finally broke through in 1992 he was on his Second Saturn Return and a Jupiter Return; with his Solar Arc Pluto conjunct his Jupiter and tr Pluto conjunct his SA Jupiter. He got it together courtesy of the fates of good fortune in a major way.
Rarely has a political party suffered such an injurious blow as the SNP, with the chairman Peter Murrell and then the leader, his wife, Nicola Sturgeon, resigning and being arrested during the tortuous police investigation into the missing £600,000 referendum donations.
Commentators say the arrest of Sturgeon, indicates the police inquiry is nearing its end, after which a report is handed to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal, who will decide whether to bring any charges or drop the investigation.
[The meaning of arrest changed in Scots law five years ago. Nick McKerrell, a senior law lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, said: “Arrest in Scots law can either mean now that you are arrested and not accused, that means to say you are going in to help the police investigate a crime, or you are arrested and charged with a criminal offence.”]
The SNP chart, 7 April 1934 is showing in the starkest terms the sense of catastrophic damage the affaire has brought. Exactly now there is a significantly disruptive Solar Arc Uranus conjunct the SNP Pluto at the same time as a trapped, high-risk, enraging Solar Arc Pluto opposition the Mars – upended and battered into paralysis.
Nicola Sturgeon, 19 July 1970 3.16pm, who is proclaiming her total innocence and was released without charge, is facing a rocky path ahead. Tr Pluto was opposing her Cancer Sun in 2021/22, then moved to oppose her Sun/Mars midpoint and now her Mars through this year and next – which like the SNP chart hints at a dead-halt, meltdown – trapped.
Exactly at the moment she also has tr Uranus conjunct her Saturn in Taurus for high tension and turbulence and tr Uranus then in 2024 moves on to square the Saturn/Neptune midpoint and then oppose Neptune in 2025 – so a long run of extreme anxiety and uncertainty. She’ll maintain her usual bullish confidence in patches this year but there will be a few disastrous dips as well in October/November this year and across the New Year into February 2024.
Similarly her husband Peter Murrell, 8 December 1964, is looking poleaxed at the moment with tr Pluto square two of his Sun midpoints at zero degrees Scorpio which extends into and through 2024; with a debilitating series of Solar Arcs between 2024 and 2028. It may not all be this specific issue that is causing the strain but the days of wine and roses are surely over.
It will put a strain on their marriage obviously with hitches and glitches from this August and Nicola pulling away from what has been in 2024/25.
There is pressure to insist she resign from the party though at present that is being resisted. Her relationship with the SNP does show a definite chill this year with tr Saturn square the composite Sun, Mercury Venus and next year Mars on the relationship chart; with an upheaval this August.
The effect of Pluto moving into Aquarius and then teetering back into Capricorn to tie up loose ends does have the feel of an earthquake. The tectonic plates shift bringing old structures crashing to the ground – and toppling icons off their pedestals.
Silvio Berlusconi, media tycoon, politician and billionaire, four time Prime Minister of Italy, responsible for his country’s decline in economic terms and in standards of public life, has died aged 86.
He exploited his wealth and influence over the media to acquire and wield power in an undemocratic manner. Like Trump and others who followed, he had millions of adoring supporters — and numerous critics outraged by his scandalous sexual behaviour with younger women and his disregard for the law. Throughout his years at the top, Italian prosecutors launched hundreds of investigations into his business affairs. They sought to convict him on charges ranging from tax fraud and false accounting to bribery of judges and illegal political party financing. Only by 2013 was he convicted of tax fraud for which he did not serve a prison sentence but was made to perform a year of community service in an old people’s home near his sumptuous Milan residence.
He was born 29 September 1936 5.40am Milan, Italy, the son of a bank employee, graduated in law and went into real estate with questionable financing, and two of his business partners were later convicted of crimes, one of collusion with the mafia.
He had a Sun Mercury in Libra is his exuberant 1st house with an equally super-optimistic Jupiter in Sagittarius in his 3rd house. His Venus in Scorpio in his financial 2nd house would give him a taste for spending money and indulging himself in the pleasures of the flesh – the 2nd house being Taurus’s natural home. Venus also squares Pluto for passion, possessiveness and manipulation; and his Venus opposed an 8th house Uranus in the chart area of business finances and sexuality – inventive, unpredictable, changeable.
He also had a creative and neurotic Moon Saturn in Pisces opposition Neptune squaring onto his Jupiter – so he would channel his over active imagination into his boastful Jupiter in the 3rd to great effect.
His chart certainly reflects money and sex as foreground issues and given that he was blessed with a gift for self-promotion and communication with a 1st house Sun and 3rd house Jupiter, his career choice of the media seems logical.
He fitted the Italy Republic 10 June 1946 4pm chart well – with his Pluto on the Italy Midheaven and his Jupiter conjunct the South Node and his Sun conjunct the Italy 12th house Neptune. He controlled Italy’s destiny and direction for a while, though pulling it back it into its less evolved traits with his bombastic cheer and appealed to its delusions.
Two criminal oddities have died in prison – Unabomber Ted Kaczynski of suicide and former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, perpetrator of the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history when he sold information to the Russians, of natural causes.
Kaczynski, born May 22, 1942 at 4pm Chicago, was a prodigy, up at Harvard at 15, a mathematician, who abandoned his academic career to pursue a primitive lifestyle. He murdered three individuals and injured 23 others in a nationwide mail bombing campaign against people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the natural environment.
He had a chart eerily similar to UK’s Fred West, a serial child rapist and killer, with an 8th house Uranus, Sun, Saturn conjunction trine a 12th house Neptune and sextile Pluto in the 10th. West had a marginally earthier chart and also suicided in prison while awaiting trial.
Kaczynski had a charming Leo Moon trine Venus in Aries sextile a 9th house (of education) Jupiter Mercury in Gemini. He would be driven by the unconscious urges of his 8th house planets and his 10th house Pluto giving him an intense need to be in control.
Add On: The mystery was always how Kaczynski transformed from a star mathematics student to a terrorist. When he went up to Harvard, too young at 16, he was involved in a CIA-backed mind-control experiment run by Harvard psychologist Henry A. Murray. The program (MK Ultra) sought to understand how to control subjects’ minds, using harsh interrogation techniques. Professor Alston Chase, author of a book about the Unabomber, argued these experiences at Harvard helped create the Unabomber. They did “shape his anger and legitimize his wrath.”
During that period of Kaczynski’s life – 1958 to 61 – tr Pluto in early Virgo was square his 8th house Uranus, Sun, Saturn in Gemini which would dredge up his deeply buried unconscious. Even more tellingly his Solar Arc Mars was then conjunct his 10th house Pluto making him acutely frustrated, enraged and fearful, trapped and powerless. The potential for him to flip into acute mental illness was always there but such grotesquely irresponsible experiments may well have tipped the scales.
Robert Hanssen, 18 April 1944 11.31am Evergreen Park, Illinois, an FBI agent, was an oddball with a religious background, member of Opus Dei and a perverse need to have his sexual relations with his wife filmed and viewed by a friend. Over 22 years he made £1.4 million in cash by selling US intelligence documents to the Russians. He was sentenced in 2001 to fifteen life terms without the possibility of parole, incarcerated until his death.
He had a 10th house Aries Sun and Venus also in Aries on his Midheaven. His Venus was in a Half Grand Sextile opposition Neptune and sextile Uranus and sextile Pluto. Charming and talented with his Venus, like Kaczynski, square Mars in Cancer. His 8th house Pisces Moon was square Uranus and on the focal point of a Yod inconjunct Pluto sextile Neptune. It is not entirely clear where his wildly contradictory traits came from – extreme religiosity v sexual perversion; love of country/dislike of Russians v treason/spying.
His Jupiter in Leo was on the cusp of his 2nd house which would certainly give him a taste for money and the good life. And his 8th house Yod Moon would make him emotionally unbalanced, disorganised, lacking solid emotional foundations. His Moon is also a singleton, the only planet in Water. The rest of his chart is Fire Air – a hot air balloon loose on the ocean. Kaczynski was also mainly Air Fire.
Carole, matriarch of the Middleton family, grand mother to the heir to the heir to the throne is in embarrassment her Party Pieces mail order firm having collapsed into administration. Debts of £2.5 million, mainly owed to small suppliers, along with unpaid tax and a covid loan appear to be due to be written off since it is a limited company.
Given the Middleton’s conspicuous wealth over the years, funding seriously expensive private education for their children plus property investments and two daughters married ‘well’ it wouldn’t seem a stretch to at least recompense the small suppliers, if only for PR purposes.
Carole, 31 January 1955, is a Sun Aquarius sextile a go-ahead Mars in Aries and maybe square a Taurus Sun. She also has Mercury in Aquarius opposition Pluto square Saturn in Scorpio – hard-driving, utterly determined and stubborn to the nth degree. She also has a lucky Jupiter Uranus in Cancer square Neptune.
Her Saturn is being upended by tr Uranus in opposition exactly now which will put her on a Saturnine guilt trip and that runs into a disruptive tr Uranus square her Pluto in 2024 and her Mercury in 2025 – so quite a sticky run of turbulence, prompting/inviting her to change which won’t be easy since flexibility isn’t her thing.
Her relationship with daughter Catherine, Princess of Wales, is being challenged now with tr Pluto conjunct the composite Sun at zero degrees Aquarius and that will repeat through 2024. It was always a more demanding relationship than the cosy en famille brand suggested with a composite Sun square Saturn. Plenty of affection but super-high expectations as well.
Husband Michael, 23 June 1949, an independent-minded Sun Uranus in Cancer, won’t appreciate tr Saturn Neptune in Aries in 2025 squaring his Sun Uranus which will also affect his relationship with Prince William.
It’s a nothing story really but somehow odd. Given the amount of literally billions swilling round the Royal coffers you would have thought it could have been quietly paid up and shut down without fuss.
Boris Johnson flouncing off in a narcissistic rage, spewing bile and blame in all directions, appears to have shot his bolt with only a few die-hards still bleating his cause. There will be three byelections when Tories’ polling numbers are down but the party on present evidence looks unlikely to tear itself apart.
Though Rishi Sunak’s Prime Ministerial term, 25 October 2022 is generally in a sinking, panicky year with the failure-ridden tr Neptune square Mars back this October and in early 2024. The Tory Party 1912 chart similarly has power-ebbing-away with tr Neptune square the Pluto exactly now and running on and off till January 2025. Sunak’s own personal chart has a disastrous run from this August through the autumn, repeating into early 2024.
What is interesting astrologically-speaking is Sunak’s personal Sun Mercury in Taurus at 20/21 degrees is catching the tr Uranus conjunction exactly now – and rattling up the Conservative Party 9 May 1912 chart with its 18 degree Taurus Sun and 22 degree Saturn in Taurus in July – and for both that will rattle and shake right through into early 2024.
Uranus usually says – change or stagnate. And it is not a prospect that Taurus regards with any enthusiasm since Taurean strength is perseverance along the same track. Where the Tories are concerned this is only the beginning since tr Pluto will move to exert pressure on their Venus square Uranus through 2024 to 2026. Like it or not, they will have to shake off the old and get onto a new track.
The Labour Party 12 February 1906 is also on alert for change from this July onwards with tr Uranus square its Sun Venus and since that links into its Jupiter in Taurus they should be on a lucky run through 2024 into 2025, the beneficiary of Tory woes. But their winning streak may well end up running into the buffers in later 2025/2026. The Labour 1900 chart and Keir Starmer’s also indicate calamities come 2026.
The LibDems, 3 March 1988, will be upbeat this year but move into disaster territory in polling terms once tr Neptune Saturn move into Aries in 2025 for several years onwards. The Greens look to be limping as well.
Into confusing times – more of them. Except for Boris who once he recovers from his tantrum will sail off into the sunset to earn gzillions from speaking, publishing and the like with Jupiter moving through his 8th house from this July and thence onto his successful 10th. Regrettably since life is unfair he will continue to be a vengeful presence somewhere in the spotlight. Wife Carrie does have tr Neptune conjunct her Pisces Sun this year and next which with a new baby may just mean a drifting and daydreaming spell in a backwater, but not contented.
For previous Boris Johnson posts: 30 May 2023; 15 January 2023; 23 July 2022.
Add On: Criticism of Johnson has been excoriating from several well known commentators. Max Hastings who once gave him a job as a journalist and then fired him. “Selfish, ruthless and a stranger to truth, this scoundrel destroyed respect for Britain. He is perhaps the most selfish human being I have ever met, indifferent to the welfare of anyone save himself. It is striking that he has few, if any, personal friends. He demands loyalty, but is incapable of giving it to others. —–Tony Soprano would find him a tad ruthless.
Biographer Anthony Seldon: “The damage Boris Johnson has done is beyond measure. Britain has been left weaker by a prime minister who demeaned its institutions and sullied all those who came into his orbit. He ran the government as if he were the wayward manager of an amateur theatre company, full of histrionics, changes of mind and cliques. Politicians, aides and officials whom we spoke to for the book attest to the fact that he was quite incapable of telling truth from falsehood: that “he lied morning, noon and night” was a regular lament. ‘
Times journalist: Jenni Russell. “Forget partygate for the moment. Think back to 2016. Johnson backed Brexit not because he believed in it but because he calculated that by doing so he’d get the backing of the Tory right and outflank George Osborne as next Tory leader. If Johnson had stuck to his europhile views Brexit would have lost, he’d have succeeded Cameron in 2018 or so, and could be heading for his second term as Tory PM in a far more prosperous Britain than today — not the divided, anxious, disillusioned, poorer country that’s the Johnson legacy.”
William Hague: No one in modern British political history has so quickly squandered immense goodwill — with sadly irredeemable flaws.
The most serious of those has been a tendency to damage the institutions around him – the Supreme Court was dragged into politics to strike down an unreasonable prorogation of parliament. The Conservative Party was driven to a mass resignation of ministers to terminate an untenable leadership. Now, fair-minded MPs are attacked as a kangaroo court engaged in a witch-hunt. Even as he bolts out of the door, Boris pulls out a few bricks from the wall of another vital institution, parliament, and leaves a stain on the carpet of one that is less vital but a part of British life, the honours system.
Pat Robertson, the televangelist, who has died at 93, is notable not just because he turned God into a cash machine. But more damagingly he spearheaded the intrusion of religion into the Republican Party and US politics, which has led to the present day furore over abortion, gay rights and racism. He saw Trump as God’s plan for the USA and as such no secular election could overthrow him.
He is blamed for Newt Gingrich’s rise in the 1990s and the GOP’s scorched-earth political warfare backed up by conspiratorial thinking about the evil liberal cabal they were fighting against. He later blamed cultural liberalism for 9/11 and abortion policy for Hurricane Katrina.
He was born 22 March 1930 in Lexington, Virginia, no birth time, with a militant Christian mother Gladys who told him God had a plan for him. He racketed around, married ten weeks before the first child was born, skipped military service in Korea, failed the bar exam and was ecstatically ‘saved’ from depression by a Baptist missionary. His wife thought he was drunk. On the orders of the Lord he sold the family furniture, abandoned his eight months pregnant wife, to attend a religious camp in Canada. His wife put his actions down to his being a “religious nut” with “schizoid tendencies”. But she remained with him.
He founded the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), the fifth largest cable TV programme network system in the US. Various financial criticisms loomed thereafter including about his diamond mine in the Congo, none of which dented his popularity amongst the faithful. After a failed run for the presidency he became a GOP kingmaker.
Latterly he was ranting and raving with fundamentalist fervour about feminists being “anti-family lesbians”, gays “demonic” and non-Christians “termites” and predicted the world would end in 1982 or 2007.
He was a Sun Aries with Uranus Venus conjunct in Aries on the focal point of a T Square to Pluto opposition Saturn (Moon) in Capricorn. A focal point Uranus can be a trailblazer and catalyst for change though not always for the better. Determined to upset the status quo it produces an aggressive reformer.
He also had a Mutable T Square of a publicity-attracting Mars in Pisces opposition Neptune squaring onto an over confident Jupiter in Gemini.
The combination of the depressive Saturn Pluto and the pumped-up Jupiter would give him a precarious mental balance.
The other factor in his chart is the Taurus North Node which usually brings wrangles over money throughout life as well as issues around sexuality.
He certainly was karmically intertwined with the Republican Party – or if you prefer, was destined to be connected. The 12 October 1853 GOP chart has its Pluto conjunct his North Node and his Jupiter is conjunct their North Node. They gave him gravitas and kept the money rolling in and he gave them a recipe for winning.
It is less obvious why (astrologically speaking) he became the spark which sent the USA down the raging, holier-than-thou (maybe) anti-liberal road which peaked with Trump. When Reagan moved into the White House which was around the time of religious politics becoming embedded (I think) Pluto was then in the final decan of Libra. Thus it was the marker for the final quarter of the Pluto cycle before it slide towards the Return this year.
Depending on which side of the argument you are, this could be an indication of the USA in decline, slowly subsiding into brain mush before the necessary reconstruction as Pluto moves into enlightened Aquarius. Though the demented prayer-lobby would no doubt see the advancing liberal movements as the decline rather than the reverse.
It has always seemed to me an extreme oddity having abortion and gay rights etc centre foreground in a country that holds itself up as a liberal democracy.
Another criminal charge, another money-grabbing opportunity. Trump is raking in yet more campaign funds which continually spike every time another indictment against him is filed. Sigh. This recent charge sheet about Mar-a-Lago classified documents will list wilful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy. The eternally hopeful say this is the first time he has faced federal criminal charges, all previous legal embarrassments being in state courts, and he could face years in prison. He will appear for an arraignment on Tuesday at 3 p.m in Miami. Cynics point to his Houdini escape record and murmur unhappily that Florida would not be the first choice to guarantee justice will be dispensed.
There are other pending legal bear-traps for him including hush money payments to Stormy Daniels; and the biggie which is Georgia and Trump’s efforts to overturn the election there with charges perhaps coming this summer.
Assuming his birth time is not out by hours then he has a lucky Jupiter midpoint being triggered at the moment until this coming Wednesday and a run of good fortune and morale-boosts from the middle of this November to early next April.
He does have the poleaxing, trapped Solar Arc Mars square his Pluto in place throughout this year, which will put pressure on him. In addition to his Solar Arc Pluto square his Saturn which is gloom-inducing and indicates tough conditions.
Next year he has a run of infuriating, high-tension and aggravating influences picking up from April, through May and exploding in July with a shock-setback as tr Uranus squares his Mars. Just before the election his Progressed Venus will square his Saturn making him feel unloved and in November 2024 his Progressed Moon will square his Pluto – neither of which suggest a great triumph. Though he does have tr Jupiter moving across his 10th house from May 2024 for a year or so which will keep his profile high.
Francoise Gilot, a prolific and acclaimed artist, whose talent was underplayed because of her relationship with Pablo Picasso, has died at 101. Aged 21 in occupied Paris during WW11 she met Picasso, forty years her senior, while he was still married to the Russian dancer Olga Khokhlova and she replaced Doris Maar as his lover and muse. She remained with him for ten years, produced two children, and was the only one of his many mistresses to dump him, saying she loved him but left to prevent herself being destroyed.
In later years she wrote a memoir about her time with Picasso including descriptions of his physical and emotional abuse. He sued to try to stop publication, though it went on to sell a million. He cut off contact with her and the two children, and tried to stop galleries exhibiting her work. As she was leaving Picasso sneered at her: “You imagine people will be interested in you?” They won’t ever, really, just for yourself. Even if you think people like you, it will only be a kind of curiosity they will have about a person whose life has touched mine so intimately.”
She eventually moved to the US, marrying twice – including to the US polio vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk.
Born 26 November 1921 1am Neuilly sur Seine, France, she had a quick-witted 3rd house Sagittarius Sun which was in an independent-minded square to Uranus. Her influential and controlling 10th house Pluto was in a creative Water Grand Trine to Uranus and Venus Mercury in Scorpio; and her Pluto was also in a fearsome square to Saturn Mars Jupiter and widely square Moon in Libra. She was a curious mix of masochistic and submissive with a suppressed Pluto square Mars – as well as freedom-loving. As she matured and empowered herself quite a force to be reckoned with. Her Venus Mercury were square Neptune.
Picasso, 25 October 1881 11.15 pm Malaga, Spain, had a Sagittarius Moon to chime with her Sun, and his Scorpio Sun resonated with her Venus. But he had a heavyweight, ultra-stubborn chart with a stellium in Taurus in his 10th stretching from Saturn Neptune to a pushily-confident Jupiter Pluto conjunction. His Saturn Neptune was trine Uranus and sextile a 12th house Mars in Cancer.
Her need not be be bullied and ultimately to stay in control Pluto clashed with his Mars so no surprises there was abuse in their relationship. His Midheaven, Saturn, Neptune fell in her 8th so there would be a deep connection, not easy but initially beyond her conscious power to resist or understand.
Their relationship chart had a composite New Moon which suggest a connection where each felt more whole when they were together; but the composite Sun was in a power-struggling quincunx to Pluto. The synastry is more descriptive of their love hate match.
Two of his other mistresses had fairly similar placings. Doris Maar, 22 November 1907 2.30am Paris and Marie Therese Walter, 13 July 1909 12 noon Le Perreux sur Marne.
Both of them had marked Mars Pluto aspects in their charts – used to being dominated and bullied since childhood and unable to escape the old pattern. Both of them had Piscasso’s Taurus stellium falling in their respective 8th houses so an even more anchored-in-the-unconscious bond than Gilot’s.
Maar had a Fixed Scorpio Sun square Mars in Aquarius which was overwhelmed by his pushy Jupiter Pluto in Taurus; and his Mars fell in her 10th was conjunct her Neptune and opposition her Uranus for a raggedy interface.
Walter was a Sun Cancer trine Mars with her Mars square Pluto; and a Sun opposition Uranus square Saturn in Aries – highly-strung, low in self-esteem.
Two things would be a saving grace for Gilot – one was her maverick Mutable Sun square Uranus, which disliked compromise. The other was her Pluto in the 10th, hint of a possessive and controlling mother which would initially make it easy for her to slot into the same kind of submissive relationship but as she matured she would turn it round and become more resistant to being tramped under foot and used as a pawn.
