Astrology of Today’s News

Novelist Salman Rushdie, for years the target of Islamist death threats, has been stabbed repeatedly on stage while speaking at a literary event in New York State. His agent said he is now on a ventilator and unable to speak, may lose one eye, the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver stabbed and damaged. He is one of the most celebrated and successful British authors, with his second novel, Midnight’s Children, winning the Booker Prize in 1981. His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, brought about international turmoil. Many Muslims argued the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad was blasphemous. Rushdie was forced to go into hiding, under police protection.  

   Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini broke off relations with the UK in protest and issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s assassination in 1989. In Mumbai, Rushdie’s hometown, 12 people were killed during Muslim rioting, the British embassy in Tehran was stoned, and a $3m (£2.5m) bounty was put on the author’s head. The book needless to say became a best-seller.

 Rushdie was born 19 June 1947 2.30am Mumbai, India, was sent to the UK aged 14, studied at Cambridge University, became a UK citizen, allowed his Muslim faith to lapse, worked briefly as an actor and advertising copywriter, while writing novels. He has been married four times, and has two children.

The death sentence against Rushdie stopped being formally backed by Iran’s government in 1998 and in recent years the author has enjoyed a new level of freedom. But threats to his life always lingered under the surface, and Iran’s current supreme leader – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – once said the fatwa against Rushdie was “fired like a bullet that won’t rest until it hits its target”.

  Rushdie has a New Moon in communicative Gemini conjunct an outspoken and provocative Uranus; with Venus also in social butterfly Gemini trine Neptune. He has the bleak, tough-minded Saturn Pluto in Leo of his generation in his domestic, family and childhood roots 4^th house. He was born just two months before the tumultuous partition of India and Pakistan which became the subject of Midnight’s Children. His Pluto is in a pushily-confident square to a 7^th house Jupiter in Scorpio which opposes a determined and stubborn Mars in Taurus.

  All of his marriages have been short-lived so his 7^th house Jupiter hasn’t brought stability to his close relationships.

  When the fatwa was declared on 14 February 1989 his Solar Arc Sun and Moon were both conjunct his 4^th house Saturn which would be a considerable setback and sobering moment. In the scary, dangerous years following his Solar Arc New Moon moved across his Saturn/Pluto midpoint and then Pluto as he hid from public view. In the immediate aftermath his finances improved considerably so not all negative.

  At the moment his Jupiter at 18 Scorpio caught the recent tr Uranus, Mars, North Node opposition which is shaking up his life.  Jupiter on its own would not cause too many problems but since it ties into both Pluto and Mars the reverberations would be risky.

  He’ll have an undermining phase ahead, assuming he pulls through, with tr Neptune square his Uranus this year and then his New Moon with assorted midpoints also being weakened though he will have one upbeat influence in 2023/24.

  His temperament wasn’t one that was easy to warm to and however repellent the attacks on him, there was always a slight suspicion that he set out to be provocative and it blew up in his face. His self-defeating 10^th harmonic and 16^th harmonic are both strong.

   Which isn’t to say there should not have been a tougher response in the UK to hard-liners repeating the fatwa. Racial and cultural over-sensitivities blunted what should have been a flat refusal to accept outrageous attacks, verbal and otherwise. A good deal of the rot started around that time of not tackling such issues head on. As Joan Bakewell remarked at the time it is the problem for a basically tolerant society when it takes in intolerant elements. It doesn’t know what to do with them. Being laissez-faire about fanaticism is a slippery slope.        

Add On: The attacker Hadi Matar, born 12 September 1997 (CNN), with Hezbollah sympathies has his Pluto conjunct Rushdie’s ‘bull in a china shop’ South Node in Sagittarius so at the very least will anchor him down though there may also be a sense in trying to control Rushdie’s words and message. Rushdie’s Gemini North Node highlights his ability to communicate. Matar’s Pluto squares his Mercury so he’ll have a closed-minded and dogmatic/fanatical mindset.

  Matar’s Mars at 18 degrees Scorpio is exactly conjunct Rushdie’s Jupiter with both being triggered by the tr Uranus opposition at the moment.  Both of them oddly enough have their Mars in hard aspect to Jupiter natally which can be opportunistic or a ‘holy warrior’ who is inclined to justify aggressive responses with a moralising excuse.

  Their relationship chart has tr Pluto exactly conjunct the composite South Node at the moment – evoking a primitive response.     

There’s usually a nodal connection between victim and perpetrator, even where it is random.

Trump is at it again, backed up by the GOP, claiming not only to be wholly and on every matter sinless, but to be above the laws by which ordinary mortals have to live. Questioned on financial irregularities which have caused his accountants to drop him like a hot brick, he pleads the Fifth Amendment; and hurls brickbats over the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago looking for classified government papers.

  For all his prima-donna grandstanding he is more than concerned at the moment. He has a catastrophic tr Uranus square his Mars/Pluto in Leo at 18 degrees, which caught the August 1^st triple whammy and continues on till mid October, returning May 2023. Ebertin describes this influence as “calamities of great consequence.” In addition he has the growing storm (of typhoon dimensions) building up towards November/December with his Solar Arc Mars square his Pluto, exact in four months but in effect before and after.

  Plus a disappointing tr Neptune opposition his Sun/Moon midpoint and Mars/Jupiter midpoint late October to early January 2023. He does have one lucky Jupiter midpoint transit late October to mid this November so something will be going right in the midst of the ceiling falling on his head.

  He will have some blips of good fortune in 2023 in April, June and July but is also facing a grind-to-a-halt Solar Arc Pluto square his Saturn, exact this time next year as well.

  He does bring cheer to the Republicans on their 12 October 1853 chart since his Jupiter is conjunct their Libra Sun and his Sagittarius Moon and South node are conjunct their Jupiter with his Sun across the zodiac. He may plug into their least evolved selves with that South Node but they certainly will see him as a lucky talisman. His Pluto is conjunct their Mars in Leo so he may well scare them not a little.

   When will they fall out of love with him? The slide picked up in 2021 with tr Neptune square the composite Pluto. It is a chained-together relationship so will take some unpicking. But tr Saturn is chipping away at the composite Sun Mars between now and early 2023 which are separating aspects. And tr Neptune is going its best opposing the composite Venus from April 2023 onwards, moving on to an uncertain square to the Saturn. With separating jolts and jangles from tr Uranus square the Mars Sun from May 2023 onwards. So it won’t all be champagne, or even diet coke, and happy smiles.

  Why the USA has been blighted with his head-twisting, reality-distorting perversions has to be partly the USA rabble-rousing Mercury opposition Pluto which is being pounded by the Pluto Return which tends to attract huckster-showmen. And also his Pluto being conjunct the USA ‘leadership’ Leo North Node. His MAGA platform would resonate with a country losing its self-confidence as a world leader. He was always going to be a divisive figure, causing anger with his Sun conjunct the USA Mars.

  Never say never with personalities like Trump who have the luck of the devil and a shape-shifter’s uncanny ability to survive against the odds. But even he will be hard pushed to come through the next eighteen months in exuberant form.

Psycho-babble: I’ve always been allergic to any tendency to manipulate reality and the psychological mechanism behind it  has always fascinated me.

“Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that occurs in abusive relationships in which the bully or abuser misleads the target, creating a false narrative and making them question their judgments and reality.”

  Christopher Bollas, the London analyst, years ago wrote a paper on The Fascist State of Mind which he thought shared a similar mind pattern to sexual perversion.  Both are fuelled by delusional narcissism. There is a false idealization of the self, a delusional grandiosity in the perpetrator. This is accomplished by a ‘cleansing of the self’ with the badness being projected onto others who are then to be destroyed. What follows is the possible birth of a new, forever empty self to be born …. with no past (which is severed) and with a future entirely of its own creation.

  The narcissist’s world view is one which “entertains no doubt or uncertainty”. Distortion of the views of opponents to render them less intelligible and credible is the first move. They have to be discredited because no separation of view is possible from the accepted one. It is a relentless process of  denigration, character assassination and caricaturing.

 Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, the French analyst, writing about  perversion and group delusion echoes the same thought. “He who does not think as the group does is excluded, harassed, killed or declared insane.”

  It might go aways to explain the continuing adoration and blind acceptance of Trump by his fanclub who are caught up in the unquestioning group-think as was true of the Hitler/Mussolini supporters – until it wasn’t.  Reality has to creep in at some point. Though pulling the veil away and facing the fact that idols have feet of clay comes very hard. The unreal dream of an idealised leader is comforting to a certain personality type.    

Creativity emerging from destruction is another redemptive tale from the life and talent of Issey Miyake, the Japanese fashion designer, who has just died aged 84. He was seven when the US detonated an atomic bomb over his hometown of Hiroshima. He was riding to school on his bicycle at the time. “When I close my eyes, I still see things no one should ever experience: a bright red light, the black cloud soon after, people running in every direction trying desperately to escape. I remember it all,” he said. Many of his relatives were killed, along with  140,000 other inhabitants. His mother, a teacher, was severely burnt and died of radiation exposure within three years. He himself developed osteomyelitis, a bone marrow disease, which left him with a permanent limp.

  He said he was never able to put the memories behind him but he preferred to think of things that can be created, not destroyed, that bring beauty and joy. He gravitated towards clothing design,” because it is a creative format that is modern and optimistic.”

 He sought to make clothes for ordinary people, not the elite and designed uniforms for staff of Sony, the Japanese electronics giant, and for Lithuania’s first Olympic team after the collapse of communism. He also produced the black turtlenecks that became part of the signature attire of his friend Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder. Latterly he was best known for pioneering a pleated style of clothing that never wrinkles, earning himself the sobriquet “prince of pleats”.

  Born 22 April 1938 in Hiroshima, the son of a Japanese army officer, he initially wanted to become a dancer or athlete, but changed his mind after reading his sister’s fashion magazines. Fashion design was unheard of in Japan at that time as an occupation for men, so he studied graphic design, before moving to Paris and then New York.

   He had his Sun conjunct Mercury in Taurus with Uranus, Venus and Mars spread out through Taurus as well. Earthy Taurus is ruled by Venus and is both creative and tactile, so sensuous fabrics make sense. He also has the classic fashion-business aspect of Venus square Jupiter which delights in having a pleasing look. Neptune in Virgo trine Uranus Venus would add to his artistic abilities and inspiration. His Saturn in forced-to-be-self-reliant Aries is unaspected making him solitary by inclination and he was seemingly a private man. A hard-working Capricorn Moon probably opposed Pluto and maybe trined Venus and/or Mars – giving rise to stressed issues around his mother, understandably.

  His Mars in late Taurus conjunct the South Node and sextile Pluto give a hint of his traumatic childhood. Mars close to the South Node is described by one astrologer as “touching the darkness.”  His South Node is a degree and a half away from Algol so that also resonates with the atrocity. The Scorpio North Node is one of the more challenging positions and points to transformation through loss.

     When the bomb dropped in 1945 tr Pluto in Leo was about to trine his Saturn and square his Solar Arc Sun and Mercury in the devastating aftermath.

  A testament to the ability of the human spirit to survive and bring new life.

UK Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis has condemned the government for acting like “zombies” over the energy crisis, as he warned of the “cataclysmic” rise in bills, which are likely to more than double by January. Plus inflation sending food prices up, mortgages and rent rising. All the while BJ  skips off on holiday after wedding jollities and the Liz Rishi tussle ties itself in knots.

  If they had an election tomorrow Martin Lewis would probably be elected.

 He was born 9 May 1972 in Manchester, lost his mother to a riding accident when he was 11, was bullied at school for being Jewish and subsequently has had an extensive media career as a financial adviser and founded MoneySavingExpert which sold for mega millions in 2012.

  His Taurus Sun at 18 degrees is centre stage for the transiting Uranus, North Node Mars conjunction so he will be on high alert for current crises. His Jupiter in Capricorn is conjunct the UK Sun and his Uranus falls in the UK’s 1^st house exactly opposition the Aries North Node so he’s a supportive force and tied into the UK’s fortunes.  His Sun falls in the UK’s financial 8^th house exactly opposition the UK’s 2^nd house slap-happy, evasive Neptune. Right man for the job.

  It’s not sensible to read too much into his chart aspects as if they related solely to the UK’s fortunes, or lack of them.  But he will be facing a swampy, sinking patch between now and 2025 as tr Neptune squares his Mars Venus in Gemini and opposes his Pluto. He’s unlikely to be freezing and starving personally since he’s worth a good deal but he does look worried.

  The UK chart is in trouble at the moment with the financial 2^nd house Neptune catching the transiting Uranus, Mars, North Node now and the substantial portion of that will continue into next May. Plus the Solar Arc Pluto will square the UK Sun exactly within weeks for a dead-halt and rising pressures. Into late 2023 the Solar Arc Saturn will oppose the UK Uranus for an eruption of irritability, tensions over restrictions and maybe outright rebellions.  And we haven’t even got to the explosive, Solar Arc Uranus conjunct the 8^th house financial Mars in 2024, extending into 2025.

  It was always going to be a period of extreme financial turbulence through these years, no matter how much the BJ fanclub insisted the sunny uplands would magically appear after Brexit. It’s not all about leaving the EU but it surely hasn’t helped.

Archie Roach, the Aboriginal singer and songwriter who forced white Australia to confront a dark chapter in the nation’s history has died. When he was three or four, he was taken by social workers from his parents and sent to be “resocialised” by a white foster family and he never saw his birth parents again.

  He was shunted around and eventually settled aged nine with a Scottish couple who brought him up to sing hymns in church and taught him a love of music. He ran away at 15 when he received a letter from a blood sister, Myrtle, whom he did not know existed, telling him his birth mother had just died, and that he was one of seven. He tried to track his siblings down, but it was an almost impossible task, since the authorities were determined that indigenous families should not be reunited.

  Years later he wrote a song titled Took the Children Away in which he described his own experience of the Australian government’s forced assimilation policies, which operated under the guise of “protection” legislation. It proved a sensation, earned him a recording contract and became a game-changer that led to the Australian parliament making a formal apology to the country’s Aboriginal citizens in 2008. Over a long recording career he released ten albums about the Aboriginal experience and went on to find international acclaim, opening shows for Bob Dylan, Tracy Chapman and Joan Armatrading.

  He was born 8 January 1956 in Victoria, Australia and was a Sun Capricorn with a destructive, harsh-conditions Saturn Mars in Scorpio, and maybe conjunct a Scorpio Moon, square Pluto Jupiter. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger may be an over-used cliché but in this case it is apt. Mars Saturn is cruelty; in Scorpio it gives super-human endurance; square Pluto even more grit and perseverance; Jupiter Pluto = great confidence and luck.

  What is interesting are his Astro-twins born around the same time. Mel Gibson, with an undoubtedly challenging Holocaust-denier and all round nutjob father, born January 3. Christine Lagarde, former head of the IMF and now the ECB, born 1 January and Marie Colvin, the late War correspondent born January 12^th – two powerful women who coped with immense challenges and weight of responsibility.  They all have/had that Mars Saturn in Scorpio square Jupiter Pluto.

  Archie Roach also had Mercury in Aquarius opposition Uranus squaring onto a musical Neptune.

  His Sagittarius North Node was conjunct the Australia 1901 pioneering and can-be-violent Uranus and opposition the AU Pluto – pulling the country back to its primitive-white-settler origins. With his cruelly-treated Mars Saturn sitting conjunct the AU North Node in Sagittarius. His Uranus sat on the AU IC with his Mercury on the Midheaven and his Neptune on the Descendant – his song became a lightning rod for change.

Royal devotees are due a binge-feste next month with The Empress, a six- parter about Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sissi), a hyper-active and unconventional 19^th Century monarch with a stressed family life. Married at 16 to Emperor Franz Josef I who was passionately in love with her, she rebelled against his dullness and restrictive court life, lost her three children to the care of her bullying mother-in-law and took to travelling widely and obsessing about her looks. Her only son Rudolf died in a murder suicide with his mistress when he was 30, and she was ultimately assassinated when she was 61 by an Italian anarchist.

  Her family lineage included the eccentric King Ludwig 11 of Bavaria, her cousin, and she was interested in the treatment of the mentally ill. She evidently slept very little and spent hours reading and writing at night, with a special interest in history, philosophy, and literature. She wrote poetry, referring to herself as Titania, Shakespeare’s Fairy Queen Her wanderlust is defined by her own work:

O’er thee, like thine own sea birds

  I’ll circle without rest

For me earth holds no corner

  To build a lasting nest.

  She was born 24 December 1837 10.43pm Munich, Germany, giving her a 4^th house Capricorn Sun; with a frustrated, desperate, over-controlled Mars Mercury in Capricorn square Pluto on the cusp of her 8^th. She’d wander to get away from the ties that bound but find they always came with her. She had Jupiter on her Ascendant and would come across as confident and high-spirited; though her Scorpio Sun conjunct Saturn square Venus hinted at an empty emotional life. She had Neptune in her 5^th house of children, throwing a veil of confusion over her relationships with her offspring.

 Her mother-in-law Sophie, Princess of Bavaria, 27 January 1805 8.45pm Munich, Germany, had an Aquarius Sun in her 5^th house of children opposition Mars in bombastic Leo on the focal point of a Yod to Pluto sextile Venus Moon in Capricorn making her aggressive, self-willed, over-forceful.  That megaton Mars opposed Elisabeth’s 5^th house Neptune so no surprises that children became a battleground. Sophie’s autocratic Saturn Uranus in Libra were also square Elisabeth’s Mars Mercury as well which wouldn’t help either.

  Emperor Franz Josef 1, 18 August 1839 9.23 am Vienna, was a damped-down Sun, Moon, Saturn in Leo under the thumb of his strong-minded mother, with an intensely frustrated Mars Pluto in Aries square Jupiter in Capricorn. He had a strained Mercury on the focal point of a Yod to Mars Pluto sextile Uranus making him a scattered thinker and not well organised He had an exceptionally long reign though one marred by tragedy as his brother Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was executed, his son suicided, his wife was assassinated and his nephew and heir presumptive Archduke Franz Ferdinand was also assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914 precipitating WW11. He died in 1916.   

  His Sun Moon Saturn in Leo were not a good fit with Elisabeth’s Moon Saturn in Scorpio but he evidently adored her to the end despite their disparate marriage.

  When she was killed on 10 September 1898 tr Pluto was exactly conjunct her Midheaven.

Little girls may dream of marrying their prince but wish not for a monarch’s life, especially in those days.

Add On: Her son, Crown Prince Rudolf, 21 August 1858 10.15pm, Luxembourg, was a Sun Leo like his father with his Sun on the focal point of a Yod to Neptune sextile a Capricorn Moon, giving him an unstable sense of identity, veering between lack of self-worth and arrogance. His Moon also opposed Saturn with Saturn square Pluto – so a bleak emotional life. Though his father was more of a problem to him than his mother.

  His Neptune in the 11^th opposition Mercury square Jupiter in Gemini would make him spaced out, a wanderer, unrealistic, unsure of his future direction, irresponsible, probably amiable but not well-designed to carry the weight of his position. Most significantly he had an overly-excitable, freedom-loving and rebellious Uranus on his Ascendant opposition Mars on his Descendant square a Pisces North Node. It was under heavy, clearly unbearable, pressure when he suicided from tr Pluto in Gemini opposition his Mars exactly in 1889.

 His father’s enraged Mars Pluto in Aries was trine his Mars and his Saturn which would lead to punishing routines in childhood and a reservoir of buried anger – and tr Pluto may well have triggered his intense rage and hostility, turning it against himself, as his greatest act of vengeance against his father.

   Tr Neptune was in the final degree of Taurus in 1889 about to join Pluto in Gemini so the stress on his volatile Mars Uranus would not have let up.  His death connects directly into the outbreak of WW1 and the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire twenty five years later as Pluto moved on a sign into Cancer. Fate moves in mysterious way.

Olivia Newton John, the bubbly blonde, girl-next-door country pop star who struck a chord in public affection has died of the cancer which has plagued her for thirty years. Her breakthrough role opposite John Travolta in the 1978 film Grease saw her catapulted to world wide fame as it became the  highest-grossing musical film ever at the time; with a best-selling album on release as well.

  She was born 26 September 1948 6am Cambridge, England with an MI5 agent father and German mother, who moved the family to  Australia, when she was six. She returned to the UK as a teenager to pursue a singing career with modest success until Grease in 1978, which shifted her goody-two-shoes image into black leather and spandex for a raunchier appeal.

   Over the years she had several longish relationships, including with lighting designer Patrick McDermott, who disappeared on a boat trip, maybe lost at sea, maybe escaped to Mexico to avoid debts; and most recently married the boss of a herbal health company. For many years she has been as well known for her activism for breast cancer, medical marijuana, environmental and animal rights as for her music.

  She had an equable 1^st house Sun Neptune in Libra below a Virgo Ascendant which would contribute to her likeable persona. Her Sun was square a 10^th house Uranus Moon in Cancer, so she could be unpredictable, uncooperative and more of a maverick than she appeared. Her charm would be super-charged with her Venus in Leo conjunct Pluto but it was also square Mars in Scorpio, which last gave a darker undertone to her life. Her first fiancée attempted suicide after they split, there was another suicide on a property she owned; and Patrick McDermott’s vanishing act haunted her for years. An 8^th house Taurus North Node also points to a life of considerable private turmoil, financial and emotional.

  But for all that she would be lucky where home and family were concerned with a 4th house Jupiter on her IC trine her Venus Pluto.  

Misery memoirs are still going strong with another couple of nightmare childhoods being laid bare.

  Jeannette McCurdy, teen star of “iCarly”, was a poster child for children’s TV, seen weekly by millions, her face on Hollywood billboards, T shirts and party balloons, every little princess’s dream but it was all a gigantic lie. Her super-controlling, failed actress stage-mother dominated her every waking moment, made all her decisions for her, tried to push her into anorexia to delay puberty and when she finally started to break free trashed her to her fans on social media. Only after her mother died of cancer did she fully face the abuse that had destroyed her childhood. Hence her memoir, titled “I’m Glad My Mom Died” which according to reviews is sharply funny and empathetic.

  A decade of therapy has seen her pull back from eating disorders and alcohol abuse and into a stable relationship.  She has directed a few short films; has a book of essays and at least one novel in the works; and may venture back into acting.

 She was born 26 June 1992 10.36pm Garden Grove, California and has an entertaining Sun Venus in Cancer conjunct her South Node in her entertaining 5^th house which will radiate sunshine when she’s in front of an audience. Behind the facade, however, she has a Taurus Moon opposite a possessive Pluto and in a bleak square to Saturn in Aquarius – and that is one cold, controlling and destructive mother. She also has an Earth Grand Trine involving Jupiter which would be her saving grace with Jupiter in her 7^th house of relationships trine Mars in determined Taurus trine Uranus Neptune in Capricorn. It will help her build a secure life for herself.

  Her mother Debra McCurdy, 17 July 1957, was a Sun Cancer square Neptune; with an attention-seeking Mars Venus in Leo opposition Jeanette’s Saturn and square her Moon and Pluto – so an aggravated interface. Her disciplinarian Saturn fell in Jeanette’s 10^th house of career. The worst kind of Cancerian mother.

  Their relationship chart had a central Saturn square Pluto tied into the Sun – so again that cold, dominating chemistry.

  The other memoir is writer Kit de Waal’s Without Warning and Only Sometimes: Scenes from an Unpredictable Childhood about growing up in an Irish-Caribbean family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. She was one of five children caught between a sullen Caribbean father and an energetic but erratic Irish-British mother in Birmingham in the Sixties and Seventies with both grandparents opposed to the match. The religious fervour added another layer of strain. “Three times a week I am reminded that the world will end and I will die.”

  The Bible was the only book allowed which makes her subsequent career all the more laudable and surprising. She is  the author of two highly acclaimed novels, My Name Is Leon, shortlisted for the Costa prize, and The Trick to Time, longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and two collections of short stories. Having escaped the rigours of her childhood she got in with a bad crowd and nearly went under. But managed to climb over the challenges and got her life together.

 Reviews suggest it is moving and heart-warming, so not all doom and gloom.

  She was born 26 July 1960 in Birmingham, no time, with a Leo Sun and Venus.  Like Jeannette McCurdy she has Mars in determined Taurus, in her case conjunct Algol, and square Uranus.

  Algol, planet of Medusa, is infamous for being destructive but it can have another purpose which is to force us to face suffering and horror and not brush it aside. When Algol’s death-dealing capabilities are quelled it produces a surge of imaginative power which allows ugliness to be faced without being destroyed by it. In the myth after Medusa is beheaded, Pegasus, the winged horse of creativity springs forth. Makes sense she’d be a writer.

  Her Moon is probably conjunct Pluto in Virgo and probably trine Saturn – not quite as bleak as Jeanette McCurdy’s but not a warm and comforting childhood.

 What would be her saving grace is a super-confident Jupiter in optimistic Sagittarius on the focal point of a Yod to Mars and Algol sextile Mercury – it would sustain her through dark moments with the thought there was bound to be better round the next corner. 

  Moon Pluto seems to be a recurring theme with disastrous mothers, with Anne Heche as well (below). In shorthand I tend to describe it as a possessive mother but that can sound emotionally close. In reality a Moon Pluto mother can be smothering, suffocating, death-dealing.

  Maybe better rename misery memoirs as redemptive remembrances.  

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The searing  memories of the orgiastic savagery following the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947 are still raw as both countries head for their 75^th anniversary. 10 and 20 million people were uprooted at a day’s notice along religious lines, with large-scale violence and an estimated death toll over a million.  

  A survivor of those times remembers: “People were setting fire to Hindu homes. But Hindus and Sikhs were setting fire to Muslim homes, too. Everyone did it to everyone else.”

  Although Lord Louis Mountbatten, Viceroy of India since the February of 1947, has been landed with the blame for a rushed division of the sub-continent, it had been on the cards since the mid 1920s as the Muslims feared they would not be protected if a unified India remained after independence.  Though admittedly with WW11 causing a distraction it did end up in a last minute final decision in a typical Brit colonial botch-up of an exit.

  Pakistan declared independence on 14^th August at 9.30am with India waiting for the midnight into the 15^th. Both charts have the heavy Saturn Pluto conjunction in Leo conjunct Venus and Sun in Leo square Jupiter in Scorpio – enduring, stubborn, tough-minded, can be self-destructive. Both have a North Node in Taurus which can give rise to turmoil and long running disputes. The Pakistan chart is more volatile with an explosive Mars Uranus straddling the Midheaven. The India chart has the North Node on the Ascendant creating an identity problem.

 The colonial unified India chart which saw Victoria named Empress on 1 January 1877 was never going to either divide or transition easily into a new entity. It had a Fixed, ruthless and controlling Pluto in Taurus opposition Mars in Scorpio square Uranus in Leo which would give rise to barbaric cruelty and extreme resistance to change. There are similarities to the French revolutionary chart which oversaw a period of blood running in the streets.

  Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who campaigned for a separate Pakistan state and became the first Governor-General was born on 25 December 1876, six days before India was unified, so he had a similar chart – do-or-die-determined, stubborn to the nth degree and a trailblazer/innovator and status-quo-upsetter.

  Jawaharial (Pandit) Nehru, a secular, anti-colonial nationalist, who became India’s first prime minister in 1947, is the name best known from that period. Born 14 November 1889 11.36pm Allahabad, he had like Louis Mountbatten the mesmerising and ambitious Neptune Pluto in Gemini of the time. In Nehru’s case it was in his 10^th house of career, bringing him to great prominence.

 Nehru and Jinnah were never going to agree since Jinnah’s Pluto was conjunct Nehru’s MC and his Uranus on Nehru’s Ascendant and all in hard aspect to Nehru’s Scorpio Sun.

  The rumour mill had it that Nehru was romantically involved with Edwina Mountbatten (who was a lady who certainly got around) and even that Mountbatten himself pitched in as a ‘throuple’ (given his proclivities nothing would surprise me.)

  Mountbatten, 25 June 1900 6am Windsor, was a Sun Cancer conjunct Neptune opposition Saturn; with a disruptive Moon Pluto South Node opposition Uranus; and Mars in late Taurus – an unstable personality and emotionally disorganised.

  He certainly had a strong and fated connection to Nehru with Mountbatten’s Sun exactly conjunct Nehru’s North Node and opposition Nehru’s Jupiter. And their relationship chart was highly emotional as well as complex and aggravated.

  Edwina Mountbatten, 28 November 1901 7am Romsey, England, was described by one of her daughters as “a man eater” and had many lovers throughout the marriage, leaving her children in the care of nannies to travel with her paramours. Her husband appeared to accept the situation and often welcomed them into the family home.

  Like her husband, she had a see-saw chart with an upfront Sagittarius Sun; a deeply buried 8^th house Moon Neptune opposition Mars; and the rebellious Pluto opposition Uranus. Another chaotic and unstable personality – what a marriage.

  The Mountbattens are only footnotes in India/Pakistan’s troubled relationship history but ironically their messy, shambles of a marriage in a tiny way mirrored the greater disarray of the partition at which they were principal bystanders.  

  I can’t get all worked up in anti-colonial rage since all super-powers have always acted badly through the aeons since the beginning of time. And there were some pluses left behind. But the screw-ups caused by the collapse of the British empire still causing grief today are legion – India/Pakistan and the unresolved Kashmir problem; Palestine; Hong Kong; Kenya/Zimbabwe; Aden/Yemen; Burma/Myanmar; Northern Ireland/Ireland (not quite colonial but certainly interference from the mainland).