Astrology of Today’s News

The European Union could die because of overregulation and underinvestment says Emmanuel Macron and is running out of time to survive as he backs Mario Draghi’s plea for an investment fund to combat the rise of Chinese and American dominance. Macron said the bloc’s failure to meet the challenges posed by global economic rivalry was due to Europe’s social model, based on high levels of social regulation and welfare.

 The doomsayers are growing in number with many giving the EU only another 20 years, citing over-enthusiastic enlargement taking in eastern European states and problems with immigration as key issues as well as under investment.

  The two EU charts 1957 and 1993 both point to major problems before the end of this decade, never mind 20 years.

The original 31 December 1957 chart has a blocked Solar Arc Pluto opposition the 8^th house financial Moon and square Uranus in 2025 with tr a disruptive Uranus square the Pluto in 2026 alongside a devastating tr Pluto square the 2^nd house Neptune – which suggests a forced change of direction due to financial crises. 2026 also has the Solar Arc Mars square the 2^nd house Neptune for more financial agonies.  But it is 2029/30 which looks like the nadir with tr Pluto in Aquarius opposition the Moon and square Uranus; with an undermining tr Neptune square the Sun and a seriously stuck/deprived SA Saturn opposition Pluto.

 The Maastricht Treaty chart, 1 November 1993, also pitches the end of this decade as a nightmare. The Solar Arc Uranus Neptune will conjunct the Saturn in 2028 which looks beyond calamitous especially in terms of neighbourly relations with the Solar Arc Uranus Neptune moving to square the Mars Pluto in Scorpio by 2029. If it survives all that it’ll be a miracle. Plus tr Pluto square the Scorpio Sun which can be a splitting apart transit.

 What may be pertinent is that the ‘big bang’ enlargement of 1 May 2004 which brought in Czechia, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia  has a 10 degree Taurus Sun which will catch the tr Pluto square in 2029/2030 which could indicate a USSR-style split with the eastern satellites going off in a different direction to Brussels.

Even the Roman Empire finally split into east and west in an effort to restore stability.

Add On: Germany has been undergoing considerable changes since Merkel exited stage left with tr Pluto opposition the 10^th house Uranus and tr Uranus conjunct the 8^th house Pluto. What Germany wanted before in terms of goals and visions for the future is no longer held up as an ideal. Tr Neptune and Saturn moving into Aries from mid 2025 will undermine morale and hit Germany hard as it opposes the Mars and squares the Saturn in 2025/26. And again it will be late decade where seismic forces emerge with Solar Arc conjunct the Germany Saturn in 2028 and SA Pluto square the Uranus in 2029, at the same time as tr Neptune squares the Capricorn Sun.

  I remember a year or two back looking at the relationships charts and blinking at the Germany/EU bond which heretofore had seemed immoveable. Much more than France, it was Germany feeling the strain with the EU. On the 1957 relationship chart, tr Pluto moving round a composite Fixed T square of Mars opposition Moon square Venus, exerting almost unbearable pressure for change, has started its trip this year and the challenges magnify in 2025/26 and more so in 2027/28; with Neptune threatening to dissolve the ties-that-bind later this decade as it squares the composite Sun opposition Pluto.

  The Germany/Maastricht Treaty relationship chart also points to 2027/28 as critical years.

  There are some ripples on the France/EU charts and the France/Germany relationship chart, but nothing like as strong.

  At the very least there will be a massive realignment of aims and understandings.

Add On: Poland is becoming a major player – though unfortunately charts for Poland are iffy since it has had such a muddled history. Useful piece in today’s Times by Edward Lucas. Poland is economically in a good position, fuelled by floods of foreign investment, with a strong work ethic and an economy nine times bigger than in 1989. They spend 5 per cent of GDP on their armed forces and have the third-largest armed force in Nato (after the US and Turkey) propelled by a healthy suspicion of their Russian neighbour.

   Poland is looking north to like-minded countries  of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Sweden and Finland have joined Nato. Denmark is boosting its defence spending. The combined GDP of this nascent northeastern “minilateral” alliance is £2.4 trillion, a combined population of 70 million and an economy nearly the size of Russia’s. Poland and its regional allies are preparing for the worst, and to fight alone if necessary given that Biden’s administration ‘paralysed by indecision and timidity’ has undermined the USA’s clout.

Hurricane Helene which has been ravaging North Carolina in particular is the deadliest mainland storm since Katrina in 2005. 200 are known to have died, with hundreds still missing and 780,000 homes are without power nearly a week after it made landfall.

 This week’s Solar Eclipse at 10 degrees Libra was a repeat of the October 2005 Solar eclipse at 10 Libra which occurred only a few weeks after Katrina.  

Under the shadow of the previous 10 Libra Solar eclipse in 1986 there were a series of strong to very strong earthquakes in California with the Iran Contra scandal blowing up a couple of months after.

 One back in 1978 another 9 Libra Eclipse saw another very strong California quake with the Jim Jones cult suicide in the aftermath as well as the assassination of the San Francisco Mayor and City Supervisor.

In March 1968 an 8 Aries Solar Eclipse shook the USA to the core with the Tet offensive and My Lai massacre in Vietnam just before, and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr a few days after and the killing of Robert F. Kennedy in early June.

  These repeating eclipses are on or close to the same degree but in different Saros series. They still shook up the USA significantly.

  The USA 1776 chart does have Saturn at 14 degrees Libra which might be part of the picture; and also has its destructive, disaster-prone Mars/Pluto midpoint at 9 degrees Aries. Which means the eclipse late next March 2025 will also have an effect.     

  Greed has always been one of the deadly sins but more obvious recently with the Thatcherite and Reaganite 1980s taking off the restraints and allowing capitalism to run rampant as Pluto powered through Scorpio. Which all ended up in tears in 2008 as Pluto entered Capricorn with the financial crash, theoretically showing the limits and consequences of neoliberalism. Though the money men barely broke stride, merely regrouping to continue much as before.

  This is a hotch potch piece more questions than answers. Puzzling over SD’s comment about 1979 being a pivotal year as Thatcher/neoliberalism came in, as did the Islamic Republic in Iran, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan; China was revving up to become a major economic power and just before in 1977 the right-wing Likud (Netanyahu/Sharon’s Party) took power in Israel for the first time which was a key turning point.  

 In 1979 itself Pluto Uranus Neptune were all around mid degree or just after as was the Virgo North Node.  So the Node/Uranus midpoint was conjunct Pluto and the Pluto/Neptune midpoint was conjunct Uranus. In a slightly obscure way, both of those point to a shift in power. Uranus/Node is about reform or change and Pluto wants to grab control of that.  Neptune/Pluto has megalomaniac ambition and Uranus aims to upset the status quo where power is concerned.  Neptune/Pluto is also about delusional ideas.

  Pluto did not move into Scorpio until late 1983 which would certainly coincide with money and power becoming a potential obsession, sticking around until 1995.  It was also going to ground down the USSR with its Scorpio/heavily Fixed chart. So the Afghanistan debacle was merely a forerunner to the break up of the Soviet Union at the end of the decade.  Israel also has a substantially  Fixed chart so Pluto moving through Scorpio would have a considerable impact.

  What started this somewhat tortuous thought process was catching the latest season of ‘Industry’, a drama about employees in an investment bank, last night on television which I had missed before. Hugely well reviewed it has been likened to Succession about a Murdoch type mega-wealthy family. I disliked Succession with a passion and occasionally dipped back in to see why everyone else thought it was the best thing ever and left none the wiser. Industry is every bit as unpleasant. Gordon Gekko writ large and deeply unattractive characters.  If our culture is not hooked into murder, it is into greed.

 The first Gordon Gekko Wall Street movie launched in 1987 on Mars Pluto in Scorpio which figures. The Wall Street sequel hit screens as Pluto moved into Capricorn in 2010. Succession, 3 June 2018, had an emphasized Pluto as the driving planet of a Kite from Water Grand Trine of Jupiter, Neptune, Venus. Industry, 9 November 2020, had an even more jacked-up Pluto in Capricorn conjunct Saturn and Jupiter.

  All I can offer to SD as an astro-explanation for 1979 onwards – is the cumulative effect of Pluto in Scorpio sowing the seeds of a movement that imploded at the end of the Pluto cycle two signs on in 2008 and hopefully will run into another grinding down as Pluto moves into Aquarius. Though why 1979 is so marked with events is still unclear given that Pluto is half a sign before a shift.

 Historically Pluto on a zodiacal cycle tends to accompany the rise of empires which collapse on their first or second Pluto Return. Shorter term it may also signal the end of what started two or three signs back – Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn.

Phil Shiner, a once esteemed ‘lefty lawyer’, scion of the LSE, the Guardian and human rights lobby ruined lives and ran up a £27m bill for taxpayers with bogus claims of war crimes by British troops in Iraq. He received more than £3 million in taxpayer funding and had described the behaviour of Britain’s troops in Iraq as “the UK’s My Lai”. But the inquiry (costing £24 million) found the allegations of wrongdoing were “wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies”. “The falsely accused have paid a huge price — shattered lives, broken marriages, ruined finances, stalled careers, poor mental and physical health.”

 He is now struck off, bankrupt and perhaps facing prison time for his offences.

  Born 25 December 1956 Coventry, England, he has an ambitious Capricorn Sun trine Pluto, square a go-ahead Mars in Aries on one side a confident Jupiter in Libra on the other, He also has an entrepreneurial, attention-demanding Fire Grand Trine of Mars trine Saturn Venus in Sagittarius trine Uranus in Leo, formed into a Kite by Mars in an opportunistic (and wide) opposition to Jupiter. Not shy and retiring, for sure.

  His Scorpio North Node does hint at a life transformation only possible when he lets go everything he held valuable.

His strongest harmonic is the 11H with a Sun opposition Uranus square Saturn Pluto (= war) which in negative form suggests dishonesty and greed, and is associated with disloyalty and betrayal.

 He also has a notable 5^th harmonic  – again on the negative: irresponsible, self-indulgent, deceitful, “the player”. Ditto the money-loving 9^th harmonic and the wheel of fortune 10H which contains the seed of both rise and fall, of the good and the bad.

Boris Johnson, Philip Scofield, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, Prince Harry – once shining stars in their respective spheres now brought low by their staggering lack of self-awareness and tendency to handout blame to others rather than ‘fess up to any missteps on their part.  

  Astrology though illuminating in its own terms about characteristics and temperament is not always a good diagnostic tool when it comes to psychological quirks. But it is worth pursuing in a week when Boris’s self-serving memoir emerged alongside disgraced TV presenter Philip Scofield’s reality castaway TV show on which he whined on about how he was not at fault for his downfall. He exited the screens when an affair with a young runner on the show came to light and is now blaming his sex offender brother’s record for his woes and claiming he was thrown under the bus by jealous colleagues.

  A victim mentality often goes hand in hand with an inflated sense of superiority and an inability to take feedback.  Victim mentality narcissists have a ‘persistent lack of personal responsibility, view themselves as powerless and at the mercy of others or circumstances, which absolves them from taking ownership of their actions.’

Narcissists have poor self-awareness due to cognitive distortions such as “I am always right” or “Others are jealous of me” and irrational thought patterns that reinforce an inflated sense of self. They avoid self-reflection by using defensive mechanisms like projection or denial. Projection involves blaming others for their flaws or negative emotions, while denial involves rejecting feedback that contradicts their self-perception.

Reviews of Boris’s book suggest it is ‘not the work of a great political memoirist, such as Churchill, Mandela or Obama. Its nearest competitor is Prince Harry’s Spare.’ A colleague from Boris’s early days suggested his difficult childhood with a depressed and hospitalized mother and gallivanting father, taught him ‘how to put on a brave, jovial face and play the clown at school and beyond, ruffling his hair and becoming first popular then populist. In turn, he became the master of satire, subversion and mockery; it perhaps made him too tough, uncaring and unkind.’

  Looking across these five charts – various things stand out. Trump and Philip Scofield have Chiron conjunct their Jupiter which can lead to messianic tendencies, a feeling of being special, the chosen one and obsessed with having a vision to fulfil.

 Prince Andrew has his Sun conjunct Chiron which suggests a wounding in the area of personal identity and ego, a tendency to create a false self to hide an inner confusion and emptiness.  He also has his Sun opposition Pluto which will exacerbate his sense at times of being powerless. [Amanda Abington, whose complaints about her professional partner on  Strictly Come Dancing were found to be overblown, has a Pisces Sun inconjunct Pluto.]

 Boris also has a strongly aspected Pluto (in the 12th like Trump) which may be another pointer to an inability to expose vulnerabilities or weakness in admitting mistakes lest total humiliation follow.

  What four out of the five personalities share are planets in the 8^th house. Boris has Mars on the apex of a yod there and Jupiter also in the 8^th in an over confident opposition to Neptune.  Prince Andrew has an 8^th house Mercury on the apex of a yod. Philip Scofield has a super-charged Pluto (opposition Jupiter Chiron) in the 8^th alongside Uranus and North Node.  Prince Harry has his Virgo Sun and Mercury in the 8^th.  Trump has Scheat on the cusp of his 8^th square his Gemini Sun and North Node opposition Moon.

  Some similarities, some differences. Referring back to a previous post on the 8^th house – The hidden 8th house – pulling back the veil. 16th November 2023

‘Transformation only happens if there is a considerable shift in an individual’s thought and behaviour patterns.’ The inner saboteur is an 8th house issue along with fixation. Ideas on how things ought to be are stubbornly held onto despite the 8th house being the one which should encompass the values of others.

  The 8th is about being possessed where the 2nd is having one’s own possessions. Everything is defined by others.  Committing to a partnership requires letting go individual values in order to create new shared ones. What is yours becomes mine and vice versa. A loss of control. The 8th is where we are confronted with our own issues.

  If the second house has to do with control, then the eighth house has to do with lack of control which tends to lead to an attempt to hang tightly.  There is a sense of permanence with the eighth house but only due to the monumentality of change. The individual has ancestral wounds that take not one generation but several to even begin to understand. Planets in the eighth house tend to work in super slow ways.

  Having skipped through the harmonics of the above what is pertinent is that only one has a notable 12^th harmonic which is the victim/healer harmonic (Scofield). Three have notable 13^th harmonics which can point to a search for a solid identity.  Four have ultra-determined 16^th harmonics so letting go and being flexible is not their super power.

All five have strong 7^th harmonics which on Vendla’s numerology interpretations is a spiritual number, imaginative and creative. A perfectionist. Also: too sceptical, critical, sarcastic, cold, self-centred, attracted to alcohol/ drugs and occultism.

  No hard and fast answers. What is worth keeping in mind is that although narcissists are tediously draining to be around what lies underneath the overblown ego is a bottomless chasm of shame and, often worse, of nothingness. I remember years ago talking to a child psychotherapist who said certain children were so badly damaged all they had were their psychological defences and you dismantle those at your (and their) peril. Not that all narcissists come out of brutally traumatic beginnings but their defences are there for a reason – to prevent them falling into a total psychological collapse. Life can sometimes provide the impetus to reassemble the personality but it is not an easy journey.

Add On: Sam Vaknin 21 April 1961 9.40 am (from memory) Haifa, Israel, professor of Psychology, author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited and once imprisoned for securities fraud, has himself been diagnosed with NPD and psychopathy as well as other personality disorders.

“In his view, narcissists have lost their “true self”, the core of their personality, which has been replaced by delusions of grandeur, a “false self”. Therefore, he believes, they cannot be healed, because they do not exist as real persons, only as reflections: “The False Self replaces the narcissist’s True Self and is intended to shield him from hurt and narcissistic injury by self-imputing omnipotence… The narcissist pretends that his False Self is real and demands that others affirm this confabulation.”]

“He calls narcissistic co-dependents “inverted narcissists.” “[They] provide the narcissist with an obsequious, unthreatening audience… the perfect backdrop.” “He believes that disproportionate numbers of pathological narcissists are at work in the most influential reaches of society, such as medicine, finance and politics as a manifestation of growing collective narcissism.”

 He is a Sun Taurus trine Pluto and square a Jupiter Saturn conjunction with Jupiter square Neptune – not short of Jupiterian confidence, though he will have alternated between highs and lows, over confidence and then crashing self-esteem from Jupiter and Saturn He’s not entirely similar to the above but if his birth time is marginally out his Jupiter Saturn could be in his 8^th house.

 His Chiron in Pisces conjunct his South Node opposition his Pluto seems significant though I would struggle to articulate why.

Boris Johnson’s latest offering in book form Unleashed about his recent political foray which ended in ignominy is typically ebullient, unapologetic, shameless and a rollick through his Mayoral and No 10 days when nothing was ever his fault.

 A columnist who shared his office in yesteryear described him as “this clown”  who “ has an amazing ability to self-destruct, blowing us all up with him.” “He always takes it too far, apologises, promises to change then explains why he was right all along. It never ends very well.”

  Serialised in the Daily Mail it has the feel of a damp squib, a deflated balloon, the slightly desperate meanderings of a yesterday man. Maybe that’s just my bias – or hope.

 Born on 19 June 1964 2pm New York, he has the Solar eclipse conjunct his Libra Ascendant (birth time being accurate) which will put a spotlight onto his image. He has an undermining tr Neptune in square to his Sun Venus exactly now and repeating through February 2025. With tr Saturn square his Mercury, Sun, Venus from February on and off till February 2026 – which looks enthusiasm-dampening.

  Plus tr Pluto is trine his focal point 8^th house Mars on and off this year till late 2025; with tr Neptune Saturn sextile his Mars as well from April 2025 onwards as well; followed by an insecure, jolting tr Uranus conjunct his Mars from July 2025 onwards. Since his Mars is on the point of a T square it will be especially significant, making him feel trapped and undermined and then shaken about.

 He will have a lucky patch late this December to mid March courtesy of a Jupiter midpoint  but otherwise he’ll be struggling against headwinds in the immediate future.  His rubber-ball qualities means he won’t disappear for ever – there will be a bounce back. But tr Uranus in Gemini moving round his Mutable T Square will have him in more of a frenzy than usual almost to the end of this decade.

  His wife Carrie, 17 March 1986, is a Sun Pisces with the triple conjunction in Capricorn plus Mars in a stellium is talented, creative and fairly highly strung if not chaotic. She has a Half Grand Sextile of Venus opposition Pluto sextile her Capricorn planets and widely sextile Mercury. She has been labouring slightly in recent times with tr Neptune crossing her Sun which finishes within a few months. Then she will catch the tr Saturn Neptune square her Uranus and then Saturn over the next two/three years which will be uncertain. Tr Pluto square her Jupiter will give her a few uplifting moments till late 2025.

 As the Middle East stands on the brink of a new order after Israel’s onslaught on the Lebanon it is worth considering what has shifted in the power game. The attack on Hezbollah strikes at the heart of Iran’s influence in the region and also undermines Bashar Assad in Syria who relied on Hezbollah’s fighters to prop up his regime.

  Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Khameini, born 17 July 1939, took over on 6 August 1989. His personal chart has been under massive strain last year and this with tr Pluto grinding its way in hard aspect round his Pluto (Moon)opposition Mars in Aquarius square Saturn in Taurus T square which will have taken its toll on his already failing health. That T square has also moved by Solar Arc to exactly aspect his Sun with SA Saturn conjunct. Double jeopardy.

His Leadership chart is also showing the strain of recent events with the Solar Arc Neptune Saturn in hard aspect to the Sun square Pluto, eroding his grip.

 Likewise for different reasons Bashar Assad, 11 September 1965, who took over the throne on 17 July 2000, is facing a high-risk, undermining time ahead. His personal chart has tr Saturn opposing his Sun, Pluto, Uranus in Virgo into early next year – and more significantly his Solar Arc Sun is in a panicky, confused conjunction to his Neptune now and over coming months; a trapped, high-risk Solar Arc Pluto conjunct his Mars exactly now with a disruptive SA Uranus conjunct Mars in place  before the end of this year. A perfect storm.

  His Term chart has the Solar Arc Neptune square the Saturn exactly now for grave uncertainty; and disappointment follows. With jolts and disruptions later next year with SA Sun opposition the Uranus. And tr Uranus conjunct the Saturn at 28 Taurus from June 2025 onwards into 2026.

 Uranus reaching 28 degrees in Taurus shows up as critical in several charts and will be a time to watch since it also catches Israel’s 10^th house Mars at 28 degrees Leo. So there may be/is likely to be another round of mayhem then.

  It shows up on the Qatar country chart and the Qatar/UAE relationship.

 The other critical degree will be Uranus at 23 Taurus which is conjunct the Israel Sun late this December to mid March 2025. And also rattles the Mars in Leo on Mohammed bin Salman’s chart. He is uncertain at the moment with his Solar Arc Saturn conjunct the Neptune now and especially edgy as tr Neptune Saturn move into Aries before mid 2025 to square his Neptune and SA Saturn.

 If there is a region wide conflict Egypt will undoubtedly be dragged in as well. President Al Sisi looks less than enamoured of Netanyahu in that late December to mid March patch and is on high alert with disruptions right through till mid 2025.

  Too many charts – and two much shifting on the chessboard.  Thoughts to keep in mind. ‘Over the long run, the death and destruction in Lebanon caused by Israeli air strikes is likely to create a new generation of Hezbollah soldiers. Some 60 per cent of Hamas fighters are thought to be orphans from previous conflicts.’ ‘Lebanon’s weak caretaker government may well be incapable of moving into any vacuum left by Hezbollah, in which case Israel could have a failed state on its borders.’

Regional chaos could come with Turkey and Yemen also involved.   

 If Kamala Harris wins, her Mars Midheaven line runs through the Middle East.

Kris Kristofferson, the award-winning country singer and actor, has died aged 88. Among his song writing credits are “Me and Bobby McGee”, “For the Good Times”, “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down”, and “Help Me Make It Through the Night”, all of which were hits for other artists. Along with fellow country artists Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash he was a key creative force in the outlaw country music movement that favoured independent songwriting and producing. He starred with Barbra Streisand in the 1976 remake of A Star is Born to great success as well more recently in the Blade trilogy of Marvel blockbusters.

 He was born 22 June 1938 3.30pm Brownsville, Texas into a military family and initially hoped to become a writer. He won a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford and graduated with a B.Phil. degree in English literature. Under pressure from his family he  joined the U.S. Army, becoming a helicopter pilot and continuing his musical interests at the same time.  When he left the forces to pursue a musical career his family disowned him.

  He married three times and has eight children.

  His 10^th house Leo Moon designed him for a public career but it is his intense 8^th house which is the eye-opener with Mercury in Gemini plus a passionately enthusiastic Venus Mars conjunction in Gemini conjunct a Cancer Sun all there. He had Saturn in his 5^th house giving him organizational skills in the entertainment business which was in a creative opposition to Neptune and square a confident and successful Jupiter in his 2^nd house.

  His Uranus on his Ascendant would not make it easy for a conventional cooperative relationship to run smoothly and with his Sun/Moon midpoint opposition his Pluto he’d be constantly pushed and pulled between wanting closeness and wanting freedom. But his third marriage lasted for nearly forty years so he clearly found a partner who could cope.

  He once said he would like Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the Wire” opener on his tombstone.

Like a bird on the wire

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free

Parkrun, a 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) event for runners, walkers and volunteers that takes place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 22 countries across five continents is celebrating its 20 anniversary this week. It started in London on 2 October 2004 and grew into a global phenomenon with many millions of runners registered.

 It was founded by Paul Sinton-Hewitt, 12 August 1960 (Company check), who was born in Zimbabwe, grew up in South Africa, was made a ward of the state aged five and lived at boarding schools. He has said that the personal challenges he experienced, including bullying during childhood, and the way exercise and activity have helped him deal with them, were influential in motivating him in creating parkrun and its inclusive approach to sport.

 Parkrun has an exuberant, high-energy Mars Jupiter Mercury all conjunct a Libra Sun. With two wide-ish yods of Saturn in Cancer sextile Jupiter Mars inconjunct Uranus in Pisces (on the cusp of the sporting 5^th assuming a 9am start) – and a Taurus Moon sextile Saturn inconjunct an influential Pluto.

  Paul Sinton-Hewitt is an unconventional Sun Uranus in Leo in a confident trine to Jupiter in adventurous Sagittarius. With a charming Pluto Venus in Virgo in a tough-minded trine to Saturn sextile a compassionate Neptune – and more significantly Neptune sextile Saturn inconjunct Mars in Gemini giving him giving him the hyper-energy that would suit constant activity and exercise. His Pluto square his Mars adds a layer of trauma from his childhood spurring his determination on.

And the world holds its breath.  Hezbollah is decapitated of its leadership, Hamas effectively weakened if not destroyed. Will Iran retaliate as its proxies are knocked off the chessboard, though it has shown no sign of wanting a direct confrontation?

 From an Israeli point of view neutralizing Hamas and Hezbollah who were attacking across their borders makes survival sense. What doesn’t is the lack of an end game which has to be political and has to include Palestinian statehood. With Gaza effectively destroyed and settlers forcibly taking over land in the West Bank illegally without sanction from the Netanyahu government, there seems precious little sign of movement on that front.

 This latest move is an “emphatic slap in the face for the Biden administration, which believed it had an assurance from Netanyahu that he backed the temporary truce.”

 A brief run over the Hezbollah chart (covered in past posts), 16 February 1985 with a 27 degree Aquarius Sun exactly square Saturn it is suffering a major jolt exactly now from tr Uranus in hard aspect. But it has a confident, determined Pluto square Jupiter – catching an enthusiasm-denting tr Saturn square the Solar Arc Pluto now, but revving up energy from February 2025 onwards as tr Pluto is conjunct the Jupiter through till late 2026 and beyond. It may be down but may not be out altogether in coming years.

 Hassan Nasrullah, 31 August 1960, (wiki) a Sun Pluto Mercury in Virgo had his Solar Arc Mars conjunct his Uranus approaching which is accident/disaster prone; with an undermining tr Neptune opposition his focal point Venus exactly now. He has a couple of Jupiterian midpoints in action now which may point to a martyr’s death – not that it would have been predicted but it makes sense. Had he survived 2025 would have been very high risk.  

Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal chart has an over-excitable, over-reactive tr Uranus square his Mars in Leo from today till late October and again in spring 2025 alongside a panicky-failure tr Neptune opposition his Sun/Mars and Mercury/Saturn midpoints from this October 10^th to early February – so his triumphalist mood won’t last. This December looks high-risk and nerve-stretched for him.

  There are various Iran charts and both the Islamic Republic April 1979 and 1906 charts in relation to Israel show continued upheavals and ructions throughout 2025 and beyond.

 Israel is of course due for the final transiting Uranus conjunction to its 8^th house Taurus Sun late this December to mid March 2025 which will bring another almighty jolt with an insecure, jarring tr Uranus square their Mars from June 2025 into 2026. Followed by grinding Pluto transits opposing its 10^th house Sun and into the next decade Saturn and Pluto. The chances of relaxing back into peace and security may be further away than ever.

 The Israel/USA relationship chart is labouring this year and early next with tr Saturn square the composite Sun Uranus – distanced with tensions erupting. But it is tr Neptune Saturn moving into Aries which will cause the most notable erosion as it opposes the over-hopeful composite Jupiter Neptune and proceeds to square the composite Mercury, Venus in the two years after.

 “The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.” Samuel Beckett, Endgame.

“Use your head, can’t you, use your head, you’re on earth, there’s no cure for that!” Samuel Beckett, Endgame

“I love order. It’s my dream. A world where all would be silent and still, and each thing in its last place, under the last dust.”  Samuel Beckett, Endgame.

“All life long, the same questions, the same answers.” Samuel Beckett, Endgame