Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most highly decorated former soldier is the subject of a war crimes investigation by the Australian Federal Police over “questions of unlawful conduct concerning (Australia’s) Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan”. He denies the allegations and is suing various media outlets for defamation in their subsequent reporting. His estranged ex-wife has now emerged to suggest he buried classified material on flash drives in their back drive.
Born 1 November 1978 in Perth, he has a New Moon in Scorpio in a confident square to Jupiter; as well as Uranus, Venus, Mercury, Mars in Scorpio so an emotionally intense stellium of dogged determination. Not a man to take slights and accusations lying down. He has Jupiter in flamboyant Leo trine Neptune, sextile Pluto so super-ambitious, not always realistic. His Neptune is also in a can-be-uncertain square to Saturn in hard-working Virgo.
He isn’t looking too upbeat ahead with a hopes-dashed tr Neptune opposition his Sun/Jupiter midpoint till early 2023 plus a couple of ratchety Sun midpoints catching the tr Uranus square tr Saturn this year; and a trapped, frustrating tr Pluto square his Mars/Node in 2022/23 with more panics in 2023/2024.
I think it was the Egyptians who reckoned the two best signs for military leaders were Scorpio and Leo.
Ron De Santis, Governor of Florida, is on a mask-defying rampage as his state becomes the epicenter of a more transmissible surge of COVID-19 with hospitalizations climbing. Local school boards are refusing to follow his executive order banning mask mandates, despite threats to withhold funding. He was elected governor in 2018 with a 0.4 percent margin of victory. His stance has played well so far to his base but the virus may well be the deciding factor in his 2022 re-election and his hopes of GOP nominee in 2024.
He’s in an oddly mixed year with an undermining tr Neptune opposing his Virgo Sun till early 2022 and tr Neptune also taking the shine off his lucky Jupiter/Uranus midpoint as well in 2021/2022. He looks panicked and confused this December and trapped in an enraging situation from early 2022 on and off till late year with tr Pluto square his Mars – and that is exact across the November elections. But he’ll be in ranting and raving form all the same and by 2024 he picks up a confident tr Pluto square his Jupiter, so whatever happens he won’t be down and out.
Democrat Charlie Cridst may be the best hope against him but his Astro isn’t looking too cheerful ahead.
Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas, is facing the same problem with hospitalizations soaring on the back of his stalwartly anti-mask stance. He’s in a guddle and a muddle this year with an undermining tr Neptune opposing his Mars/Uranus midpoint (2022 as well) and the tr Saturn square tr Uranus colliding with his Uranus, and Sun/Mars and Sun/Neptune midpoints until early 2022. But thereafter he looks more upbeat and confident in January and again August to early December 2022 with tr Pluto energising two of his Jupiter midpoints. Not all of his plans will work out but he looks fairly buoyant. Where he hits the skids is in 2025/2026 with tr Pluto square his Mars and Neptune in Scorpio.
Argentinian Lionel Messi, regarded as one of the best football players of all time, has left Barcelona FC where he has spent his entire super-successful career, amidst much regret and tears after contract negotiations failed. He has moved to Paris St Germain. Last year he wanted to leave Barcelona and this year he had changed his mind but it didn’t work out.
He was born 24 June 1987 in Rosario, Argentina and his birth time appears to have moved from 6am to 5.20pm (from memory), so should be regarded as iffy. He’s a Sun Cancer trine Pluto and opposition Neptune in Capricorn; with Jupiter in upfront Aries in an adventurous trine to Uranus Saturn, and in a risk-taking square to his Mars in Cancer.
He’s looking buoyant this year with tr Pluto square his Jupiter this December but his chart is a touch swampy and uncertain from April 2022 onwards with tr Neptune square his Uranus and opposing his Sun/Saturn, on and off into 2023, which isn’t too exciting either.
A Sun Cancerian won’t be too happy about leaving what has effectively been his home for two decades.
See previous post below, written with the 6am birth time.
Post Aug 27 2020
Lionel Messi, reputed to be the best football player of all time, has shocked fans by announcing he wants to leave Barcelona after 20 seasons at Barcelona. At 32 he is nearing retiring age but everyone thought he would see his days out in the place he called home. The club’s performance has been deteriorating in the past five years so it’s assumed he wanted one last shot at greatness before hanging up his boots. There’ll be a vicious legal wrangle before he goes and it’s not clear he’ll be able to reverse out of his contract.
Born 24 June 1987 6am Rosario, Argentina, he’s a Sun Cancer in the financial 2nd house opposition a mesmerising 8th house Neptune square North Node in Aries. His ambitious Mars Mercury in Cancer are also in his financial 2nd house in a risk-taking square to Jupiter. He has a confidently enthusiastic Jupiter in Aries in an adventurous trine to Uranus and a well-balanced trine to Saturn.
He has had tax authority problems with fraud charges being laid which he blamed on his father who handled his business affairs. That is interesting in terms of his 8th house Neptune, which Sean Connery also has – and his wife Micheline was embroiled in a major Spanish tax tangle recently over the sale of a house. The 8th house rules joint and business finances and Neptune there can indicate evasiveness where authority figures are concerned. Which being Neptune usually comes out into the open at some point.
Messi does have tr Pluto opposition his Mars trailing on from last year until late this November which is acutely frustrating so he won’t have been contented. Especially with tr Pluto still moving through his trapped 8th house where it has been for the past decade or so. And tr Saturn has also been moving through his 8th since late 2017 which won’t have improved his spirits either. I wouldn’t be surprised if there hadn’t been more financial headaches although the main tax charges were theoretically tied up in 2016.
It’ll be easier on him from the New Year with tr Saturn moving out of his 8th and the tr Pluto Mars aspect being finished. But he’s still got tr Neptune trailing along for a couple more years square his Saturn/Uranus midpoint and then his Uranus. But he’ll be energised with tr Pluto square his Jupiter over the New year and on and off through 2021.
Barcelona FC was founded 29 November 1899 and has a lively Sun Uranus in sporting Sagittarius, with Mars Node, Mercury, Saturn, Venus also in Sagittarius and Neptune Pluto in Gemini. Messi’s Jupiter in Aries trines most of the Barcelona Sagittarius planets and the Barca Jupiter in money-magnet Scorpio is trine his Mars Mercury. But there would always have been rough edges with Messi’s Saturn Uranus conjunct the Barca Mars, Mercury, Saturn.
The relationship chart has a friendly, business-like and innovative composite Sun opposition Venus square Uranus Saturn with a go-getting Jupiter trine Mars.
The club is labouring under the same swampy Neptune transits over the next three years as Messi is, so it won’t be a progressive time for them.
Virginia Giuffre has brought a civil suit in the USA against Prince Andrew, alleging she was sexually assaulted by him in London and New York when she was 17. He has consistently denied the claims. The suit claims the prince engaged in sexual acts without her consent, knowing how old she was and “that she was a sex-trafficking victim”.
Whether it goes the distance remains to be seen and most such cases don’t end up going to trial. It could be settled beforehand or be struck out by a judge or the complainant could cease the action. He won’t face criminal exposure but could be on the hook for significant damages if it goes against him.
Legal experts say it comes at an unfortunate time for Prince Andrew with the Ghislaine Maxwell trial due in November and the added pressure could persuade her to cooperate with federal prosecutors and provide more information about the individuals who were in the orbit of Jeffrey Epstein.
What is clear is that both the Prince and Virginia look under considerable pressure and acutely frustrated presumably for different reasons from early 2022 to late 2023. Prince Andrew’s 6th house Mars Venus in Capricorn is under assault from tr Pluto conjunction and her Mars in Cancer at the same degree has the tr Pluto opposition and square her Pluto Saturn. Their charts from the start were chained together in an extremely unhealthy, dangerous way with her Mars square Saturn Pluto keying into his IC and Mars Venus.
Her Leo Sun is also in his 1st just below his Ascendant so she is (and always will be) a significant marker on his image.
Their relationship chart looks logjammed and trapped in 2022/23 so whatever happens with the law suit the aggro will run on.
Neither is looking remotely happy for three years ahead. Though with both having the same Leo Ascendant, they will have tr Jupiter through their 8th in 2022, which could arguably see her on the receiving end of a payout and he maybe inheriting a chunk from Prince Philip.
Andrew’s chart in addition to the Pluto grind through his 6th house of health and work has a ‘shocking’ and upsetting Solar Arc Moon conjunct his Mars mid 2022. He’s looking understandably upset exactly now with tr Uranus square his Sun/Venus midpoint and soon in an insecure square to his Sun/Mars; as well as the damaged-reputation tr Pluto square his Midheaven now till late November.
He does have the odd Jupiter lift ahead from Solar Arcs, Midpoints and houses, so he will be handed an undeserved dollop of luck along the way. But those Pluto transits will be punishing.
See previous post June 8 2020.
As an addendum – his not quite ex-wife Sarah Ferguson is looking deeply unhappy and backed into a corner through this December with tr Pluto square her Mars.
Add On: The Royals will be on edge with yet another scud missile threatening to hole their reputation below the water line. Even the Queen looks less than enamoured of her supposedly favourite son with tr Saturn conjunct their composite Mars exactly now and moving to oppose the composite Pluto for the rest of the month; both of which repeat mid-November to early December, presumably aggravated by the Maxwell trial. A lot of anger and frustration tied up in there. Plus a fair amount of jousting for the upper hand.
Andrew and Charles have famously never got on with a competitive sibling hostility rolling under the surface. At the moment everything is going up in the air between them with tr Pluto opposition the composite Uranus till late November and continuing in a devastating square to the composite Neptune throughout 2022 – and not improving thereafter.
Prince William has never taken to his uncle with tensions and suspicions souring their relationship. There could be a significant rupture between them in 2023/24, worsening for the three years following.
His sort-of-ex-wife Sarah is tied to Andrew’s fortunes, since he bales her out financially when she gets in trouble which is very frequently – and that bond will be undermined and jolted significantly in coming years – not parting company but they’ll have a rough ride together.
Barack Obama welcomed in his seventh decade with a 60th birthday party at their waterfront house on Martha’s Vineyard, reputedly scaled down because of covid but still a multi-marquis rollicking bash.
Friends and associates describe him as ‘personally content, politically worried but unfailingly optimistic’ as he travels around doing good works, pushing back against voting right restrictions but trying to avoid getting tangled up in Washington brawls.
His Solar Return has a dynamic Mars on his Ascendant opposition an upbeat Jupiter on his Descendant squaring onto the Midheaven, so he’ll be going full tilt at times over the coming year. But with a hidden 12th house Sun opposition a hard-working 6th house Saturn square a 9th house Uranus he may also be working behind the scenes on reformist schemes. And a lacklustre Moon square Neptune won’t make him energetic at times or committed.
On his transits, this year is a basic slog with tr Pluto conjunct his Saturn with odd moments of panicky failure as tr Neptune opposes his Mars, extending throughout 2022 as well. The erratic, jangled tr Uranus square tr Saturn is also hitting on his Leo Sun, which won’t make it easy to hold to a steady course. But if his birth time is accurate then tr Pluto sextile his Midheaven in 2022/23 will see him in control of his destiny and having more influence.
Tr Pluto moves to square his Jupiter for a confidence and morale boost from early 2023 to late 2024 so he won’t be holding back. Though he doesn’t look too cheerful over the November 2024 period which may not all be election glooms but he’s looking as if he’s had a fender bender.
In general he’s moving from 2023 onwards into a lower profile phase where he’ll want to be less ambitious for a few years.
Much is being made (by the Daily Mail) about the Sussexes not being at the Obama party with the thought that the Obamas would have been upset at the implicit attack on the Queen with whom they got on famously and also were uneasy about Meghan’s obvious follow-in-their-footsteps ambitions. The former is most likely and the Michelle/Meghan relationship was never that cosy with hints of a oneupmanship Jupiter Pluto power play and an explosive Uranus Mars. Michelle’s relationship with Harry is also on the slide this year and next with tr Neptune square the composite Venus.
Barack was always marginally suspicious of Meghan with a composite Saturn Neptune and a competitive Sun Mars in their relationship chart which latter is being rattled in 2021/22.
Actor Kit Harington has been opening up about the pressures of a decade of Game of Thrones fame which sent him into an alcoholic and depression spiral. Two years later he’s emerging, sober, with a new baby and a settled marriage to Rose Leslie also of GoT renown. He’s in an indie film, appearing on Amazon’s Modern Love this week and aiming for Henry V at the Donmar Theatre in London soon.
He was born 26 December 1986 in London, with a Baronet father and a playwright/artist mother whom he credits for his love of acting and who named him after Christopher/Kit Marlowe, the 17th century playwright.
He’s an ambitious and creative though also addictive prone Sun Neptune in Capricorn. His upbeat Mars Jupiter in Pisces is in a can-be-depressing and volatile square to Saturn and Uranus Mercury in Sagittarius. His Jupiter Mars are also in a charming trine to Venus in seductive Scorpio; with Pluto and maybe Moon in Scorpio or Libra. He is a complicated mix of light and shade, great strength and vulnerability.
His chart is pressured at the moment with his Solar Arc Pluto conjunct his Saturn and his Solar Arc Sun square his Pluto; and uncertain with tr Neptune square his Mars. He’ll be bouncing with more enthusiasm with a lucky break in about a year’s time with more solid success around 2024/25.
Carrying the weight of the kind of fame which GoT brought is not as easy as it looks. It ran for a decade and was the phenomenon of the era. It launched in 2011 serendipitously as Neptune, planet of fantasy, started its decade plus move through Pisces.
An “apopleptic” Boris Johnson is hardly a surprise though his raging tonto fit is right on astrological cue as his Progressed Moon exactly opposes his Mars at the moment. He evidently lost the rag at his Chancellor Rishi Sunak, whom he blamed for distributing a letter criticising his chaotic travel restrictions, which Boris said guaranteed it would be leaked – which it duly was. In what the Times described as a ‘fit of frustrated impotence’ he openly suggested that he might sack his chancellor.
Progressions or Solar Arcs in hard aspect to Mars or vice versa always produce an eruption or a collision. And his discomfiture with Sunak won’t subside since there are a plethora of issues where they are at loggerheads – Boris wants to go green, boost social care and the NHS and insists there will be no austerity. Fears are that aiming to go net-zero by 2050 will hit poorest households hardest and could spark a cost-of-living crisis with energy bills already on the rise and inflation spiking as Covid lockdowns ease. All of which would be politically ruinous in so-called Red Wall seats, with Boris’s approval rating tumbling already across the board.
His Progressed Moon will continue to crash and grind round his Mutable T Square in coming months, being square his Saturn at the beginning of this December, thence on to square his Uranus in January and finally his Pluto in late June/July 2022. This runs in parallel to this December’s Sagittarius Solar Eclipse being conjunct his Term chart’s Midheaven for a good going crisis and pressure to alter direction. And within a few weeks from now the Solar Arc Saturn on the Term chart will be on the exact degree of Venus, dampening the popularity of his government further; and continuing on to a logjammed and discouraging conjunction with the Pluto, exact around June 2022.
Rishi Sunak, 12 May 1980, is an innovative, stubborn and can be rebellious Sun Taurus opposition Uranus with his Sun on the apex of a can-be-ego-centric Yod to Neptune sextile Pluto – super-ambitious. He also has a hard-working Saturn in Virgo on the focal point of a wide-ish T Square to Venus opposition Neptune. Plus an enthusiastic Mars Jupiter in Virgo which clashes with Boris’s Mars, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto. Not the easiest fit.
Their relationship chart has a suspicious composite Sun Mercury opposition Neptune Saturn which will tend to brew up doubts and fears. There’s also a oneupmanship struggling Jupiter square Pluto; and a volatile, combustible Mars square Uranus. They were never destined to be singing off the same hymn sheet. Though a prime minister not getting on with the chancellor is hardly anything new. The December Solar Eclipse will rattle their composite Sun and Saturn in particular so could be a critical turning point.
At that point Sunak’s chart indicates high uncertainty with tr Neptune opposition his Saturn and a disaster-prone trine of Uranus to his Mars/Saturn midpoint. His plans won’t work out or boost his self-esteem in 2022 into 2023 with two of his Neptune midpoints catching tr Pluto squares.
Boris would be a fool to let his predatory instincts get the better of him since the country feels safer with Sunak in the Treasury. But desperation will mount as his polls go further south so who knows?
Oliver Cromwell, a keynote figure in the English civil war, whose rise to prominence led to the execution of Charles 1 and his own subsequent and short-lived semi-kingship, is the subject of a new biography about the years of his rise to power. Two things are astrologically intriguing about him. One is his conversion to radical Puritanism in his late 30s which pulled him out of obscurity and the other is his extraordinarily emphasised Jupiter.
He was a divisive figure described variously as a regicidal dictator, a class revolutionary by Leon Trotsky and a hero of liberty by Thomas Carlyle. Atrocities in his name meted out to Catholics in Ireland have been characterised as genocidal.
Biographer Ronald Hutton describes him as sly, vindictive, glory-guzzling and ruthless. He manipulated the press, lied to the House of Commons and destroyed allies with relish. Luck was also with him at the right times.
He was born 25 April 1599 JC 3am (maybe) Huntingdon, England (ADB) and has a Taurus Sun Mercury as befits a Calvinist zealot trine a Virgo Moon, sextile Jupiter in Cancer (on this birth time) in the putting-on-a-confident-performance 5th. Jupiter is also spotlighted being on the focal point also of a military/cruel Mars in Aries opposition Saturn. And last but not least he had a revolutionary Uranus Pluto in Aries trine a religious Neptune.
During his thirties he suffered a loss of status and perhaps a breakdown, which was when he turned to the intense form of Protestantism that assured him that he was God’s instrument in this life and would be saved in the next. His religiosity was extreme even by the standards of his age and Hutton describes him as “a Puritan jihadi”.
That was when tr Uranus was opposing his Pluto and then Uranus, turning his life upside down, fuelling his ambitions and his revolutionary fervour. His Solar Arc Jupiter (pulling with it the full force of his Sun, Mercury Moon mini-Grand Trine and Mars Saturn T Square) was conjunct his natal Neptune giving his religious beliefs a turbo-charge blast of energy and determination.
When war came as he entered his forties he rose rapidly up the military ladder, glorified his own achievements at the expense of brother officers and told “blatant untruths” to discredit parliament’s aristocratic military commanders. His godliness co-existed with slippery less saintly traits, ruthless self-promotion being one of them – Jupiter’s grandiosity coming into its own. Jupiter’s Olympian confidence would also fuel his belief in himself as an agent of divine judgment put on earth to depose the monarch and after some soul-searching almost but not quite step into his shoes.
When he finally took over as Lord Protector in 1653 his Solar Arc Neptune was square his overblown Jupiter inflating his ambitions to greater heights. Though as ever with Neptune Jupiter disappointment follows and the ego balloon deflates. Tr Saturn was also conjunct his Neptune inducing untypical uncertainty and perhaps a prescience of what was to come. He lasted five years as ruler before his death, was followed by his weak son and the monarchy was restored with Charles 11 on the throne by 1660.
Intriguing that both Cromwell’s Neptune and his Jupiter were lived out in all their duality – self-appointed saint and sinner all rolled into one.
Two other sensationalised murders of years past are also in the news. Amanda Knox, cleared of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher after eight years in an Italian prison, has been voicing her objection to Stillwater, a Matt Damon film, about an American father trying to exonerate his daughter up on a murder charge in Europe. It was directly inspired by the Amanda Knox story but her character in the movie appears to implicate her indirectly in the killing. Knox says “It is the false narrative that was presented by the prosecution that has been debunked by evidence and yet is the ongoing myth that is an obstacle towards me —- being taken seriously as a person.”
The other below is Louise Woodward, the British teenage nanny found guilty of the 1997 manslaughter of a baby in her care. The evidence will be trawled over in a new three-part documentary: Villain or Victim?
Knox, born 9 July 1987 2.47 am Seattle, Washington, is a Sun, Mercury, Venus in Cancer which sit across from Neptune in the 8th, with a ratchety, complicated Moon Saturn Uranus in Sagittarius in her 7th house of relationships. She wouldn’t have a settled emotional life, for sure, with a head-in-the-clouds 8th house Neptune and low emotional self-esteem from Moon Saturn and unpredictable reactions from Moon Uranus. Plus she has a ramped-up and angry Mars in Leo square Pluto.
What told against her initially were her odd reactions at the time and some discrepancies in the timeline she offered. There’s no doubt a drifter Rudy Guede was the one responsible but the confusion in the stories and the slanted police investigation turned it into a global media bunfight with her reputation being serially slandered.
What is noteworthy astrologically is not only her evasive 8th house Neptune; but also her Mars square Pluto. Like all astrological markers aspects have opposite ways of working out, depending on whether they are lived out or left unconscious and therefore attract what they don’t own. Mars Pluto is brutal/ruthless and Doris Duke clearly lived hers out to the full. But in others, especially women, they tend to attract brutality or hostile dislike, for reasons they don’t understand, because they find it difficult to utilise the high-octane Mars Pluto energy. It can be a plus point for those who work in crises areas – war correspondents, NGOs in the Congo etc or in domestic violence shelters – having courage and a cool head when others are losing theirs. But it isn’t helpful in ordinary life.
When Meredith Kercher was killed tr Saturn was conjunct her 8th house Neptune and tr Pluto was aiming to go into her trapped 8th house. Indeed it has only just emerged from there. At the moment her Solar Arc Neptune is conjunct her Midheaven which will be contributing to her disappointment and muddle.
Louise Woodward, 24 February 1978 3am Elton, England, who was convicted of second degree murder, dropped to involuntary manslaughter on appeal, of the death of a baby in her care, which hinged on conflicting medical evidence about shaken or dropped baby syndrome. Again it caught global headlines and again attracted intense media arguments for and against.
She is a Sun, Mercury, Venus in Pisces with a 9th house far-travelled Virgo Moon. She has a notable Neptune on her Ascendant opposition a 7th house Jupiter, so confident though not always realistic. She has a controlling Pluto on her Midheaven with a deeply buried Mars in the 8th, which is square Pluto and trine her Uranus – so she will have strong reactions. But again with 8th house and Mars Pluto there’s no way of telling whether she would live them out or attract hostility to herself. When the baby died tr Pluto was just across the square to her Mars/Pluto midpoint so she would have been under pressure running into that time.
Astrology is never an indicator of guilt or innocence but it is intriguing to see the way certain similar aspects play out – inwards and outwards. What caused problems in both of the above cases was the marginally odd demeanour of both when under police questioning.
