Chernobyl, forty years on, remains the worst and most expensive nuclear disaster in history. Complicated technical reasons were given for the meltdown but a drama series on Sky points firmly who was really responsible for the disaster — ‘the rotten, rotting Soviet state.’
‘It presents a view of politics where ideology is unassailable and allegiance to the motherland is more important than the lives of thousands. As scientists piped up about the gravity of the radiation situation and were shouted down as if they were insolent schoolboys telling lies, you also began to realise how little you knew about this disaster.’ “Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor explodes: lies.”
A catastrophe of this magnitude is usually the portent to history-changing events to follow and sure enough three years later the USSR collapsed.
The Chernobyl blowout occurred on 26 April 1986 at 1.23 AM with a 4th house Taurus Sun conjunct the North Node opposition a 10th house Pluto, trine/sextile Neptune in Capricorn. A major blockage from Sun Pluto in fixed signs channels its intensity through an unstable Neptune. The Sun was conjunct Sedna, the myth of betrayal. The wounded Chiron was in the 6th house of health and opposition Saturn conjunct Antares, the heart of the Scorpion.
Astrology King: Saturn conjunct Antares: Materialistic, dishonest through circumstances created by the environment, many failures, hampered by relatives, unfavourable for domestic matters, much sickness to and sorrow from children.
The Scorpio Moon was opposition Venus conjunct the destructive Algol square Nessus, which last rules risks and danger. Uranus was on the Ascendant for sudden, unpredictable change.
The Lunar Eclipse two days before located to Moscow puts the disruptive Uranus on the IC hinting at the shifting foundations to come.
Transiting Pluto at 5 degrees Scorpio over the Chernobyl meltdown, had from early 1986 started a two year square to the Russia 1917 Neptune, hinting at the devastation facing the Soviet state in the three years following until its collapse in late 1989.
Much the same as Russia is facing in 2027/28 with tr Pluto opposition its Neptune.
King Charles embarking on his state visit with Trump on Monday is facing what is described as “high risk, high stakes and high opportunity” and a tough test given his health. The trip will involve addressing Congress and a state dinner; a visit to the 9/11 Memorial and a reception in New York followed by natural beauty in a national park in Virginia.
In addition to the Middle East imbroglio and Trump’s vengeful attacks on Starmer for his disobedience, tariffs etc, the vexed question of Andrew/Epstein and victims will loom large. The King won’t meet survivors but Camilla will be meeting campaigners against domestic abuse during her engagements.
It’s the first such speech to Congress from a UK monarch since that of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1991. She said then “Some people believe that power grows from the barrel of a gun. “So it can. But history shows that it never grows well, nor for very long. Force, in the end, is sterile. We have gone a better way. Our societies rest on mutual agreement, on contract, and on consensus.” Guarantee Charles’ speech won’t empathise the same points.
Charles has tr Pluto exactly conjunct his Descendant now hinting at intense interactions with everyone he meets; with a high-alert tr Mars exactly on his Midheaven over the visit. The latter could make him impatient or argumentative, though it may also keep him focussed. Tr Jupiter conjunct his Solar Arc Moon as he arrives home on May 2 suggests a huge sigh of relief.
Relocating his chart to Washington gives a steady Taurus Ascendant with a 7th house Sun, suggesting cooperation is a priority. Saturn in the 5th = socialising is hard work. Venus Neptune in the 6th = not high energy. Mars Jupiter in the 8th plus a 12th house Moon and a 4th house Pluto point to much that is suppressed in the way of emotional reactions, kept firmly out of sight.
Charles’s Scorpio Sun is conjunct DT’s IC at the start of his 4th house so he is important in connecting to DT’s roots through his Scottish mother. Charles’ Saturn falls in DT’s 1st house so he will damp down some of his exuberance. At best he might add a hint of gravitas.
Their relationship chart has a sociable, friendly composite Sun Venus Mercury conjunction; with a sparky Mars trine Uranus trine Moon; with Moon square Jupiter. And a chained-together composite Pluto Saturn. Not too tricky and Charles has always had a penchant for the wealthy so there may not be too many rough edges.
Camilla and Melania are a different matter. They are both tough-minded ladies – Melania with a Sun Saturn in Taurus and Camilla with a Saturn Pluto conjunction in Leo. Both have Mars in direct-speaking Gemini and Jupiter in money-magnet Scorpio. Their relationship chart has a hostile/toxic dislike composite Mars square Pluto with an argumentative Sun Mars. It will no doubt be all covered over by saccharine smiles.
Just to add to Charles’ burden, his errant younger son Harry could not resist the urge to upstage and embarrass him with a trip to the Ukraine and a few words of advice for Trump immediately before.
It seems to have upset Camilla more with tr Uranus square her composite Venus with Harry; and William who is beyond furious with his relationship chart with Harry seething under tr Pluto square Mars/Pluto midpoint at the moment and worse to come through this year and 2027.
Charles’ relationship chart with Harry does have a 2 degree Gemini Ascendant so there may be more definitive upheavals from June onwards as tr Uranus moves across into their composite 1st house – which suggests more separation rather than less in the time thereafter.
Harry looks lost at the moment with his Solar Arc Midheaven conjunct his 12th house Neptune – searching for a direction in life and failing to find it. And his relationship with Meghan is heading for a major upheaval from this June onwards with tr Uranus square their composite Sun and opposition Uranus. Both their Sun/Moon midpoints will be under major pressure in 2027 – tr Saturn square his and tr Uranus square hers – so he won’t be finding stability anytime soon.
Uranus moving into Gemini this Sunday is the final piece of the new era jigsaw. All four outer planets are now firmly established on their new track. The move from Water Earth (Pluto Capricorn, Uranus Taurus, Neptune Saturn Pisces) to Air Fire (Pluto Aquarius, Uranus Gemini, Neptune Saturn Aries) is complete.
Stephen Arroyo describes Water Earth, our recent experience, as serious, burdensome, concerned with survival needs, determined and can-be manipulative. Air Fire on the other hand is described as idealistic, positive-thinking, aspiring, optimistic, witty, though not always realistic.
There are hints of a definite improvement ahead though whether the late French astrologer Andre Barbault’s prediction for ‘the turning point of 2026-2030’ will hold good seems a distant possibility as of now. He looked forward to ‘the awakening of the mysteries of life.’ ‘Four planets – in a triangle with each other – that move as if they wanted to metamorphose the world. We are faced with the possibility of a change such as to make it seem too weak the terms “change” or the same “upheaval” to define the breadth of what could transform the known world.’
The translation from his native French is a touch clunky but he clearly expected a momentous change for the better.
What will get in the way of a golden road ahead is Saturn moving into Taurus in 2028 and in a deprived/hardship/war-mongering square to Pluto for 18 months. By 2030 Saturn is into Gemini and by 2031 is conjunct Uranus, which in previous eras has sometimes led to a peak of enlightenment and justice though it can have other effects as well.
Below from a previous post:
Uranus is the lightning god, trailblazer, promoter of freedom, independence, revolutions, scientific inventions, as well as anarchic chaos. Wary of emotional intimacy, at a personal level it can seem cold, uncooperative, belligerent about compromise which Uranus equates with loss of individuality. Uranus was the sky god married to Gaia the earth mother. He was ultimately castrated by his son Saturn after expressing disgust for his earthy, ugly brood of children. Thus he is deemed to be against the biology.
Uranus fosters intellectual creativity, shines a light on hidden places, acts as a torchbearer into the unknown. But left to run amok can be destructive, collapsing old structures and lacking the inclination to reconstruct better on the far side.
Looking back over the past century plus of Uranus through the signs, which it changes every seven years, year it enters a new sign has coincided with a tranche of firsts in technical and scientific advances which altered the face of our culture – television demonstrations and transmissions, airplane development from the first 40 minute flight to plane bombing, first parachute jumps, and first set-up of commercial airlines, then space travel. In more recent times the internet moved from early computing in the 1955/6 Uranus into Leo, further advances in 1962, Microsoft being founded in 1974 with Uranus just into Scorpio, first computer virus on the next in 1981 when moving into Sagittarius, then 1989 into Capricorn the first commercial internet providers and the WWW.
Delightfully Albert Einstein published his seminal papers which led to a century’s study of theoretical physics the year Uranus moved into Capricorn in 1902.
What is also noticeable skipping down events is how many iconic performers, novels, films emerged/exploded onto the scene in the year Uranus changed sign.
1949 into Cancer: Billy Graham.
1955/56 into Leo: Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Rogers and Hammerstein at their peak, Doris Day’s most famous hit. First Eurovision Song Contest.
1962 into Virgo: Johnny Carson debut, Rolling Stones debut, Beatles firsts, first ever Bond movie Dr No, Bob Dylan, David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia.
1974 into Scorpio: Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
1981 into Sagittarius: film ET
1989 into Capricorn: Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verse controversy.
1995 into Aquarius: Toy Story – first computer generated animated feature.
In the century before as Uranus moved into Gemini Darwin published his Origin of the Species; and Big Ben chimed for the first time in London.
There are also intriguing repeats. Bill Gates was born on the 1955 with Uranus just into Leo and founded Microsoft two later on Uranus just into Scorpio.
The Beatles burst onto the scene in 1962 as Uranus moved into Virgo and made their last public appearance next time round in 1968 when Uranus moved into Libra.
The Vietnam War started in 1955/56 in Leo and finished three Uranus cycles later as it moved into Scorpio in 1975.
The Guildford Four who were imprisoned in 1975 in the UK in a miscarriage of justice for alleged IRA bombings with Uranus just into Scorpio were freed fourteen years later as Uranus moved into Capricorn in 1989.
Revolutions are a key outcome of the Uranian push for freedom at all costs. The Eastern European uprisings of 1989 when the Berlin Wall was collapsed came with Uranus just moving into Capricorn. That year also apartheid in South Africa started to be dismantled. The Arab Spring coincided with Uranus moving into Aries in 2011. The 1968 Uranus into Libra brought the start of the Irish Troubles and the Stonewall riots fighting for gay rights.
The destructive side of Uranus comes out with brutal suppressions as in Tiananmen Square in 1989 (in Capricorn); the Holocaust in 1942/43 (in Gemini); Nazism on the rise and the Night of the Long Knives purge in Germany in 1934 with Uranus moving into Taurus. And the Titanic sank as Uranus moved into Aquarius in 1912.
Uranus moving through Gemini as will happen from 2025 to 2032 is likely to have a noticeable impact on the USA since previous occasions coincided with the American Civil War during the 1860s; and the American Revolution in 1775/76; and the previous one to this in 1942/43 came on the back of Pearl Harbour and the USA moving into World War 11. The USA Uranus Return is 2027.
For good or ill and somewhere in between mother is the first relationship in life which stamps an emotional pattern and expectations on the adult life to come.
Mommie Dearest is the latest book from Martin Sebastian Moritz, author of The Mysterious 8th House. Insightful, thought-provoking, filled with compassionate wisdom and illuminated by psychological awareness, it pin-points the Moon’s glide through signs, houses and in aspect, but is far from an astro-cookbook.
The author opens up about his own complicated childhood ferrying between his parents and a great grandmother and ‘aunt’, relating it to his 6th house Aquarius Moon. Victor Olliver in the foreword talks of his sensitive Pisces Moon and close relationship with his mother.
It broadened my understanding as I flicked through friends and family charts as well as my own as he relates how the mother’s temperament and often unfulfilled hopes determine the emotional leanings of the adult child ahead.
Almost half the book is given over to case studies of abusive mothers like Joan Crawford; the Duke of Windsor, product of a cold mother and a sadistic nanny; and Jennette McCurdy with a monstrous stage mother. Adoring mothers – with examples of Cher, Ronan Farrow, Proust and Anderson Cooper. Margaret Thatcher comes under ambivalent mothers. Madonna and Jane Fonda under absent mothers.
The breadth of understanding of the lunar experience in the book is remarkable and makes it a library must-have. I can see me referring to it for years to come.
Slow moving, heavyweight Pluto is now firmly on track to make its influence felt until 2043. Nothing happens instantly with Pluto so the Fixed signs most affected – Taurus (career/life’s direction), Leo (relationships), Scorpio (home/family), Aquarius (personal identity) – are still coming to terms with the changes imposed on their lives since 2024. Other signs pick up milder hints.
Transformation is a word lightly tossed around but in reality is a challenging, on occasion painful process, as old structures are demolished and reduced to ashes before the rebuilding of the new can begin. Pluto demands depth, discarding a superficial approach as trivial and frivolous. He was Lord of the Underworld, ruler of a realm of riches and intense emotional experiences. You have to dig deep to reap his bounty. Those who exist in a half-life of outer appearances find the Plutonic experience the most troubling. Relevant is the myth of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess, who went underground to reconnect with her sister. Her process involved losing all of her finery before she was rescued, not by a knight in shining armour, but by small earth-like creatures. There is nothing glamorous about the Pluto phase.
All signs feel the effect when there is a celestial Pluto aspect as there is this weekend with the pressured Taurus Sun square Pluto and towards the end of May with a risky, frustrated Mars in Taurus square Pluto. Life in general feels stuck, powerless and progress requires perseverance or an acceptance of what cannot be changed immediately. These come around about six times a year in hard aspect to the Sun or Mars so are part and parcel of the weft and warp (fabric) of life.
Pluto through the signs every twenty plus years does have a significant effect on the culture. See list below.
What sparked off this post is that the present Pluto in Aquarius is squaring its 1980s phase in Scorpio in the Thatcher/Reagan era when deregulation of the financial markets took place.
A new book The Asset Class by Hettie O’Brien describes in detail what happens when the state withdraws from key public services and allows private equity to take control. “You don’t know their names, but they own the house you rent. They own your hospitals, nurseries and care homes, the media you consume and the companies you work for”. “They are deeply entangled in our everyday life: in water, energy, housing, care homes, health, trains – services we all depend on.”
She shows how some care homes treat elderly people as “the human equivalent of ATM machines” as fees are siphoned from their housing equity to fund the poor conditions and low wages of exhausted care workers.
In the UK, privatisation was accompanied by regulation but it is often underfunded and ineffective. Nothing changes, because poor services maximise profit and shareholder returns are a higher priority than clean water. O’Brien rightly concludes that this has “rewire[d] the state in service of a wealthy elite”.
It took almost to the end of the last Pluto in Aquarius for the citizens of Paris to revolt against the entitled wealthy and bring them down; and then only because there was a revolutionary Uranus opposition Pluto to spur on the upheaval. There is none such across the next twenty years but it may be (hope!) that the egalitarian drive of Pluto in Aquarius will start to push back against the Gordon Gekkos – fittingly launched into movie stardom a year after the Big Bang.
Pluto in Gemini 1882 – 1912.
Cities, skyscrapers Telecommunications. Electrical age starts. Yellow Journalism
Pluto in Cancer 1912 – 1937.
World War 1. Emancipation of women.
Old family values destroyed. Wall Street Crash
The Great Depression
Pluto in Leo 1937 – 1956
Fascism. World War 11
Nuclear bombs. Baby Boomers
Pluto in Virgo 1956 -1971
Medical advances: Polio & measles vaccines. Heart pacemaker
USA Medicare Act.
European Economic Community. Asian flu pandemic
Suez Crisis. Russia invades Hungary
Pluto in Libra 1971 – 1983
Divorce rate jumps. Changing expectations of marriage. Independence women.
USA Equal Rights Legislation. First domestic violence shelters.
Bloody Sunday, Northern Ireland. Watergate.
Munich Olympics massacre.
Pluto in Scorpio 1983 – 1995
Money and sex. Economic shift. Brinks-Mat Gold Robbery.
AIDs and Child Sexual Abuse surfaces. Crack Cocaine.
Indira Gandhi assassinated
Pluto in Sagittarius 1995 – 2008
Globalization, multiculturalism Schengen EU – cross border travel. New media.
Sebrenica Massacre. Oklahoma bombing. Al Quaeda/terrorism. Rabin assassinated
Pluto in Capricorn 2008 – 2023
Economics and Government. Financial crash. Migrant crisis.
Populism & neo-nationalism. Global warming.
Barack Obama elected
Pluto in Aquarius 1532 – 1552
Henry V111 splits with Rome. Roman Catholic versus Protestant schism.
The Michael Jackson biopic has attracted acerbic reviews for its portrayal of him as a 20th-century Jesus who, as a child performer is told by his saintly mother, Katherine that he has been gifted with a “special light” from Jehovah. Soon he will become the embodiment of the Bible verse from Matthew, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me.”
Reviewers describe it as “risible” – “an aimless and mendacious portrait” “untethered from reality” “pure and unadulterated bullshit.” “Whitewash’ and ‘ghoulish’”
The film stops in 1988, which is handy as it avoids all that unfortunate child sex abuse material. Which accentuates the biopic’s creepy validation of Jackson’s “adorable” obsession with vulnerable lost boys and cute for ever kids. The Telegraph noted that it “refuses to address the elephant in the room”.”
“This is a frustratingly shallow, inert picture, a kind of cruise-ship entertainment, which can’t quite bring itself to show that Michael was an abuse victim, brutalised by his father and robbed of his childhood.”
“Michael is a Part One that pretends its Part Two doesn’t exist: a structurally complete film that tells only half a story.”
The film unsurprisingly is financially backed by the late superstar’s estate and while his nephew Jaafar Jackson is praised for his performance as Michael as is the music, it is seen as a ‘ghoulish, soulless cash grab’
The fans will probably love it but??
Michael Jackson, 29 August 1958 7.33pm Gary, Indiana, had an over-controlled Sun Pluto conjunction in Virgo, a hint of a dominating father. Though if this birth time is sound then Saturn on his Midheaven square a Pisces Moon and Ascendant, and inconjunct Mars hardly describes a warm and nurturing mother.
Jupiter Neptune in is 8th would give him charisma as well as luck and optimism though has that odd side effect of attracting scandal.
Tr Uranus is moving to square the Pluto on his birth chart from this June onwards and Sun in 2027 so it will be an unsettled phase for his reputation.
His nephew Jaafar, son of Jermaine Jackson, 25 July 1996 Los Angeles, is an entertaining Sun Leo in a highly strung opposition to Uranus and Neptune; with a stressed yod of Pluto (Moon) sextile Neptune inconjunct Mars in Cancer, which will give him driving ambition though problems with moderating his assertion and anger. His Saturn also squares his Mars which is not lucky or patient; and is square his Jupiter so he’ll swing from high to low in mood and the way he progresses through life.
Tr Pluto will continue to oppose his Leo Sun in the second half of this year which will be challenging; and his Solar Arc Pluto will oppose his Mars within a year which will grind him to a halt for a while.
He does not have much in common astrologically with his uncle.
Professor Omer Bartov was born on a kibbutz, grew up in Tel Aviv and served in the Israel Defence Forces during the Yom Kippur War. He went on to become an expert on the German army and the Holocaust, before turning his attention to his native country.
In Israel: What Went Wrong?, Bartov explores the transformation of Zionism from a movement of Jewish emancipation and liberation into a state ideology of ethno-nationalism, exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians. He traces the process whereby Israel – whose establishment in 1948 received international support in the aftermath of the Holocaust – now faces accusations of war crimes and genocide.
He tracks how a liberatory strand of Zionism transformed from a hopeful nation that in its founding document promised “complete equality of social and political rights to all its citizens irrespective of religion, race or sex” into one intent on what he terms “settler colonialism and ethno-nationalism”.
He deplores the way the memory of the Shoah has been instrumentalized for political purposes, becoming “a vast fig leaf”, as he puts it in the book: “its lamentable effect to combine self-victimization and self-pity with self-righteousness, hubris and the euphoria of power”. His goal is not to minimize the horrors of the Nazi extermination campaign but to demonstrate the ways in which this trauma has been exploited to shape the Israeli psyche and political ideology.
He believes that Jews have a right to self-determination as long as they don’t “trample over other people’s rights”.
Despite his condemnation of present-day Israeli society, Bartov does see a narrow path toward the nation’s peaceful coexistence with its neighbors with a confederation plan championed by a group of Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals called A Land for All. Under this scheme, sovereign and independent Palestinian and Jewish states would exist side by side, divided roughly along pre-1967 borders. Citizens of both entities would be allowed to live and travel freely throughout the combined territory but would vote only in their own national elections.
What he sees as the present nation’s preference for military confrontation over diplomacy depends entirely on American support and that patronage is now being tested as never before. A clear majority of Democratic voters now have a negative view of Israel. “Maga is becoming anti-Israel,” Bartov said, due to “Netanyahu completely leading Trump by the nose into a completely idiotic war”.
As a result, America’s indulgence of its longstanding Middle East ally may at last be reaching its limits. Should the United States withhold military support – as is advocated by growing numbers of Democratic policymakers – “Israel will have to go through a process of coming to terms with itself,” Bartov predicted. Under such circumstances, the country would have no choice but to pursue diplomacy. Ironically, that might be the so-called Jewish state’s best hope for a peaceful and prosperous future.
Forty out of 47 Democratic senators last week voted to block US arms sales to Israel.Sixty per cent of Americans now view Israel unfavourably, according to Pew. The younger they are, the higher that number. Three-quarters of 18- to 29-year-olds sympathise more with Palestinians than Israelis, according to a separate NBC poll last weekend. As boomers die off, America’s anti-Israeli tilt is likely to harden.
The next act will be Trump’s efforts to find a way out of Epic Fury. It is hard to see how he will get a US-Iran settlement that is much better than what Obama negotiated in 2015. Netanyahu broke precedent by telling Congress that the Iran-US nuclear deal was “very bad”. He also played a role in 2018 in persuading Trump to pull out of it.
The influential organization now known as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was founded in 1953 (officially incorporated in 1954) and was created partly in response to intense international condemnation of Israel following the Qibya massacre in October 1953, where Israeli troops killed 69 Palestinian villagers, mostly women and children.
1.In his book on the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe notes that a month after the UN resolution, the Jewish leadership embarked on the “ethnic cleansing of Palestine”.
“Plan D decided on ‘the systematic expulsion of the Palestinians from vast areas of the country’”
Uri Ram, a professor of Ben-Gurion University, reviewed The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine for the Middle East Journal and described the book as “a most important and daring book that challenges head-on Israeli historiography and collective memory and even more importantly Israeli conscience”.
2.Israelism (2023) is a notable documentary following young American Jews questioning their education about Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. Other documentaries focusing on young Israelis or the region include No Other Land (2024), showing a collective’s view on West Bank destruction, and Days of Rage, covering young Palestinians.
3.In 1947 Britain began to promote the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, a policy supported by the Jewish leadership but which immediately undermined the interests of the Palestinians, who at the time made up around two-thirds of the population, compared to one-third of Jews. In November 1947, the UN passed General Assembly Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine and awarding the Jews a state that comprised over half the country, against the will of the indigenous majority population. This began with a series of attacks on Arab villages following the vandalisation by some Palestinians of buses and shopping centres in protest at the resolution.
As warfare among Jews and Palestinians increased, the Jewish leaders’ plans culminated in a meeting in March 1948 which decided on a “Plan D”, the “systematic expulsion of the Palestinians from vast areas of the country”, Pappe notes.
Military leader Moshe Dayan in the 1950s: “What we can say against their terrible hatred of us? For eight years, they have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their lands and villages, where they and their forefathers dwelled, into our home.”
Moshe Sharett (Israel Prime Minister 1954/55): “In the thirties we restrained the emotions of revenge. . . . Now, on the contrary, we justify the system of reprisal … we have eliminated the mental and moral brake on this instinct and made it possible … to uphold revenge as a moral value…. a sacred principle”
This is more for background context since everything has been said before in previous posts. But another example of the new era splitting away from post WW11 organisations.
Tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth 11 on what would have been her 100th birthday evoked rose-coloured memories of steadier times when she seemed the bedrock of the country. Having vowed her life in service at her coronation she ploughed the same furrow for nearly 70 years.
Born 21 April 1926 2.40 am London. She was not expected to succeed to the throne until her wayward uncle the Duke of Windsor abdicated when she was 10, leaving her insecure father no option but to become king. George V1 was a charming Sun Sagittarius with Venus in Scorpio on his Ascendant and Jupiter in Leo on his Midheaven. But a troubled Neptune Pluto in his 8th, a legacy from intergenerational tangles, which opposed his Sun and Mercury plus an agitated Scorpio Moon conjunct Mars gave him an unsettled temperament which made his stalwart service during WW11 all the more laudable.
Elizabeth partly due to her demanding mother’s upbringing had the discipline to face a long road ahead when he died a few weeks before her 26th birthday. She had an obsessively conscientious Saturn in Scorpio on her midheaven in a Fixed T Square to Jupiter Mars in Aquarius in her 1st house opposition Neptune (and Moon) in Leo in her 7th. Enduring, persevering, stubborn, she needed and exemplified order and discipline. Pluto in her 6th added to her workaholic tendencies and insistence on having things done her way.
Her Taurus Sun would incline her to rural interests in horses and dogs but falling in her 3rd house she was more quick witted and intelligent than she came across. Venus and Uranus in her 2nd gave her a love of money and though her Saturnine inclinations were towards austerity her spending on her racing stable must have been extensive.
Her South Node fell on her Ascendant so her tendency would be to fall back into taking an independent role so close relationships would require an effort.
Her Sun/Moon midpoint was square her Uranus emphasising that point. But luckily Prince Phillip’s Gemini Sun (and Mars) were conjunct her Sun/Moon for a liaison, while not always easy, that stood the test of time. Their wedding chart from 20 November 1947 was truly difficult with a Mars Saturn conjunction and Saturn conjunct Pluto in the 8th opposition Moon square North Node opposition Sun – so not exactly a rousing send off.
Prince Philip, 10 June 1921 9.46pm, Corfu, had a high-vitality Sun Mars in Gemini which fell in her 5th house not only of children but also social fun, so he would be a lively antidote to her rigorous duties. His Venus in Taurus was conjunct her Sun for deep affection and he shared her Moon and Neptune in Leo. He also had a Libra North Node so like her did not always find close relationships and the compromises involved easy.
Plus with her dedication to her role, he would feel cut out which he made plain. Their relationship chart did have a composite Mars opposition Saturn hinting at a relationship where one partner had to suppress their identity and wishes to make it work. But there was also a fated yod of composite Sun sextile Uranus inconjunct Saturn which bound them together. In latter years he was her rock.
Her Accession, 6 February 1952 5pm, when she was holidaying in Kenya, came when there was a sombre Sun opposition Pluto; with the tr Pluto conjunct her Neptune for a devastating experience. There was also Jupiter in Aries opposition Saturn square Uranus opposition Venus for a sudden emotionally upsetting change. Her Coronation 2 June 1953 was a happier affair with a 10th house Sun Jupiter in Gemini trine an Aquarius Moon; with a well-starred Half Grand Sextile from Venus opposition Saturn Neptune sextile Mars Mercury and sextile Pluto. [Saturn being close to Neptune when Elizabeth 1 was crowned in 1559 as well.]
