Marina Hyde, the Guardian comment wit, is a bright spot in the political and celebrity arena, pulling icons off pedestals and rubbishing parliamentary poseurs. Along the way she usually gives a helpful precis of complicated stories. Occasionally she goes too far with a few serous complaints against her but they are far outweighed by her awards.
She was born 13 May 1974, daughter of a double-barrelled Tory baronet, so an unlikely left-wing rebel. She has a stalwart Taurus Sun on the focal point of a Yod inconjunct Uranus sextile North Node – which fits. Plus a penetrating Mercury in Gemini trine Pluto and opposition Neptune – Neptune Pluto aspects usually bring sizeable ambitions. She also has Venus in pro-active Aries opposition Pluto squaring onto both Saturn and Mars in Cancer, which will give her an angry and cutting edge. And she may have, depending on an early birth time, a communicative Air Grand Trine of Mercury trine a mischief-making Aquarius Moon trine Pluto.
The revolving door of Boris Johnson’s government is spinning with increasing velocity as political advisers are fired or resign in a huff with leaks, tales of back stabbing, murmurs that Carrie Symonds is running the show – ferrets fighting in a sack. Michael Gove is sidelined and the unelected David Frost steps up, unbelievably, into the Cabinet from March 1 described as “an extraordinary breach of the constitutional principle that a government adviser should not have a seat in legislature.” Having negotiated a bad Brexit deal which is coming apart at the seams with businesses grinding to a halt, Frost is being sent in to hard-ball the EU into compliance – and we all saw how well that worked the last time. As a commentator remarked we don’t need a ‘nightclub bouncer, we need a diplomat.’
Mediation, moderation and tact are not concepts that sit comfortably with Boris’s whirling dervish mentality. Having just got rid of (or been forced to) the divisive Dominic Cummings, he’s imported Frost, a banter buddy since 2016 who discovered (according to Nick Cohen in the Observer) how to turn an anodyne career into a sizzler by homing in on Brexit (and Boris) as a good wheeze for gaining prominence. He has moved at speed from a dull, middle-ranking civil servant, to special adviser, into the House of Lords and now into the Cabinet.
What is bizarre and a psychological if not psychiatric mystery is why Boris attracts himself to working bro-romances with types who exacerbate his worst traits and are guaranteed to aggravate – it’s positively masochistic. Cummings has a focal point Mars in Pisces square Saturn opposition Sun Neptune which collides with Boris’s Saturn in Pisces opposition Uranus Pluto square Mars in Gemini. Frost is no better with his Sun Saturn in Pisces squaring Boris’s Mars; and Frost’s Mars in Virgo squaring Boris’s Sun for an argumentative interface. Frost does admittedly share Boris’s head-in the-clouds Jupiter in Taurus opposition Neptune, which is associated also with scandals caused by poor judgement; and in Frost’s case is magnified squaring onto Venus in Aquarius, which makes him exceptionally inflexible (Fixed T Square), disliking compromise and arousing resentment because of obstinacy.
And all three were guaranteed to light a touch paper to the EU’s short fuse with the EU Mars in early Sagittarius being triggered.
Frost’s Cabinet job chart from March 1 has (assuming midnight start) has a 7th house Mars in Taurus conjunct Algol and trine a 3rd house ultra-stubborn Pluto – which doesn’t suggest any give in negotiating, quite the opposite. He’d bring a wrecking ball to a banquet. There’s also an inconsistent Saturn square Uranus – not practising what he preaches.
The Boris Government chart, 13 December 2019 11am, has the lacklustre, indecisive, not-winning tr Neptune square Sun picking up late March into April, and repeating September/October and early in 2022. This year will not be its finest hour. That chart has a 12th house Saturn, Venus, Pluto conjunction so dirty-dealings behind the arras were always to be expected. If it limps through this year, 2022 will produce several shocking surprises and insecurity from tr Uranus opposition the Mars.
2022 is also a failure-filled swamp for Frost with tr Neptune opposition his Mars plus plus; and his relationship with Boris runs into a brick-wall then as well.
Just to keep up the cheerful mood the Opposition who should be streaking ahead in the polls have decided on a vow of omerta over Brexit, lest it upset some Labour voters. One member of Keir Starmer’s frontbench team said that attempts to “brush the problems under the carpet just because we wrongly voted for Johnson’s deal in December is pretty close to negligence”. Another said: “Such radical amnesia may be deemed politically convenient by Starmer, but it represents a shocking abdication of responsibility from the official opposition.”
Starmer’s Leadership chart, 4 April 2020 10.45am London, has a dithery Neptune Mercury in the 10th which is not inspiring; and worse there is a prone-to-setbacks Mars Saturn deeply buried in the 8th which is square Uranus. That accident-prone, anger-provoking and stuck Mars Saturn is moving closer to an exact conjunct by Solar Arc in late 2022 and then the Mars squares Uranus thereafter. It’s not going to be a good run for the Opposition either.
A plague on all their houses. Pluto in Capricorn needs to get its act together in transforming governmental activities before it exits in 2023/24. Collapse the old into dust and start again.
See previous post below February 14 2021.
Add On: Carrie Symonds, 17 March 1988, had an independent political career in the Tory Party before hitching with Boris. What is intriguing is the synastry between them – her Jupiter in his 7th, her Venus in his 8th conjunct his Jupiter – all indulgent and emotionally positive; plus her Pisces new Moon in his 6th house of work. But it’s her overly-excitable, hyper-active triple conjunction in Capricorn conjunct Mars that is intriguing – with her Neptune on his IC, Mars in his 4th and her Uranus conjunct his South Node – which suggests a disruptive domestic influence apart from anything else. But it also points to a relationship that may have felt ‘meant’ but pulls him away from a path of growth and sticks him in old patterns, arguably exacerbating his tendency to create a centrifuge of whirling chaos around him.
Their relationship chart has a strong thinking element, bound together by ideological conviction with a composite Air Grand Trine. They’re moving towards a panicky eighteen months starting in late May running till early 2023 as tr Neptune is conjunct the composite Mars – either undermining the relationship or their joint work enterprise.
Her own chart looks a touch confused and devastated this year with her Solar Arc Neptune square her Venus opposition Pluto, with a lift this month, but buffeted around thereafter by jolts and jangles into 2022. Tr Neptune is heading for the conjunction to her Pisces Sun by 2023 but that is at the same time as her Solar Arc is conjunct her Jupiter – so success and failure will run side by side. See previous Simmonds post June 19 2019.
Texas has been declared a major disaster area after a brutal winter storm that left more than 50 dead and millions without power or clean drinking water across the South. The power companies in Texas’s deregulated electrical grid are under intense scrutiny over whether they neglected infrastructural upgrades and weather safeguards in the midst of a blame game over who is responsible for the billions of dollars in damages from what some expected would become the “largest insurance claim event in [Texas] history,” estimated at exceeding the $19 billion in claims from Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
The most recent Lunar Eclipse of 30 November 2020 located to Texas had Saturn on the IC conjunct Jupiter Pluto with Pluto square Mars – so was descriptive of freezing homes, deprivation and a mega-event. The first exact tr Saturn square tr Uranus which occurred last Wednesday was on the exact degree of the Uranus on the Lunar Eclipse chart. Often Eclipses trigger events when the planets return to their Eclipse position as in this case it did with Uranus boosted and/or jolted by Saturn.
The Texas Independence 2 March 1836 and joining the Union 29 December 1845 charts both have highly uncertain Saturn Neptune contacts on Solar Arcs as well as tr Neptune hard-aspecting respective catastrophe-prone midpoints. Both show a bounce-back in enthusiasm and confidence from the end of this month.
Senator Ted Cruz, 22 December 1970 birth time unverified, who infamously skipped off to the balmy shores of Cancun in Mexico in a family escape vacation and had to hastily return does look rattled in a minor way from late this month with a further disaster or two from mid year onwards. But he’s into a bullishly super-confident push in 2022/23 in his usual tone-deaf fashion. Water off a duck’s back.
Australia stepped first into the ring in an attempt to show that governments have more power than social media giants like Facebook. A proposed AU law would force FB to pay news publishers for displaying their content and it promptly responded in what one minister described as arrogant petulance by imposing a news blackout, including helpful health and charity sites. In the US Sen. Mark Warner called the move “an unacceptable bullying tactic that only underscores concerns with their market dominance.” It could be damaging for Facebook as it faces increasing scrutiny from lawmakers over both antitrust allegations and how it handles user content.
She writes: ‘The Facebook boss is —- the world’s most powerful oligarch, selling the lives of 2.7 billion monthly active users to advertisers, and modifying the behaviour of those users with a business model that deliberately amplifies incendiary, nasty, and frequently fake and dangerous things. —– Forget post-truth. Mark’s basically post-metaphor.’ She describes the AU spat as a ‘heart warming generational fight between billionaires” suggesting Rupert Murdoch “effectively instructed the Australian government to shake down the tech firms.” And more.
A fight between Zuck and Foxy Murdoch – shut the door and let them destroy each other. But they won’t.
For sure Zuckerburg and Australia don’t sit comfortably together – Z with Mars, Moon, Saturn and Pluto in Scorpio and a Taurus Sun Venus in contrast with Au’s four Sagittarius planets and rigidly traditional Sun Saturn in Capricorn. Mind you PM Scott Morrison doesn’t fit AU either with his Taurus Sun Venus opposition Neptune in Scorpio square Jupiter in Leo.
Zuckerburg is being rattled this year with the tr Uranus square tr Saturn hitting on his 2nd house (verified birth time being accurate) financial Saturn, and worse in 2022 since his Moon Mars and Venus will be shaken up. Even his unbudgeable Fixed planets will have to shift ground.
But there’s nothing to suggest FB is sagging, far from it. The IPO chart has Sun Jupiter in Taurus getting a success and money uplift from tr Pluto until 2024.
Add On: Zuckerburg’s hero and model is evidently the Roman Emperor Augustus.
Augustus, born 23 September 63 BC JC, laid the foundations of a regime that lasted for nearly fifteen hundred years and many consider him to be Rome’s greatest emperor. But the historian Tacitus wrote that Augustus had cunningly subverted Republican Rome into a position of slavery. He was ruthless, cruel, and ambitious for himself. While fighting for dominance, he paid little attention to legality or to the normal civilities of political life. He was devious, untrustworthy, and bloodthirsty. But once he had established his authority, he governed justly, generally allowed freedom of speech, and promoted the rule of law.
Zuckerburg said in a New Yorker interview headlined “Can Mark Zuckerberg fix Facebook before it breaks democracy?”:
“Basically, through a really harsh approach, he established 200 years of world peace. What are the trade-offs in that? On the one hand, world peace is a long-term goal that people talk about today …” [On the other hand] “that didn’t come for free, and he had to do certain things”.
Augustus was a Sun Virgo, but had the harsh Fixed Mars Saturn conjunction of Z’s chart but in his case in Taurus rather than Scorpio which is much the same. A’s Mars Saturn is conjunct his natal North Node tying him into the zeitgeist and interestingly Z’s power-hungry Pluto is conjunct A’s South Node, hooking him into A’s baser motives. Z’s North Node is conjunct A’s Pluto in Gemini for another control-freak link up. Both charts have stratospheric dreams of achievement with wide Jupiter Neptune in Cardinal signs.
Kind of figures why Zuckerburg would be interested in Augustus though also scary given his outreach via FB at the moment.
Z’s dead eyes are something to do with that Scorpio Moon, Mars, Saturn opposition Venus -his mother was a psychiatrist before the kids arrived and he may have had a tricky birth or legacy from previous generations which won’t be known without an accurate birth time.
PS. I would have to confess a degree of perplexity since my belated excursion onto FB doesn’t extend to news or indeed to rancid head-twisting conspiracy junk. Why would anyone use FB as a news source? Any mention I make of news sources I tend to think of as free advertising for them.
Rush Limbaugh, the political radio ‘shock jock’ who traded on ‘fake news’ and conspiracy theories and emerged from Reagan’s time to become a nemesis for Clinton and Obama, has died of lung cancer. He set the tone for the internet age calling women’s rights activists “feminazis”, referring to HIV/Aids as “Rock Hudson’s disease” and claiming “environmentalist wackos” were “a bunch of scientists organised around a political position”; argued the existence of gorillas disproved evolution, characterised both the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (2010) and the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand (2019) as “false flag” operations organised by leftists.
He was born 12 January 1951 7.50am Cape Girardeau, MO, into a family of conservative judges, did poorly at school, quit University after a year and was then fired from a succession of radio jobs. In 1987 under Reagan, legislation changed which allowed him an opening and by 1992 he had a syndicated TV programme produced by Roger Ailes.
His deeply personal anti-Clinton campaigning was so effective that when Gingrich and the Republicans re-took the House, they made him an honorary member of the Republican caucus. The same happened in 2010 when the Republicans rallied in the midterms and he reaped much of the credit with his claims that Obama was foreign-born and had allowed ebola into the US in revenge for African slavery.
He received the presidential medal of freedom from Trump.
His personal life was a series of short-lived marriages and divorces, with tales of prescription drug addiction.
He had a 12th house Capricorn Sun square Neptune and on one leg of a Yod in sextile to a Pisces Moon inconjunct Pluto in his 7th house of close relationships and interaction with people in general. His Pluto was further emphasised/afflicted by being in a rage-filled opposition to Mars in contrary, stubborn Aquarius.
His Mercury in Capricorn opposed Uranus and squared an 8th house Saturn in Libra.
Shock jocks and conspiracy theories usually have volcanically angry and hate-fuelled Mars. Mercury in hard aspect to Uranus is also prevalent.
It’s hardly surprising his personal life was such a train-wreck with his controlling, contemptuous Pluto in his 7th opposition Mars – with his Mars exactly conjunct his Sun/Moon midpoint.
Bobby Fischer, who brought chess to a worldwide audience, is being introduced to a younger generation in reruns of two highly rated documentaries – Bobby Fischer Against the World and Searching for Bobby Fischer. He was a controversial figure, described as ‘paranoid and obsessive’; his behaviour ‘often boorish and outrageously egotistical, bordering on lunacy’ and the most brilliant chess player in the world.
He was born 9 March 1943 2.39 pm Chicago, Illinois, to a medical mother and possibly with a mathematician/physicist biological father and took up chess aged six. At 14, he became the youngest ever U.S. Chess Champion and a year later the youngest grandmaster. At age 20, he won the 1963/64 US Championship with the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. His victory against Boris Spassky of the USSR in the World Chess Championship in 1972 attracted more worldwide interest than any chess championship before or since.
He then became reclusive and sometimes erratic, disappearing from competitive chess and the public eye, giving his money to a Fundamentalist Church and eventually ending up as a resident in Iceland where he died aged 65.
He had a 9th house Pisces Sun trine a 12th house Jupiter in Cancer, which sounds good-natured and confident. But what dominates his chart is an Air Grand Trine of Mars in Aquarius trine Uranus Saturn in Gemini trine Neptune in Libra. Cerebral and up-in-his head he had the cold detachment needed for the battle of wits that the chess game demands. Saturn Uranus would give him insight and with Neptune added into the mix, he’d have flashes of genius. His Mercury in Aquarius also brings a sharp mind and squaring onto Uranus, it doubles up on the inspired insight. Pisces despite its dreamy reputation is often the sign of scientists and explorers so in certain charts is no drawback to deep thinking or strategy.
His talented Air Grand trine became a Kite with the opposition of Mars to Pluto on the Ascendant so his ruthless desire to maintain control was the driving force behind his thinking. In chess, he once said, ‘the object is to crush the other man’s mind’ – which pretty much sums up Mars Pluto. The Mars Pluto opposition squares onto a 10th house Taurus Moon hinting at a tortured emotional life, fuelled by deep, black rage, which he focussed onto a public career (10th house Moon). Air Water charts are quite tricky to balance between thinking and feeling functions.
When he won the World Championship on 1 September 1972 against reigning world champion Boris Spassky breaking a 24 year domination of the game by the Russians, he had Pluto exactly conjunct his 3rd house Neptune (on one leg of the Air Grand Trine).
He had a whole raft of notable Harmonics – the superstar 22H and other ‘Master’ number 11H, the breakthrough-genius 13H as well as the creative 5th and 7th harmonics.
His psychological troubles were never formally diagnosed and it is thought likely he suffered from paranoid personality disorder.
Add On: John Nash, the brilliant mathematician and double Nobel winner who made fundamental contributions to game theory and the factors that govern chance amongst other things, and was brought to public attention by the Russell Crowe movie A Beautiful Mind, was born 13 June 1928 7am Bluefield, WV. He was also psychologically troubled and diagnosed schizophrenic for which he was hospitalised and eventually was able to carry on with his life. Though died in a car crash in 2008.
He had a very different chart to Fischer. Nash was a Sun Venus in Gemini opposition Saturn; with his Sun on the focal point of a mini-Grand Trine to Neptune trine Mars Moon in Aries. He also had an intense Mercury Pluto in Cancer square Uranus and square Mars Moon.
Of the odd similarities between Fischer and Nash – both had 10th house Suns and both had Pluto on their Ascendant and both had Mercury square Uranus.
They both had Grand Trines in their superstar 22nd harmonic, which is exceptionally strong in Nash’s case. And similar planets/aspects in their respective genius-breakthrough 13H.
Princess Latifa al-Maktoum, daughter of the absolute ruler of the playboy tourist kingdom of Dubai, has smuggled out a distressing video saying she is being held prisoner and fears for her life. The UN has said they will start an investigation. Three years ago she made a bid for freedom in an escape that had all the hallmarks of a Hollywood thriller but was illegally captured in the Indian Ocean and returned home. Last year the London High Court ruled that her father had ‘ordered and orchestrated’ her abduction and also that of a second daughter, Princess Shamsa, who was snatched outside a pub in Cambridgeshire in 2000 and hasn’t been seen since; and further found he had waged a campaign of fear against his sixth wife, Princess Haya, 45, who fled to the UK last year. Princess Latifa was last seen in public in December 2018, in a stage-managed photo call with former Irish president Mary Robinson who has since said she was tricked into believing Latifa suffered from a mental illness.
Sheik Maktoum, 15 July 1949, is one of the richest heads of state in the world, the ruler of Dubai and vice-president of the UAE and has 30 children by six different wives. He has been a close friend of the Queen through his extensive racing interests in the UK though his horses have been dogged by doping concerns. He was also criticised heavily over the enslavement of young boys acting as camel jockeys; and for the conditions of immigrant workers in construction in Dubai.
He is a Sun Cancer in an expansive opposition to Jupiter; with a possessive Venus Pluto in Leo. It’s not a particularly hard chart – though houses will make a difference which we don’t know without a birth time. But the lifestyle and judicial system in Dubai, despite pretensions to being a Western tourist hotspot, is about four hundred years behind the times.
He was always in for a shock this year with Solar Arc Mars conjunct his Saturn which accompanies a major setback of car-crash proportions – though the pandemic won’t be helping as tourist income sinks. 2022 has his Solar Arc Sun square his Uranus for a serious jolt; and by 2023/24 he has a discouraging, stuck Solar Arc Saturn square his Pluto and then square his Venus – blocked in several ways, financially and emotionally. That latter is a time when the Dubai chart is under major strain as well.
Latifa, 5 December 1985, is a rebellious and adventurous Sun Uranus in Sagittarius sextile Jupiter; with Saturn Venus also in Uranus; and a Virgo Moon which will square her Sagittarius planets. There is nothing cheerful in her chart over the next three years, quite the contrary. She has a ‘shocking’ Solar Arc Uranus square her Mars this year; and two stuck, trapped, high-risk Solar Arcs in 2022/23 – SA Mars conjunct her Saturn and SA Pluto conjunct Sun.
In addition to legitimate outrage over her distressing individual plight, there may be other knock on effects for the UK.
1. It – yet again – brings questionable Royal associations into the spotlight.
2. It also turns attention on UK arms’ sales to the UAE which have been used to bolster the indefensible, destructive and inhumane war on Yemen.
3. It could longer-term persuade footballers, celebrity influencers and tourists that there is a taint in being associated with the ‘City of Gold’. Maybe.
See previous posts: 6 March 2020. 4 July 2019. 28 August 2018.
Kim Novak, the veteran Hollywood star, has joined the long list of celebrities, prompted by their own experiences to become mental health activists. Her 1958 Hitchcock movie Vertigo was last year voted the greatest film ever and she worked opposite many of the great male leads of the time – Sinatra, William Holden, James Stewart, Dean Martin. But in the late 1960s she effectively retired, in part because of the recurrent depressions she suffered though she was not diagnosed as bi-polar until 2000. After she withdrew from showbusiness to marry an equine vet, she became a painter, helped her husband, enjoyed nature.
She was born 13 February 1933 6.13 am Chicago, Illinois, with an Aquarius Sun in her first house sextile Uranus and inconjunct Pluto. Her Uranus was inconjunct an 8th house Jupiter Mars in Virgo and square Pluto. Her coolly sophisticated Venus Saturn in Aquarius conjunct her Ascendant is trine an 8th house Libra Moon and inconjunct Neptune. Three quincunxes would lead to strain and she wouldn’t be well supported emotionally in childhood. But she’s clearly a fighter. When Trump ridiculed her appearance at the 2014 Oscars, she went back two weeks later to do a live interview talking about bullies and has since campaigned on the subject.
Her husband died recently and she’s bringing out an art book in his memory.
Nicky Campbell, a UK TV and radio presenter, has also been talking about his bi-polar story, with a new book out One of the Family in which he talks of being adopted and the devastating effect it had on him, despite having supportive adoptive parents. He discovered along the way that his biological mother had also been a bi-polar sufferer.
He was born 10 April 1961 8am Edinburgh, Scotland, and has an upbeat Sun Venus in Aries square Mars on one side and square Saturn on the other; and trine Uranus so he’ll be inclined to mood swings with such volatile aspects to his Sun – all systems-go then grinding to a halt with self-doubt. His 10th house Moon opposes Uranus and is inconjunct Neptune. And he has a Yod of Neptune sextile Pluto North Node inconjunct Jupiter giving him more mood swings, at times towards grandiosity. He’s also got the expanding and contracting Saturn conjunct Jupiter of that year.
No great conclusions come out of this and I’m no believer is using astrology for diagnostic purposes. They both have very different planets and houses. The strained quincunxes are the only common factor which won’t necessarily lead to mental illness though they do tend to produce strain and a sense of being different from others. What both share is a sense that animals are life and sanity savers.
Neptune, planet of spirituality, illusion, delusion, deception, creativity and vision moves out of its own sign Pisces, where it has been since 2011, into Aries in 2025 staying till 2038. Looking back on historical events linked to its stay in upfront and pro-active Aries, not an easy combination, there are some constants but there will be additional cultural or psychological effects which the history books don’t describe. Aries Fire won’t sit comfortably with Neptune’s Water.
Neptune in Aries1861 – 1874: Most notably this covered the American Civil War, which arose after the abolition of slavery, which had been banned in Europe decades earlier.
The Bahai faith was founded as was the forerunner to the Salvation Army and the Geneva Convention established the Red Cross.
Italy was unified in 1860 and Canada came into being.
Prince Albert dies, Victoria’s consort and the ‘uncrowned king of GB.’
In the UK parliament, the inspired leadership of Benjamin Disraeli pushed forward with parliamentary reform.
1697 – 1710: The ill-fated Darien Scheme, which lost 20% of Scotland’s money, led to the Act of Union with England in 1707.
The Act of Settlement in 1701 establishing the succession to the English throne, put the childless protestant Queen Anne on the throne, leading on her death to the establishment of the Hanoverian Monarchy in 1714, still in existence today.
1533 to 1547: Henry VIII is excommunicated by Pope Clement VII and in the split from Rome establishes the Anglican Church.
Henry declares himself and his heirs as Kings of Ireland, replacing the Lordship of Ireland with the Kingdom of Ireland.
1370 to 1383: In England, the ‘Good Parliament’ attempted to highlight the corruption of the Royal court and to reform the government. John of Gaunt, the effective ruler, replaced it the next year with a ‘Bad Parliament’ which undid the advances.
1206 to 1219: The English Barons force King John to sign the Magna Carta, in an attempt to curb the power of the monarch.
Looking briefly at the above Neptune in Aries clearly marked key times for the English/UK monarchy and parliament.
