Astrology of Today’s News

The toxic marriage and thrilling creative partnership of superstar choreographer Bob Fosse who won an Oscar for Cabaret in 1972 and Broadway star and fellow choreographer Gwen Verdon is the subject of a lush eight part BBC/FX drama. It’s co-produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created Hamilton. Her contribution to their ground breaking work was not fully recognised in her lifetime and she stuck by him despite his being a serial adulterer with an increasingly unstable temperament who was an alcoholic and addicted to pills.

Despite having rickets and leg braces as a toddler, she became an extraordinary dancer, acquired four Tony awards and taught Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe to dance. Her star was in the ascendant when she met and married him and she became his muse and co-choreographer as well as his wife for some years.

Born 13 January 1925 9.57 am Los Angeles, she was an ambitious Sun Capricorn square Mars in Aries; with a fragile Neptune and Moon in Virgo in her 6^th house of health; and a charming, creative and successful 10^th house Venus, Mercury and Jupiter. She had a healing and introverted Water Grand Trine of an 8^th house Saturn in Scorpio trine a 4^th house Pluto in Cancer trine a maverick Uranus on her Ascendant, so she’d be used to a difficult emotional life from childhood. But she had the drive to propel herself to great heights with her Pluto opposition her fortunate Jupiter.

He was born 23 June 1927 10.29 pm Chicago; and had a performing and entertaining 5^th house Cancer Sun square a lucky and adventurous Jupiter Uranus in his financial 2^nd. His ultra-charming and sociable 7^th house contained a passionate Venus, Mars and Neptune in Leo, perhaps one reason why he found commitment in relationships and monogamy difficult. His rigid, self-righteous Saturn in Sagittarius in his 10^th and Pluto in his 6^th would make him tricky to work with and not co-operative.

Her Moon fell in his 7^th house of relationships and his Sun in her domestic 4^th house – and her Venus was trine his Aries Moon – so there were some good placings. But her Saturn squared his Mars Venus so she would put a damper on some of his high jinks and exuberance.

Their relationship chart was very complicated with a tight, controlling and transformative composite Sun square Pluto; an innovative Saturn trine Uranus; a frivolous Venus trine Jupiter and an over-hopeful Jupiter opposition Neptune; and a needs-space Moon square Uranus.

They separated in 1971 when tr Uranus in Libra opposed their composite Sun and squared the composite Pluto. But they never divorced and she was with him when he died of a heart attack in 1987. She died in 2000.

The latest Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham Fast and Furious blockbuster is about to hit screens and is expected to rake in record box office for its opening. Initially reviewed as “complete nonsense but disarmingly pleasurable,” when it started 18 years ago, the franchise has gone from strength to strength commercially over nine movies which are an “ongoing petrolhead epic brimming with thrills, spills and smoke-belching set-pieces.” This one pits lawman Dwayne Johnson and renegade secret service man Jason Statham against Idris Elba’s super-villain.

Dwayne Johnson, 2 May 1972 6.02 pm San Leandro, California, started life as a professional wrestler and shifted over to become one of the highest grossing actors of all time. He’s a heavyweight Sun Taurus trine a lucky and ambitious Jupiter Moon in Capricorn; with a ferociously determined and charming Mars Venus in Gemini square Pluto.

Jason Statham, 26 July 1967 no time sadly, was heavily into sports at school, martial arts, football and diving, and moved via modelling into action movies. He’s an enthusiastic and entertaining Sun Jupiter in Leo with an ultra-determined square to Mars in Scorpio.

He’s a good pairing career-wise with Johnson since his Sun Jupiter falls in Johnson’s 10th house – and that translates in their relationship chart to an exuberant, high energy and fortunate composite Sun trine Jupiter, sextile Mars. There will be some alpha-male jousting since Johnson’s never-say-die Mars square Pluto collides with Statham’s Uranus Pluto in Virgo. And there’s a power struggling Sun square Pluto in the relationship chart but the creative tension probably helps to put an edge on their performances.

The NRA, despite facing an internal power struggle amnongst senior management and inquiries over financial improprieties, appears to be sailing ahead regardless doing what it does best – fending off any tightening of gun laws. The Texas Branch of the NRA crowed six weeks ago that it had a “highly successful” year as every one of the bills they backed to loosen existing laws was signed in by the Texas Governor and legislators.

The NRA chart, 17 November 1871 has an immoveable, dogmatic and obstinate Scorpio Sun opposition Pluto; and the assassin’s signature Mars Saturn exactly conjunct in traditional Capricorn. There’s a degree of confusion and uncertainty on this chart just till the end of this year with tr Pluto square the Neptune. But it’s real test will come between 2022 and 2025 when tr Uranus is conjunct the Pluto and then opposition the Sun which will threaten to turn it upside down. But it is a very stubborn chart and won’t be easy to shift.

Looking to see what hooks the NRA into the USA – the NRA Pluto falls (on my time) in the USA 8^th which is possessive and controlling. The NRA Gemini North Node is conjunct the USA Mars. A Gemini Node is a free spirit, dislikes restrictions, shirks responsibility, doesn’t understand the rights of others, ultimately for development must move away from sport towards higher knowledge (seems unlikely). Most pointedly the NRA Jupiter is conjunct the USA Mercury and opposition its Pluto with the NRA Neptune square – so its over-confident and head-in-the-clouds approach taps into that fanatical streak in the American temperament.

The relationship chart is even more stark and brutal with a ruthless composite Mars Pluto opposition Sun Mercury and trine Saturn – lashed together, highly controlling, enraged. But the bond is slowly being eroded by tr Neptune opposition the composite Sun in 2020/21 and then moving to hard aspect Pluto, Mars and Mercury from 2021 to 2024. Neptune is a great dissolver of foundations so maybe, just maybe, it’ll rust through the chains that bind the USA to its addiction to guns. Though it’s difficult to see how they’re going to get this genie back in the lamp even with a determined legislative push.

Trump naturally has a cosy relationship with the NRA with a mutually supportive composite Sun, Jupiter, Venus – though there’ll be a sharp, short shock late this December to early February 2020 with tr Uranus opposition the composite Mars, which will send a few ripples through their communal pond.

Two massacres in the USA within 24 hours, at least one with white supremacist, anti-Hispanic leanings, making three mass killings this week, have left a mounting death toll, well into double figures. The US had more mass shootings than any other country and has the highest per-capita gun ownership in the world with 120.5 firearms per 100 people. Well over half mass shootings are carried out with semi-automatic handguns or rifles.

One wonders where the tipping point comes when effective action is taken – indeed any steps at all – to combat the problem.

A couple of things strike me – this latest batch of killings occurred with Uranus opposition the Mars/Pluto midpoint which is very violent. And tr Mercury was exactly conjunct the USA Mercury in Cancer, perhaps an eerie omen of what is to come with the USA Mercury opposition Pluto getting stoked up from 2020 for three years.

The recent early July Cancer Solar Eclipse was conjunct the USA Sun which usually precedes a crisis that hits a bull’s eye; facts have to be faced, decisions taken leading to a new direction – or not as the case may be since although the pressure is there, often there’s a refusal to face reality and life blunders on, though with more angst to come. And significantly tr Uranus is square the US ‘leadership’ North Node in Leo which is a sensitive spot. Tr Neptune was in opposition to the USA North Node for 9/11 which hit the USA’s pride and self-esteem considerably. Tr Uranus shaking up a Node can, if changes are made, lead to more freedom; and, if not, it leads to more restrictions and restraints. The transiting Mars/Pluto midpoint was also square the USA North Node.

And so it goes on, round and round the same doom-and-disaster hamster wheel, with lives needlessly lost.  Mind you Hollywood and television drama have a good deal to answer for.

As Richard Pryor once remarked “You can’t talk about fucking in America, people say you’re dirty. But if you talk about killing somebody, that’s cool.”

More than 600 have been arrested in Moscow in the biggest political protests in Russia for years after authorities disqualified a number of opposition candidates from standing in local elections. Russian opposition campaigner Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer and video blogger, is among those detained. She has been on hunger strike for 21 days. Alexei Navalny, Opposition leader, was also arrested recently in connection with the rallies and fell ill in prison which he said was due to poison. Putin’s popularity has been sliding in the polls due to the suggested rise in the pension age, economic inequalities, corruption and poverty.

His Six Year Term chart 7 May 2018 11.05am Moscow indicated an unstable and often violent administration with a divisive Uranus on the Midheaven in a disruptive and ruthless square to Mars Pluto in Capricorn. There will be more than a few moments of slumping confidence over the next two years as well as aggravation from tr Pluto square the Mars/Pluto midpoint. But it’ll be 2021 onwards when the challenges really mount with a trapped, high-risk tr Pluto conjunct the Mars into 2022. There are violent Solar Arcs of Mars to Uranus and Pluto to Mars in 2022/23; and a turn-upside down tr Uranus conjunct the Sun in 2022/23 as well as the destabilising tr Pluto square Uranus in 2023/4. So his long reign won’t end well.

The Russia 8 December 1991 7.45 pm Moscow chart is being battered by the Eclipses hitting on the Uranus, Moon, Neptune in Capricorn this year especially the July one so a restless, nerve-stretched and rebellious population could have been expected. Plus an undermining tr Neptune square the Sagittarius Sun twice more before it exits late January 2020; and (time being accurate) considerable pressure to change direction from tr Pluto square the Midheaven in 2019/2020 and damage to reputation. With more muddle, confusion and worry late 2020 from Solar Arc Sun Mercury conjunct the Neptune.

The Russia 8 November 1917 chart is also on high alert and explosive at the moment with Solar Arc Uranus square Mars; as well as a  panicky tr Neptune square the Solar Arc Mars into early 2020. The 10^th house Pluto in Cancer in the line of fire of this December’s Capricorn Eclipse. Pluto in hard aspect to an eclipse indicates there are only two choices –  change or decay. There’ll be continuous stress and high anxiety in 2020 and beyond with tr Uranus square the Neptune and then Neptune/Saturn midpoint and then Saturn and opposition the Scorpio Sun in 2021/2022. A very unsettled few years ahead.

Any protests are likely to be brutally suppressed and neither Navalny nor Sobol look remotely cheerful in the next three or four years – quite the reverse.

Kelly McGillis, Tom Cruise’s love interest in the original 1986 Top Gun has been refreshingly blunt about why she wasn’t invited in for the sequel. “I’m old and I’d fat,’ she said and added that she preferred feeling age-appropriate and secure in who she was.

Born 9 July 1957 3.47pm Burbank, California, she studied at Julliard and had her breakthrough in Witness with Harrison Ford; and was also notable in The Accused with Jodie Foster, in which she drew on her own experience of being raped by two men when she was in her mid-twenties. Her career had highs but was also episodic much like her love life. She was married had two children and then came out as gay some years ago. Now she teaches acting and says she’s much more content being out of the Hollywood hothouse.

She is a Sun in Cancer; with a sparkling Mars, Venus, Uranus in Leo in the 9th house trine Saturn in Sagittarius. I’d think she was quite intellectual. She also has an influential and controlling Pluto on her Midheaven trine a Sagittarius Moon, sextile Neptune. Her weight has always fluctuated leading to unkind media comments – her Moon square Jupiter wouldn’t help to curb her appetite and Pluto on her midheaven would make her feel more protected with extra weight.

But it’s also throwing a harsh light on Hollywood’s use and manipulation of female actresses. Oscar winner Viola Davis said in an interview: “If you are anywhere above a size 2, you’re not having sex. You don’t have sexual thoughts. You may not even have a vagina. And if you’re of a certain age, you’re off the table.”

Ellen Pompeo of Grey’s Anatomy and one of the highest-paid women in television, said she preferred financial power: “I’m not necessarily perceived as successful as a 24-year-old actress with a few big movies is, even though she’s probably being paid shit — certainly less than her male co-star and probably with no backend,” Pompeo said. “And they’re going to pimp her out until she’s 33 or 34 and then she’s out like yesterday’s trash, and then what does she have to take care of herself? These poor girls have no real money, and the studio is making a fortune and parading them like ponies on a red carpet.”

Paul Hollywood, the celebrity baking supremo with the explosive love life has lurched into another fandango with reports that his most recent squeeze ex-barmaid Summer has dumped him. She evidently felt overly controlled when she was handed a gagging order banning her from ever talking about him publicly – and this only a few days after his bitter divorce from the wife before that.

Born 1 March 1966 he has his Sun and three other planets in Pisces but is far from a timid little minnow. He has an aggravated and control-freaky chart with a hard-edged and short-tempered Mars Saturn conjunction in an autocratic and dominating opposition to Uranus and Pluto all squaring onto an expansive and self-aggrandising Jupiter Moon in wayward Gemini. Not an easy temperament, to understate it by a mile.

He’s got tr Neptune now moving round his Pisces planets and that Mutable T Square – it was conjunct his Pisces Sun a couple of years back and has been chipping away at his Uranus Pluto since then and this year is sitting on his Saturn, inducing a mood of panicky uncertainty. That runs on through 2020, followed by tr Neptune in a failure-looms-large conjunction to his Mars in 2021/22 and a disappointing square to his Jupiter at the same time.

Perhaps an ounce of humility might creep in through the cracks.

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A catch up on where Trump’s astro is. With the caveat that he seems to stumble and blunder from one crisis to the next without blinking. His ability to absorb punishment is staggering.

His Term chart has tr Neptune conjunct the Venus from the 15^th of this month to September 22^nd which could point to financial losses and disappointment or being unloved/unpopular or both. There are upbeat influences running up till then with the unemployment figures holding steady though there are signs of growth slowing. There will be considerable wobbles within the Administration from August 25^th to 9 November from tr Pluto square the Uranus for the final time; and that runs simultaneously with the closure of the Pluto Uranus square to exact over the next few months by Solar Arc. Though since Jupiter is in the equation, tied into the Pluto Uranus T Square, there will be undeserved luck along the way.

Into 2020 the pressures mount with a downbeat, discouraging Saturn transit round the Cardinal T Square of Pluto, Uranus, Jupiter – that picks up late November 2019 and runs to February 2020, followed by a similarly downbeat, reality-check from tr Saturn conjunct the Term Sun in late March and again in December 2020. There’s precious little Jupiter cheer in 2020 and indeed there’ll be catastrophes late May till early July with tr Uranus square the Mars/Saturn midpoint and opposition the Moon which return just before and over the election – plus a Neptunian sinker as it squares the Sun/Moon midpoint from which will bring upsets, discontentment, losses and that runs from late April till late August right through the confirmation process.

On Trump’s personal chart he has tr Neptune square his 10^th house Uranus – mid this month to late September – which is highly-strung, fanatical, could be loss of consciousness. Ebertin talks of ‘confused psychic states’. Tr Saturn is squaring his 2^nd house Jupiter, dampening his enthusiasm financially and in other ways in late November, though that’s mild enough. Where his major challenges come are in 2020 as tr Pluto returns to oppose his Saturn and trapped Mars/Node from in January as the bleak tr Saturn Pluto conjunction comes together. And then in February he picks up an even more blocked, enraged tr Pluto opposition Sun/Mars and feeling-unloved tr Pluto opposition Venus/Saturn which both run right through till early July. He does admittedly at the same time, birth time being accurate, have tr Pluto trine his Midheaven which can be reasonably positive though it won’t outweigh these midpoint transits.

July, August and September 2020 has tr Uranus square his Mars/Saturn midpoint which is a test of nervous strength, can be accident-prone, attracting disasters and destructive energies.

2021 continues several of the punishing and blocked Pluto transits to midpoints and Neptune moves in to square his Sun and Moon which will be energy and morale-draining; with Solar Arc Saturn conjunct his 2^nd house Neptune, bringing considerable financial worries late 2021; along with a not-thinking-straight Neptune Uranus Solar Arc collision at the same time.

The USA charts itself picks up tr Pluto opposition Mercury from February 2020 till early July suggesting that political debate will be heated, bitter, toxic and fraudulent – and that runs off and on till late 2021. In 2021 as well tr Neptune squares the US Mars for a sense of panic and failure running into 2022.

There is a very odd equivalence – in a different way – between the horrendous mess in the UK and the indescribable screw up in the USA – they seem to go almost side by side, step by step.  The only sane response is to adopt a zen like calm and acceptance. This too will pass.

Saoirse Kennedy Hill, granddaughter of Robert Kennedy and daughter of one of the Guildford Four, falsely convicted of an IRA bombing and wrongly imprisoned for 15 years, has died of a drugs overdose aged 22.

Born 22 May 1997, she had written about her struggles with depression, a sexual assault which had affected her deeply and a previous suicide attempt. She was a Sun Gemini opposition Pluto Moon in Sagittarius and trine Neptune; with a forced-to-be-self-reliant Saturn in Aries on one leg of a strained Yod sextile Jupiter inconjunct Mars. An apex Mars tends to be impulsive, can have anger issues which sometimes become misdirected and self-defeating.

Such a waste of a young life and another tragedy in the Kennedy family which have seen more than their fair share. The other drug overdose in the family, her uncle David A Kennedy, had an even starker story. He nearly drowned when 13 years old, being rescued by his father who was gunned down two days later, which started him down the drug trail. Then when he was 18 his girlfriend was paralyzed and his spine damaged in a car accident with his older brother driving, who was subsequently charged with reckless driving. That graduated him onto heroin.

Born 15 June 1955, he was, like Saoirse, a Sun Venus in Gemini, in his case sextile Pluto and trine Neptune; with a similarly stressed Saturn which was trine Mars.

Money, power and social status are a mixed blessing.