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Serena Williams is bringing her uniquely successful tennis-playing career to a close in order to have another child. She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles and been ranked singles world No. 1 five times. Her first baby born with husband Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in 2017 disrupted her training schedule as she was hospitalised with deep vein thrombosis and suffered post-partum depression. She is one of the world’s highest paid women athletes, earning multi millions a year from equipment and endorsements deals and fashion outlets.

  Born 26 September 1981 6.28pm Saginaw, MI, she has a packed, hard-working 6^th house with a Libra stellium of Sun, Saturn, Jupiter, Pluto and Mercury there. So taking it easy won’t be in her nature. She has flamboyant Mars in Leo in her sporting and entertaining 5^th house in square to a charming and emotionally intense Venus in Scorpio in her 7^th.  Uranus is also in her 7^th house of relationships so she will need space and independence in marriage and an unconventional partner. Her Virgo Moon is square an 8^th house Neptune so she will have an idealised vision of motherhood.

  What is intriguing for such a driven personality is her North Node in Cancer in her 4^th house – which suggests that fulfilling career ambitions is not her true purpose in life. Establishing a happy home life and putting down roots is.

  She has a well-aspected global superstar 22nd Harmonic; a leaving a footprint for future generations 17H; and a particularly strong 9^th Harmonic – which last will either turn her into an even more successful money-making machine or focus her attention on humanitarian efforts where she will have considerable influence.

 She will have good news this coming November and again March but that could refer to any number of events in her life. Her husband Alexis, 24 April 1983, will be going through a high-stress, immensely challenging few years from 2023 to 2026 with tr Pluto square his Saturn in Scorpio and then square his Taurus Sun. That will be discouraging and depressing and may be partially what lies behind a dip in their relationship now up till 2025/6.

   Serena’s Spotify podcast with Meghan Markle has not gone down well with reviews in the UK and Australia calling it anything from ‘a lemon and a dud’ to ‘preposterous’, ‘banal’ and one reviewer pointing out that Meghan was responsible for about 61 per cent of the conversation while the focus of the podcast Serena only got 39 per cent.

  They were born within seven weeks of each other so have similar stelliums in Libra. Despite all the PR gush it is a fairly combustible relationship with MM’s Leo Sun conjunct Serena’s Mars; and MM’s Mars square Serena’s Saturn exactly.

  Their relationship chart has a stressed composite Mars square Pluto which is under strain right through till late 2023 with the composite Moon being undermined as well in 2023/24.

 Meghan’s personal chart has an infuriated and frustrated tr Pluto opposition her Mars/Pluto midpoint exactly now until early this December so she won’t be ecstatic over events in her life.   

Olaf Scholz, German Chancellor, is plummeting in approval ratings as he wrestles with rising energy bills, the threat of recession and a parliamentary inquiry into a €47 million tax scandal from his days as Hamburg Mayor. Under questioning he said 22 times that he could not recall the precise details of the bank scandal. His foreign policy since the Ukraine invasion has been variously criticised at home as too adventurous or too timid.

 He was never going to have an easy time with tr Neptune square his Gemini Sun and Saturn, on and off this year till January 2023. With this November/December being the worst slump of his confidence.

 His Term chart, 8 December 2021 10.55am is equally lacklustre and indecisive with a Sun Mercury square Neptune so he’s never going to cut it.

  His relationship chart with Germany is seriously stressed at the best of times with a composite Saturn opposition Mars (Pluto) square Sun – and that is catching the undermining, scandal-prone tr Neptune square Saturn from May 2023 onwards  with his popularity swamp deepening right through till 2025 and beyond if he survives that long as Chancellor.

  With Germany undergoing seismic changes with tr Uranus conjunct the 8^th house Pluto into early 2023; and facing devastating relationship problems with Solar Arc Pluto opposition the 7^th house Neptune, exact in 18 months, followed by the uncertainty of tr Neptune square the Saturn in 2025, the country needs a competent hand on the tiller. Scholz isn’t it.

  The Neptune Pluto scheduled for very late 2023/2024 could also be accompanied by a disaster, natural or otherwise, which is worrisome given Putin’s high-stakes game of chicken around Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.  

Saudi Arabia is sliding back to the bad old days in resuming death sentences for teenagers over political protests despite earlier promises to end the practice. A doctoral student has also been given 34 years for her twitter activity.

  Critics of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the crown prince, fear he is cracking down on domestic dissent, because of fear of opposition to his rule from within the royal family. Biden’s recent cap-in-hand visit to negotiate for oil as a result of shortages caused by the Ukraine invasion would embolden MBS.

  Born 31 August 1985 in Riyadh, he is a Sun Virgo sextile Pluto trine Neptune so has the hallmarks of megalomaniac ambition; with his Pluto in a super-confident and pushy square to Jupiter opposition Venus; and an obstinate and flamboyant Mars, Mercury in Leo square Saturn in Scorpio.  Tr Saturn hitting on his Mercury, Mars, Saturn this year will give him pause for doubt; and he’ll face a few outbursts, eruptions of tension, upsets and upheaval in 2023, more in 2024 as tr Uranus opposes his Saturn, squares his Mercury, then his Mars. He also have a couple of sinking Neptunian Solar Arcs in 2023/2024 which won’t do much for his morale or his plans.

  In certain respects he fits the Saudi country chart reasonably well since his Jupiter is conjunct the Saudi Mars Mercury so he will be a motivator and encourager of reform. His Pluto is conjunct the Saudi Midheaven and his Saturn falls in the Saudi 10^th, so at best he could steer the country in a sensible direction – if he curbed his control-freak tendencies.

  But his Pluto and South Node in Scorpio are conjunct the Saudi North Node which is a fated and not progressive connection. His Pluto conjunct his South Node will tilt him away from prevailing values and will prompt him to attempt large-scale changes without regard for their effect of people. That pulls against what Saudi Arabia needs to do to develop constructively.

  His relationship chart with Saudi Arabia indicates a ruthless connection with a focal point Pluto square Mars and composite Sun. It is going through a time of disruption and upheaval this year  with tr Uranus opposition the composite Sun, Mars and conjunct the Venus – with 2024 seeing an even greater strain with tr Uranus square the composite Pluto.

   Saudi Arabia, 15 January 1902 3.45am Riyadh, is facing two years of rolling crises in 2023/24 from tr Pluto conjunct the Mars/Saturn midpoint. With a dead-halt in 2025 from Solar Arc Pluto square Saturn and tr Pluto in an infuriating and completely stuck tr Pluto conjunct the Sun/Mars midpoint and conjunct the Mercury.

  The turn of the decade will see the Saudi Scorpio North Node facing its moment of truth with tr Pluto in square and conjunct the Saudi Mars – which could involve giving up past dreams of vast wealth and possessions and starting over.   

Pluto in Capricorn appears to be foisting either completely inept leaders or total thugs onto the huddled masses. All too wearisome. 

A rollicking, rumbunctious dramatic rendering of the lives of great courtesans is begging Netflix for a long running season or several. Not all women through the ages were caged house pets. Some rose to great prominence and glided easily through the corridors of power.

 Harriet Howard was one.  The daughter of a bootmaker, she ran away from home at 15 to go on stage, lived in style with a famous jockey, moved on at 18 to a fabulously wealthy married major, who made her rich for life after she bore him a son.  They lived together in London and entertained the cream of society. Which was where she met Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, recently escaped from prison and pretender to a throne of his uncle, Napoleon I, that no longer existed. At 23 she left her married lover and devoted her fortune, which she took with her, to the Napoleonic cause. His family name and her money got him elected as president in 1848. Four years later after a coup manufactured by him, paid for by her, he stepped up to become emperor, naming  himself Napoleon III. Having pawned all she owned to hoist him to glory, she got the title of the Comtesse de Beauregard for her trouble and was then cast aside as he married and moved on to other mistresses.

 Born 13 August 1823 in Brighton, England, she was a Sun Mercury in Leo as befits a lady who aimed for a five star lifestyle and it squared Saturn opposition a Scorpio Moon – passionate, obsessive and ego-centric. She also had a super-charged Cardinal Grand Cross giving her initiative by the shed load and a restless temperament – with Venus in Libra in a seductively charming and manipulative opposition to Pluto square slippery and highly-strung Neptune Uranus in Capricorn in an ever-optimistic opposition to Jupiter.  

In modern times Pamela Harriman described as “the greatest courtesan of the 20^th century” by one onlooker and “a world expert on rich men’s bedroom ceilings” by another” galloped through an astonishing number of marriages and affairs and still ended up a highly respected figure in political circles.

 She was born 20 March 1920 4.30am Farnborough, England, into a wealthier background than Harriet Howard but like her was an accomplished horsewoman growing up. She married Randolph Churchill, who had an illustrious name but a serious gambling habit. She went on to marry a Broadway producer and have affairs with Edward R. Murrow, Prince Aly Khan, Alfonso de Portago, Gianni Agnelli, and Baron Elie de Rothschild amongst others. Latterly she married W. Averell Harriman, a former lover and Democratic politician, then 79 years old and recently widowed, moved to Washington DC and started her political career.

 She had a final degree Pisces Sun conjunct Moon; and like Harriet Howard a highlighted Venus.  Her Venus in Pisces was conjunct changeable Uranus and in a Water Grand Trine to a seductive Pluto trine a determined Mars in Scorpio and her Venus was opposition Saturn. Her calculating charm would be her talent. She also had a strong Jupiter Neptune as did Howard, in her case conjunct and trine Sun square Mars. Jupiter Neptune has a tendency towards scandal, is a dreamer, eternally optimistic and good at glossing over unpleasantness.

  Though she did have legal problems with Harriman’s children after the inheritance after he died.

Lady Jane Digby, 3 April 1807, London, the daughter of wealthy Admiral, was married first to an earl, thence through affairs with a first cousin and Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg. After a scandalous divorce which ruined her family, she moved to Germany became the lover of Ludwig I of Bavaria but married a German baron, before finding a new lover in a Greek Count followed by Greece’s King Otto and then a Thessalian general. Finally she travelled to the Middle East and fell in love with a Sheik 20 years her junior. Their marriage was a happy one and they lived together in a tent until her death 28 years later. She had four children, three of whom died young.

  She was a Sun Aries, again with a super-charged Venus in Taurus. It opposed Saturn in Scorpio, which isn’t as damped down as it sounds since it often coincides with ‘sex addiction’. That opposition which includes a constantly-changing Uranus squared onto Jupiter in broad-minded Aquarius and was in a passionate trine to Mars. Her Mars was in a determined and courageous opposition to Pluto widely square Neptune. A wildly impulsive, none-too-stable personality who headed straight for hat she wanted. Tr Pluto in Taurus was crossing her Venus when she met the Sheik who finally settled her down.

  I must confess to having a sneaking admiration for women like these who threw caution to the winds and took what they wanted. Though their adventuring ways did cause a great deal of grief along the way. The goddess Venus ever was a fickle creature.

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There’s a media melodrama over Finland’s young prime minister Sanna Marin being filmed enjoying herself at a private party. She’s been forced to take a drug test to prove she wasn’t imbibing or snorting anything questionable. She took over in 2019 to become the youngest serving prime minister at 34, at the head of an all-woman coalition.

  She was born 16 November 1985 and is a determined Sun and Saturn in Scorpio with a charming and persuasive Venus Pluto in Scorpio in an indulgent square to Jupiter; with her Jupiter trine Mars and sextile Uranus. Mars Jupiter Uranus will make her adventurous and high-spirited; Venus Jupiter enjoys parties; and Jupiter Pluto exudes confidence.

   It’s all a storm in a teacup amidst much more serious concerns given Finland’s proximity to their troublesome Russian neighbour and the tensions arising from the accession protocol to join Nato, signed six weeks ago.  

  Tr Saturn is square her Sun this year and tr Uranus opposing it from mid 2023 onwards, so it’ll be a bumpy ride ahead with disappointments and disruptions, with  mid October to early November this year particularly edgy with external challenges. Her Solar Arc Sun is conjunct her Neptune this year which will be uncertain but again that may not be personal matters.

  Her Term chart, 10 December 2019, is under its heaviest pressure exactly now from the tough-conditions Saturn Pluto closing by Solar Arc.

  I’m getting as paranoid as everyone else – wonder if it was a Russian leak of the video from the party?

Scott Morrison, deposed PM of Australia, has attracted outrage and derision in equal measure as it transpires during the pandemic he made himself overlord of everything without bothering to inform his ministers he had taken over their portfolio.  Anthony Albanese, the present PM, accused him of an “unprecedented trashing of our democracy” by becoming  minister of health, finance, resources, home affairs and the treasury to add to his prime ministerial duties.

  Born 13 May 1968 he is a stalwart Sun Taurus – one of the favoured signs for dictators – and it opposes a slippery Neptune and trines Pluto Uranus giving him added layers of stratospheric ambition. Neptune Pluto is associated with megalomaniac power. As if that wasn’t enough his Sun opposition Neptune squares a grandiose and self-aggrandising Jupiter in Leo – which is Boris Johnson on steroids.

  He is refusing to resign as of this moment and is blustering a self-justifying and admit-no-guilt defence. But he does look boxed into a corner until early December and fairly frozen; with career losses in late September through October and again into 2023.  He will be slipping and sliding and discouraged with tr Saturn hitting his Sun this year and Jupiter, Neptune early next year. Followed by jolts and jangles bringing sudden change from tr Uranus conjunct his Sun from mid 2023  onwards.

Brad Pitt does make odd choices in romantic partners. Superficially his matches glow with the appearance of affection, deep attraction and the aura of an enviable perfection. Scratch the surface and what is revealed is not so much a can of worms as of writhing snakes.

 I’ve always been misled by his Jupiter in the 4^th into assuming he had a charmed and supportive childhood, giving him a solid foundation for a settled adult home life, making his subsequent marital turmoil seem strange.

  However on closer examination his Sun/Moon midpoint, the marriage significator, is conjunct his Mars and his South Node in Capricorn which will draw him towards fiery women and argumentative bonds as well as ones which appeal to his less evolved Capricornian side. He’ll put money and status above caring and compassion. Plus his North Node is in the 8^th which tends to make for turmoil in sexual encounters, with a lack of self-control when it comes to need and greed and has a habit of dragging him into long-drawn out financial and emotional tussles. Letting go isn’t something that comes naturally to him.  

  His cool Capricorn Moon and Venus are both conjunct his Sun/Saturn midpoint, making him emotionally clamped down and all the more so with Saturn in chilly Aquarius.

  His marriage to Jennifer Aniston, supposedly the flawless fusion of love’s dream, in reality had a superficial sheen of bliss with an underlying streak of aggravation running through it. Her Moon was conjunct his Sun which is good, her Venus was conjunct his Jupiter for a veneer of good feelings and her Jupiter Uranus in his 10^th would bring career benefits. But none of that could balance out her Aquarius Sun square Mars colliding with his Saturn with a continual grate of irritations and blockages. Her Pluto on his Midheaven would put her in the driving seat.

 Their relationship chart was impossibly bad which made all the fan-magazine gush a nonsense. There was a composite Saturn opposition Pluto Uranus square Mars with Uranus Pluto trine Sun – unfair, one-sided, unkind, never stable, volcanically angry underneath.

  His engagement to Gwyneth Paltrow was no more understandable except in career terms. Her controlling (and influential) Pluto Sun fell in his 10^th. Her Moon did fall on his Descendant which is good though her chilly Saturn in Gemini also in his 7^th house of relationships hinted at problems and both squared his chaotic Uranus Pluto. His Saturn blocked out her Venus in opposition; and her Uranus was in an argumentative volatile, needs-space square to his Mars, Mercury, Moon, Venus.  That was never going to hold.

   Their relationship chart was focused on career and money but with an ego-clash writ large in the centre. Neither wanted the other to outshine them.

  After the Jolie split he evidently got a grip of his drug/drink issues and went into therapy to stop running from his feelings. That was when transiting Saturn was moving across his Sun and down through the middle of his First Quadrant, often a time when unresolved psychological issues surface to be sorted out. More recently tr Pluto has been moving across his Moon and Venus, again giving him a chance of a major clear out of old emotional patterns. So it is possible the chain has been broken and he’ll choose more sensibly ahead.   

Concern that the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power station will become a casualty of the unrelenting hostilities between Russia and Ukraine is rising. Ukraine has warned that Russia is planning to stage a false-flag attack on the plant which is controlled by President Putin’s troops. Video drone images showed Russian ammunition trucks being moved into the reactor turbine halls. If an accident does occur radioactive material could be showered over Germany, Poland and Slovakia.

   The European Nuclear Society says it is unlikely that missiles will penetrate the ten metres of concrete that shields the reactors. But the risk is the vulnerability of the cooling systems and the possibility of a reactor meltdown, a version of the 2011 Fukushima disaster rather than the cataclysm of Chernobyl. The Kremlin is getting wound up about any Ukrainian attempt to reclaim Crimea so the rhetoric – and risk of an accident – is becoming ever more apocalyptic.

 The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant started construction on 1 April 1980 and the first unit was commissioned on 25 December 1985.  The 1980 chart flags up great uncertainty from late October to early January; but there is nothing that looks cataclysmic.

  When The Fukushima meltdown occurred in 2011, tr Pluto was conjunct Mars on the plant chart with tr Uranus opposition the Pluto so it was flagged up clearly.

  The Ukraine country chart, 24 August 1991 2.31pm Kiev, is struggling forward with the undermining tr Neptune opposition Mars running on and off till early February 2024; and a jolting, disruptive tr Uranus opposition the 10^th house Pluto now until April 2023.  Where it starts to gain heart and renewed vitality – and luck – is from mid 2024 onwards and for several years thereafter.

 Putin’s 4^th term chart won’t be without enthusiasm, determination or moments of success over the next two years; but will start its period of greatest instability from February 2023 onwards till late 2024 with tr Pluto square the Uranus and be completely trapped with Solar Arc Pluto conjunct the Mars, exact in July/August 2023. Which doesn’t mean he won’t take desperate measures if he feels his grip is crumbling. But it may be that 2024 sees the end of him.

The never ending saga of the Jolie-Pitt split drags on into its sixth year with accusations and counter-accusations flying.  Earlier this year he sued her for selling her stake in their co-owned French vineyard to a Russian oligarch – a “vindictive and unlawful” move he says that was spurred by an unfavourable custody ruling she received last year. She has now dragged in the FBI to open the case files on the 2016 plane journey which precipitated the divorce after a noisy argument erupted. The investigation had previously found no case to answer against Pitt and his lawyers say she has already seen the files.

  What a tangled web is woven in Hollywood dream matches.

  Pluto figures heavily as the main culprit. She has an extraordinarily difficult chart with her Gemini Sun trine Pluto and opposition Neptune; with her Pluto in a compulsive, do-or-die-determined opposition to Mars Moon Jupiter in Aries widely square Saturn. She had a troubled childhood with self-harming and drug problems, an absent father and an over-permissive mother.

  Her Pluto falls in Pitt’s 10^th house so she will feel compelled to control him – and with her Pluto opposition his Jupiter and square his Mars it will be an ongoing struggle for the upper hand.  His Pluto Uranus is also square her Sun which will make him not exactly detached either.

  Their relationship chart has a composite Sun opposition Pluto which will tie them together till the bitter end. Splitting Plutonic relationships is always messy and hostile. And this dragging-out-the-agony is likely to run until at least 2024 if not beyond.

  She had a tortured on-off on-again and off-again relationship with actor Jon Voight, her father. His Pluto falls on her Ascendant and squares her Uranus; with his Saturn in Aries sitting on her Moon, Mars, Jupiter and opposition her Pluto – so her relationships with men from square one have never been easy.

  Her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton, just prior to Brad Pitt, produced a relationship chart with a composite Moon opposition Uranus, Saturn, Pluto square Mars Jupiter – and that is truly toe-curling in its strains and stresses.

  What has always intrigued me – since it is out in the public domain and he is now mature – is her first adopted child Maddox, who was involved in the 2016 plane argument.  In her late teens she had been struggling with an eating disorder, and began using drugs, including heroin. She had episodes of depression and planned twice to suicide; at 24 she had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Two years later, she adopted a toddler from a Cambodian orphanage. Later she said, “I knew once I committed to Maddox, I would never be self-destructive again.” Which is quite a burden to land on a young child from an already unstable and risky background.

  If his birth date is accurate at 5 August 2001 he is a Sun Leo opposition Neptune; but also has the bleak, deprived Saturn opposition Pluto of that year tied into Mars which makes sense of his early experiences. Saturn Pluto Mars is a tough set of aspects likely to engender deep-seated anger and hostility. That falls right across her Sun opposition Neptune – which is hardly coochy coo and nurturing. The date may be wrong, of course, but if it isn’t, then it is one aggravated interface. Though it does mirror the torment on her own chart.

  This year and next she has tr Pluto opposition her Venus and square her 4^th house Uranus which will be emotionally intense and turn her domestic life upside down. Pluto then moves into her 7^th making the next few years even more possessive and intense on the relationship front which is exhausting even to contemplate.

  Not sure why all this matters but it was littering up my Astro-inbox and is a matter of continuing amazement to me.

Add On: From early on Maddox has evidently had an interest in guns and knives, a passion that Jolie was happy to cultivate, repeating a pattern from her own childhood when her mother bought her daggers when she was 11 or 12. She also revealed in a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly that Maddox had drawn a machine-gun on his Mother’s Day card and it had been made into a necklace for her. She described it as “really sweet. It’s really cute.’   ??????? Yikes.

  The FBI report into the alleged altercation on the plane which ended the Jolie-Pitt marriage contains Brad Pitt’s remark that one child: ‘Looked like a f***ing Columbine kid.’ This is thought to refer to Maddox, whose chart with that horrifically difficult Mars Pluto Saturn aspect does mirror the Virginia Teck shooter Seung-Hui Cho’s chart which has Mars, Pluto and Saturn all together in Scorpio. Eric Harris, one of the Columbine school shooters has a Sun, Mars in Aries opposition Pluto and trine Neptune – so hints of the same.

The woman is diseased. Not that Brad Pitt is much better facilitating up to the point where he didn’t.