Friday Bite: 14 February 2025

A Picture is worth a thousand words

 “The same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.” Abraham Lincoln

 “Our oath [of allegiance] was not to the Republican Party, not to the Democratic Party, not to Joe Biden, not to Donald Trump, but…to defend the Constitution. And…right now —literally at this moment—that Constitution is under the most direct and consequential assault in our nation’s history, an assault not on a particular provision but on the essential structure of the document itself.” Senator Angus King (I-ME)

ON WEDNESDAY THE daily podcast from the New York Times posed the question: is President Trump merely testing the boundaries of power or triggering a full-blown constitutional crisis? The consensus, apparently, is yes. “Our founding fathers created coequal branches of government to ensure that no one man can be king. But here we are.” Adam Liptak, Supreme Court correspondent for the NYT.

It was the beginning of a hugely eventful day. It was the day of the full moon in Leo, which squared Uranus. I had already pointed out that this configuration was going to turn out to be pivotal for Russia, Ukraine and America, and I was not wrong. (The full Moon flanked Russia’s Ascendant-Descendant Axis and conjoined Ukraine’s and the US’ Moons.) On Wednesday, hours after the above photograph was taken, President Trump said that he had had a “lengthy and highly productive” phone call with Vladimir Putin in which they had agreed to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

On Thursday, Pete Hegseth, US Defence Secretary, while in Munich at the Security Conference, announced that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2024 borders was “unrealistic” and that the US does not see NATO membership for Kyiv as part of the solution to the three-year-long Ukraine war.

To say that this was a slap in the face for President Zelensky is an understatement. Not even, apparently, invited to the table for the “peace” discussions. There has been a little rollback by the US since Hegseth’s announcement, but Trump has been making clear his intentions regarding Ukraine, NATO and the war in Ukraine for months so this should not be a surprise to any of us. After predicting that once he was in the White House, he would end the war in twenty-four hours, it has taken a mere twenty-five days to get to the point at which “heads are being knocked together” and peace talks, albeit without Zelensky and any European leaders, in the process of becoming.

Whether or not you like Trump or any of the goings-on in the halls of power right now, you’ve got to admit he’s doing what he promised to do, and at a breath-taking pace.

Mr Hegseth wasn’t finished though. Still on Thursday, he had a shock in store for NATO. And with one statement, he threw the world’s biggest and most enduring alliance into disarray. “… [I will] directly and unambiguously express that stark realities prevent the USA from being primarily focussed on the security of Europe… we must – and we are – focussing on [the]security of our own borders.” He further explained that NATO, of which the United States is the biggest part, “will not come to the rescue of any European nation involved in that force if it is attacked by Russia.” This statement is unequivocal. The UK and Europe must go it alone if it is to defend Ukraine or any other member of the alliance.

Churchill and Roosvelt must be turning in their graves.

NATO was formed in 1949 to counter the threat to European security posed by the then Soviet Union. In the intervening years, it has gone from an alliance of twelve nations to a body of thirty-two. The United States is the most powerful member and spends more on defence than any of its partners. The US also far outweighs other nations in terms of its military might.

In many ways the chart of NATO is manifestly fit for purpose. Scorpio rises with ruler, Pluto, conjunct the Midheaven and in the tenth house of leadership and governance. The Sun, the ruler of the Midheaven, is conjoined to the Moon and Saturn – the alliance was formed on a new moon signalling growth while Saturn’s position reflects the ability of the alliance to fulfil its serious commitment.

At this point in time, solar arc progressed Pluto is within a degree of the Ascendant, pointing to a defining period for its future. One way or another, NATO will be transformed and become a new version of itself in the coming months. Maybe one without the United States.

On the above chart, I have drawn in the relevant transits (red) and progressions (black): Wednesday’s full moon squared Uranus while transiting Uranus opposed a progressed Moon-Saturn conjunction, forming a Grand Cross in fixed signs. What was decided at that point in time has been set in stone. You may also note that Mars is currently retrograding in Cancer close to its natal position. Once Mars turns direct (24 February), it will go on to conjoin its natal position and by April will be opposed to transiting Pluto. (The gloves will definitely be off by then.)

As I mentioned earlier, there is much to admire in Trump’s getting down to business, and aiming to settle both the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Gaza conflict, and maybe, just maybe, he is preventing or at least staving off a third world war. And yet, and yet…

In the shadows of a negotiated peace lurks the spectre of a new world order.

Go to many, if not most, astrology channels and you’ll hear astrologers waxing poetic about Pluto’s entry into Aquarius and “top-down power” being upturned and a new age of people power established. Certainly, back in 1778 – 1798, the people of France revolted and overthrew the monarchy, America kicked out George III, and democracy was born, but we almost have the reverse now and democracies are being overturned and authoritarian regimes established. And in the case of the United States, this unimaginable state of affairs has occurred in less than a month, since the inauguration of President Trump and the Sun-Pluto conjunction.

When Pluto was last in Aquarius a new world order came about, so if we are using that era as a model, then it makes perfect sense that democracy, which gathered momentum over the course of 248 years, is in the process of being replaced by an authoritarian new world order, one which is being carved out in front of our very eyes.

The next few weeks are going to prove pivotal to America’s future, and, as we can see, to the rest of the world. If President Trump and Chief Controller Musk continue to steamroller their way through the bastions of government, simultaneously trashing the constitution and breaking up with old friends in foreign parts, unless the Republicans, the Democrats and the judiciary develop some cahones, the only thing that stands between the country and a kleptocracy is the people. 

But if ordinary Americans do indeed rise up, as we have seen in Georgia and Belarus, then we might just fulfil the promise of Pluto in Aquarius and give birth to a new world in which the power of the people overcomes the might and the will of the state.

Friday Bite: 7 February 2025

Tremors

“Over the years, many people have tried to envision what a constitutional crisis in the United States might look like. But this scenario is so extreme that no one could have possibly envisioned it. Most of those imagined crises have involved a standoff between two equal branches of government. Instead, what has happened is that a third party – the world’s wealthiest man – has sought to simply commandeer, with the acquiescence of the president, the technical systems that make the federal government function. In doing so, he has interposed himself between Congress and the control panels of government.” Will Stancil, research fellow at the University of Minnesota Law School. 3 February 2025

HAS THE EARTH moved for you during the last seven days? It certainly moved for the people of Santorini. Last Friday, a cluster of quakes began under the Aegean Sea between Santorini and Amorgos, compelling more than 11,000 people to evacuate Santorini. The largest quake on Wednesday measured 5.1 on the Richter scale. To have so many quakes in a relatively small area is unprecedented and has scientists baffled. A state of emergency has been declared, which will last until 3 March.

The above chart represents the moment the earth moved under the waters of the Aegean, but it also provides a picture of the metaphorical tsunamis currently taking place across the world. On Tuesday, in Örebro, a thirty-five-year-old Swedish national, Rickard Andersson, shot dead eleven people at an adult education centre before turning the gun on himself. It is Sweden’s worst ever mass-shooting.  Meanwhile in Washington DC on Wednesday, at a press conference, President Trump proposed that Palestinians should be forced out of Gaza so that the land could be rebuilt as a US-run “Riviera of the Middle East”. It was not the only shocking development to come out of the United States in the past seven days.

First, Santorini.

The chart for the moment the earth shook beneath the Aegean sea is picture-perfect. The Moon is within one minute of a conjunction to Uranus while Neptune, conjunct Venus and the fixed star Scheat, is within a degree of one of the four angles of the chart – the Descendant. The nodal axis is conjunct the Ascendant-Descendant axis, which is more than significant since this axis marks the point at which eclipses occur. And eclipses are game changers and earth-movers.

I have done a lot of research on earthquakes, and not only are they remarkably sensitive to the lunar cycle but the outer planets (Uranus, Pluto and Neptune) often appear on an angle. Twenty-eight degrees of Gemini is another factor that is frequently present at the time of an earthquake. (Twenty-eight degrees of Gemini is the fixed star, Betelgeuse, which if negatively aspected can preside over “sudden death through lightning or canon! It is also precisely opposite the Galactic Centre.) Read my article on Earthquakes.

Recently, there have been a more than usual number of deadly events – the Los Angeles fires, floods in Queensland and a spate of air crashes among them – which could be a reflection of the prevailing Mars-Pluto opposition (now out of orb), although Mars in retrograde is consistent with frustration of energy on all levels. However, the presence of Scheat is also of significance since this fixed star in the constellation Pegasus is associated with extreme misfortune, often involving water – tsunamis, floods and storms – and airplane accidents.

At the moment, Scheat is closely conjunct Neptune and souping up the potential for misfortune and natural and manmade disasters.

On 12 February there will be a full moon at 24 degrees of Leo, closely squaring Uranus, which may prove to be the trigger to a more serious eruption in the waters off the coast of Santorini. This full moon is likely to also play a part in the war in Ukraine: Russia’s Ascendant is 25 degrees of Leo while Ukraine’s Moon is 22 degrees of Aquarius and opposes a Mercury-Venus-Jupiter stellium in Leo. The US moon is in the mix too (28 degrees of Aquarius) and Donald Trump’s Mars is 26 degrees of Leo.

The fur will be flying in important places next week.

AS OF YESTERDAY, President Trump has signed more than fifty executive orders ranging from tariffs on Mexico, China and Canada to pauses in foreign aid, crackdowns on illegal immigration to bans on trans-gender people serving in the military and a ban on the use of all gender descriptions except male and female. On Thursday, the president issued an executive order that authorizes aggressive sanctions against the ICC (International Criminal Court) accusing the organization of “illegitimate and baseless actions” targeting the United States and Israel.

And if all of that wasn’t enough, his “special government employee”, Elon Musk, appears to be running amok amid the bastions of federal government. Since the inauguration, Mr Musk and his team have taken over the United States Digital Service, which is now renamed DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), they have commandeered the federal government’s human resources department, the Office of Personnel Management, and they have gained access to the Treasury’s payment system.

In less than a year, Elon Musk has gone from being a billionaire wunderkind to the second most powerful man in the United States. But, in keeping with all such Icaruses, he may be in danger of flying too close to the sun.

In my research I came across an article by the historian Timothy Wernig Ryback in The Atlantic in which he discusses the fate of the oligarchs who supported Hitler. It’s quite the morality tale.

Alfred Hugenberg amassed a fortune after World War I, much of it generated by his publishing empire. In an effort to gain power and position in the new Germany that Hitler was creating, he used his newspapers (1400 of them) to polarize public opinion and political parties with “incendiary news stories”, some of them entirely fabricated. He had a name for this practice – katastrophenpolitk, the politics of catastrophe.

With vast amounts of money and the power of the pen, Hugenberg became essential to Hitler, ultimately delivering him the Chancellorship in exchange for a post in his cabinet. While Hugenberg’s politics aligned with Hitler’s, their personalities were too similar to sustain a working relationship. Both were stubborn, inflexible and self-righteous. Eventually, Hugenberg crossed a line, his narcissism having got the better of him, and after laying out an ambitious plan for economic growth through territorial expansion during a conference in London, he was forced to resign.

His star fallen, Hugenberg retreated to his estate in Lippe where during the course of the World War II his business empire gradually withered away and, although he escaped the concentration camps, which many who crossed Hitler did not, after the war he was arrested and detained by the British Military police and his assets frozen.

There are, as I’m sure you’ll notice, some striking parallels here to the rise and rise of Elon Musk. I even went as far as to look at the solar chart of Alfred Hugenberg (19 June 1865) to see if there were any similarities. Likenesses I could not find with the exception of shared hard Sun-Uranus aspects, but I thought it interesting that Hugenberg’s south node was exactly conjunct Musk’s Midheaven while Musk’s south node is conjunct Hugenberg’s Mars. Perhaps, indeed, they will share a similar fate…

I keep looking at Musk’s horoscope and trying to find a reason for his extraordinary persona, his genius and his phenomenal rise to power. But it eludes me. Yes, the Sun is rising (some would say it is in the twelfth house, but in my long experience 8-10 degrees above the Ascendant is a power point) and Mercury on his Ascendant, but where is Jupiter? It is in the fifth house conjoined to Neptune and opposing Saturn. I guess you could find the vision and the ability to bring that vision into reality in this combination, but charisma and world domination? No.

Maybe I’m missing something.

In an effort to find something – anything – that would reveal the incredible Mr Musk, I looked at his fifth harmonic chart. This chart reflects “fifthness” and the quintile aspect, and it is a chart I look at when considering the potential for, among other things, fame, glory and power. What I did find here was a Mars-Pluto conjunction in the first house, which falls on his natal Part of Fortune. Here, at least, we find his “frantic, around-the-clock energy” and his capacity to push himself and others to the limit to achieve his objectives.

Musk’s solar-arc progressions give us a clue as to the why-now? His Midheaven has progressed to natal Venus while Uranus has reached his natal Neptune and opposes Saturn. While the Midheaven-Venus connection points to success, joy, money and fulfilment, the Uranus progression suggests upsets and potential downfall. If you mix in the forthcoming transit of Uranus to his natal Saturn and opposition to Neptune (exact for the first time in late July/August this year) I’m not at all sure that Musk will last much longer as Trump’s “special government employee”.

Those who live by the sword…