Friday Bite: 21 March 2025

Happy Days!

“I am your warrior. I am your justice. For those of you who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution… I will prevent World War III…”  Donald Trump, Waco, 25 March 2023

“Whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government, and the President of the United States shall make public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies. The Alien Enemies Act of 1798

IN CASE IT passed you by, Thursday was International Day of Happiness. Who knew.

A lot of people who are definitely not happy are those who thought they would be embarking today from London’s Heathrow airport to distant places or flying in from them. A catastrophic fire at a nearby electricity substation shut down Europe’s biggest hub. Flights are expected to be disrupted for the next few days. Mercury retrograde…

In the past seven days (see smiley face above) we have celebrated the safe return of astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore who spent nine unplanned months on the International Space Station due to issues with their Starliner capsule. Given the state of planet Earth, they could be forgiven for wishing their stay could have been extended.

As they splashed down, the occupants of Gaza were scattering among the rubble to find safe spaces as Israeli bombs once again rained down upon them. More than 590 Palestinians have been killed since Tuesday. Hamas and Israel blame each other for the end of the ceasefire: Hamas declaring Israel broke the deal by reneging on its commitment to move to a second phase while Israel maintains Hamas has refused to release more hostages or agree to a new proposal to extend the ceasefire by several weeks.

It may or may not be a coincidence, but a day or so earlier the United States launched a “decisive and powerful” wave of air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen who continue to attack shipping in the Red Sea.

As I often say, the period between eclipses is fragile.

Also on Tuesday, Presidents Trump and Putin held their much vaunted telephone call regarding a potential ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump described the conversation as “productive”. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to Moscow, who days earlier had been kept waiting eight hours for a meeting with Putin and appeared to have been sent off with a flea in his ear, described the call as “epic and transformational”.

For his part, Vladimir Putin expressed his “fundamental commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine war in collaboration with his US partners, which would be long-term and sustainable”. However, there were non-negotiable caveats: Ukraine must demilitarize and cease to accept foreign military aid… yada, yada, yada. The Russian president also agreed to a partial ceasefire on “energy and infrastructure” targets, meaning bridges, hospitals, railways and other civilian installations.

Hours later a Russian drone slammed into a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Sumy.

On Wednesday, President Trump announced that the US was planning an American-led privatisation of Ukraine’s power plants. This appeared to be news to President Zelensky who reposted, “Ukraine power plants are Ukrainian and belong to the Ukrainian people…”

I COULD GO on. Every single day, a raft of actions and statements are issued by the Trump administration, sowing seeds of confusion and frustrating attempts to rein in the tsunami of unconstitutional moves. It is as though the shock of it all has rendered those who could and should do something to stem the tide, into paralysis.

Of all the jaw-dropping events of the past week, top of the list was Donald Trump’s decision to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in order to deport hundreds of mostly Venezuelan immigrants, some allegedly members of the Tren de Aragua gang, to El Salvador where they will be held without trial in a notorious prison. Within hours of this decision, the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward filed lawsuits claiming the Trump administration had unlawfully invoked the Act. In response, Judge James Boasberg of the Federal district court in Washington issued a temporary restraining order.

The order was ignored.

Mind you, you need to thread your way through a whole lot of semantics to prove it.

According to the timeline, Judge Boasberg convened the hearing regarding the unlawful invoking of the act at 5:00 pm on Saturday. At 5:26pm GlobalX Flight 6143 carrying a number of immigrants departed Harlingen, Texas bound for San Salvador.  At 5:45 pm a second flight, GlobalX 6145 took off from Harlingen. Between 6:45pm and 6:51pm while the planes were in transit, Judge Boasberg orally granted the Civil Liberties Union’s and Democracy Forward’s motions. Eleven minutes after Boasberg issued his written order, a third aircraft, GlobalX 6122, departed Harlingen bound for San Salvador at 7:37 pm.

Based on the above timeline, the Trump administration violated the court order.

Not so, according to the White House press secretary:

“The Administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory. The written order and the Administration’s actions do not conflict. Moreover, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear—federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the President’s conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers to remove foreign alien terrorists from U.S. soil and repel a declared invasion. A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil.” 

The invoking of the Alien Enemies Act gives a president unparalleled wartime powers. The act has only been invoked on three other occasions: The1812 World War, World War I and World War II. It is self-evidently only applicable during a war when the country is in danger of an invading and hostile force. However, using the act to deport immigrants may only be the tip of the iceberg. On the basis of such an act, a president does not have to ask the courts for permission to invoke martial law.

Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act in the early hours of Saturday morning, and hours after a total lunar eclipse. This lunar eclipse, as I explained in my last Friday Bite, intersected the lunar eclipse upon which the American president was born. Here’s what I said.

“The significance of this astro-scape for Donald Trump cannot be underestimated: it is the signature on his downfall.”  In the same way that the Sun at the peak of its powers at mid-summer is simultaneously beginning its decline, this recent total lunar eclipse marks the beginning of the end for President Trump, primarily in political terms. I think it is also significant that of the many and varied infringements of the law, civil rights and the constitution perpetrated by Elon Musk, DOGE and the Trump administration over the past sixty days, using the act of 1798 as a means of mass deportations is the “final straw”. The elephant in the living room can no longer be ignored: the United States is in a constitutional crisis. And the astrological signature on that crisis is the recent eclipse, which conjoined the USA’s Neptune while transiting Neptune is within a degree of the nation’s IC.

Astrologically speaking, the next major crossroads we need to look out for is 27 April, the new moon in Taurus and the third and final Mars-Pluto opposition.

Friday Bite: 14 March 2025

Beware the Ides of March

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” Thomas Sewell, American economist.

In the Roman calendar, the ides of March simply meant the middle of March, but over time they have acquired a more sinister aura due to Shakespeare’s words of warning to Julius Caesar who was stabbed to death on 15 March 44 AD. Nevertheless, this year, the ides of March come in the wake of a total lunar eclipse, and since eclipses bode events of great significance, they may for once deserve their menacing overtones.

Many events of the past seven days are worthy of note, not all of them laced with menace. Take the election of Mark Carney as leader of Canada’s Liberal Party and by default its prime minister. After a resounding victory (85 percent of the vote), the former head of the Bank of England reassured Canadians that “[they] never ever will be part of America, in any way, shape or form” and that “in trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.” Mr Carney will be sworn in this morning at eleven o’ clock.

On Tuesday, Ukraine and the United States issued a joint statement after a meeting in Jeddah confirming Ukraine’s readiness to agree to a 30-day ceasefire. US military aid and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine was restored. On Thursday, Vladimir Putin, announced that he “supports” the cease-fire agreement but only on Russia’s terms, which include: international recognition of his territory, limits to the size of Ukraine’s army, a ban on NATO membership and no peace-keeping forces in Ukraine. Translated: Russia will continue to prosecute its war on Ukraine.

In the United States, and beyond, Trump’s “tariff wars” continued to give markets the jitters. Fears of a recession loom. Largely unreported, across America, the people are gathering and voicing their concerns over the Trump Administration’s blatant disregard for the constitution and the needs and opinions of more than half the country.

 “Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again, and it’s happening and it will happen rather quickly. There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much.” Donald Trump: address to Congress, 4 March.

 “All I know is this: We’re going to take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, and we’re going to become so rich you’re not going to know where to spend all that money. I’m telling you, you just watch.” Donald Trump: to press on board Airforce One, 9 March.

Also on Monday, we were treated to a rare sight of five Tesla vehicles displayed on the South Lawn of the White House as the president gave a sales-pitch in the hopes of reversing the slump in the car company’s sales (currently down by half).

Last but not least, on Thursday, prime minister Starmer announced the abolition of NHS England – not the entire National Health Service, but, nonetheless a significant part of it.

Who said eclipses weren’t significant.

In one of my talks at Ammerdown in February, I talked about astrology as a language, and that like any language words have many meanings depending upon their context. You might say, astrology is a language of symbols and that like all symbols they transmit many different messages. This came to mind earlier in the week as the Sun conjoined Saturn in the shadow of the lunar eclipse, when a container ship with a Russian captain at the helm and a crew made up of Russian nationals and Filipinos crashed into a US registered tanker transporting jet fuel for the US military in the waters of the North Sea off the coast of Northumberland. The container ship had made a beeline for the tanker and at speed. The ensuing fire and oil spill, initially thought to be as disastrous as the Amoco Cadiz or the Torrey Canyon, turned out to be not such a threat to sea-life, although one sailor was lost. (The captain of the container ship is currently under arrest on suspicion of manslaughter by gross negligence.)

To my mind, the incident, although not thought to be malicious but a result of poor maintenance, was symbolic of Russia’s ramrodding behaviour toward Ukraine (and the West) and at a time when negotiations, choreographed by the United States, regarding a cease-fire are being held.

The significance of this astro-scape for Donald Trump cannot be underestimated: it is the portent of his downfall. We may not know the exact scenario that will ultimately mark his demise but we can surmise that the frustration of his efforts to bring a speedy end to the war in Ukraine – effectively, to be seen to lose – combined with the economic turmoil his tariff wars are generating and the ongoing Musk-DOGE debacle will contribute to it. We don’t need another coup or an assassin’s hand on the trigger to fulfil the promise of the astrology. We may have to wait a little while, but the signature of this eclipse will be there when it happens.

And so to Canada and Mark Carney.

We do not have a time of birth for Mr Carney so we must make do with a sunrise chart. Even so, there is much to take away from it. The Canadian prime minister celebrates his sixtieth birthday on Sunday, so his rise to power has been marked by today’s lunar eclipse. Indeed, he was sworn in a matter of hours later. He has become the leader of the country on a Sun-Saturn conjunction that is conjunct his natal Sun. And as I often say about such Saturn transits, he has acquired gravitas. Furthermore, Mr Carney was born on a full moon in Virgo, possibly conjunct Uranus, Pluto and Mars. And he celebrated his second Saturn return in 2023.

You might think that a person with such a challenging chart would never aspire to such lofty positions in life but it is because of these very astrological challenges that he has managed to carve out such an outstanding path in life. He, like Boris Johnson, has a Jupiter-Neptune opposition, which, on the plus side can inspire great wealth and position and, on the downside, delusions of grandeur. (You may like to note that Elon Musk was born with Neptune conjunct Jupiter.)

Nonetheless, that he has come to power on such Saturnian influences also suggests that he faces a daunting task, and although he has the people of Canada behind him and a great mandate with which to protect and preserve the country’s heritage, his success is by no means guaranteed.

At eleven o’clock in the morning Jupiter had just risen over the Ascendant, reflecting the jubilation and hope accompanying Mr Carney’s election. The Moon at twenty-eight degrees of Virgo is happily not void-of-course, although its closest aspect is an opposition to Neptune, which does suggest a degree of hope-over-experience to his tenure. Nonetheless, beneficent Jupiter is a great planet to have in such a powerful position and it bodes well for the future.

That he is indeed a man whose time has come is revealed in his chart connections to Canada’s horoscope. His natal Saturn is conjoined to Canada’s Jupiter (indicative of his ability to grow, or at least preserve, the country’s economy and standing in the world) while his Sun is conjoined to the nation’s Chiron, which suggests he identifies with the nation’s soul. He has a deep connection with Canada and the power to heal and transform it.

Neptune is currently squaring Canada’s Moon, although it is separating, which implies the nation is moving away from a period of chaos and confusion, doubt and despondency. And, of course, today’s lunar eclipse figures prominently, symbolizing an ending and a beginning.

To be continued…