Friday Bite: 11 October 2024

Neptune’s Wrath

Earthquakes – Nuclear Power – Full Moon Aries

“Whoever attacks us will be hurt and will pay a price. Our attack will be deadly, precise and above all surprising, they will not understand what happened and how it happened, they will see the results.” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, 10 October.

“Ask your government if the weather is manipulated or controlled. Did you ever give permission to them to do it? Are you paying for it? Of course you are,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, 7 October.

“You are going to die.” Mayor of Tampa’s advice to anyone thinking of riding out Hurricane Milton.

IN THE EVENT, Hurricane Milton turned out not to be the “storm of the century”, but it was pretty bad. Milton made landfall as a category 3 storm on Wednesday, just south of Sarasota in Florida. Ahead of it came thirty-eight tornadoes and winds of more than 120 mph. It generated a storm surge of ten feet, and eighteen inches of rain dropped on St Petersburg alone. Sixteen people lost their lives. Three million were left without power. Around 400,000 claims worth $10 billion are already being processed from Hurricane Helene. And that number could double.

At seven-ten on Monday morning, ceremonial protests began across Israel. It was exactly one year to the minute that more than 600 Hamas militants breached the border between Israel and Gaza and embarked on a series of coordinated atrocities and the taking of hostages.

One year later:

117 hostages have been released; 97 remain unaccounted for.

More than 1,200 Israelis have been killed.

More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed.

More than 2,200 Lebanese have been killed.

More than 143,000 Israelis have been displaced.

More than 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced.

More than 2.1 million Lebanese have been displaced.

ON SATURDAY AT 22:45, the University of Tehran’s seismography centre recorded a 4.6 magnitude earthquake near the city of Aradan. Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world with fault lines crossing ninety percent of its territory. Earthquakes are thus common occurrences. However, at a mere ten kilometres below the surface, which is relatively shallow for earthquakes of this kind, and in the region of a suspected nuclear facility, coupled with the geopolitical tensions between Israel and Iran, speculation is rife that Iran has conducted its first underground nuclear test. Iran has made no comment and no radio-active fallout has been recorded.

Nonetheless, I thought the incident worthy of astrological examination.

I don’t believe we can establish whether or not Saturday’s 4.6 magnitude earthquake was caused by nature or nurtured in an underground nuclear test facility, but the event has a nuclear signature.

Neptune is conjunct the Midheaven and the focal point of a Kite configuration. We’ve seen this alignment before, most recently on the lunar eclipse of 18 September (25 degrees Pisces 41’). And, as you may note, this earthquake bears the imprint of that eclipse on its MC-IC axis. Eclipses have elastic timelines.

Let us leave the rising Mars squaring the Sun and Mercury out of the mix, although it is a violent, earth-moving type of aspect, and focus on the Kite. Uranus, Pluto and the IC form a Grand Trine, while Neptune conjunct the Midheaven (and opposing the IC) sextiles Uranus and Pluto creating the configuration. Here we have a beautiful picture of the three outer planets geometrically linked at the moment of eruption.

Uranus, Neptune and Pluto all place their signatures on the nuclear age. The development of nuclear science began in the mid-to-late 1800s, just after the discovery of Neptune, and continued apace in the 1930s after the discovery of Pluto. Uranium was discovered in 1789, and named after the planet, which had been discovered seven years beforehand.

Uranium, Plutonium and Neptunium “sit” together on the periodic table (Neptunium coming between Uranium and Plutonium) and all three are capable of producing a nuclear explosion.

While most of us are familiar with Plutonium’s and Uranium’s role in nuclear devices, Neptunium not so much. It is usable in nuclear weapons, although no country has done so, and it is mainly known as a bi-product from nuclear reactors and Plutonium production. Nonetheless, it is part of this unholy trinity, so to speak.

Uranus, Pluto and Neptune tend to be in key positions at the time of nuclear events.

The outer planets take us to a new level in terms of knowledge and consciousness, and now, as they unite in this minor Grand Trine (a trine of three planets made up of two sextiles) or Small Talent Triangle, we can expect significant developments regarding all things nuclear. Already we’ve had Vladimir Putin threatening to “go nuclear” should any western nuclear power assist “aggression against Russia”, and then there is the constant threat posed by the fighting in Ukraine close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The dropping of the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 was a milestone. As you may note, the Sun was conjunct Pluto, Uranus conjunct the Midheaven (and Mars). Mars and Neptune were the “head” and “tail” of the Bundle shaping. The Moon-Saturn conjunction occupies the degree of the total solar eclipse which took place a month earlier.

When Reactor Number Four exploded and caught fire at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine, the resulting radio-active cloud spread over vast areas of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Europe. At the moment the reactor exploded, Uranus was rising, the Sun was exactly opposed to Pluto, two days after a total lunar eclipse (4 degrees Scorpio 03’), and there was a rising Mars-Neptune conjunction.

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan’s eastern coast on 11 March, 2011, was so powerful it shifted the Earth off its axis and triggered a tsunami which wiped entire towns from the map. 18,000 people were killed. The wave flooded the reactors of the Fukushima power plant, leaking radiation across a large swathe of Japan.

Here, in this chart, Neptune is angular, which reflects the watery aspect of the disaster. Uranus is part of a seven-planet stellium in Aquarius, Pisces and Aries. Pluto is at the apex of a T-square involving a Jupiter-Saturn opposition. The nodal axis, incidentally (the point at which eclipses occur), was not only on the degree that makes its appearance all too often at eruptions, but is also Japan’s natal Moon (28 degrees Gemini 41’).

As I was putting together this part of the Friday Bite, it was announced that the Nobel Peace Prize had gone to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese anti-nuclear weapons group.

Synchronicities abound! More seriously, with a full moon set to take place next Thursday amid a cluster of aspects we can only describe as tense – explosive might be nearer the mark – I don’t think we can entirely rule out a natural disaster or a man-inspired atrocity in the second half of October.

I REFERRED BRIEFLY to this full moon in my last Friday Bite since it is close to Kamala Harris’s natal Sun-Moon opposition and squaring Donald Trump’s Venus-Saturn conjunction, not to mention the exact Venus-Uranus opposition, which is squaring the US Moon and Donald Trump’s natal Mars. All of which portends an event that will have a major impact on America and the forthcoming election.

As we can see from the chart of the full moon, it forms a Grand Cross with a Mars-Pluto opposition, and since I have set the chart from the perspective of Washington, this configuration falls on all four angles. However, the Grand Cross is present for all countries and all people, albeit in different parts of the horoscopic circle.

If there was a single world to encapsulate this astro-scape, controversial would cut it, although we might describe it as earth-shaking. Someone’s going to fall off their perch.

If we look back at the preceding eclipses of 18 September (lunar) and 2 October (solar) both of these have already played into significant developments of the past three weeks, not least Iran’s 180-missile attack on Israel and Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon. We have lost some great, great names, not least Dame Maggie Smith, and, of course, there have been typhoons, hurricanes and floods that have wreaked untold disasters.  

I cannot see with my psychic eye what these many and varied forthcoming events will be, but I have laid the groundwork astrologically-speaking in this week’s and last week’s Friday Bites and my recent videos FULL MOON IN ARIES  and SOLAR ECLIPSE IN LIBRA (Watch the videos on my Youtube Channel).

It’s going to be a wild ride, and we’re probably going to lose some riders along the way. 

Friday Bite: 4 October 2024

Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November

Israel – Iran – United States – Election – Trump – Harris

“Israel will not go gentle into that good night, we will never need to rage against the dying of the light, because the torch of Israel will forever shine bright,” Netanyahu, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 27 September.

“Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again,” Netanyahu, United Nations Headquarters New York, 27 September.

“Iran has made a big mistake tonight, and will pay for it.” Netanyahu, 2 October

“Iran is at war.”  Ali Akbar Ahmadian, Chair of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, 2 October

WHEN I POSTED the Friday Bite last week, Hurricane Helene, with winds of 140 mph and a storm surge of twenty feet, had made landfall in Florida. Despite being downgraded to a tropical storm, it went on to cause extensive flooding and landslides throughout Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Alabama. Two hundred and fifteen people are known to have died and hundreds remain unaccounted for.

At the same time that Helene was devastating America’s south east, Israel launched a series of air attacks on Lebanon’s capital. We later learned that Israel had specifically targeted Hezbollah’s headquarters in the centre of Beirut where Hassan Nasrallah and senior commanders were gathered in a bunker deep below. Confirmation of the death of the Hezbollah leader came on Monday.

Roughly an hour before Friday’s attack on Beirut, which he had just authorized, Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a half-empty hall at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The Israeli prime minister made no mention of the cease-fire deals for Gaza and Lebanon that had been championed by the United States and agreed to by Hassan Nasrallah.

Thus far, one million people in Lebanon have been displaced, 1,600 are dead and 6,000 injured.

On Tuesday night, Iran fired 180 ballistic missiles into Israel, targeting air bases. Almost all the missiles were intercepted by Israel’s defence system.

Also on Tuesday, in a land far, far away, Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was signed in. She is Mexico’s first female president, a former mayor of Mexico City and a climate scientist.

Hours after the new Mexican president was inaugurated, vice-presidents elect, Tim Walz and JD Vance, were on a CBS News stage in New York for their first and only television debate. I didn’t watch the event but, by all accounts, it was civilized and both candidates emerged relatively unscathed. Just for the record, Mr Vance refused to be drawn on whether he believed the 2020 election to have been “stolen” preferring instead to point out that Kamela Harris was the threat to democracy, not Donald Trump.

And while we’re on the subject of Mr Trump, on Wednesday, a new165-page document regarding Donald Trump’s alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 election were filed by the federal prosecutor, Jack Smith. Mr Trump is not bothered. He fully expects to be president elect by the time the deadline for a response is reached. The seventh of November.

Not only is the weather forming a fitting background to the growing international turmoil, but on Wednesday, a massive solar flare “a colossal X-class eruption” occurred triggering short-wave radio blackouts in Africa and Europe, the sunlit parts of the world at the time. And then there is comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas, aka A 3, which is within range of planet Earth and from next week will be visible in the sky to the west, just after sunset.

A 3 has not made an appearance in our skies for 80,000 years and like all comets is believed to herald great things to come. As indeed do eclipses. And on Wednesday, a spectacular ring-of-fire solar eclipse took place.

Clearly, if you’re reading this, you have an interest in astrology, but for millions of people across the world astrology is a nonsense – an entertainment at best, a scourge on civilization at worst. However, there is a very strong case to be made for the validity of astrology given events of the current time and the prevailing alignments, including the eclipses, that have presided over them.

Wednesday’s solar eclipse at 10 degrees of Libra was conjunct the fixed star, Vindemiatrix, and the dwarf planet, Makemake, and opposed to the fixed star, Algenib. All three celestial bodies come with a health warning: these two fixed stars are considered unfortunate and Makemake, in keeping with the other dwarf planets, including Pluto, is a creator-destroyer. The solar eclipse was also conjoined to Israel’s Neptune and opposed to Iran’s Sun and Hezbollah’s Mars. (You can read more about this eclipse in last week’s Bite, which follows on from this.)

In last week’s Bite, I suggested, “That the solar eclipse is conjunct Israel’s Neptune is a concern. While Neptune represents the spiritual and ideological battle that Israel is fighting, there is more than an element of sacrifice and loss in the mix, enough to imply that Israel may be hoisted by its own petard. That the solar eclipse is conjunct Hezbollah’s Mars and Iran’s Sun is self-explanatory. Like it or not, want it or not, the time has come for a reckoning.”

Events in the Middle East don’t just stay in the Middle East. Already, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Iran’s response to them have almost certainly affected the trajectory of the United States’ election. And while much of the Middle East and the west would prefer to see the regime in Tehran wiped off the face of the Earth, backing Israel’s intent to do something about it is a bridge too far for most of them.

In the opinion of many, Donald Trump is seen as someone who can “fix” the problem while Biden’s policies, which Harris has inherited, are seen as hypocritical and appealing neither to the pro-Israel camp nor the pro-Palestinian. These policies, however, were also the policies of the Trump administration.

While Democrats have been encouraged by the pace at which Kamala is eroding Trump’s lead in many states, this trend may well be about to stall. Even if Ms Harris succeeds in winning the popular vote in the election, the electoral vote is a rather different matter.

I have stated several times that Donald Trump would not return to the White House, however, with the events of the past seven days, this prediction is beginning to look unsafe. I find it interesting that many Vedic astrologers believe the former president will win the election. I’m not a Vedic astrologer so I have no idea how they have reached their conclusions, but, as a western, geocentric-based astrologer there are more signs of a loss than a win.

In the charts above, the natal horoscopes of Trump and Harris occupy the inner ring and the outer rings display the planetary positions on 5 November. The election chart is set for Washington at the time voting stations open. The Moon is void-of-course suggesting from the outset that “nothing will come of the matter”, which infers that either the voting process will be interrupted/never happen or that the result will be contested.

This is where the filing of the new165-page document regarding Donald Trump’s alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 is timely. And if there’s one thing you can say about eclipses it is that they are timely. They reveal what needs to be revealed at the appropriate time. There are five key points made in the document and while all of them refer to actions which failed in 2020, they have a much better chance of succeeding this time round.

1)     Trump planned to claim victory, no matter what, even before all the ballots were counted.
2)     Part of the plan to claim victory was to cite voter fraud.
3)     Despite countless attempts by the vice president, Mike Pence, to convince Trump to accept the result of the election, the outgoing president continued to spread false claims and mount spurious legal challenges.
4)     Campaign staff created such chaos in battleground states that it risked turning violent.
5)     Trump and his allies allegedly sought to exploit the chaos at the Capital on 6 January in order to delay the election certification.

In Trump’s favour, transiting Jupiter is conjunct his north node and the Sun, and opposing his natal Moon while Venus is conjunct his Moon and opposing his Sun. A victory is likely. On the downside, Uranus is conjunct his Midheaven indicating an unexpected upset and a “removal” from power. The Midheaven of the election chart (25 degrees Leo 55 minutes) is conjunct Trump’s natal Mars suggesting he has a fight on his hands, and since Mars is opposing Pluto, it’s not going to be a pretty one.

In Kamala Harris’s favour, the transiting Venus-Jupiter opposition is flanking her Ascendant-Descendant axis while Uranus is conjoined to her Jupiter. That Jupiter rules her seventh house certainly suggests she has the American people behind her and is therefore likely to win the popular vote, possibly by a large margin. On the minus side, transiting Neptune is inconjunct her Libran Sun while Saturn is opposing her natal Uranus, so there is a loss in there somewhere.

Right now, there are thirty-one days to go before the US election. And a lot can happen in thirty-one days. Ahead of us lies a huge astrological minefield centring on the full moon in Aries on 17 October. Already, Jupiter is in stationary mode (exact on 9 October), so that the good is going to be fabulous and the bad is going to be off the scale. Pluto turns direct on the 12th squaring Mercury (who was it who said Iran has made a big mistake and will pay for it…) and the full moon itself forms a grand cross with the Mars-Pluto opposition at the same time as Venus opposes Uranus, which is conjunct the fixed star Algol! As for that full moon it is within three degrees of Harris’s natal Sun-Moon opposition.

It’s time to batten down the hatches. However things look now, they’re going to look rather different by the fifth of November.