Friday Bite 5 September 2025

Tremors

“The big question to be answered is whether or not President Xi of China will mention the massive amount of support and ‘blood’ that The United States of America gave to China in order to help it to secure its FREEDOM from a very unfriendly foreign invader. Many Americans died in China’s quest for Victory and Glory… Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.” Donald Trump, 3 September

“Today, mankind is faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero-sum… the Chinese people firmly stand on the right side of history.” Xi Jinping, 3 September

AS WE MIGHT expect, with days to go before a total lunar eclipse, the past week got off to an earth-shaking start. On Sunday, a little before midnight, a 6.0 magnitude earthquake shook the earth near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, killing over 2000 people and injuring thousands more. The area is highly earthquake prone and with the drought already creating a humanitarian crisis, this devastating earthquake heaps tragedy on tragedy.

I’m not going to go into great astrological detail about the earthquake, but I did notice some intriguing factors. At the moment the ground erupted, 28 degrees of Gemini was rising. You may remember in recent Bites I have pointed to this degree area as sensitive to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the like. Afghanistan’s north node falls at 27 degrees Gemini. In other words, the moment the quake occurred the Ascendant was conjoined to the country’s eclipse point. And it is, of course, a highly earthquake-prone area. The Midheaven at 8 Degrees of Pisces was conjunct the nation’s Mars and squaring its Saturn-Pluto opposition. The Sun at 8 degrees 38ʹ Virgo was conjoined to the IC and at the midpoint of the Moon and Uranus. The Moon (15 degrees Sagittarius) was conjoined to the country’s Pluto and in-square to the total lunar eclipse set to take place on 7 September. (Eclipses not only have elastic timelines, but the imprint of the eclipse, the degree area involved, will figure in the chart of certain significant events in the surrounding weeks.)

Of course, sadly, none of these astrological factors will help warn of an eruption. It is just fascinating to see the symbolism of the earthquake and its resonances with the nation involved at that moment in time.

TREMORS OF AN entirely different kind were to be felt at the sight of President Xi Jinping walking down a red carpet flanked by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un with a host of other dictators and sundry authoritarians behind them. It was September 3^rd and China was celebrating its victory over Japan in World War II. It was only the second time that the historic event had been celebrated with a full military parade, and in the same way as the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics (2008) was staggering in its scale and content, so too was this event.

The Victory Day celebration comes at a time when the world order is changing and, aside from the country’s might in terms of its war machinery being on display, so too were the leaders and nations at the helm of the new world order. (Did I hear the words, “The Unholy Trinity” in my ear just then?)

It sent a profound message to the West. And poor President Trump had his nose bent severely out of joint.

WHICH BRINGS ME to another notable event of the past week, the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, openly referring to the American President as a “Soviet or Russian asset” at a Portuguese Socialist Party gathering. Portugal was in the news for more tragic reasons later in the week when one of Lisbon’s famous funicular cars derailed and came hurtling down the street, breaking up like a cardboard box when it hit a building. Seventeen people were killed and many injured. Currently, the Saturn-Neptune conjunction is on the country’s IC and the focus of the forthcoming solar eclipse of 21 September.

IT HAS NOT been a good week for Donald Trump. The rumour mill had been grinding since before the Labour Day weekend when it occurred to people that the president had been uncharacteristically silent and out of view for more than a week. His health has been a topic of interest for some time, but in keeping with his sobriquet, the Teflon President, he used his first public appearance in a week not only to announce that the US Space Command headquarters will move to Huntsville, Alabama, but to debunk stories of his imminent demise.

I’m not a conspiracy lover but I suggest we watch this space. The forthcoming solar eclipse falls smack on the USA’s Midheaven, suggesting a new chapter for the government and the president. As I said last week, however, it may take until the following solar eclipse of 17 February 2026 for the situation to fully play out.

STILL IN POLITICS but across the pond in Blighty, it’s been a difficult week for the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner (Sun Aries/Moon Virgo). The acquisition of an £800,000 apartment on the Hove seafront appears to have been purchased without the correct amount of stamp duty (tax) being paid. A situation made all the more embarrassing because Ms Rayner is the Secretary of State for Housing. At the time of writing, Ms Rayner has not resigned, but it wouldn’t be out of the question for the government to lose one of its top people on a total lunar eclipse. Plus, it was Sir Keir’s sixty-third birthday on Wednesday (Sun exactly conjunct Pluto in Virgo).

EVEN IF YOU were not aware of the turmoil taking place at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – the public health agency of the United States), you will probably have heard of Robert F Kennedy Jr..

RFK Jr, was always going to be a controversial choice to look after the nation’s health given that he has no medical background and holds some unconventional views on health, particularly vaccines. On 9 June, Kennedy removed all seventeen members of the vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with several of his allies including some vaccine sceptics. Fast forward to 26 August: Kennedy ordered Susan Monarez, the director of the CDC, to fire several high-ranking members of the organization. She refused and he fired her. Monarez’ lawyers advised her to remain in her post since Kennedy did not appoint her. It was up to the White House to hire and fire. Which they did on the 27th.

It was against this background that Kennedy appeared before a Senate Committee convened to review his record as Health Secretary.

FYI, on the same day, Florida’s Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, announced that the state was moving to end all vaccine mandates comparing these life-saving measures to slavery.

I looked at Robert F Kennedy’s chart when he was running for president, and came to the conclusion that it was not the horoscope of a president. A cluster of planets in his sixth house – Sun, Mercury, Venus, the north node and Chiron – are all squaring Neptune, conjoined to the IC, and Uranus (in the twelfth house) is opposed to all his Capricorn planets and squares Neptune forming an impressive T-square in Cardinal signs. While admittedly, such friction in a chart can inspire greatness, and in this case with these planets involved, a selfless devotion to the care and well-being of other people, sometimes life is too hard to cope with and escapism by one route or another is the response.

Ironically, with all those sixth house planets and the angular Neptune, Kennedy would have made a fine doctor, and these factors certainly explain why he has ended up in charge of the nation’s health and well-being.

Neptune conjunct the IC and in the fourth house along with Mars and Saturn speak volumes about his illustrious but tragic background. Like so many people with Neptune in the fourth house (King Charles comes to mind) he has struggled with imposter-syndrome. With Leo rising and the Sun in Capricorn, Kennedy probably believes he was born to follow in the hallowed footsteps of his father and uncle, yet deep down he fears he doesn’t have what it takes. He’s not worthy enough. In a recent podcast for The Daily Beast, Michael Wolff, the award-winning writer and author of three best-selling tomes on Donald Trump, said that Kennedy with whom he had spent years “on the trail” was mentally scarred by his father’s and uncle’s assassinations, which almost certainly led to his drug abuse.

The Kennedy family has distanced itself from RFK jr. Indeed, his cousin Caroline (daughter of JFK and former US ambassador) wrote a letter to the Senate prior to his confirmation hearing citing his drug addiction and lack of medical experience as reasons not to appoint him as Health Secretary: “[Bobby holds] dangerous and wilfully misinformed views on vaccines… he is addicted to attention and power.”

Which brings us to today and Thursday’s stormy hearing before the Senate Committee. There have been calls for his resignation, but with Trump’s backing – essential to keep the MAGA voters on side – he will survive the current brouhaha at the CDC. He’ll live to fight another day. Nonetheless, with transiting Pluto hovering over his Descendant for another year and Saturn set to reach his Midheaven in the spring of 2026, his days as Health and Human Services Secretary are numbered. The worrying thing is, just how many children will die from perfectly preventable diseases in the meantime.

I thought I’d leave you with another look at the chart of the total lunar eclipse. In reality, it will be visible across most of the world on Sunday, with the exception of North and South America, and it will loom large because the Moon is so close to Earth. What it bodes remains in shadow for the moment.

I’m taking a short holiday next week so there will be no Friday Bite. I apologize, but I’m not a robot!

Friday Bite 29 August 2025

The Dog Days of Summer

“The right to keep and bear arms is premised on self-defense. A well-armed citizenry secures a free state by protecting the nation and its individuals from three distinct threats: tyranny, foreign invasion, and domestic dangers such as crime and civil unrest.” The Essential Second Amendment: the Heritage Foundation website.

“There’s only one thing I wish for, that the Nobel Committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since the Nobel Peace, this Nobel award was ever talked about.” Steve Witkoff to Donald Trump, cabinet meeting, 27 August.

 “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. Donald Trump, 26 August.

SYNCHRONICITIES ARE FASCINATING, and they’re coming thick and fast this August. Maybe I’m working too hard and in danger of reading too much into simple coincidences and mind burps, but in the past three weeks, I have heard “Yalta” in my head (just before the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska), accidentally stumbled across a photograph of Chamberlain waving the infamous piece of paper upon which Hitler had signed his name to peace, and this week, into my recommended Good Reads, dropped Alan Furst’s brilliant novel about that same period of time Midnight in Europe.

I’m sure I’m not the only one discerning parallels between the period prior to World War II and the current time, whether we’re observing the spread of fascism and other extremist movements across the globe or the brutal and imperialistic actions of states like Russia and Israel. History is calling to us and reminding us that we can benefit from its lessons.

It seems like months but it’s been only two weeks since President Trump met Vladimir Putin in Anchorage. We look back on that event now without the benefit of rose-coloured glasses and see it for what it was – a masterstroke for the Russian president and a humiliation for Donald Trump. It was not a prelude to peace. And it is abundantly clear from the attacks on Ukraine that have continued unabated since August 15th that Russia has no appetite for peace. It wants to eat up Ukraine, regardless of what’s left of it after the bombings have stopped. And Russia won’t stop there. It has its sights on the Baltic states and the European countries on the borders of Ukraine. And beyond.

Russia is baiting the West. It perceives the West as weak. This much is obvious from its pointed attack on the US factory in remotest Ukraine less than a week after the Anchorage summit. Then came the Russian drone that flew 100 kilometres into Polish air space before it crashed (21st August)). And yesterday, two cruise missiles brought down British and European Union Council buildings in the centre of Kyiv, killing at least twenty-three, during one of the biggest and most intense aerial attacks since the start of the war. The United Kingdom and the European Union have summoned their Russian ambassadors for a rap across the knuckles but as far as any retaliation goes – nada, niet, zilch. Sir Keir Starmer posted that the attack was “senseless” and that “this bloodshed must end”. And President Trump was “not happy” but also “not surprised”.  Really? Is that it?

Where are the sanctions that would cripple Russia’s economy? If it can’t fund its war machine, the war will stop.

THE ABOVE CHART represents the moment yesterday’s attack on Ukraine’s capital began. It may seem counter-intuitive that Venus, the planet of love, peace and harmony, is rising, but Venus is often prominent at the time of wars and major battles. Plus,Venus is closely opposed to eruptive Pluto, and caught up in the Envelope/Mystic Rectangle/Cradle/Trapezoid that I have examined in almost every Friday Bite recently.

The angles of the chart are critical to this grand alignment, which suggests once again just how important “the moment” is when it comes to events of significance. And while we’re on the subject of grand alignments…

On Saturday, 30th, the Moon will enter Sagittarius just after two in the afternoon (UTC), and around six in the evening will oppose Uranus, thereby producing an even grander configuration made up of six equally spaced planets and points. It will be interesting to see if around that time anything of global significance occurs. Certainly, I expect some mystically-minded souls will be awaiting portals and convergences to manifest inviting the open and the enlightened to experience the divine consciousness flooding through the cosmos at that moment.

What these configurations are most certainly doing are presiding over a critical period in our history. And I suspect we will look back on 2025 and see this particular time which covers the forthcoming eclipses, as the most critical. Decisions made now in high places will affect our fate. The steps we take will manifestly affect our future.

I noticed that the solar eclipse of 21 September, which is opposed to Saturn and Neptune, flanks the United States’ MC-IC axis and opposes Great Britain’s Moon. Back in the day – and we’re talking some two thousand years ago – to the astrologer-astronomers of Chaldea, a solar eclipse foretold the death of a king. In order to get around this unpleasant fate, the monarch would abdicate the throne leaving a substitute in place for the duration of the eclipse, then he would return once it was over. In the normal order of things when a king dies a new monarch ascends the throne, so a solar eclipse, particularly on the Mid-heaven of a country’s chart, also becomes a sign of a new ruler and a new order.

I’ll explore the potential of the total lunar eclipse (7th September) and the solar eclipse (21st September) to upset the established order of things in the weeks to come. However, as far as the United States is concerned, we may well be looking at the resignation or demise of the president. And although we could anticipate such a development occurring in the days around September 21st, I think we would be better extending the time period to the following solar eclipse of 17 February, 2026 at 28 degrees of Aquarius – the United States Moon.

Somewhere between mid-September and February of next year, the White House may well have a new tenant.

To return to the current configurations, these same angles are presiding over many, many significant events in countries across the globe. On Monday, in what looked like a targeted attack, Israeli missiles struck Gaza’s Nasser hospital twice, killing five journalists and fifteen others. On Tuesday, Australia expelled all Iranian diplomats and severed diplomatic ties with Iran, accusing it of two antisemitic arson attacks. On Thursday, twenty-three-year-old Robin Westman fired dozens of shots through a church window at children attending mass at the Annunciation Catholic school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He killed two young children and injured seventeen before turning the gun on himself.

Under these powerful alignments, FBI agents raided the home of Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, reportedly looking for classified documents. Bolton is the fifth of the president’s critics to be targeted by the FBI in recent months. And still the firings and resignations in high places go on, not to mention the prospect of more cities set to welcome the National Guard onto their streets.

And under these unprecedented influences and in the space of a mere seven months, America, once the greatest democracy on earth, metamorphosed into an authoritarian state.