Friday Bite: 17 January 2025

Bellum Interruptus

THE END IS in sight. On Wednesday, Joe Biden, in one of his last presidential acts, addressed the American nation with the news everyone had waited for: It’s a very good afternoon… at long last I can announce a ceasefire and hostage deal has been reached between Hamas and Israel”. Within hours, jubilation had been replaced by anguish as Gaza suffered yet more destruction and loss of life. On Thursday, we learned from Prime Minister Netanyahu that he had delayed the cabinet vote to approve the ceasefire deal, accusing Hamas of seeking last minute changes.

The forty-two-day ceasefire is set to come into force on Sunday. The agreement comprises three stages: the first, and the most comprehensive, involves the release of thirty-three hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Israeli troops will pull out of all populated areas of Gaza while Palestinians can return to their neighbourhoods. At the same time, humanitarian aid convoys will enter Gaza.

According to how well the first stage goes, the second stage will be “a permanent end to the war”. And the third stage: the reconstruction of Gaza.

In his speech announcing the ceasefire deal, Biden reminded us that it was in large part the agreement he had proposed in May last year. Success has many fathers, of course, and Donald Trump also reminded us that it was his threat to “unleash hell” that hastened the deal. It is difficult not to see rather a lot of political engineering having taken place to get the agreement in place just as Mr Trump assumes office.

I’ll take a look at the portents for the ceasefire agreement shortly.

Other newsworthy developments include Sir Keir Starmer’s visit to Kyiv where he signed a landmark 100-year pact with Ukraine and vowed to put the country in “the strongest possible position”, presumably in preparation for the inevitable peace talks with Putin. Russia marked the occasion by a drone attack on the city.

On the evening of the fifteenth, after announcing the ceasefire deal, Joe Biden gave his farewell address to the nation. He warned of a “tech-industrial complex” and an “oligarchy” that “literally threaten[s] our entire democracy”. The outgoing president further warned of a “crumbling” free press, rising disinformation and a need to remove dark money from politics. He also called for constitutional amendments to ensure presidential accountability, and that no president should be immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office.

To say the burdens of the presidency are heavy is an understatement, and Biden has been in power during one of the most tumultuous periods of history. He has been a “quiet” president, a president who prefers a behind-the-scenes approach to running the country as opposed to strutting out front of house – “I’m not a very good huckster”. However, his phlegmatism combined with the diminution of his former acuity, has all too often made him appear weak and ineffectual. History may well judge him differently.

“What I believe is that the America of our dreams is always closer than we think. It’s up to us to make our dreams come true.”

At 17:38 on Thursday evening, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship took off from Boca Chica in Texas. Three minutes later it exploded or, as SpaceX explained, “Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn”. Its booster, however, managed to return successfully and lodged neatly into its launchpad. Hours before, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company hailed “a new era in commercial spaceflight” when its giant New Glen rocket made a successful maiden launch.

These were not the only celestial stories in town. On Tuesday, Comet c/2024 G3, aka Atlas, became visible in the evening sky. This comet has not entered the inner solar system for around 180,000 years and will not be seen again for another 600,000 years. Suffice to say, if you believe comets are messengers, it has come at a time of great global change, not least recent events in the Middle East and those surrounding Donald Trump’s return to the White House. 

The above chart is set for the moment President Biden announced the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel. I could be out by a couple of minutes, but I think the Pisces Midheaven makes a certain sense, which, had Biden walked to the podium at 2:30, would not have been the case: Neptune, as the ruler of the Midheaven and in its own sign, conjunct the fixed star Scheat and the north node, plus the fact that it is the focal point of the Kite configuration, brings together all manner of Neptunian themes – hope, divine love, loss, sacrifice, suffering, betrayal and treachery among them – all of which are wrapped up in this situation.

There is another Kite formed by the Grand Trine (Uranus, Sun and the south node) this time through the opposition between the Sun/Pluto and Mars.

While Kites are considered to be helpful alignments – a gift, no less – the heart of the configuration is an opposition which means friction and crisis are essential to the manifestation of that gift, to get the Kite to fly. I have referred to these Kite configurations several times in recent weeks, given that Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are in a sustained minor Grand Trine, and need only the participation of a faster moving, personal planet to turn it into a Kite.

Mars and Pluto have been in opposition since October. They formed an exact aspect on 3 November and 3 January (Mars in retrograde), but now the Sun has joined the opposition amplifying its potential. This combination, while inspiring courage, feats of daring and incisive action is also highly combustible and we remain in danger of an escalation of hostilities and random violent episodes.

While Venus’s proximity to the Midheaven gives peace a chance, the Sun/Pluto-Mars opposition says otherwise. Venus is applying to Saturn and will be exact on the nineteenth when the ceasefire comes into being. This conjunction can be a positive in that Saturn provides the staying power for the ceasefire to hold, but it can also be a negative in that old patterns have too much of a hold on the situation making it difficult for either side to let go and move on.

At the time Biden announced the ceasefire agreement, 23 degrees of Gemini was rising (Hamas’s Ascendant and Israel’s Uranus), Uranus (23 degrees Taurus) was conjunct Israel’s Sun, Palestine’s Midheaven and opposite Palestine’s Sun) while Mars (26 degrees Cancer) was conjunct Israel’s Midheaven, and inconjunct Hamas’s Saturn-Uranus conjunction. There are some other connections between the charts of all concerned, but suffice to say, the ones I have mentioned trigger what we might call both side’s fight-or-flee response.

Perhaps you don’t need me to tell you that this ceasefire will be fragile, but it may hold long enough to get the Israeli hostages out, Palestinians back to their homeland and desperately needed resources into decimated Gaza. It may even hold long enough to bring an official end to the war. But a sustained peace and a two-state solution? That’s probably a bridge too far.

Friday Bite: 10 January 2025

Apocalypse Now

ACROSS THE WORLD, conflicts rage, but even Gaza must take a temporary back seat to the catastrophe unfolding in California. Nature’s power to devastate has been on full display. In minutes, flames engulfed whole tracts of land taking homes, lives and livelihoods with them: they did not discriminate between the rich or the poor. Million-dollar houses belonging to the wealthy and famous are now smouldering ruins as are the homes of ordinary people. The damage is currently estimated at $135 billion. It is Los Angeles’ most destructive fire ever and the costliest in US history.

We can choose to negotiate with tyrants but not with nature.

The Los Angeles wildfires began within hours of an earthquake that struck the foothills of the Himalayas near one of Tibet’s holiest cities on Tuesday, killing at least 126 people and flattening hundreds of houses. The impact was felt across the Shigatse region of Tibet, home to 800,000 people.

While the planetary alignments did not cause these events, they are presiding over all the turmoil currently raging in different parts of the worlds – political turmoil included.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation. There have been growing calls for him to step down – in October, twenty-four MPs signed a letter calling for his resignation – and the departure of his closest ally, Chrysta Freeland, finance minister, appears to have been the last straw. Parliament is now suspended until 24 March by which time a new leader for the Liberal Party should be in place – Ms Freeland being named as a possible replacement. The country is set to elect a new government in October, but it is likely the opposition will force an election well before that date. Not helping the crisis but fuelling it, President-Elect Trump has threatened to impose crippling tariffs on Canada and suggested he might annexe the country.

Here in Blighty, beleaguered Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer and his Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Jess Phillips are busy fending off attacks by Elon Musk over their actions (or rather inaction) regarding crimes of gangs of men – mainly of Pakistani descent – who systematically groomed and raped children in English towns over decades. On his X platform, Musk called for prison for Starmer and Phillips, who he characterizes as a “rape genocide apologist”. Not content with attacking the sitting Prime Minster and his Under-Secretary, Musk posted that Nigel Farage, who hours beforehand had called the tech billionaire a friend, was not fit to lead the Reform Party.

Several European leaders have taken to the podium to question Musk’s interference in European affairs, Macron saying, “Ten years ago, who could have imagined it if we had been told that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany,” The French President did not go quite as far as the Norwegian Prime Minister who said he found it “worrying” that Musk, “a man with enormous access to social media” would be so “directly involved” in the politics of other nations.

Last but not least, today, President-Elect Donald Trump will be sentenced by Judge Juan Marchan in the “Hush money case”. Trump was found guilty on 30 May of falsifying business records with the intent to commit a second crime (an illegal campaign contribution). He will most likely be given an “unconditional discharge”, which means the conviction holds but he will be released without imprisonment, fine or probation supervision.

Mr Trump has had a busy week, suggesting that the United States should take over Greenland and the Panama Canal and rename the Gulf of Mexico.

“People don’t really know if Denmark has any legal right [to own Greenland]. If they do, they should give it up… The Panama Canal is vital to our country… It’s being operated by China… and we’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America… which has a beautiful name.”

THE ABOVE CHART marks the moment a wild fire took hold in the Pacific Palisades, one of the most beautiful and wealthy areas of Los Angeles. I was struck by Neptune’s position on the Ascendant – Neptune resonating with all things watery, the very antithesis of fire. The preceding two years had produced an exceptionally high rainfall, making the hills and surrounding areas lush and verdant, but in the last few months there had been virtually no rain. Thus, the once abundant vegetation had dried out, fuelling the fire.

On top of this, water supplies were inadequate – many fire hydrants proving empty or at least unable to function. Not it must be said through lack of funding. Due to the ferocity and extent of the fire, the demand for water was four times the norm, causing water pressure to lower, which made it difficult – impossible in some instances – to achieve enough force to get into the higher-elevation tanks at the rate necessary to address a fire moving five football fields a minute, boosted by the Santa Ana winds. Quite simply, according to Janisse Quinones, CEO of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, “we are fighting a wildfire with an urban water system”.

The role of Neptune in this tragedy cannot be underestimated. Not only is Neptune precisely conjunct the Ascendant but it is the ruler of the chart and in square to Mercury, which is conjunct the Midheaven. Mercury is on the critical twenty-ninth degree, as is Mars, co-ruler of the first house. And Mars is closely opposed to Pluto.

To all intents and purposes, this moment in time reflects a “perfect storm”.

What you cannot see in the above chart is the position of the fixed star, Scheat, at 29 degrees of Pisces. This fixed star is considered to be unfortunate, especially regarding events at sea. To Ptolemy, Scheat is “of the nature of Mars and Mercury” and to Alvidas, the nature of Neptune square Saturn or Mars”. Scheat is the equal of Algol in terms of disaster, which at 25 degrees of Taurus is currently conjoined to Uranus. (You may remember, Algol figured in the assassination attempts on Mr Trump whose Midheaven is 25 degrees of Taurus. And it is still a factor to be considered.)

There are three horoscopes for Los Angeles but the above chart reflects the moment the city was incorporated. That this enormous city sits on the Saint Andreas Fault is well represented by the Uranus-Pluto conjunction on the Midheaven – currently being squared by the Mars-Pluto opposition. As the Pacific Palisades caught fire, the Moon at twenty-seven degrees of Aries was on the mid-point of the natal Uranus-Pluto conjunction. The Sun, at seventeen degrees of Capricorn, was conjoined to LA’s natal Moon (representative of the people).  What may also be of significance is that the last lunar eclipse occurred at 25 degrees of Pisces 41ʹ.

Tens of thousands of people’s lives have been transformed by the fires that have swept through and continue to pose a threat to Los Angeles. And you can be assured that every single person will have this life-changing event imprinted in their charts. The outer planets – Pluto, Uranus and Neptune – are all transformers in their unique ways; they all preside over events over which we have no control and which end some aspect of our existence.

Once the shock, despair and grief have passed, anger will come. And after anger, the determination to rebuild. Los Angeles will rise again.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU IS experiencing a kind of apocalypse – the end of his tenure as Prime Minister of Canada and possibly the end of his political career. Currently, Neptune (and Sheat) are conjoined to his natal Mars and opposing natal Pluto. Plus, the transiting Mars-Pluto opposition is squaring his Venus, the ruler of his Mid-heaven (his role in life). By solar-arc progression, the north node has also reached his natal Mars. It will take until April for Uranus to precisely conjoin his Midheaven and July for this same planet to reach Saturn. At the same time, transiting Neptune and Saturn will be squaring his Sun in Capricorn and opposing his natal Pluto.

It’s another perfect storm.

As a young MP and son of the Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, Justin was considered a bit of a lightweight. However, in March, 2012, after taking on Canada’s youngest senator, Patrick Brazeau – a black belt in karate – in a boxing match and winning, his image was transformed as were his political fortunes. He became Canada’s Prime Minister a year later.

For many years Trudeau has been popular both in his own country and on the global stage, but as problems related to his immigration policies and the economy grew his popularity plummeted.

I will return to Canada and the advent of the next Prime Minister, who may well be the populist firebrand, Pierre Poilievre, on another occasion. For the moment, rest assured, there is no sign of Canada becoming the 51^st state of America.

Oh Canada – Oh Canada -We stand on guard for thee!