DONALD TRUMP and THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

How does one write astrology at such a politically charged moment? It's probably when we need astrology more than ever, for this craft requires that we haul ourselves away from our personal responses in order to see what the planets are saying. The planets are not left or right wing. They are not promoting humanity's 'evolution' by favouring who we consider to be the 'good guys'. Their perspective is bigger than that, it is infinite. The best we can hope for is to catch awed glimpses of that infinitude - especially, perhaps, at times when our merely human desires and preferences as to what 'ought' to be are frustrated.

Trump's re-accession to the US Presidency can be seen as the first event in the coming Saturn-Neptune conjunction, both of which planets will have entered Aries by late May 2025. The last conjunction was in 1989, and it led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. A seismic, world-defining event.

This election seems similarly seismic. This Saturn-Neptune conjunction will not have Uranus sitting alongside it as in 1989. It will, however, sextile both Pluto and Uranus. This suggests a powerful transformation that also has an ease to it. The world does not have to fall apart for it to happen.

The US Sibly IC is at 1 Aries, so the US is entering a particularly transformational time, comparable to the Civil War period, when Neptune was also in this place (and, as is soon to come, Uranus conjunct Uranus). At that time, 2 different visions of the US brutally fought it out. I think that gives a clue to the meaning of the current, upcoming transit.

My interpretation is that it is the end of progressive, post-war liberalism as we know it. The battle between left and right has been particularly intense in the US in recent years. In the US, and across Europe, we have been seeing the political right making considerable gains. It has been practically illegal to be right wing in Europe since the war, but all that has been changing, most notably in Germany. Note I am not saying 'far right', because that term is a judgement that comes from the left, and I am trying to be descriptive.

Saturn-Neptune in Capricorn was a collapse of the structures (Capricorn) of the redemptive ideology (Neptune) of Communism. Saturn-Neptune in Aries is a new vision (Aries) of redemption (Neptune) through a move to the political right. Note I am not saying it IS a redemption, I am saying that is how it is seen by those who are voting it in.

Human societies move between left and right over time, when they feel that one has gone too far. The right is like the centre of a wheel, that holds it all together, that unifies. The left is like the perimeter of the wheel, that allows for diversity and creativity. Both have their places, both are necessary.

The next few years will not be pretty in many ways. Think Margaret Thatcher in the UK in the 1980s. She effected a profound transformation from the political right, but there was much misery along the way, and many came to detest her.

I think we will be seeing epoch-making change of that kind in the US under the Saturn-Neptune conjunction. I suspect that Trump will not serve a full term, as he has no major transits propelling him through, and Pluto is entering his 6th House of Health. JD Vance will finish the job, as Pluto empowers his Leo Sun.

All this, however, may not be what long-term history sees as the most significant event of this Saturn-Neptune period. What it may remember most, if Elon Musk has his way, is the first unmanned spaceship landing on Mars in 2026, followed by people in 2028. Now there's an Aries redemptive vision for you!

THE STATE OF THE UNION

THE STATE OF THE UNION

Normally when a leader is elected, they have some strong transits that power them through their term of office. Trump's first Presidency had Neptune squaring his Sun and Moon; Biden had Neptune opposite MC followed by Pluto square Moon and Uranus opposite Sun.

I am left scratching my head, however, at the astrology of this year's candidates. Trump will have Uranus aspecting his Angles, Kamala her MC. And that will be that. It will be over for both of them in a couple of years. What sort of Presidency will that be? There is no sustained or steady progress here. After a rocky Uranian start, they will be a lame-duck President for the final 2 years of their term.

If I had to hazard a guess as to who will win, I would say Harris, because Uranus will be active for slightly longer, and in sign.

 

Looking at the US Sibly Chart for the next 4 years, we see Neptune opposite MC followed by a Uranus Return. The last time Neptune was here was in 1860, the beginning of the Civil War. And, remarkably, there was also a Uranus Return. This, perhaps, tells us why Harris/Trump won't get much done: the present polarisation and division in Congress, and the culture wars in the wider culture, are likely to become more intense and to paralyse the country. This fits well with the divisive, Angular Uranus Return in 2027.

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Chiron's suffering is perfectly curable if we listen to the outer planets, for he is the bridge to them. The pain associated with Chiron only seems incurable if we attempt to address it according to collective norms and values. He is the call to our individual destiny. He asks us to be courageous. In the stories, he was the wise centaur who educated heroes such as Jason, Achilles and Hercules.

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Cancer edges slowly and sideways towards the divine light of Leo, hanging on to what is familiar and homely as she goes.

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THE US PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

Very few people are able to be remotely impartial about Trump. There is so much to dislike and disapprove of about the man personally, that no-one looks below the surface to ask but what did he do as President? What are his policies now? In this respect he is a great challenge to one's ability to be objective. It is much easier, and you will get far more approval from your peers, if you continue to froth at the mouth at the mere mention of the man's name. Caution: do not confuse your frothing at the mouth with insight into the Donald.

Kamala is still in her honeymoon period as a candidate, and further buoyed by the recent Democratic Convention. Everyone has an opinion on Trump, which is not likely to change much at this stage. We know, or think we know, him. We don't know Kamala very well.

Above is the chart for the first of their debates on 10th Sept. How does it impact the 2 candidates' charts? Keeping it simple, I would say that the strongest influence in the sky at that time is the Sun-Moon-Saturn-Jupiter mutable Grand Cross.

This impacts on Kamala personally through her Venus in Virgo. Virgo in a politician is popularity. With tr Saturn opposing it, she is going to have to earn it. Retrograde in Pisces, this is not an easy Saturn. It is good for collectives, but it needs to be channelled thoughtfully. Kamala's weakness is needing notes to speak from. She doesn't have that political instinct that knows what to say in the moment, which Trump has in spades, whether or not you agree with him. Her tactic of wanting the microphones unmuted is, I think, in the hope that Trump will keep interrupting her, and look bad for that. The lack of uninterrupted time in which to speak may also help conceal her difficulty with performing unscripted and thinking on her feet. If Trump wants to win, he will have to shut up sometimes. Like he had to with Biden because of the muted microphones, and it worked in his favour, as Biden had the space to undo himself.

 

The Grand Cross impacts powerfully on Trump’s chart, much more than it does Kamala’s, hard aspecting his Sun-Moon opposition in Gemini-Sag. In this case the Saturn is not so much about earning as reaping, because he is known and has a track record as President.

Saturn likes tangible evidence. Kamala is weak on specific policies. She comes out with generalities such as going forwards not backwards, and that her positions might have changed but her values haven’t. Trump can very specific, when he isn’t spewing aggressive soundbites.

My prediction is that this debate will favour Trump. If Kamala is referring to notes, Trump will make mincemeat of that. If she isn’t, he will be able to dance around her and make her look fumbling. This is reflected by Saturn tending to work against her, and in Trump’s favour.

As for the election itself, Uranus is impacting both the candidates’ charts as their main transit, as well as squaring the US Moon. This makes it very hard to predict. There could well be further unusual, unexpected events. We have already had the assassination attempt, and Biden stepping down. And whichever candidate is elected – and who is to say in this Uranian election if the candidates still will be Trump and Harris – they will have a rocky time as President, as Uranus continues to unsettle and divide and startle.

 

THE CV OF A CHAOS SHAMAN

I have a fantasy novel, the Shapeshifters Trilogy, with an American publisher. They are being very slow! Here is the CV I wrote for the inside cover:

Shapeshifting first happened to Barry Goddard in 2000, when a T-Rex turned up during a dance, took him over, and slowly wandered around the room, taking its first curious look at the earth after a 100-million-year absence. Since that time a menagerie of Animals has gradually presented itself, taking turns at feeling what it is like to be Barry Goddard. Roaring, whistling, speaking in tongues, and clearly no longer a rational well-behaved human, the Animals try to keep Barry behind closed doors to avoid the attentions of the men in white coats. But the Animals are always at his shoulder, taking care of him. In 2021, a Wolf showed up and suggested he write the Shapeshifters Trilogy, an offer he could not refuse. It has been a great adventure. When in human form, Barry lives on Dartmoor in the UK, and writes regularly for social media on Astrology and Shamanism. He also does Astrology readings.

 

Below is the chart for when I began writing my first book (The Medicine Wheel) in 2021. 

 

 It's a great chart. I might start to have some serious success in the next few years, as Neptune squares the Venus (popular appeal) and Pluto conjoins the Jupiter-Saturn. It may be my book on Chaos Shamanism, currently being written, that steps into the zeitgeist.

 

THE ENGLISH JUNTA

Sir Keir Starmer has a tight Sun-Pluto conjunction in Virgo, opposite Jupiter. The administrator (Virgo) who has found himself in a position of great power (Jupiter-Pluto). He has a huge majority, rules the Labout Party with an iron fist, and can do what he wants. How many of us could handle that?

The signs so far are worrying: he branded the protesters collectively as racist thugs, and has shown no inclination to listen to what the legitimate majority of them are unhappy about. And he has had the wrongdoers, both offline and online, in jail in record time, using his inside knowledge of the justice system as Director of Public Prosecutions. It already seems clear that, in his haste to keep control, innocent people have also been jailed.

Empathy and bringing people with him are not his strong points. He is a charisma-free zone, and was elected as an act of desperation by the British people. Using the law (Jupiter) to make the population do his bidding seems to be how he thinks. The working classes, which as Labour leader he is supposed to represent, probably hate him already. Currently, he is acting like the head of an army junta. Labour has its values, but freedom of the individual has never been top of its list.

 

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The cat sometimes spends hours asking to be let in through the posh entrance, before swallowing his pride and using the cat flap. "Don't you know who I am?" This tells us something about the nature of Leo. On the subject of which, 2 nights ago I had a dream in which I was sraightforwardly Leo Rising, not Virgo, as I have always been. Many astrologers also insist I must be Leo Rising. Below is my newly painted house. QED. NOT Virgo 🤣

 

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Integrating Mars energy is a soul journey for most women in the second half of life, just as Venus is for men. I think that the feminist critique of men, that sees them in largely negative terms, is mostly unlived Mars, projected in its shadow form. We men are generally much better than the public discourse would have us believe.

 

ASTRO-DEBRIS.... and some SHAMANISM

 AN EMERGENCE FROM THE UNDERWORLD

It's been a helluva transit of Sun-Mars in Scorpio over the last month. It's been described outwardly by the deep scouring of Gaza by the Israelis. What gruelling unconscious contents have you been exposed to in that time? There was an eclipse early on, and then an eruption around the 13th, as Uranus opposed Sun-Mars: the Gorgon finally showed her face.

We are moving to the sunlit uplands in the next few days as the Sun then Mars enter Sagittarius. You can look back from a brighter place and get perspective, understand yourself. The square to Saturn in Pisces will push you on this one to start with. Look to the bigger picture of yourself.

It looks like being reflected also in a resolution of the Israeli hostage crisis and perhaps a scaling down of hostilities.

 

 

AI and PLUTO in AQUARIUS 

 

 

Last autumn, as Pluto first moved towards Aquarius, ChatGPT was released and astonished us with its human-like AI abilities. 

 

This autumn, as Pluto (empowerment) again moves towards Aquarius (AI), the AI world has been stunned by the sacking of Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, that created ChatGPT. Pluto will be moving towards his 3rd and final Ingress into Aquarius next autumn. I wonder what might happen then? Maybe legislation, and the hyping of apocalytic fears around an AI takeover?

 

MUGGLES

Muggles can only see from their own point of view. We magical people can see from many viewpoints. That is what magic does, that is its wisdom. So we don't fill the world with a cast of bad guys to blame, who we imagine to be in control. 

 

We don't need to, because we don't suffer from the envy and powerlessness behind this Punch and Judy view of the world. So we can see everyone as humans like us. Our magic gives all the inner power and riches we could ever need.

 

 

URANUS and THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

I think the outcome of next year's US Presidential election is impossible to predict at this stage. Not just because of the potentially tight race, but because of all the other factors involved. It is looking like Trump vs Biden. But who knows? There are Trump's legal problems and his Gemini trickster energy, Biden's mental capabilities, the family corruption hidden in his son's laptop.....you couldn't make it up.

This unpredictability is reflected in next year's hard transit of Uranus to the US Moon in Aquarius (the people, the voters); to Trump's Mars and Angles; and to Biden's Scorpio Sun. Watch for the Uranus station at 27 Taurus in Sept 2024.

 

SHAMANISM AT THE EDGE

(From my other blog at shamanicfreestate.blogspot.co.uk)

I just saw an ad for Contemporary Shamanism - Safe Practices. Harrumph! Is the Sundance, where you dance until you are exhausted and your breast torn open, 'safe'? Is a Sweatlodge, where you struggle to bear the searing steam, 'safe'? Is a Vision Quest, where you are exposed to the elements for 4 days, with no food, 'safe'? Is a trance dance that takes you to the point of possession by the spirits, writhing on the floor and speaking in tongues, 'safe'? No, the whole point of these things is that they are not 'safe'. Think of the young Siberian Shaman, called by the spirits to his vocation, and ill until he accepts the calling. An illness that may kill him unless he yields: an offer he cannot refuse.

The whole point of this shamanic path is that it takes us to the edge, it dismembers and rebuilds us. There is risk involved. And in that process we find gold, a source of guidance and connection that comes from deep within - or without - that can be trusted, that renews us, and that serves the world. If your shamanic practice is 'safe', it will remain superficial. The role of teacher is often safe too, they hide behind it.

Enough of this coddling and safety. There will be trigger warnings next, and a #metoo group for anyone who has had a fierce power animal. We have been prosperous for too long, we have cast out the warrior instinct as toxic and patriarchal, and little that is real can happen in that context. Though the groups we attend may serve our social needs and award badges of shamanic attainment: everyone's a winner. Good luck with that😎

Saturn, Pluto and the Postponed Recession

At the end of September, Saturn will start to move forwards again, closely followed by Pluto. Jupiter will have gone direct a couple of weeks earlier. These 3 planets conjoined in January, and marked the beginning of the Covid crisis. So we will be entering a new phase in a month, and I think that will mark the transition to a recession proper. So far it has been held at bay by government furlough schemes and, probably, by the public spending much of the money it saved during lockdown.

By paying the wages of struggling businesses, governments are saving them from going bankrupt. But they can only do this for so long, and Covid shows no sign yet of going away. So I think the theme across the West this autumn will be the winding down of furloughs and subsidies, increasing numbers of businesses going under, and unemployment rising. The recession proper will have begun, as Saturn's forward motion in Capricorn brings a dose of realism to world economies.

The hardship for many that this will involve is the price we will be paying for the lives saved by lockdown. How much this has also been a postponement - of people dying from Covid later rather than sooner - remains to be seen, as does our view of the lockdown as it ends, and whether it was worth it. At present this discussion is hard to have because many people have been frightened into thinking of Covid as a deadly disease, rather than the nasty bug with a low mortality rate that it actually seems to be.

We have been trained to think of recessions as bad, and booms as good. But recessions reflect the natural need to go inward and reconsider and attend to our underlying values, after a period of outward expansion. In this way Saturn embodies natural law.  

The current recession began with lockdown, and has been given added transformative power by the presence of Pluto. This is no ordinary recession. Saturn-Pluto is a powerful transit that marks a transition from one era to another. It will be a different world that we will be waking up to at the end of this year, as Saturn finally moves into Aquarius and away from Pluto. The Saturn-Jupiter cycle, which begins anew in December, also marks the beginning of a new era.

So, come the new year, we will be thinking about life as before and after Covid. Already we see the huge boost that this has given to the big tech companies - Apple is now worth more than the top 100 UK  companies combined - while the High Street spirals downwards as people shop more online. Fear has stalked the land in a way not seen in Europe since WWII, and this will be burnt into the collective psyche for some time to come.

Political eras will come to an end, inevitably, as the world moves into its new phase. Merkel is on her way out anyway. It is hard to see Trump surviving with his consistent trailing in the polls, and the likelihood of the recession becoming more real between now and the US election. Is Boris Johnson part of the new order, or part of the old order? He has at least another 4 years in office - short of a resigning issue like Suez arising - and I think he is strategically too sure-footed for that, flawed as he is in the details of day-to-day management. Starmer is not a performer - a vital ingredient for political success - and Boris (like Blair before him) will have Neptune on his side in the coming years. So I think that Boris is part of the new order. 

The US will undergo its Pluto Return in 2022. This will be in its 2nd House (Sibly Chart). So expect a big psychic wobble about its place in the world, as China emerges from Covid hotter on America's heels than expected. What is it to be American if you are not No 1 in the world?

TRUMP'S EARLY-STAGE DEMENTIA?

According to this article, "Most GOP (ie Republican) Congress members recognize that Donald Trump is a pathological narcissist with early stage dementia and only peripheral contact with reality." And that is what his allies think. (It doesn't make him all bad either.) I think that most of us can see that his cognitive abilities are declining. The article contains a video interview with him from the 80s, and the cognitive contrast with now is very striking.

At the end of the month, Neptune will exactly square his Nodal axis, and will square his Sun and Moon next year, when Pluto will also oppose his Venus (popular appeal). He may well get re-elected this year due to lack of a charismatic opponent, and because Neptune can be that political charisma (as well as the dementia.) But will he be removed from office, due to increasing incapacity, in his 2nd term?

With his Progressed New Moon in Virgo last September, he is personally entering a new phase, probably autumnal, of his life.

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I offer skype/FB video astrology readings, by donation. Contact: BWGoddard1 (at)aol.co.uk

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THE BOGEYMEN BEHIND COVID 19

Saturn-Pluto is a time when the collective shadow (Pluto) is likely to be making an appearance in the world (Saturn). 

Not many people have the psychological strength to remain with their own darkness and fragility. That is why collectives create bogeymen. It creates a kind of stability and reassurance. Hence the witch-burnings in early Europe, Nazi anti-Semitism, and McCarthyism in the US. You see it also with Donald Trump - a fragile individual if ever there was - attempting to create bogeymen out of the Mexicans, the Muslims and the Chinese. 

Whenever there is a major event that upsets our little world, you see the process at work, whether it was 9/11, the death of Princess Diana, or now with Covid 19. If Covid 19 was just a virus that had mutated, there would be nothing to carry the stress it has created. So, we are hearing, it was deliberately created by the Chinese, and somewhere Bill Gates and 5G were involved. Watch for Jeff Bezos to be dragged in too. It is pitiable and it is insane, but it is how collectives work, we should not be surprised. 

What convinces people is not evidence, but other people's belief, because it is a herd thing. But from the point of view of the individual, it can seem like an epiphany, like they have had their eyes opened, balance has been restored, and it is everyone else who appears like a sheep. It has a lot in common with fundamentalist religion.