ISRAEL and IRAN

Whatever you think of the way Israel is dealing with the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, the snake's head that they need to remove is the regime in Iran, which is funding both Hamas and Hezbollah. All these entities want to exterminate the Jewish race, as the Oct 7th 2023 attack, which provoked the war, showed very clearly. 

On 22nd Oct, Mars will cross the Israeli MC. I expect the retaliation against the Iranian missile attack to occur shortly before that date, to maximise its effect on the US election, so as to favour Trump. Mars will cross the Israeli 10th House Leo Moon in late November, shortly before going retrograde. We can expect maximum military activity from Israel until then, followed by a re-grouping, as Israel's Leonine pre-eminence in the region sinks in.

 

THE STRANGE ASTROLOGY OF THE US ELECTION

It is strange that neither US Presidential candidate has much in the way of major transits to lend power to the coming Presidency. Just a bit of Uranus. Meanwhile in 2025/26 the US Sibly chart will have Saturn and Neptune conjunct the IC, followed by a Uranus Return opposite the Asc. I don't know what it means, but it's very big. It's as though whoever wins will not be President for long, and something else, for better or for worse, will happen that will usher in a new era. Astrologically, Harris is just about the better bet to win, IMO.

 

In 1860/61 there were, remarkably, the same 2 transits from Neptune and Uranus to the Sibly Chart. They ushered in the Civil War and the end of slavery. This time Saturn is involved too. It makes me think 'nervous breakdown', as the country's political polarisation intensifies.

 

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Prediction: the most significant event for humanity under the coming Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries, will be Elon's Starship landing on Mars.

 

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Over time Saturn lends us substance, and at the same time leads us to doubt it.

 

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The limitations of material existence are, from Saturn's point of view, to be worked with, to create a vessel for the spirit. From Chiron's point of view, those limitations are to be accepted as inherent, and as a prompt to turn our gaze to the outer planets.

 

Chiron is the crack in the earth, through which the oil riches pour upwards from the depths. Saturn is the rig at the surface that makes something of them.

 

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SATURN-NEPTUNE AND THE 'I' WORD

I think the Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the start of Aries in 25/26 will have everything to do with an uprising, probably quite ugly, against the uncontrolled immigration in both the US and Europe. Protest (Aries) against porous (Neptune) borders (Saturn). This is supported by the fact that it is politically impossible to talk about. If you try to talk about it, you get dismissed as 'far-right', a now meaningless term.The issue we cannot even mention in the UK is Muslims and any problems there might be with that section of the population. When something cannot be talked about, trouble is on its way. 

 

The Saturn-Neptune conjunction will be bang on the IC for the US Sibly chart, the homeland symbolism being perfect for this issue. It's why I think Harris will probably win. If Trump wins, he will defuse the issue by continuing with the wall. The astrology does not look like it will be defused. Saturn and Neptune will not be far behind in starting to hard aspect the Sun, Moon and Angles of the UK chart.

 

 NATURE, NURTURE & KARMA

There's Nature, there's Nurture and there's Karma. Karma is the most powerful factor in who we are. Astrology, through it's concept of the Nodes, understands this. Indeed, the 'evolutionary' astrologers centre their chart interpretation around the Nodes. They are probably right to do so, but wrong to call themselves 'evolutionary', for the soul is not 'going' anywhere. Indigenous people think cyclically, and astrology thinks cyclically, whereas the idea of evolution is linear and hierarchical, a product of the mind alienated from nature.

With its insight, through the Nodes, that who we are is essentially a profound mystery, astrology is the best antidote to modern psychotherapy, which reduces the individual to an effect of her childhood. And to science, psychotherapy's watchful elder brother, which reduces the individual to an effect of DNA and environment.

We are cause, not effect, driven to live out the rich patterning of the North Node.

 

 

 

 

Why the US Election isn't so important

I'm not sure that the outcome of the US election matters too much. There are 2 candidates: Hillary Clinton, who is temperamentally unsuited to the post, being a private person who just needs a job to get on with; and Donald Trump, who is morally unsuited. As his biographer said recently, he's the sort of guy who could push the nuclear button just to show how tough he is.

Astrologically, we are at a closing phase of the Jupiter-Saturn cycle. This cycle governs wordly events, and its phase suggests that nothing really new can happen until the conjunction in late 2020, just before the next inauguration. President Carter was elected under the closing square, and Bill Clinton's second term, engulfed as it was by the comedy of the Monica Lewinsky affair, also began under the closing square.

Inauguration Charts 2017 and 2021: Click to Enlarge

Furthermore, the Presidential Inauguration chart for 20 Jan 2017 has an unaspected Sun, again suggesting a leader who cannot get much done. The chart for 20 Jan 2021 is quite different, very dynamic, but that will be another story, and it is unlikely to be Hillary or Trump.

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So there it is. Astrologically, it seems to me to be more likely to be Trump who will win. And that seems like an awful prospect. It may not be. It will probably be the case that he can't get much done, because he has shown an inability to work with members of his own party, let alone the opposition. But he will be a loose cannon who doesn't follow the rules, he will continue to do things that make jaws drop. With the US Progressed Mercury stationary direct, he may occasion America thinking about itself in a way that the same-old of Hillary would not.

It will be awful that such a man is leading the US. But the astrology says to me that the reality of it won't be as bad as we might fear.

Why Donald Trump will be the next US President

If Donald Trump becomes President of the USA, he will be the first to do so who has neither held political office nor been in the military. BUT he has been the star of a long-running reality TV show (The Apprentice), which nowadays gives the necessary gravitas. This as Saturn (reality, political leaders) squares Neptune (show business). And, as they say, politics is show business for ugly people - or at least, for people with strange hair styles.

To judge whether someone is likely to get elected as a leader, I look for 2 things: firstly, is their chart being empowered by transits, not just at present but during their subsequent term of office? And have they got more charisma than the other guy? It sounds ridiculously simple, but it always seems to be the guy with the charisma who wins. Clinton vs Bush sr, Bush jr vs Gore, Obama vs Hillary/McCain. Charisma is the ability to connect with people, it is a Venus quality, and the guys you don't like can have it just as much as the guys you do like.

First of all, Hillary Clinton. We don't know her birth time, but with her Sun at 3 Scorpio and her Moon at the end of Pisces (and Venus in mid Scorpio), she has no major transits coming up (maybe to her Angles if we knew them, but that alone probably isn't enough). So my first prediction is that Hillary will not be the Democratic candidate, let alone the next President. Transits apart, she doesn't have the charisma factor either - a lot of people find her hard to like, even if they agree with her politically.

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Hillary has Venus in charismatic Scorpio, but it is square to Mars-Saturn-Pluto in Leo, giving her a hardness and aggression that overwhelms the Venus - her charisma probably only peeps out at quiet moments when there are no battles to be fought.

The only other serious Democratic contender is Bernie Sanders. There is some doubt over his birth time, but even so his Sun is experiencing an opposition from Neptune, and his Venus-Moon opposition has hard transits from both Uranus and Pluto. So this guy is in the game, and will probably be the Democratic candidate. If he does become President, it will be just for one term, as his transits will run out of steam, as will he, being nearly 80 by then.

Bernie Sanders

Then of course there is Donald Trump. He has Saturn hard-aspecting his Sun and Moon and North Node through to the end of 2017, and then Neptune starts to move in on his Sun, Moon and Node, admittedly from some distance, but that can easily be enough.

This is the man who wants to ban Muslims from entering the US, and to build a giant wall along the US-Mexican border. This is very Saturn. He also wants to 'make America great' again (as if it wasn't already the world's most powerful country) and this theme of redemption points to the future influence of Neptune on his chart.

Neptune is also influencing Sanders' chart, and it is more immediate, but here the meaning is I think to be found in his feeling for the ordinary American struggling to survive in the face of the greed of Wall St and big business. Neptune is also associated with socialism, which Sanders leans towards. He does not present himself as a redeemer in the Neptunian personality-cult sense that Trump does.

Donald Trump

Trump is the latest representative in the lineage of paranoid politics in the US, that whips up a fear of enemies from within, that began with the Salem witch trials, then continued later with a fear of Catholics and the Irish, then the Communists in the McCarthy era and now the Muslims, stirred up by Trump.

One of Trump's great strengths astrologically is that his Sun-Moon opposition in Gemini-Sag lies along (or near enough) the US Asc-Desc axis (Sibly Chart), while Trump's Desc at 29 Aquarius is 2 degrees off the US Moon at 27 Aquarius, making him very close to the American people, they feel he is one of their own. Sanders does not have this close connection: he is therefore more like an outsider looking in, able to see in a way that Trump can't, but he doesn't belong like Trump does. Trump is  a wasp (the German Drumpf family), Sanders has Jewish ancestry.

Trump is a few weeks older than that other wasp, George W Bush. Both have North Node in Gemini conjunct Uranus, describing the maverick, charismatic, right-wing quality they share. Both are from wealthy backgrounds, giving the sense of entitlement that can come with Leo Rising (which they also share), that perhaps makes it easier to dismiss others not just as inferior but as enemies.

This election is taking place in the closing stages of the Uranus-Pluto square, which has been with us since about 2009. This square traditionally brings political extremes (the last square was in the 1930s). In the UK we have it with the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party. He is very popular, very left wing, and generally seen as unelectable.

And in the US both Trump and Sanders are at the extreme end of their respective parties. Like Corbyn, Sanders is very popular. But he is socialist, and the American electorate doesn't do socialism.

This year we also have a square from Saturn in Sag to Neptune in Pisces, that impacts on the US Sibly Asc at 12 Sag. And we can see both planets in the campaigns of Sanders and Trump. In the case of Saturn, Sanders wants to see proper governance of big business and to rebuild the infrastructure, whereas Trump plays of the fears (Saturn) of foreigners (Sagittarius) and wants to build walls. It is also the Saturn opposition of 9/11 (which also strikingly impacted the US Asc-Desc with Saturn-Pluto lying along it), so it is a time when fears can be played on. And it is Trump who has the close relationship with the US Asc.

So for 5 reasons, I think that Trump will beat Sanders: he has more personal charisma (Sanders has more integrity, but that's not the same thing); his chart is far closer to the US chart; America doesn't do socialism; the fear factor is big and probably decisive right now; and it is the Republicans' 'turn' after 8 years of a Democratic Presidency.