Friday Bite 23 January 2026

Red Rags and Red Flags

Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”

 “The United States is treated very unfairly by NATO. I want to tell you that. When you think about it, nobody can dispute it. We give so much, and we get so little in return.” Trump, Davos 21 January

IF EVER YOU wanted proof that astrology works, you only have to look at the events of the past seven days and the planetary alignments under which they took place. We may not have a scientific framework for astrology, but the fact that we astrologers can look at alignments such as those presiding over this current period and anticipate events of great magnitude is evidence of something more than coincidence. I have been looking at this second half of January – and beyond – for many months and discussing its potential for history-making events, and unless you have made a point of removing yourself from what is happening on the world’s stage, more than one tipping point has already appeared.

Let’s start with the crisis that threatened the very fabric of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Over the weekend, President Trump informed the Norwegian prime minister by letter that he no longer felt obligated to help Norway, Denmark nor any other European country come to that, since he had been denied the Nobel Peace Prize. He followed by ramping up his rhetoric on acquiring Greenland, first threatening force to obtain the territory and then slapping swingeing tariffs on European countries and the United Kingdom. By the time the US president arrived at Davos for the annual World Economic Forum, the fur was not just flying but causing breathing problems! Not to make light of the situation.

NATO came into being in 1949, some three years after the end of World War II. The alliance, which is made up of European countries, Great Britan, Canada and the United States, was intended to maintain stability, security and peace in the West. And for seventy-six years it has done just that. Enshrined in its foundations is Article 5, which states that should any member state be attacked, the others will come to its defence.

Only once in those seventy-six years has Article 5 been deployed. And that one time was in 2001 after the attacks on America (9-11). The then United States president, George W Bush called upon all those who were “with America” to stand up and be counted. And NATO stepped up to the plate. European, Canadian and British troops rallied behind America, fighting side by side with US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. All 28 member states sent troops to Afghanistan and during the course of the twenty-year war, an estimated 3,500 NATO soldiers lost their lives and nearly 2,500 US service members were killed.

Which becomes even more germane given that in the last twenty-four hours President Trump stated on television that “We have never really asked anything of them [NATO]. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that. And they did. They stayed a little back, little off the front lines.”

On Wednesday, as Mars, Mercury, the Sun, Venus and Pluto lined up within seven degrees of one another, NATO leaders, among others, gathered in Davos to hear what Donald Trump had to say about the developing crisis over Greenland. The American president spoke for one hour, eleven minutes and forty-eight seconds, during which he not only dropped the threat of military force in Greenland and tariffs on Europe and the United Kingdom, but managed to insult pretty well everyone in the room from Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, to Emmanuel Macron of France and the entirety of NATO.

Following his speech, the American president met with Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, which resulted in a framework for the future of Greenland. While neither gave details of that framework, it is thought to be modelled on a “sovereign base area” as in Cyprus where British military bases are regarded as British territory. In this way, while Greenland will retain its sovereignty, the US will increase its military presence on the island, placing missiles at its bases, while European forces will ramp up their defence of the surrounding Arctic region.

As we can see from the above chart, Pluto is all over NATO at the moment. Transiting Pluto is squaring its Ascendant-Descendant axis and approaching the IC while solar arc Pluto is conjoining the Ascendant. Waiting in the wings is transiting Uranus, which is set to square NATO’s Sun for the third and final time in mid-May.

Pluto spells transformation, although I think reformation is a useful word here. When we see Pluto so heavily accented in a chart, the potential for an entity to be reformed or reinvented is presented. In the case of NATO, ever since the American president made it clear that the alliance isn’t punching at the correct weight, efforts have been made to increase defence budgets (which is clearly a good thing), although it seems this isn’t enough to quell Donald Trump’s disdain for the alliance, which is obvious from his recent comments on NATO troops not being in the front line of the Afghan war. So, I think while this Greenland hurdle may have been overcome, others loom, and NATO is likely to be put to the test and its Article 5 deployed for the second time in the months to come.

Thursday was another busy day for the American president. He and other leaders signed up to join his Board of Peace, which first and foremost relates to the future of Gaza, however, what it simultaneously represents is an alliance of leaders and countries who appear to be of a similar, not exactly democratic, mindset: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Hungary and Russia are among the signatories.

Thus, the Board of Peace has come into being under this extraordinary planetary line-up. If nothing else, this alliance gives the new world order a little more shape and texture, which is something we might expect from a Sun-Mars-Mercury-Venus-Pluto conjunction in Aquarius.

And into this potent mix comes yet another potential international crisis: Iran. Yesterday, President Trump announced that “a massive armada” of American ships, including the USS Abraham Lincoln and multiple guided missile destroyers, were on their way to Iran. This came shortly after Mr Trump threatened to “wipe Iran off the face of the Earth” should it try to assassinate him.

Also under this celestial canopy, today Russia, Ukraine and the US are meeting in Abu Dhabi to discuss a peace deal. And they do so as thousands of people in Kyiv remain without heating in sub-zero temperatures due to Russian strikes. According to Steve Witkoff and the American president a deal is “almost there” with just one sticking point remaining. However, that sticking point is the size of the Grand Canyon: the Donbas.

“I believe they’re at a point now where they can come together and get a deal done. And if they don’t, they’re stupid — that goes for both of them,” Donald Trump.

It is hard to believe that Ukraine will agree to handing over the remaining 20 percent of the Donbas region it still holds, which is what Russia has consistently demanded as a condition of any kind of peace deal. Zelensky for his part has consistently maintained that he won’t give the region to Russia. What is different on this occasion, however, is that the United States has proposed that the Donbas – Ukraine’s industrial heartland – becomes a demilitarized and free economic zone in exchange for security guarantees for Kyiv. So, there is a teeny-weeny chance of a breakthrough.

And this is something to bear in mind when looking at the current astrological patterning. Transformation (Pluto) is a neutral concept. Situations can be transformed through both dreadful events and by marvellous developments. Days ago, the prospect was raised of Europe going to war with its partner, the United States, and in-so-doing NATO would have collapsed. But crisis became opportunity and a new plan is now in motion.

I have talked a lot about 2026 as a whole being a year of crisis and opportunity, on both an individual and collective level, and this is just one example of many to come. When this theme came up on the Astrology Hub last Wednesday, Amanda Walsh reminded me that there was a Chinese character for just that, and I thought I would leave you with my hand-drawn version of that hànzì.

Let us imprint this image on our unconscious minds.

Friday Bite 16 January 2026

Perfidy

“If the aircraft flying above is not identifiable as a combatant aircraft, it should not be engaged in combatant activity. The Defense Department manual concerning the law of war explains that combatants must distinguish themselves from the civilian population and may not “kill or wound the enemy by resort to perfidy.” Retired Major General Steven J. Lepper, 12 January

PERFIDY TURNED OUT to be the perfect title for this Friday Bite, even though I had just randomly jotted the word down on my notepad. Earlier in the week, the New York Times reported that in September 2025, when the US military launched its first attack on a small boat in the Caribbean (that number has now reached thirty-five), it used a secret aircraft disguised as a civilian plane. This act of concealment is a war crime called “perfidy”.

Perfidy – treachery, faithlessness, corruption, breach of trust.

These words turned out to be full of meaning during the course of the past seven days. Take for instance Robert Jenrick, the former UK shadow justice minister, who planned to defect to the far-right Reform party and in so doing inflict as much damage as possible on his former party, but was hoisted by his own petard when Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch sacked him, and immediately went on television to denounce him. Jenrick had denied any such intention of joining Reform when questioned by the Tory leader earlier in the week, so when Badenoch was faced with “irrefutable evidence” of his treachery she took immediate and incisive action. She later commented that Jenrick was now Nigel Farage’s problem and that the Reform leader had done her spring-cleaning for her.

There was something akin to perfidy in Maria Corina Machado’s gift of her Nobel Peace prize to Donald Trump – also on Thursday. We have become inured to leaders abandoning  their moral compass in order to win the American president’s favour, sometimes with a result – Sir Kier’s gift of a second state visit to the United Kingdom won him a reprieve on some Trump tariffs and Zelensky’s homage to the president (plus a designer suit) succeeded in getting him back on side once or twice – but Machado’s humiliating sacrifice won her nothing at all, other than a large carrier bag full of “swag”.

At the same time as the Venezuelan Opposition leader was waxing poetic about her gift of the Peace Prize being a nod to Lafayette’s gift of a gold medal featuring an image of George Washington to the revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar back in the eighteenth century, Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, was informing a press gathering that while the president had accepted her gift of the gold medal, he had not changed his opinion and that Ms Machado “does not have the respect and support of her country.”.

The phrase own-goal comes to mind, which is deeply sad given that this extraordinary and courageous woman deserves so much better. And the Venezuelan people certainly deserve a leader who can serve them as opposed to a continuation of the Maduro authoritarian regime.

The time of birth given for Machado cannot be verified, so please take it with a pinch of salt. However, some of the more important detail does not rely on an accurate birthtime. For instance, her Mars at 18 degrees Sagittarius is conjoined to Trump’s Moon and opposed to his Sun and Uranus – fiery is one way of looking at these connections, antagonistic is probably nearer the mark. On the other hand, Machado’s Venus-Jupiter conjunction falls on the US president’s Mars and Ascendant, which is certainly reflective of the sacrifice she has just made for him. Her Sun in Libra is opposed to Saturn, which provides her with tenacity and resolve, and with natal Mars in square to her Uranus-Pluto conjunction, she is a true activist and someone prepared to die for her country. Let’s hope she doesn’t have to.

Uranus is currently squaring her Jupiter and will return to cross over her Moon in the future – April, if this time of birth is correct. It remains to be seen whether this combination will enable her star to rise once more or prove to be something far less welcome.

YOU MIGHT ALSO say that Donald Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland are an act of perfidy, given that Denmark has been allied to the United States for more than two centuries, during which time it has not only worked closely with America in protecting the Arctic region but also sent its soldiers to their deaths as they fought side by side with US forces in Afghanistan.

I’ll take a deeper dive into the Greenland situation shortly, but another development worth mentioning in regard to perfidy is what is happening in Minneapolis. Since last week’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, the street protests have grown bigger and more confrontational while the number of ICE officers has increased to three thousand. Operation Metro Surge appears to have exceeded its brief as mass deportations of immigrants and is now eerily reminiscent of the Nazi raids in Hitler’s Germany. Far from attempting to tone down the situation, President Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection act, which would bring the military onto the streets to preserve law and order.

It is quite the irony that while Donald Trump is promising to rescue the people of Iran from its lethal regime, the American people appear to need protection from the Trump administration’s efforts to quell dissent. Maybe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard should issue a similar promise…

Next week’s powerful astrology will certainly bring push to shove in regard to one or more festering global situations, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see the Insurrection Act invoked and/or other threats and promises issued by Trump made manifest.

Which brings us to Greenland.

I REMEMBER WHEN the American president first announced his intention to acquire Greenland. It ranked with the desire to rechristen the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and turn Canada into the fifty-first state. It was kind of funny. It certainly couldn’t be real. But here we are, not only with a renamed Gulf of America and a renamed Fort Bragg and Mount McKinley, but Denmark is facing the reality that Donald Trump means exactly what he said and he will acquire Greenland the “easy way or the hard way”.

On Wednesday, foreign ministers of Denmark met with JD Vance and Marco Rubio at the White House, after which the Danish contingent acknowledged that it had not managed to change the American position. No matter how united the Greenlanders may be to remain under the Danish flag and not the Stars and Stripes, nor how such an acquisition would override the territorial integrity of Denmark and throw the NATO alliance into disarray, Donald Trump is determined to get what he wants.

Denmark, Sweden, Germany and France are in the process of sending troops to Greenland, ostensibly to support Denmark’s assertion that contrary to Mr Trump’s fears, its military forces can protect the land and its surrounding waters from any Russian or Chinese threat. Yet there is another message being sent to the Trump administration that Europe is prepared to defend its territory. The USA is a member of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as is Denmark and Greenland, and according to Article Five, should any member of the alliance be attacked the others must come to its defence. Thus, the prospect is raised of Europe going to war with its long-time ally America.

The prospect of war is not something immediately leaping out of Denmark’s chart, however, it is rowing into trouble. Pluto has been squaring natal Pluto and Uranus for the past three years, during which time Queen Margrethe II abdicated in favour of her son, so Denmark has a new King and Queen. (Out with the old, in with the new.) Saturn is returning to its natal position, and it will get there in April of this year. A Saturn return is always about the coming of age, it is a time of reappraisal, a time when chickens come home to roost. So, Denmark is going to face some challenges this year, especially as there are two eclipses to take into consideration too: the first, a total lunar eclipse of 3 March will square its Sun and the second, a lunar eclipse on 28 August, will fall on its Neptune. Somewhat ironically, Donald Trump’s natal Uranus (18 degrees of Gemini) falls on Denmark’s Midheaven…

It seems unlikely that the United States will go to war with Denmark and Europe over Greenland. Yet at this point in time, Denmark is in no mood to allow a takeover of its territory and America has too many battles on its hands. What may happen, however, is that Donald Trump will issue a proclamation that the United States owns Greenland, and wait and see what anyone does about it. Maybe he’ll even find a way to plant the American flag on the ice somewhere in the country. Ownership is nine tenths of the law…

We are on the crest of a turbulent few weeks, and next week with the Sun, Venus and Mercury conjoining Pluto and Mars the following week, anything and everything can happen. Amanda Walsh of the Astrology Hub asked me recently what in a word would sum up 2026. I replied: crisis and opportunity.

We’re about to understand what that may mean.