Friday Bite 21 August 2026

Eclipse Season

“Never before in American history has an attorney general been confirmed who was as corrupt as Todd Blanche. The Department of Justice is already in shambles… Todd Blanche now becomes the symbol of Donald Trump’s corruption of the rule of law in America and the actual ruin of the Department of Justice of the United States. This is another shameful act of acquiescence, if not obeisance, by the Senate Republicans; they will bear this badge of shame the rest of their lives. Judge J Michael Luttig, 15 August.

“While the sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks,” said Ossoff. “See, he doesn’t want to do the job…He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.” Georgia Senator, John Ossof, 15 August

“I have no time schedule… I’m not in a hurry…the midterms have nothing to do with my thinking…If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them” Donald Trump, 17 August

HOURS AFTER I posted last week’s Friday bite, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck close to the island of Flores in the Indonesian archipelago. At least 83 people lost their lives with more than a thousand injured and displaced. The earthquake generated a small tsunami. It was the second major quake in five days, each bracketing the total solar eclipse of 12 August.

There were other kinds of earthquakes too. A podcast on Lila Astrology turned out to be the vehicle for the demise of one of astrology’s most revered number, Steven Forrest. Slow to start, the outrage gathered momentum and became an avalanche. Despite a humbling apology by Forrest on 4 August, his freefall could not be stopped. The upcoming UAC (United Astrology Conference) and the NCGR (National Council for Geocosmic Research) removed him from their speakers list and the Astrology University dropped him from the faculty, and there were calls for his excommunication and his books to be banned.

In the wake of Karoline Leavitt’s departure from her post as the White House Press Secretary (on the day of the solar eclipse), rumours began to circulate that her decision may not have been entirely due to her desire to be a “Mom to her two young children”. That the president she had loyally supported left her to an uncertain fate on Air Force One, along with other White House officials and staffers, journalists and crew when he covertly transferred to another plane, may well have tipped the balance.

Last week, I suggested that the “great plane switcheroo” could come back to haunt him further down the line, since some people won’t forget such a betrayal of trust. And, of course, all this came to light on a total solar eclipse, and even the most seemingly insignificant event can have major consequences if it occurs at the time of an eclipse.

One person who did accompany Mr Trump on his plane from Turkey to the United Kingdom was Natalie Harp. Ms Harp has been in Trump’s orbit for some years. She types his Truth Social posts and is rumoured to be his closest ally, his “gatekeeper” and “comfort blanket”. She is devoted to the president – sees him as her saviour – since it was due to his intervention that she was able to partake in an experimental treatment for cancer and was cured. He saved her life.

Thanks to Georgia senator, John Ossef whose comments about her travelling with Trump on their apparently defenceless flying palace, the whole world knows about their close association.

Last and not least of the bombshells, on Thursday it was announced that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would be returning to the United Kingdom with their children.

Let’s start with the Indonesian earthquake.

AT 5:58 AM on the island of Flores, the Sun was rising and Uranus, culminating. The Sun and the Ascendant at 21 and 22 degrees of Leo respectively, were closely conjunct the degree of the total solar eclipse. On this occasion 28 degrees of Gemini and the other mutable signs was not present. However, Uranus was conjunct the Midheaven and part of a major Kite configuration involving Neptune, Pluto and Venus. The outer planets are often to be seen on the angles of the charts of eruptions: such placements do not cause earthquakes, but they have an uncanny habit of being where you might expect them to be when the earth moves, literally and figuratively.

AS STEVEN FORREST chatted amicably to his Lila co-founders – Ricky Williams and Linnea Miron – on their podcast of the 23 July, nothing could have been further from their minds than the possibility that their conversation would topple one of astrology’s gods from his Olympian plinth. While discussing racism, Mr Forrest used “the N-word” and to add insult to outrage went on to talk about his ancestral ties to the Ku Klux Klan. It was all said in the nicest possible way, but in this day and age, you can’t row back from “the N-word”.

Mr Forrest’s chart is another example of poetry in motion in regard to the transits and progressions of the time.

A Sun-Jupiter conjunction in Capricorn and Saturn on the Midheaven provide early clues to his ascendancy in the world of astrology. The Sun-Jupiter conjunction breeds success, popularity and, in the second house, no shortage of money. Saturn on the Midheaven suggests a slow rise to power but one that stands the test of time. He is a serious man, a serious astrologer. His feisty Moon in Aries, is a welcome foil to the ambitious, hard-working, persistent – dogged even – pursuit of excellence and renown, providing him with wit, humour and a dare-devil side. Mercury, the ruler of the Midheaven is placed at 29 degrees 59 minutes of Capricorn – the anaretic degree – suggesting many lifetimes of learning, teaching and mentoring have culminated and coalesced in this current incarnation.

So how, why, at the age seventy-seven did this happen to him?

Where do I start. How about solar progressed Midheaven and Saturn reaching the natal Ascendant. The Midheaven – life-direction, role in life – meets the most personal point in the natal chart. Not exactly in-my-end-is-my-beginning, but there is a sense that it has all come down to this – all those decades of work, effort and struggle (Saturn conjunct the Midheaven) have reached their defining moment, and it is very, very personal.

Solar progressed Neptune has reached three degrees of Capricorn thereby squaring his natal Moon in Aries while transiting Neptune is conjoining his Moon – a double whammy if ever there was one. And what do we know about Neptune? We know that it presides over loss, treachery, sacrifice and all manner of weird and undermining experiences. And for good measure, Saturn is currently opposing his natal Neptune. While this combination can turn dreams and visions into reality it can also shatter illusions.

While the recent solar eclipse at 20 degrees of Leo was widely squaring his Ascendant-descendant axis, it is the upcoming lunar eclipse (28 August) flanking his MC-IC axis and conjoining Saturn that effectively brings down the curtain on his professional life. And this lunar eclipse is squaring Uranus, which in turn is squaring his natal Saturn thus supporting the sudden and unexpected nature of his demise.

Clearly, it all comes down to karma. Deeds done in this lifetime or those perpetrated lifetimes ago have brought us to this point in time where accounts must be settled. It may be that Forest is too beloved and honoured to be left out in the cold for long, but a return to the fold isn’t likely to take months but years. And time is short once you reach your eighth decade.

Those who are calling for extreme measures to be taken against Mr Forrest should take a moment to consider that people in glass houses really shouldn’t throw stones.

I WAS GOING to end with a brief foray into the whys and wherefores of the Sussex’s volte face, but it will have to wait for another time. At the moment, it is deeply fascinating to speculate how Meghan is going to manage to insert herself into country life in an English backwater. Let’s hope she’s packing plenty of wellies, woollens and sou’westers. Maybe she’ll thrive and join the local WI, handing on her recipes for carrot cake and winning rosettes for her blackberry jam…

Friday Bite 14 August 2026

 The Glorious Twelfth

“We are low-keying it… We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money… It will work out… It always works out. It’s like a chess game.” Donald Trump, 10 August

“The man who cowered hiding from the Iranians in a catering truck and who has personally done more to increase Iran’s strategic influence than anyone in its own government ever has, is now blathering nonsense via social media. The world sees him more as an impotent fool today than ever before.” David Rothkopf, National Security reporter 12 August.

“Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence. The President has no—and claims no—constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all Presidents, current and future, and for the American people. We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for. Until now.” The Court Appeals, DC, 7 August

THE TOTAL SOLAR eclipse did not disappoint. Not only was it a breathtaking spectacle to observe but events of the past week have been similarly awe-inspiring. Twenty-four hours before the eclipse, an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale devastated western Columbia killing more than 180, most of them in the cities of Cali and Pereira.

On the day of the eclipse, Donald Trump confirmed that he had secretly flown from Turkey to the United Kingdom on a separate plane in order to evade a potential Iranian strike on Air Force One. Quite why he felt compelled to announce to the world the “great plane switcheroo” thus simultaneously informing his potential assassins of the game-plan, is unclear, but what was more shocking was his leaving everyone on Air Force One to succumb to their fate, including Marco Rubio, several White House staffers, journalists and crew.

The day before the eclipse, Bashar al-Assad was sentenced to death by a Syrian court, after a trial in absentia convicted him of killings, torture and arbitrary arrests during the fourteen-year civil war.

Last Sunday, Netanyahu announced that Israel was rejecting the Board of Peace’s 15-point Gaza peace plan: “I want to be clear here — Israel is ruling out the 15-point plan…as long as I am prime minister, a Palestinian state will not be established.”

Back to square one.

And then there was the weather. While in China more than a million people were evacuated as Typhoon Dolphin made landfall, across Europe temperatures soared and even rainy England sweltered under temperatures of 38 degrees Celsius. And yesterday, several wildfires threatened the town of Stourbridge in the west Midlands, destroying several houses in the outlying areas. Also in the UK, two trains were derailed, seemingly because the intense heat had buckled the rails.

It is as though Mother Nature is wreaking her revenge on us for the liberties we have taken with this precious planet.

IN LAST WEEK’S Bite I discussed the salutary tale of Professor Jason Arday who resigned from his post at Cambridge University. Then, I did not have even a birthday for him, let alone a time of birth. But thanks to one of my readers, I now have a date: 9 May 1985.

The chart above is speculative so the angles cannot be trusted, however it does give us an impression of this suspected fantasist who allegedly pulled the wool over the eyes of one of the great universities of the world. (Not a good metaphor but you get my drift.)

In case you haven’t been following Arday’s story, he was diagnosed with autism as a child and did not speak until he was thirteen. He only learned to read and write when he was eighteen. Four years later he received a Masters degree in psychodynamic practices at Birkbeck University of London and in 2015 earned a PhD in Education (with a focus on the sociology of education and race) – a dissertation for which he has been accused of plagiarism. Along the way, he has apparently written several books, run six marathons in six days and maybe, possibly maybe, created the internet.

I’m not a great fan of rectification, so why I’m presenting a chart with a speculative time of birth can only be explained by the effects of the recent eclipse! I started from the perspective of his spectacular fall from grace, which should be reflected by one of the slower-moving planets on an angle. By placing transiting Saturn on the IC – after all, this is a classic example of chickens coming home to roost and the end of a glittering career – Sagittarius rises with Uranus, the rebel, on the Ascendant and Neptune, the illusionist, rising toward it. His Mars is in Gemini – a versatile Mars to say the least – and is widely opposed to Uranus, the maverick of the planets.

His natal Neptune at three degrees of Capricorn is currently being squared by Neptune, and natal Pluto at two degrees of Scorpio is being squared by transiting Pluto. Either one of these transits would be enough to unhinge you, but together they suggest the fabric of one’s existence is at risk of unravelling.

Arday has a wide Sun-Saturn opposition, loosely squared by Jupiter, which could indicate hardship and struggle especially in early life (Saturn-Sun) followed by great success (Jupiter).

THE SUBJECT OF earthquakes has come up a couple of times recently, and Monday’s eruption in Colombia presents a couple of classic significators. Uranus is culminating and forming a Grand Trine with Venus and Pluto. I have drawn out the configurations, so that you can see the Envelope type shaping with Uranus at the pointy end. This configuration has been in play with different personal planets for some weeks and was at its most critical between July 20-29.  Mars at the time of the earthquake was 29 degrees of Gemini and squaring the Venus-Neptune opposition, thus playing an important role in the gathering of planets, which is almost certainly coinciding with great waves of energy.

You may remember that a few weeks ago I talked about 28 degrees of Gemini figuring prominently at the time of eruptions, and here it is again. Aside from this degree of Gemini opposing the Galactic Centre, there is no reason why it should keep appearing. However, in the same way that 28 degrees of Aquarius is considered to be the Astrologer’s degree, maybe 28 degrees of Gemini is the earthquake degree.

Just speculating.