Friday, 15 JANUARY 2021

This morning, I awoke to the news that a 6.2 earthquake had devastated an area close to the city of Majene on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Many lives had been lost and hundreds injured.

It wasn’t the only earthquake in the last seven days.

Tremors of another kind were continuing to be felt in the United States after the bombshell decision on Wednesday to impeach Donald Trump for a second time. As I discussed in my previous Friday Bite, it was a step I believed would be taken. This decision renders Mr Trump the only president in America’s history to be impeached twice.

As each day goes by in the wake of the storming of the Capitol, further shocking information emerges as to who was taking part and what their agendas were. In among the Trump supporters – the soccer moms, the students and the senior citizens – were hardened activists and leaders and members of white supremacist groups whose mission was not merely to enter and damage the Capitol building but to kidnap and murder members of Congress.

“That entire building [the Capitol] is filled with traitors. Everyone in there is a treasonous traitor…Death is the only remedy!”  These were the words of Arkansas resident, Peter Stager, filmed beating a policeman with a US flag, an act for which he was later charged.

In this fear-filled, hate-fuelled atmosphere, preparations are taking place for the inauguration of the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris.

I’ll come back to this shortly. First, mention must be made of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s decision to fly back to Russia next Sunday (17th). Since August last year, Navalny has been recovering in Germany after being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, almost certainly administered by members of the FSB. Despite threats of imprisonment and supporters’ concerns for his safety upon arrival in Russia, Navalny will board a plane on Sunday back to his homeland.

Navalny is unlikely to know he is making his journey on a Jupiter-Mars/Uranus square, and that this explosive square is teeing off his natal Mars-Uranus square. To be precise, Navalny’s natal Mars is 10 degrees of Leo and his natal Uranus is 3 degrees of Scorpio, Currently Saturn is squaring his natal Uranus and opposing his natal Mars, while Uranus is opposing (although separating from) his natal Uranus and squaring natal Mars.

Such a journey is deeply unadvisable. His liberty is destined to be short-lived, I fear. Although, one can only admire his extraordinary courage, a courage born of  Mars in Leo square Uranus in Scorpio.

Sunday, 17th January, is a date that has figured in many reports from the US intelligence services in regard to another potential domestic terror attack. The climate is certainly rife for riots, revolution and general mayhem, and you could pick any day from now until the end of January for a spectacular and violent upset. However, on inauguration day, Mars will be precisely conjunct Uranus, squaring the Sun, Saturn and Jupiter. More to the point, with 14 degrees of Taurus rising,as Biden and Harris are sworn in, Mars and Uranus will have just risen and the Sun will be conjunct the MC. And when planets are angular they assume greater power. To add to concerns, the Mars-Uranus conjunction is squaring Biden’s natal Pluto and the Sun-Saturn-Jupiter conjunction opposing it.

So, we can almost certainly expect one or more extremist events on the day itself. Events that will cast their shadow on the beginning of his term in office.

Fortunately, terrible as the storming of the Capitol was, it put all those in power and homeland security on notice that more attacks were in the planner, so the Capitol and surrounding areas now resemble the Green Zone in Baghdad. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and all the glitterati gathered on and around the steps of the Capitol next Wednesday could not be safer. Then again, terrorists are often one step ahead of the intelligence services. I mean, who thought planes could be turned into missiles…

Whatever the day itself brings, the chart of the inauguration is the map of the Biden administration. And it bodes great change and bold actions supported by determination and staying power. The theme for the Inauguration ceremony is: Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union – a theme which perfectly encapsulates the astrology. Venus, the principle of love and harmony and union, rules the chart, from the ninth house of justice and in the sign of government, Capricorn. Venus is sextiling visionary Neptune, which is in the eleventh house of ideals and collaboration. And, although Mars-Uranus aspects are coincident with violent upsets, they are also symbolic of diversity, innovation and humanitarianism.

The Bundle shaping – all the planets in one third of the chart – is also emblematic of a highly focussed, committed administration, one that will not falter in its mission to get done what must be done.

Those are the pluses. On the minus side, Saturn rules the Mid-heaven and is square the rising Mars-Uranus conjunction. The Saturn-Uranus square will be in-play over the next two years, and it will preside over the tortuous and destabilizing process of ending old systems and birthing new ones; resistance to change will be experienced across the spectrum – government, the arts, finance, sport, climate and, of course, in our own lives. And it is most certainly going to be the dominant theme in the Biden presidency. Virtually every bill the Democrats attempt to pass will be blocked by the Republicans, and this will be playing out against a background of continual protests and violent episodes. And with the Mars-Uranus conjunction, technically in the twelfth house, many of the forces that oppose the presidency will be operating under the radar and therefore far from easy defuse.

With this horoscope, union is going to be extremely difficult to achieve. 

Also concerning is the Moon, which at 29 degrees 03 minutes of Aries is void-of-course. And void-of-course moons are a serious negative when beginning a new project, let alone a new presidency. A void-of-course moon is a sign that “nothing will come of the matter”. This combined with the rising Mars-Uranus conjunction suggests the Biden administration may be over before it’s begun, so to speak, and is likely to fall short of its ambitious brief.

You may remember when Biden was nominated as the presidential candidate, I questioned the likelihood of his winning the election because of the position of transiting Neptune, which was conjunct his IC, undermining his presidential campaign and weakening his position. He won, of course, but what happened as a result? Half the country believed the Democrats had “stolen the election” and Biden was a fraudulent winner. And he’s spent these past two and half months in a kind of president-elect limbo. All pure Neptune. Yet, I still don’t feel confident about his future as president, because Neptune will still be conjoined to the IC for the best part of 2021, so the question of his legitimacy will still overshadow his administration. At least half the country misguidedly believes he shouldn’t be in the White House.

Considerable hope rests on the position of Venus, which is not only sextile Neptune but trine the Ascendant and sextile the Descendant. This is a strong indication that under Biden, America will emerge from its protectionist burrow and back onto the world stage. And in large part foreign relations will radically improve.

On several occasions over the past twelve months, I have looked to the USA’s Pluto-return – exact on 22nd February, 2022 – and described it as a significant turning point in America’s history. A Pluto transit comes into being a year or so before it reaches exactitude and remains in play for a year afterwards, so we’re looking at the period from now until early-to-mid 2023 for the Pluto-return to be operative. Thus, it is no accident that at this point, the beginning of that all-important return, the Capitol building was stormed, and the extreme force of white radicalism emerged into the full light of day.

These, therefore are some of the ingredients of this transformational process.

By 2023, the seeds of January’s events will bear fruit, and we’ll see America reborn. But the journey to that point is going to be bloody and tumultuous. The country may come close to civil war, and we are likely to see the Republican party split.  

Ultimately, I believe the United States will emerge better and stronger through its dark passage. As a Cancer country, it submits itself to the pain of labour in order to bring forth new versions of itself. Which is precisely what it is doing now.