Friday Bite 6 November 2026

The Great Wave

“If we lose Texas, we lose America.” Ken Paxton, State senator, Republican

“Tonight we defeated Goliath. All the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas.” James Talerico, State senator Texas, Democrat.

“Lawyer up” Robert Garcia, House Oversight Committee Chairman, 3 November

‘The reason we lost is the war. The President himself said so last night. If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.’ JD Vance X 4 November

“It’s a golden age of America… We have a country that we can be proud of again. We were laughed at all over the world for four years. We were laughed at like we were stupid people. We were laughed at by every ruler, every president, every prime minister, every king, every queen, but they don’t laugh anymore. Thank you very much, everybody.” Donald Trump, Eve of the Midterms

“If I were on the ballot we would have won… I’ll get along, probably, with the Democrats unless they want to be destructive, but we have the power of the veto so if we don’t like what they’re doing…” Donald Trump, 4 November

THE WAVE OF change that began on Tuesday with the United States midterms is about to get even bigger. So great was the reversal of fortune for Donald Trump, the Republicans and Project 2025, that it has swamped other global developments that have the potential to transform the fortunes of Europe and the United Kingdom, if not the rest of the western world. It is time to celebrate the power of the American people to push back Donald Trump and his authoritarian ambitions, but it is only the beginning, and a lot can happen in the next fifty-eight days between now and 3 January.

I’d recommend fastening your seatbelts.

What may have gone largely unnoticed is the spread of the Ukraine war into the Black Sea where attacks on cargo ships are exposing the vulnerability of Romania and Bulgaria – both NATO countries – to Russian aggression. On Monday, cyber-attacks on European supermarkets from Sweden to Belgium, Estonia to Romania caused temperatures of refrigeration systems to rise forcing stores to throw away hundreds of thousands of Euros of food. Also on Monday, the first of a series of hoax bomb threats led to scores of flights across Europe to be diverted, grounded and escorted by fighter jets to military air bases.

There is no finger pointing at any state actor’s involvement, but there is more than a little speculation that it might be Putin testing NATO’s red lines.

I felt mention should also be made of the downfall of the once feted actor and comedian Russell Brand, who, on Thursday was convicted of rape and sexual abuse, crimes committed during the nineties and early 2000s when he was at the height of his fame. He will be sentenced on Monday and is expected to spend more than ten years in prison.

I’M GOING TO start with Russell Brand because he is among a large number of celebrities and leading figures to be forced to pay for historical crimes and misdemeanours during Saturn and Neptune’s transit of Pisces (2023 – 2025) and the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries, which continues to remain in play until February of 2027.

In his 2007 memoir, My Booky Wook, Brand talks about his troubled childhood – as a young child he was exposed to porn as a consequence of his father’s open sexual proclivities. The actor also revealed his addiction to drugs, bulimia and self-harm, all of which surely played a part in his sexual abuse of women as an adult. The actor started a YouTube channel in 2007 in which he espoused various conspiracy theories and championed the underdog before becoming a Christian influencer. In 2024, he was baptised in the River Thames by adventurer, TV presenter and former SAS trooper, Bear Grylls. Brand was briefly married to Katy Perry and since 2017 has been married to author and illustrator Laura Gallacher with whom he has three children.

There are two charts for Russell Brand. In his memoir, he referred to being born at midnight on 4 June 1975, but didn’t specify whether it was zero hours or at the very end of the day. I have a slight preference for the end of the day because the Midheaven has moved into Sagittarius and the Moon in Aries is sandwiched between Mars and Jupiter.

I was surprised to find Capricorn rising, since his persona, at least in the past, was always extrovert, provocative and overtly challenging, however, on his YouTube channel we find a rather more serious Brand. Although, perhaps we should remember that Capricorn can be a horny old Goat!

There are several features worthy of note. The nodal axis is conjunct the MC-IC axis, a phenomenon I often find in the charts of people destined to have an impact on the world. (The nodal axis is the point at which eclipses occur, and eclipses have an aura of fate and destiny about them. Having the nodal axis on the angles is a little like being born on an eclipse.) Neptune resides in the tenth house, which reflects Brand’s career in film and television and his palpable charisma. It also suggests he can be a stranger to the truth and certainly someone who can shape reality according to his own perception. This position also points to his role as a Christian influencer, and possibly, a deep and profound faith. The Sun opposes Neptune, which reinforces the above but also presents an image of an “unreal father”, someone who wasn’t truly there for him. And this is also where we would point the finger at his many addictions. Venus is conjunct the Descendant, which supports his love for women – many, many, many women – and in square to the MC-IC axis, symbolic of all things Venus having a part in his success and downfall.

By solar arc progression, Mars has reached his IC and transiting Uranus is currently hovering over his IC, inspiring change, awakenings and quite the life adjustment.

MISSING FROM THE list of earth-shaking events this week are the two earthquakes that occurred in the waters surrounding Japan. The first, on Sunday, was magnitude-6.0 and the second, today, was magnitude 6.1. I’m not sure what Stephan Burns, geologist and burgeoning astrologer, has to say about these two earthquakes occurring so closely together on the same fault line, but I am pretty sure he would see them as yet another sign of more serious ruptures to come. As far as I am concerned, two large earthquakes in five days along the same fault line, is symbolic of the “blue tsunami” which took place on Tuesday.

Speaking of which…

ONE OF THE biggest surprises of the midterms was that President Trump didn’t immediately declare a “mistrial” and start demanding recounts and accusing sundry Democrats and states of stealing the election! Instead, he has remained largely sanguine and more concerned about his building projects. I think we should view this as a diversionary tactic or perhaps even a sign that he is in denial. Donald Trump has always been a sore loser, and with enough time prior to the midterms to see which way the wind was blowing, he almost certainly put in place plans to ensure he remains the power on the throne. Those plans may be not only to issue executive orders left, right and centre and ignore, as before, the opinions of Congress, but to use emergency powers in view of a national emergency. And we may see some of those plans materialize by mid-to-late November.

Celebrations have a habit of being followed by hangovers, and it remains to be seen whether this massive democratic wave can inspire real change for the better. The cost of living is going to be hard to bring down and division within the ranks between progressives and moderates – plus no anointed leader at present – threatens the unity necessary to reverse the Trumpian wrongs.

Transiting Mars, currently at 20 degrees of Leo, is making its way to a Mars-Jupiter conjunction at 26 degrees Leo on 16 November. And that just happens to be the degree of Donald Trump’s rising Mars. He is thus, strangely, feeling empowered at this moment in time and far more likely to make aggressive and dangerous moves. The trouble is, progressed solar arc Neptune is conjunct his Moon and opposing his Sun, which is blinding him to reality and inspiring him to believe that he has super-powers.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can take another look at the chart for the midterms which I analysed in last Friday’s Bite. We can now see that the Mars-Jupiter conjunction flanking the Midheaven and squaring the rising Mercury resulted in a massive turnout. Voters came out in their droves to express how angry they were at the state of the nation in general and Donald Trump in particular. However, there was no violence and no major incident. Nor did the Moon-Neptune opposition result in chaos and confusion on the day, and although there are still some states to declare, there are no murmurings of discontent. However, bear in mind, this chart is going to remain active until the elected representatives and senators take their seats in Congress on 3 January, so the potential for chaos and confusion remains.

On the day of the elections, the Moon was square Uranus, which perfectly chimes with the notion of a people’s revolution, and on 24 November there will be a full moon at 2 degrees 20’ Gemini, conjunct Uranus, and squaring the midterms’ Moon. So, this is certainly a period to watch for events of shock and awe.

Another feature worthy of note is that the Ascendant of the Midterms chart is 14 degrees 37’ Scorpio and the Sun and Mercury are placed at 11 and 13 degrees of Scorpio respectively. The Democrat party’s natal Jupiter-Mars conjunction is to be found at 10 and 12 degrees respectively of Scorpio. If that didn’t signal a win for the Democrats, I don’t know what did. I should have taken the time to look at the party’s chart last week.

We should also not forget that the midterms took place while Mercury and Venus were retrograde, so there is plenty of room for reversals, detours and diversions. We may have to wait until the end of next week and the beginning of the following to see what this amazing blue wave can do in the face of a determined and unscrupulous administration.

The honeymoon may be all too brief.

Friday Bite 30 October 2026

It’s Not Only The Economy, Stupid

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch… This case is about the right of every American citizen to vote in a free and fair election.” David O Carter, US District judge.

“The [administration] thinks if they can raise doubt now, and again later after the results of the election don’t turn out the way they would like, the doubt has already been created and they can try to take you along on a lawless ride,” Sophia Lin Lakin, director of ACLU’s Voting Rights Project

“I will [respect the results of the elections] if they’re honest.” Donald Trump, 27 October.

THE MIDTERMS MAY not be the only elections in town, but they are a source of intense speculation, hope and fear. On Sunday, in Serbia, Nationalist “strongman” Aleksander Vucić, conceded defeat to a student-led protest movement. In Brazil, also on Sunday, leftist president Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva beat his hard right opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro initially called for the election to be annulled, but faced with four million votes more for Lula da Silva, he later conceded defeat. The following day, he fled undercover to the United States – courtesy of the White House – and is now in Florida with his family awaiting permanent residency.

The power of the people, as promised by Pluto’s transit of Aquarius and evident in these two elections, was not exactly repeated in Israel where on Tuesday citizens came out in their millions to vote for their future. The election produced no clear winner: neither Netanyahu nor Gadi Eisenkot acquired enough votes to form a government. The country now faces weeks, if not months of political wrangling.

The astrology foretold a difficult week. Monday’s full moon in square to Pluto set the stage for events of a transformational nature – a trend that will continue until the waning cycle is complete (9 November). The dark side of this configuration manifested on Wednesday in Spain, when two high-speed trains collided killing 69 people and injuring more than one hundred. The crash appears to be the result of a chapter of human errors. At 8:30 in the morning, the automatic safety system failed along a 63-kilometre stretch of track, bringing six trains to a halt. Traffic controllers at the control centre took over and the state-run Renfe train was authorized to continue its journey to Seville while the privately-run Iryo train remained stationary on the same track some kilometres ahead of it.

Here is a picture of that moment.

There’s a part of me that feels examining the charts of such a disaster is distasteful, however, in many ways the breakdown of communications that led to the crash is reflective of the problems facing Spain as a whole, and I thought that worthy of discussion. The crash occurred almost exactly on the Moon-Uranus conjunction, which is inconjunct the Sun and sextile Neptune, which is also inconjunct the Sun thus forming a Yod or Finger of God/Fate configuration. Pluto is also involved in the alignment (trining Uranus and the Moon, squaring the Sun and sextiling Neptune). Thus, we have five planetary bodies resonating with each other and generating a mighty vibration. Anything happening at this moment in time will have left a powerful mark. It would have irrevocably changed people’s lives.

Also of note is the placement of the nodal axis on the MC-IC axis. The nodes are the points at which the current eclipse cycle takes place, which is why the nodes are considered to have an aura of fate and destiny about them. In this case, the nodes at 27 degrees of Leo and Aquarius are within a degree of 17 February’s solar eclipse.

Mercury (retrograde) is conjunct the Ascendant and squaring both Mars and Jupiter. Here we find the breakdown of communications and the speed and force with which the accident occurred.

The above chart is the one most commonly used by astrologers and represents the inauguration of King Juan Carlos on 1 November 1975. With three degrees of Aquarius rising and Saturn at 2 degrees of Leo on the Descendant, Pluto is currently triggering this all-sensitive point and planet while Neptune is squaring Mars, and Saturn squaring the moon. Saturn is also opposing Spain’s natal Venus-Pluto conjunction, which is placed in the eighth house of death and rebirth. Natal Uranus at 4 degrees of Scorpio became the Sun at the moment of the high-speed crash.

Spain is encountering turbulence on many fronts – severe housing problems, high cost of living, mass tourism strains, political and parliamentary instability, migration problems and urban unrest and vandalism – factors redolent in Pluto’s transit to its Ascendant-Descendant axis. This tragedy has epitomized the clash between the government and its people, now temporarily united in three days of mourning.

Spain, like many countries in Europe and the UK, is experiencing the exact same pressures for which there seems to be no solution at present. And while this tripartite of Neptune, Uranus and Pluto remains in charge of the astrology, we shall continue to lurch into a new and uncertain world.

THREE DAYS AND counting. On Tuesday, 3 November, the American people will vote in the midterm elections, and a massive U-turn is anticipated with Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate too. In an effort to stem the tide of voter opinion, the White House has been making every effort to bolster support for Republican candidates while engaging in legal challenges and other not-exactly-kosher practices, which could throw doubt on the results of the election.

Here’s what Zeteo, the news platform, had to say about it.

President Donald Trump and Republicans are engaging in an all-out effort to challenge the results of next week’s midterm elections, in a desperate campaign to cling to power for the next two years – spreading unfounded fears of noncitizen voting, selectively and vindictively targeting political opponents and liberal state leaders, conducting arrests and threatening to criminally prosecute Democratic election officials, and having the Justice Department argue in court that an election isn’t legally legitimate unless Trump’s side wins it.

To help sway the election in Republicans’ favor, the DOJ is apparently violating its own policies by attempting to interfere with how states administer elections and determine the validity of votes. And even as its lawsuits flounder, the Trump-Vance administration has zero intention of taking its foot off the gas between now and Election Night, and possibly beyond.

So what can the astrology tell us about the prospects for the midterms. The above chart represents the moment polling booths open in Washington DC. By far the most interesting factor is the Moon (symbolic of the American people), which is inconjunct Pluto and Neptune, creating a Yod configuration and squaring Uranus. The Moon is thus engaged with all three outer planets, which are presiding over this unprecedented period of global change.

Mercury in retrograde sits on the Scorpio Ascendant and is conjunct the Sun and squaring Mars. Venus, also in retrograde and strong in its own sign, is the ruler of the Descendant – partners and enemies – opposing Chiron. If we see Chiron as a Saturn-Uranus object, not just as his role as healer and teacher, I believe we can see a shift here – Uranus breaks Saturn’s stronghold while Saturn holds back the unrestrained power of Uranus to unleash mayhem.

That Mercury is in retrograde and angular suggests obstruction regarding the voting and delays with the final result. And with Mercury squaring Mars, the potential for violent arguments and clashes is present – Mars gaining power by its conjunction to the Midheaven.

Last but not least, the Midheaven falls close to the degree of 12 August’s total solar eclipse, reminding us of its game-changing potential, this time in regard to the government and the people of America. The north node at 26 degrees 56 of Aquarius is within minutes of America’s natal Moon – symbolic of the people.

This is a powerful chart. It suggests both change and reversals and also delays and obstruction.

We have only days to wait to see what exactly unfolds on 3 November, but if we take Donald Trump’s past behaviour regarding election results as evidence of his likely actions in the midterms, unless there is some remarkable volte face and the Republicans stomp home, I think we can assume that it’s going to take some time before anything officially changes in Congress.  And then there’s the possible strike on Iran, “another little Epic Fury”, which Donald Trump has hinted at. All of this puts the result in doubt. But, as I said, let’s wait and see.