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.
Friday Bite 23 October 2026
A Tipping Point
“For too long, powerful technology companies have operated as though their size and influence put them beyond the reach of the law… Today’s result makes clear that no corporation is too powerful to be held accountable.” Raúl Torrez, the attorney general of New Mexico,
“Facebook was aware that its users did not understand its privacy settings and took advantage of that to a grossly unfair degree… Facebook’s misrepresentations about users’ control of their data were not isolated incidents, but rather a systematic pattern of deception at the core of Facebook’s business model.” Judge Francis J Mathew who presided over the Meta case.
“Ukraine has to want to settle this war. Zelensky has to want to settle this war, and if he doesn’t, I think it’s gonna be a very bad thing. Look, we have given tremendous amounts to Ukraine. We’ve gotten nothing back, other than high diesel. We have given probably, possibly more money to Ukraine than almost anybody over the years. Hundreds of billions of dollars. We’ve gotten nothing back, and the American taxpayers are tired of it.” Donald Trump, 19 October
“You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that… I commend you, and I thank you again.” Steve Witkoff, US Peace envoy, to Vladimir Putin, 21 October
WHERE DO I begin. The speed and pace and force of events is yet again so fast that it is difficult to select which of them to discuss, but I’ll start with the protests that turned into riots across French cities last weekend. And France isn’t alone. Violent protests have been taking place on the streets from Rome to Athens, Madrid to Paris. Emannuel Macron has but six months left in office and last weekend’s orgy of destruction must surely have represented the nail in the coffin of his presidency.
After last week’s Friday Bite was published, Donald Trump signed an executive order waiving yet more sanctions against Russia that would have gone into effect on Tuesday under the Lindsay Graham act. President Trump maintained he was waiving the sanctions “in the national interests of the United States.” Cheered on by yet another example of Trump’s alignment with Russia, over the weekend Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and a close ally of Putin’s reposted a graphic showing the Russian Bear and the American Eagle on the same side poised to fight the British Lion and a tattered European flag. (I’ve put the nearest image I could get to the one posted by Dmitriev at the top of this Bite.)
On Monday, Vladimir Putin, clearly encouraged by the President of America’s acts of hostility toward Ukraine, suggested a meeting between Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and himself next month to put together a deal with Ukraine.
Looking out on the world, there is a sense that we are at a tipping point.
Yesterday, images published by Axios showed a Russian satellite, Kosmos 2612, coming within 30 metres of a Finish commercial satellite providing intelligence imaging to Ukraine. There was nothing accidental about this incident. To change a satellite’s orbit burns huge amounts of fuel. Gabriel Elefteriu, Senior Fellow on the Council of Geostrategy, said in an interview with Sky News that “sub-threshold orbital warfare has begun”.
And today Russia claimed strikes on ships in the Black Sea, while Austria expelled four more Russian diplomats accused of spying.
On Thursday, the British Government announced a “national resilience programme” aimed at preparing the country for acts of God – storms, fires, floods and energy and communication systems breakdowns – and acts of war. Admittedly, this kind of advice regarding preparation for war is the sort of thing the Baltic countries have been doing for years, given their close proximity to Russia. Nevertheless, for the British government to come out and admit there is a real and present danger of conflict is quite something.
I should also mention another act of violence perpetrated this time on a member of parliament in Australia. On Tuesday, in a deliberate attempt to injure, if not kill, Helen Haines, Brendan Nugent, a family friend, drove his truck into her, reversing his vehicle to crush her for a second time. Sadly, Mrs Haines has lost both her legs.
One piece of good news this past week was that Meta was ordered to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company had misled consumers in a case arising from allegations that a political consulting firm (Cambridge-Analytica) involved in Donald Trump’s 2026 presidential campaign obtained data from millions of Facebook users without their consent.
OCTOBER HAS BEEN a month dominated by Pluto: Mercury opposition Pluto (2nd) Mars opposition Pluto (3rd) Pluto stationary-direct (16th) Venus square Pluto, for the second time since 15th September, this time in retrograde, on 20th) and now the Sun is applying to a square to Pluto, which will be exact on the 26th October at the same time as the full moon.
I covered some of the effects of this season of Pluto on Putin and Zelensky last week, so please scroll down if you haven’t read that piece. This time I want to focus a little more on the significance of the current configuration involving all three outer planets. This alignment has been in play since the summer of 2025, but it has dominated the astrology for this entire year, forming an impressive part of the July Basket configuration and now here again with the full moon in Taurus.
I see this configuration as the architect of the new world order, which is now no longer speculation but out there in front of our very eyes. The Spheres of Influence involve three authoritarian regimes – Russia, China and America – and in the past couple of weeks we have seen Trump officially come out as Russia’s ally and make a concerted attempt to force Ukraine to capitulate.
Ukraine is holding the line for Europe, and if it gives way, Putin will march on. And the US cannot be relied upon to come to Europe’s aid. Finally, even Britain has had to inform its people that we could face war, although, of course, we’ve been under hybrid attack for a while.
The chart above, set for the full moon from the perspective of Washington is a troubling sight. The full moon is squaring an angular Pluto, which on the cusp of the seventh house, indicates turmoil with America’s allies as well as its enemies. Mars is rising in Leo widely conjunct Jupiter and providing an indication of a power move in the near future by America, probably in regard to Iran, but given the attempts to interfere with the Starlink/Starshield system that is so vital to Ukraine, Ukraine too.
The Neptune-Uranus-Pluto troika is bearing down on the United States’ chart: Neptune is currently conjoined to the IC and indicative of division, chaos and confusion in the homeland and since the IC is directly opposite the Midheaven, the government is also in a state of chaos and confusion, led by a president who is a chameleon changing his colours as the occasion fits.
And now we come to Venus. On Saturday 24 October Venus will come within 17 minutes of the Sun – they will be cazimi. What is interesting about this particular cazimi is that it is the last one in the sign of Scorpio, the final Venus starpoint, in a hundred year cycle. Venus is halfway through her retrograde passage and at zero degrees of Scorpio there is a sense of her beginning a descent into the underworld – Pluto’s kingdom. In personal terms, we might expect a “clear moment of insight” related to Venus’s principles of love, beauty and the pleasures of life, but that would be to forget that Venus also has a part to play in war. She is the goddess of war in many mythological traditions.
The fact that we have Venus involved in this gathering Pluto storm is to my mind highly significant and is yet another reason why we are at a tipping point.
I can’t pretend to know what exactly is to unfold at this point in time, but I don’t believe it’s a happy-ever-after story. Nevertheless, I think it is important that we talk about the difficulties presented by the astrological configurations every bit as much as we might want to see them as a means of elevating human consciousness and bringing about a new age of brotherhood and enlightenment. Clearly, we have to get through this perilous passage before we can enter any such new world.