Astrology, Prediction and Comment

I am surprised Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Nationalist Party leader and First Minister of Scotland, has lasted for so long.  In 2016 I wrote about her horoscope, and I took the view that her career was coming to a close.  The basis for my analysis was her Vedic horoscope.  She was born on July 19 1970, at 3.16 pm in Irvine, Scotland.  Here’s her chart:

If you’re not used to Vedic astrology, the chart may be difficult to read. The numbers relate to the sidereal signs, and the houses run anti-clockwise from the Ascendant.  One of the key things to note is that she has Saturn in sidereal Aries in the Seventh House.  Although Saturn in the Seventh is seen as having dik bala, or directional strength, it is in Aries, the sign of its fall.  It is also worth noting that Saturn makes a full aspect to Sturgeon’s Moon in sideral Capricon, because Saturn aspects the tenth sign from itself.

We can see Saturn an an accident waiting to happen.  The moment it manifests, Nicola Sturgeon is in trouble.  These are her current dasas and sub-dasas:

Her Saturn dasa started on September 14 2018, if one takes a 365.25 day year.  The previous 16 years, from September 14 2002, were covered by Jupiter.  Her Jupiter is fortunate, being in the First House, but with the switch to the Saturn dasa one would expect things to deteriorate.  Clearly this is not what happened.  She maintained her position as First Minister of Scotland, and her party, the SNP, did very well in the December 12 2019 General Election.

So how does one explain Nicola Sturgeon’s continued success?  One might argue that things are not going well.  As a government, the SNP is racking up debt, and schools in Scotland are falling down international league tables in terms of reading, maths and science.  There is also a view that the effects of a new dasa don’t fully manifest until the start of the second sub-dasa, which in Nicola Sturgeon’s case is the Mercury sub-dasa of Saturn, which starts on September 17 2021.  Finally, we have to consider the possibility that Nicola Sturgeon is a creature of higher, collective forces, which can over-ride her horoscope, at least in the short term.

However, I do think that Nicola Sturgeon’s luck is running out.  Not only is she in her Saturn dasa, but she has sade sati.  This represents over seven years of bad luck, at least theoretically.  This condition is not unusual, and it happens when Saturn is transitting the sidereal Moon sign, and the two signs either side.  Sturgeon’s second cycle sade sati dates are as follows:

The broad period from January 2017 though to March 2025 is covered by sade sati.  Yet the problem is at its maximum when Saturn is in sidereal Capriorn, from January 24 2020 through to January 17 2023.  Not only is Saturn in the same sign as the Moon, but it is opposition her Sun, Mercury and Mars in Cancer.

And already, some cracks are forming.  Last Autumn the SNP made the mistake of supporting Boris Johnson’s call for an election.  While this election allowed the SNP to increase its number of MPs, it gave Boris a massive victory, which allowed him to push through Brexit.  Furthermore, on election night, as the results started coming in, Nicola Sturgeon had a moment of utter hubris.  You can see the picture:

She was celebrating the fact the Jo Swinson, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, had lost her seat to an SNP challenger.  Sturgeon’s reaction struck me as not just exubriant, but also crude.  Nicola knew she was on live TV, but she just couldn’t help herself.  People who behave like this in public are  courting bad luck, especially if their astrological trends are moving from bad to worse.

January 24 2020 was the date when Saturn moved into sideral Capricorn.  Soon after, on February 6, Scotland’s Finance Minister, Derek Mackay, resigned.  This happened because it was revealed that he had been sending inappropriate messages to a 16-year old boy.  Mackay’s resignation was a blow to Sturgeon, not least because he was touted as her potential successor as SNP leader.  But Derek Mackay’s resignation may only be the entrée.  Alex Salmond, Nicola Surgeon’s predecessor as SNP leader, goes to court next month, charged with a number of sexual offences.  It is unlikely to be good publicity for the SNP and its leader.

When you  become a senior politician, the person and the collective get mixed up.  To an extent your destiny becomes tied with the wider whole.  Scotland and the SNP’s future is linked up with Nicola Sturgeon’s horoscope, and the problems that she personally has with Saturn are likely to be projected onto her party and her country.  If you’re a Scottish Nationalist and you believe in astrology, you would want her to resign her political positions as soon as possible.

Charts and tables created with Parashara’s Light 7.03.

The weekend Full Moon hangs heavy.  People are becoming aware of their weaknesses, and brave talk from the past is starting to look futile.  However, it is important that we don’t feel singled out, because everyone is in the same boat.

We also need to be aware that at the beginning of the week there is a conjunction between Venus and Chiron, in the first degrees of Aries.  Chiron is a minor planet connected with healing, and all of us can be helpful.  And in many cases we can be a healing presence.  It is then possible that our experience of physical and mental disease can be useful to the world around us.  But if someone really is sick, they need to see a doctor.

From Wednesday through to Friday, approximately, the Moon moves through the via combusta, the flaming path.  It’s all about the law of unintended consequences.  What you expect to happen doesn’t happen, for better or for worse.

And here are my sun sign forecasts for the 12 signs, for the week starting on Monday February 10 2020:

Aries Open your eyes!  In your rush to move forward with your ambitious you might miss an important detail.  Someone is reaching out a hand, and you shouldn’t necessarily reject it.  Yet some changes to your friendships may be required, for the sake of your creative genius.

Taurus Venus, your ruler, makes a conjunction to Chiron.  You can make people feel better, without making a song and dance about it.  Maybe prayer and meditation is all it takes.  In terms of your family and career, you might have to make a choice.

Gemini There are many ways of communicating, and it’s not just about words.  Small, silent gestures can light up the sky – but that’s something difficult for a Gemini to realize.  Yet at the end of the week it’s action that matters – because you’ll be showing the people who matter that you’re serious.

Cancer Many Cancerians are having second thoughts about their financial situation.  Things are changing, slowly, slowly, and action now could save you a lot of trouble later in the year.  In your career a healing touch can go a long way.

Leo Things aren’t the same, and I don’t mean that in a positive or a negative way.  You can see the reality of the situation, and in terms of relationships you know what makes people tick.  Someone from faraway is quite capable of making a bad decision.

Virgo You’re strongest on your own, at least this week you are.  When another person is calling the shots you’re at sea.  In general it is a time for taking notes rather than acting.  When the dust settles you can make the right decsion.

Libra People don’t change.  If someone has treated you badly in the past they’ll treat you badly in the future.  And this week you shouldn’t listen to another person’s kind words – unless you know their character very well.  Where there’s money there’s confusion.

Scorpio You’re still thinking things through.  A  choice does have to be made, but you’ve still got time.  In terms of work, your position isn’t as strong as it should be.  But everything’s in a state of flux, and weakness moves to strength through gradual change.

Sagittarius Mars continues to move through your star sign.  All of the twelve signs have their problems, at least this week they do, but Sagittarians aren’t too badly affected.  When the competition  is on poor form, even half-hearted efforts can be successful.

Capricorn The more important something is, the more private it should be. And in terms of your career, it is best that you keep a low profie – and if you can stay at home, so much the better.  A couple of financial truths become obvious – profit from the situation rather than shout about it.

Aquarius The Aquarius month roles on, and you have a growing sense that you are the right person in the right place.  However you’re not an island.  You have to take other people with you, and that means that you have to persuade them that you know what you are doing.

Pisces It’s all about distraction – getting people to look in one place, but not in the right place.  Because you need to be the one who gets there first.  After all, it’s a competitive world.  However not everyone is a competitor, and one or two people can be trusted.

In Western astrology there is a huge emphasis on Sun signs.  You use a Sun sign to categorize someone.  This emphasis is modern, and probably dates to the late Nineteenth Century.  It was given added impetus by the advent of the Sun sign column, in the early 1930s.  You want to be able to categorize someone yourself, without calculations.  The Sun is the only planet whose sign you can immediately reference, by knowing someone’s birthday.  At least in 95% of cases – there are issues when someone is born on the cusp, and you then need an exact time of birth to identify the Sun sign.

Aside from convenience, there is some logic in using Sun signs.  The Sun is the star around which the planets revolve, and at every level its impact on our lives is massive.  Yet for the vast majority of astrology’s history the Sun was not a deciding factor in describing someone’s personality and fortunes.  Yes it was important, but it was also malefic – planets close to the Sun are regarded as being damaged.  This is particularly the case in Vedic astrology, where all things being equal, the Sun is unfortunate.  Additionally, in Vedic astrology the Moon is almost certainly more important than the Sun, in the sense that the Moon’s position at birth dictates how the nine phases of life unfold.  It is also possible, in Vedic astrology, to make the sign of the Moon the first house.  This system is often recommended for female horoscopes.  It can also be useful when the time of birth isn’t available.

For myself, I am happy to categorize someone as a single sign.  And usually I focus on the Sun sign.  However I believe that there is a strong case for focusing on the Sun sign for adult males and the Moon sign for adult females.  I know that we live in gender-fluid times, but the concept of male and female are intrinsic to astrology.  The Sun and Mars are male planets, the Moon and Venus female.  A man is  likely to identify with his Sun and projects his Moon, and it is the opposite for a woman.  And in my experience, it is usually not until adulthood that people start to live their gender-specific sign.  A woman with the Moon in Leo and the Sun in Libra would have a tendency to act out her Sun sign in childhood and adolescence, and would only tune into her full Leo self when she hit her early 20s.

There are exceptions.  Look at Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who in 2018 made a  highly emotional and subjective testimony to a Senate committee.  He has Sun in Aquarius and the Moon in Cancer.  His testimony showed a complete absence of Aquarian objectivity, and he was behaving as a pure Cancerian.  One might argue that in spite of his education and experience, he was still living out aspects of his childhood.

A prime supporting example for my argument is Margaret Thatcher, who had the Sun in Libra and the Moon in Leo.  She had Libran traits, that were particularly evident in her early career, when by and large she did what she had to do to ingratiate herself with the people that mattered.  But as Prime Minister, she showed herself as a real Leo – helped by the fact that her Leo Moon was conjunct Regulus, the royal star.  This is what you would expect in a female horoscope.  I remember  in 1989 when she announced that she was a grandmother outside Number 10, saying “We have become a grandmother”.  Nice use of the royal we.

Still, when I try to guess someone’s sign, it is always the Sun sign I am trying to get right.  It is instinctive, and perhaps shows that I can’t escape the Sun sign obsessed world that I am trapped in.

I come to analyze Stephen’s horoscope, not to praise him.

At the end of January 2020 Stephen Russell died, at the age of 65.  Stephen was a healer and mystic, who styled himself after the barefoot doctors of traditional Chinese medicine.  They would travel around the country, dispensing wisdom, healing and magic.  Not surprisingly, Stephen was an expert on Tai Chi and acupuncture.  He was also a successful writer, his first sole-authored book,
Barefoot Doctor’s Handbook for the Urban Warrior: Spiritual Survival Guide, being published in 1998.

I didn’t know Stephen well, and the last time I spoke to him was in 2010.  He gave me some advice about websites and cameras, and around that time we also spoke about his horoscope.  I seem to remember that he had Leo rising, but I no longer have his birth time.  However, I never did Stephen’s chart in a professional setting, and I never acted as his astrologer.  If that had been the case, I wouldn’t be free to write this blog post.

I looked on the internet for information about his birth time.  One astrological author, Mary Evans, wrote that it was “before breakfast”.  If so, that might suggest Virgo rising.  Yet Ruby Warrington asked him about various prominent features of his horoscope, and he replied “Leo ascendant, the performer on stage. Pisces moon, the psychic, trippy aspect. And it’s Venus in Scorpio that makes me sexy.”  So I will set up his chart for 4 a.m., for London, when Leo was rising.  But I’ll interpret the chart as if I don’t know his precise time, and I will assume that he was born some time between 3 and 8 a.m.

When I do a chart, the first thing I do, even before looking at the Sun sign, is weigh up the elements of the seven traditional planets – in other words, the Sun through to Saturn.  Stephen had four planets in Water signs, namely the Moon in Pisces, Venus and Saturn in Scorpio and Jupiter in Cancer.  He had two planets in Earth signs, which were the Sun in Virgo and Mars in Capriorn, one planet in an Air sign (Mercury in Libra) and no planets in Fire signs.

This means that Stephen was a Water-Earth person.  These are the negative elements, the Yin rather than the Yang.  Now I understand that might sound strange.  Stephen was a dynamic person, who had definite leadership qualities.  However, he was also a reflector of the times that he was living in – the zeitgeist, if you like.  And with the passivity of all that Water, he could be very reassuring.  If Stephen said things were OK, then they really were OK.

At least that was my experience when I visited him for acupunture in early 1999, in his clinic in West Hampstead.  I was stressed out and worried, and his words and needles made me feel a whole lot better.  And I should say that in his healing, he exemplified the principle that it is the healer and not the treatment that matters.  I actually think that it is the same with many aspects of conventional medicine.  Two different doctors can give you the same course of antibiotics for the same infection, but it’s often the doctor with the healing touch who  actually cures the infection.

Stephen’s sun sign was Virgo.  This makes sense.  He was a healer, and the body and its movement were important to him.  At the same time, Virgos are often perfectionists, and finding this perfection, in themselves and in others, can be difficult.  Matters were made more compliated by the fact that he was born in the immediate aftermath of a Full Moon, with his Moon in Virgo’s opposite sign of Pisces.  Like many Full Moon people, there were probably two sides to him.  The Moon in Pisces can be sensitive and emotional while the  Sun in Virgo tends to be analytical, materialistic and perhaps even harsh.  I expect he could have switched between the two very quickly.

Yet Stephen’s Moon was strong, being in Pisces in trine aspect to Jupiter in Cancer.  In other words, the two planets were in mutual reception, the Moon being in a sign ruled by Jupiter, Jupiter being in a signed ruled by the Moon.  Matters were further helped by the fact that Stephen was almost certainly born before dawn.  The Moon is strong in a night time chart when it is also above the horizon and in a feminine sign.

The strong Moon emphasized the Yin over the Yang.  It also put Stephen in touch with wider currents, relating to people and society.  He knew what was going on at a particular time, and he was able to respond accordingly.  This meant that he was ready to respond to the exploding interest in alternative medicine and self-help, which characterized his adult life from the early 1970s onwards.

We also need to remember that Stephen wrote lots of books.  I remember, in the late 1990s, discussing writing with him.  For me, writing is an effort.  I have to think and analyze, in a frantic struggle to get the words out.  I can’t remember precisely how Stephen described his writing process, but it was something emotional and non-intellectual.  The words just came out, without the clumsy intellect getting in the way.  This is a lunar process, and it reminds us that the Moon, just as much as Mercury, is a planet of communication.

Stephen’s Mercury was in Libra.  He was able to communicate in a reassuring and balanced way.  However, the Mercury was exactly square his Mars in Capricorn.  This combination is suggestive of verbal aggression, and the ability to cut people down with carefully chosen words.  Perhaps people who got close to him experienced this Mercury-Mars square.  Stephen might also have been more tense than he appeared on the surface.

The Mercury-Mars square is going to say something about his writing.  Mars in Capricorn is ambitous, and it is struggling to communicate its need to be successful.  That first book, Barefoot Doctor’s Handbook for the Urban Warrior: Spiritual Survival Guide, may have been a struggle for him, even if he didn’t admit it.  And it was the breakthrough for his writing career.

Interestingly, Stephen had Mars conjunct the North Node.  The North Node represents one’s destiny, the path one should be heading in.  In Stephen’s case this North Node was coloured by Mars, the warrior planet.  His destiny was to be a warrior, and this was reflected in the title of his first book.  However in his next incarnation I would expect the warrior principle to be more pronounced.  So in thirty or forty years time, when you see an interview with a charismatic guerrilla leader, rifle in hand, consider the possibility that Stephen’s back.

When considering the healing arts, astrologers often look at a minor planet called Chiron.  I don’t use Chiron in my work, but for Stephen I will make an exception.  In mythology Chiron is the wounded healer – a centaur who was an expert healer, but who himself had a wound that could never be healed.  Stephen’s Chiron was at 23 Capricorn, opposition Jupiter and Uranus in Cancer, square Neptune in Libra.  In the jargon, this gives a T-Square, with Neptune trying to square the difference between Jupiter/Uranus and Chiron.  Stephen was struggling to integrate some deep and probably Karmic wound into his expansive, freedom-loving view of the world.  He might have felt he could do this through a type of personal dissolution, and this is maybe what he was doing in the early 1980s, when he was studying shamanism in Mexico.  So while I was a student in London reading Castenada’s The Teachings of Don Juan, he was out there in the field doing the real thing.

However, most people would not be able to integrate a Jupiter-Neptune-Chiron T-square into their everyday lives.  After all, we’re talking about generational and transpersonal energies.  They usually describe the time rather than the person.  In Stephen’s case he was, to some extent, able to intergrate them into his here and now, helped by the fact that his strong Moon was sextile Chiron and trine Jupiter.

And I think Stephen was able to bring these energies down to earth, in his healing practice.  To illustrate this, in the mid-1990s I was writing an astrology book, with a tight deadline.  I was under a lot of stress, and suffering from chronic insomnia.  I went to visit a friend in Maida Vale, and Stephen was there, along with one his students.  Stephen suggested that this student give me acupuncture, so I sat in an armchair while Stephen instructed her on how to stick a needle right between my eyes, just above the bridge of my nose.  The needle went in, and straight away I felt ill.  Then I passed out.  Minutes later I started coming round.  At first I didn’t know who or where I was.  Then I slowly returned to normal.  But in the following weeks my insomnia and stress massively reduced, and I was able to finish the book.  Stephen had been able to channel something through his student, that had released the blocked energy that had been messing me up.  Or at least that’s how it felt.

It would be nice to stop my analysis here, but there are other things to be considered.  Stephen, when describing himself to Ruby Warrington, talked about his “Venus in Scorpio that makes me sexy”.  That’s a flippant comment to make, about a planet that’s in the sign of its detriment.  Yes, Stephen was attractive to the opposite sex, and by all accounts he was blessed with sexual charisma.  I suppose you would have expected that from a self-described guru.  You would also expect that from someone who has Venus in Scorpio making a sextile aspect to Mars in Capricorn.  Indeed Reinhold Ebertin, in The Combination of Stellar Influences, described the positive manifestation of the Venus-Mars pair as “An early sexual maturity, the beginning of associations based purely on sex”.

Yet that is not the whole story.  Stephen has Venus conjunct Saturn, like Donald Trump.  This conjunction can be about women, and in the male chart there may be a tendency to objectify them.  When I recently discussed Trump’s Venus-Saturn conjunction, I mentioned that he appeared to have an obsession with physical appearance, and wanted the women around him to appear in a particular way.  And because he was rich, he was often able to choose his partners.  Stephen was not rich, yet he was very good at attracting women, even if the relationships tended not to last very long.  Virgo has an ideal about what a woman should be, but an ideal that is difficult if not impossible to realize, in the real world

At the same time, Stephen was able to benefit from women.  This is what we would expect from Venus conjunct Saturn, if you take the view that Venus strengthens Saturn, and Saturn weakens Venus.  Especially as Stephen had a strong Saturn in Scorpio, which was in mutural reception by sign to his Mars in Capricorn.

However, some of the  encounters Stephen had almost certainly damaged his career.  In the case of Donald Trump, his behavior towards women nearly derailed his run for the White House.  In the case of Stephen, The Guardian newspaper, in 2007, reported that he denied “allegations made to the patient group Witness that he made sexual overtures to patients in treatment”.  The article reported that Witness had received five complaints about Stephen’s behavior, and that he had made a statement “admitting to having sex with ex-patients in the past”.

I think that Stephen was let down by his Venus-Saturn conjunction.  It is a conjunction that dominates his horoscope, and it is made stronger by the fact that it is semisquare his Sun-Moon midpoint.  The Sun-Moon combination represents the cosmic marriage, the union of male and female.  Having Venus on the Sun-Moon midpoint makes one attractive and sympathetic, but put Saturn there as well and there could be problems.  Saturn intrudes, perhaps compulsively, and threatens to disrupt the cosmic union.

As far as Stephen’s death is concerned, I don’t have his exact time of birth, so there are limits to what I can say.  However, I am interested by the fact that on the night of January 23-24, when I believe Stephen died, Saturn was at about 24 degrees 7 Capricorn and Pluto was at 23 9 of the same sign.  This Saturn-Pluto conjunction was right on Stephen’s Chiron (23 17 Capricorn), and was also opposition his Jupiter and square his Neptune.  Saturn and Pluto were calling time on the T-Square that had inspired and sustained Stephen’s work.  The zeitgeist had moved on, and Stephen was no longer part of it.  He moved on also, to rediscover his relevance in a different time and probably a different place.