Friday 4/30/2021 & the Weekend: Greased Lightning; News Round-Up

TGIF!

If there’s a twist or flake to your morning, it may reflect the Sag Moon going void at 9:26 AM ET, not to enter Capricorn until 12:15 PM ET.  Maybe you slept through your alarm or poured hot water over coffee beans you forgot to grind. I’ve done both during voids. Such lapses are usually of little consequence during these natural rest periods when the Moon is wandering without focus, so chill! Once the Moon enters Capricorn, the drive of the day is to take care of business, though things may not go as planned. The electric buzz of the Sun’s annual meet-up with rebel Uranus (at 3:43 PM ET) has permeated the week. Shake-ups, shocks, seismic action, tech breakthroughs, and other bolts from the blue are to be expected, likely involving leaders, aviation, and maybe even astrology. Also affected: Taurus arenas, e.g., food, retail, real estate, banking, and beauty.  If you were born between April 28 – May 2, you’re feeling the push for a break-out more personally than most. An opposition between Mars and Moon at 7:50 PM ET could generate sparks among unholy alliances.

  • SATURDAYMoon in Capricorn facilitates practical chores around the house, with less friction than last night. Accomplishments may be influenced by other patterns exact on…
  • SUNDAY: ..starting with a dirt-digging trine between Mercury and Pluto, exact at 5:18 AM ET. A harmony (sextile) between Venus and Neptune at 6:38 PM ET can be sweetly sensual. The Capricorn Moon was busy all morning, flitting from Venus to Neptune to Pluto and Mercury, before going void at 10:37 AM ET. Chill, chill, chill until 3:30 PM ET, when Moon enters Aquarius, seeking social significance and the company of friends. Humming in the background all weekend are two patterns exact early Monday morning.  A square between Mercury and Jupiter suggests Big News on expanding a comfortable status quo; another square between the Taurus Sun and Saturn in Aquarius suggests austerity, ambition and controls — especially involving CEOs and heads of state.

No sleeping in on Monday. The Moon will not be void.

And now, the news…

…which I planned to update earlier, but every free moment for the past few days involved conversations with HP tech support. Who knew that a misbehaving spacebar could take up so much…time and space?

Last weekend’s headlines were ridiculously reflective of the sobering squares between Mercury-Venus and Saturn, sprinkled with the shock value of their conjunctions with Uranus. You could have looked no further than the NYT, and when I first started writing this forecast over a decade ago, that’s all I did.

  • Saturn is karma, and it finally caught up with “volatile and vengeful” Hollywood producer Scott Rudin, who faces “reckoning for abuse.” That was the Sunday front page.
  • Saturn-Venus patterns suggest steely women; Uranus adds a touch of rebellion. Liz Cheney was profiled in the NYT Sunday Magazine, and her Leo Sun (and other planets in Leo) have been directly affected by the “old guard clashes with avant-garde” potential of this year’s Saturn-Uranus square.
  • Unconventional billionaire philanthropist  Mackenzie Scott made it into the Business Section; the story angle was a Saturn-Venus-inspired reality check on how scammers are abusing her good name.
  • Venus-Uranus patterns are reliable markers of “unconventional” attractions, and Saturn weighed in heavily with “Escaping ‘this fear’: LGBTQ people flee a more hateful Poland.” 
  • “Breaking with tradition,” President Biden declares mass killings of Armenians “genocide”
  • A Saturn-Venus square is a lousy backdrop for Hollywood’s most glamorous event, and NYT’s Maureen Dowd was in no mood to party at the Oscars. “Crushed Dream Factory,” was the title of her op-ed about how people were not likely to tune in this year. Did you? I didn’t — and confess to not having seen a single nominated film — even though I worked in “the biz” for years. It was a perfect time for The Handmaid’s Tale to return for a new season, however — but gawd, the influence of 2020’s heavy patterns is all over this lean, mean production. 
  • Upside: Saturn-Venus with Uranus suggests serious, unconventional women who could shatter a glass ceiling — and they did! Chloe Zhao became the first woman of color — and second woman ever — to win the Oscar for Best Director. Her film, Nomadland, won Best Picture. I expected Frances McDormand to win for Best Actress and wrote about her horoscope when she won in 2018. Anthony Hopkins’ win for The Father didn’t surprise me, either. Really, the show’s producers should have looked at his horoscope. Last year was brought to us entirely by “the father,” a.k.a. the pile-up of planets in patriarchal Capricorn, and Hopkins is a Capricorn — with a 22 Capricorn Ascendant that was hot hot hot in 2020. Not only that, but he — like Frances McDormand, has a planet at the Aries Point — i.e., the early degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn.

Remember that Mars entered Cancer on Friday? As anticipated, many making headlines in recent days have planets at the Aries Point, including:

As I type, I’m already seeing stories reflecting the shock potential of the Sun-Uranus conjunction at 10 Taurus:

Meanwhile…

9 PM ET was a fine time for President Biden to give an address to Congress on Wednesday night. The chart for that time in Washington had a 22 Scorpio Ascendant, conjunct his natal Mercury. The chart’s boundary-pushing, righteous Sagittarius Moon was at 5 Sagittarius, conjunct Biden’s Ascendant. I told you last time that the President is determined to initiate and innovate, as Uranus is about to oppose his natal Mars in ruthlessly efficient Scorpio. And last night, he delivered, as Heather Cox Richardson explains.…and Stephen Colbert backs up with clips and commentary. 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt — himself an Aquarian with a nurturing Moon in Cancer — would be so proud of Biden’s humanitarian agenda, which aims to put a “We The People” government to actually work for “We The People.” Using tax dollars to pay for expanded child care, health care, elder care, and education; broadband access; products made in America; green energy, and salaries that provide a living wage — what a concept. It was surreal to see half of the audience sulking in their seats while the President spoke of reducing child poverty by 50%, while the other half of the room stood up and cheered. Fun fact: FDR’s Mercury is 27 Aquarius, and it rules his Ascendant and Midheaven. Jupiter will activate FDR’s Mercury three times this year, including rightthisminute. We can appreciate FDR’s expanded profile right now. Astrology is amazing.

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Amazing Avid Readers may recall my musings on the fate of the Affordable Care Act when it was challenged in the Supreme Court during the seven Uranus-Pluto squares. Social Security happened after the Uranus-Pluto squares of the early 1930s; Medicare happened after the Uranus-Pluto conjunction (in Virgo!) in the mid-60s. I think it’s reasonable to anticipate that finally, in the aftermath of the seven squares of 2011-2016, we’ll see our social safety net expanding again. The challenge is one of power, and who has it, suggested by the U.S. Pluto Return, in effect now — with the first hit in February 2022. President Biden called this out in his speech as a fight to preserve our democracy in a world which autocrats and oligarchs wish to control. Making the challenge more difficult is the persistence of The Big Lie – that the 2020 election was stolen. This is reflected in the astrology of the United States, with transiting Neptune (fog, illusion, lies) activating the U.S. Mars-Neptune square. But of course, there’s always an upside potential. Neptune refers to vision, ideals, and healing. I’d happily give up burgers for that.

To be continued…

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