This week's Friday Bite from Penny Thornton:
Friday Bite: 6 December 2024
Unpresidented
“I have no respect for a man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego…You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains and embarrasses me to say that, but it’s the sad, sad truth.” Penelope Hegseth
“I can see the complaints coming from a handful of middle-class women of a certain age… This isn’t right.” Greg Wallace
“Dear citizens, I declare emergency martial law to defend the free Republic of Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces and to eradicate the shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people and to protect the free constitutional order.” President Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea
IT’S GOOD TO know astrology works. Over the past ten days, a series of major alignments have been forming, setting their signature on events of global significance from Syria to Seoul, Georgia to Paris. So important are these alignments that I have referred to them several times recently, including my last two videos.
Pockets of uprisings in different parts of the world may just be the tip of the iceberg. Not since 1939 has the world teetered on such a precipice.
Not all the events reflected by the astrology are “bad”. Indeed, this season of revelations and revolutions was kicked off by a surprise declaration of a cease-fire between Lebanon and Israel. This came, out of the blue, on 27 November, and was brokered by the USA and other mediating countries – possibly one of Biden’s last achievements. Needless to say, the cease-fire is fragile and has already been violated by both sides. And while we’re on the subject of the Middle East, I should mention that on 5 December, Amnesty International, with the exception of its Israel branch, accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.
Here is a brief list of extraordinary developments during the past seven days.
On Saturday (30 November) Islamist insurgents launched a surprise attack and captured most of Syria’s second city, Aleppo. The rebels seized Hama on Thursday. And, at the time of writing, the insurgent armies are on the outskirts of Homs, Syria’s third largest city. Syrian government forces are in retreat and Bashar al-Assad’s days in power are numbered.
On Wednesday, the French prime minister, Michel Barnier, lost a no-confidence vote brought by the hard-left in response to a planned austerity bill, thus plunging the government and the country into its biggest crisis in more than sixty years. Not since 1962 has a French Assembly been toppled. Emmanuel Macron’s future is in jeopardy although he has reaffirmed that he will remain as president until 2027.
Georgia has been rocked by violent protests against the pro-Russian government’s decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union. Earlier in the week, President Zourabichvili lost her appeal against the results of the recent election, which allegedly brought pro-Russia Irakli Kobakhidze, leader of the Golden Dream party, to power.
Suddenly in Seoul, on 3 December, Yoon Suk Yeol, president of South Korea, declared martial law. Today, he faces impeachment. South Korea, a stable, prosperous democracy, last saw martial law imposed in 1979 at the time of the December Twelfth military coup. While the country itself is indeed an emblem of democracy, its presidents seem uncannily prone to corruption. Park Geun-Hye (2013 – 2017) was impeached and convicted on corruption charges and her predecessor, Lee Myung-Hye, was sentenced in 2020 to seventeen years for corruption and bribery.
Today, Romania’s top constitutional court cancelled the presidential elections, after security warnings that Russia was “aggressively” conducting hybrid attacks on the country.
In America, the shocks and surprises continue. President Biden took the controversial decision to pardon his son, Hunter – an action he declared he would never do. And yet more jaw-dropping nominations for positions in the forthcoming Trump administration have emerged. Most notably, Kash Patel, former holder of high office in the Trump administration. While well-qualified for the nomination of director of the FBI, Patel has stated that he would close down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it as a “museum of the deep state”. And these two developments – Biden’s pardon and Patel’s nomination – are not unrelated, since Patel has publicly vowed to pursue all of Trump’s critics. We can certainly anticipate yet more pardons from President Biden with Liz Cheney, General Mark A Milley and Dr Anthony Fauci potentially topping the list.
Still in the USA. On Thursday the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot dead at point blank range as he emerged from the Hilton Midtown hotel in Manhattan. The words: “deny,” “delay” and “depose” were later found imprinted on the bullets. These words, meticulously inscribed, are a reference to the three D’s of insurance: delay, defend and deny.
All we needed was an earthquake. And, guess what. We got one.
At 10:44 in the morning, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook the ground in and around the town of Ferndale, California. A tsunami warning was issued, which later turned out to be unnecessary. As you may remember, I’ve been talking about massive under-sea quakes since the summer, and this is yet another example of such an eventuality. What is even more curious is that this is the third December earthquake in three straight years for the people of Ferndale.
CLEARLY, THERE WERE many and varied events happening in and around Ferndale at 10:44 on the fifth of December, but they would all have shared this earth-shaking horoscope. That Pluto rises and Uranus conjoins the IC is utterly descriptive of a ground-breaking event. (I have not yet had the time to research the charts of previous Ferndale earthquakes, but, when I have, I’ll let you know my findings.)
The above chart serves as a guide to the current time and presents a background to all the global developments I have listed. What is not immediately obvious from this chart is that Mars is stationary-retrograde and Neptune is stationary-direct. And when planets are stationary, their effect is even stronger. The Moon was closely opposed to Mars at the time of the earthquake, which may be a factor, however, what is more important is Mars’s opposition to Pluto, which in turn is conjoined to Venus (exact on Sunday).
This Mars-Pluto opposition has been prevailing since late October and it will continue to be in play through late January. It is this confrontational influence that is behind all the conflicts, protests, sabre-rattling and controversial developments that are happening at this time. And it’s not only resonating with major storms on the global stage but in our individual lives.
Think for a moment about the disgraced MasterChef presenter, Greg Wallace, who was outed last Saturday by a number of women – colleagues and contestants – for his “inappropriate behaviour”. His top-line career is over.
The Mars-Pluto opposition will be exact for the second time on 3 January, and it may be that Christmas and the New Year will play host to some even more earth-shaking events. I am even considering the possibility of a complete turn-around in Russia and the war in Ukraine. When the people arise in Russia, as in 1991, everything will change “overnight”.
The chart of the Ferndale earthquake also put me in mind of the influences in play at the time of the full moon in Taurus on 15 November. I used the above chart, set for the USA, in my video about the November influences, and you may be able to see what I found so synchronous. Here the Moon rises, conjoined to Uranus, and the Mars-Pluto opposition flanks the MC-IC axis. This is a representation of all the turmoil, shocks and reverberations taking place on all levels in the United States. And I am tempted to speculate that the assassination of Brian Thompson is emblematic of a growing movement that is prepared to kill those who have inflicted pain, suffering and even death under the banner of “company policy”. I’m not defending this assassination, by the way, merely pointing out that this incident is another “tip of the iceberg”.
I’m not going into detail about the charts for Syria and Bashar al-Assad because we can revisit them later when the regime has been overthrown, which is looking increasingly likely at this point in time.
In the 1941 chart (when Syria acquired its independence from France), transiting Pluto is currently squaring Venus (ruler of the tenth house of government) while transiting Uranus is conjoined to Saturn, and Neptune is on the IC opposing natal Neptune. All of which is indicative of the end of an old order.
In the 1944 chart (which represents the moment Syria declared its independence) the ruler of the chart, Venus at 27 Scorpio is currently being opposed by Uranus which is also squaring Jupiter. Transiting Saturn (13 degrees of Pisces) is currently conjoined to the Moon and opposing Chiron, all of which presents a picture of unsettling times and potential regime change.
As for the president of the country, Bashar al-Assad, what a second Saturn-return he is having. Have those chickens ever come home to roost! And if that isn’t enough, Neptune is currently hovering over his Moon and squaring Jupiter while Uranus transits his IC. A change of home, I believe.
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of al-Assad’s chart, by the way, since his time of birth is unknown, however, this horoscope, rectified by Isaac Starkman, appears to be on point.
NOT FOR THE first time am I motivated to mention that we are living in unprecedented times, and certainly, accelerated times. And astrology is a marvellous mirror for the times. It is fundamentally a language of symbols, which all too often we can only interpret when events have unfolded. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t do our best to divine their meaning beforehand.
Keep your seatbelts on.