Lyudmila Zykina

While the world is mourning over the death of Michael Jackson, whose natal full Moon on the axis Virgo-Pisces was afflicted by the transit Saturn, not many people outside Russia know that the great Russian singer Zykina died on the 1st of July.

She was 80 years old, and the peak of her career happened in the 60s and 70s, but those songs cannot fade with time. These are the YouTube links to famous “Volga” and “Orenburg shawl”.

She was born on June 10, so the deadly affliction by the Saturn transit is quite clear in her chart.

Saturn will be forming an exact opposition with Uranus this autumn, and since the Sun is a natural significator of health and longevity, it will be uneasy time for those who were born on 10-25 dates of September, March, December and June. I wish them all to get through this time safely.

Imelda May

Yesterday I attended a concert of fascinating Imelda May. This woman rocks!

When I came home and looked on the net, nothing like birth date was there, only she was mentioned as “Dublin-born”. But then I found the birth date of her husband, guitarist Darrel Higham – and that was interesting! Partners’ chart are interrelated and describe each other (don’t ask me why – I have the answer, but not everybody is ready to accept it). Thus, in a man’s chart, the wife is signified, in particular, by Moon, and the Moon in the Higham’s chart is interesting:

Moon is placed in fiery quadrupled sign Sagittarius and aspected by Mars in own triplicity in conjunction with Rahu. Moreover, Moon is probably in antiscia with Sun and Venus in square with Uranus (depending on his birth time). This describes quite a woman… 

Imelda May does not work with big studios, and to support her talent people should go to her concerts and buy her CDs:

No Turning Back – Imelda’s first solo release
Talk to Me – with Blue Harlem
Love Tattoo - Imelda's new solo release

There are some YouTube clips available (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), but live she is even better than in records. This is a bona fide music star!

Solar & lunar eclipses

Lunar eclipse of 9th February followed the partial solar eclipse of 26th January, which was visible above Australia, part of Africa and Oceania, and China 

Similarly to what happened in the New England Dark Day, both Beijing and Melbourne received the solar eclipse into angle

Reading the news about fires in Australia and China, one can see how sad yet predictable are the effects of the eclipses.

Update of February 12. After recently discussing eclipses with a friend of mine, I would like to clarify the following. The influence of eclipses on mundane affairs does not mean only fires (and not only physical phenomena). It means extremes, like the recent unusual heavy snow falls in England and even a hurricane in Paris - in the areas where the eclipses were not visible (gravity is still a powerful perturbation, not only for tides, but also for far more dynamic atmospheric masses). Yet, in the context of the Southern Hemisphere, in summer January, fires in Australia are clear manifestation of the eclipse influence, both physically and symbolically.

Patriarch Kirill

Russian Patriarch Kirill was enthroned in Moscow on Sunday, 1st of February 2009, at 10am. 

This is a good chart for the Russian Church and people: the exalted ruler of ascendent Mars is in 11th house of achievements, the Moon (the people) is in the ascendent (congregation loving Patriarch); two benefics (note exalted Venus) in 12th house promise protection. Ruler of 9th house (religion) is in 12th, but since the 12th is quite big in this chart, Jupiter is actually close to MC, which means that in directions MC will come to Jupiter (with Mercury and Mars on the way). 

Retro Mercury rules 2nd and 3rd – I expect the Patriarch will soon deal with some financial and organization matters inside the church, but since his significator Mars is so strong accidentally and dignified, when Mercury turns direct and joins Mars, these will be resolved (not with ease, though). Note that Moon is coming to square Mars, which might signify tensions, too.

The loaded 12th house means dealing with hidden opponents, as well as performing sacred rituals and leading isolated monastic life. 

It is a good chart for the Church and congregation.

Obama’s 2nd oath

When I was writing about the inauguration, it was difficult to imagine such a strange consequence of the Moon void of course (void of course means “nothing happens”, or business without fructification) – yet, in the context of the presidency, it produced the 2nd oath for Obama, 31 hours after the inauguration.

This happened to two US presidents before, Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge, so it is not an exceptional event. However, in the astrological terms, it changes the inauguration chart of January 20th for the new one:

One can immediately notice that the ascendent here is Leo, its ruler being in the sign of Saturn, Aquarius (Leo is the sun-sign for Obama, for he was born in August). This makes the new chart more coherent with his nativity, unlike the previous one, which had Taurus rising (with all his charm, Obama is rather a Saturnine than Venusian person).

This time, the 10th house of supreme power is empty; its ruler Venus, although exalted in Pisces, is badly placed in 8th house of fears and comes to conjunct Uranus and oppose retro Saturn. The ruler of ascendent Leo is in detriment in 6th house – weak and working hard, yet coming to join Jupiter (which will be combust then). Jupiter rules 5th house of fun, so this is not good for the country in the sense of having fun, I am sorry to say.

Moon, the significator of people, has left Scorpio where she was detrimented, but now is coming to square Saturn and Uranus – still not good. The retro Saturn is placed just on the cusp of 2nd house of finances – this is already known to each and every one: people are experiencing financial problems.

This chart is much less shiny than that of 20th January – yet more realistic. Problems, less fun, hard work...

I cannot see much of that in the chart, but I wish good luck to the American people in the next few years.

Algol

Yesterday I was participating in a discussion on death fear during air flights, and I mentioned one of the major significations of the violent death in a natal chart: the influence of the evil star Algol. According to Vivian Robson, who is a contemporary authority on fixed stars, Algol “causes misfortune, violence, decapitation, hanging, electrocution and mob violence, and gives a dogged and violent nature that causes death to the native or others. It is the most evil star in the heavens.”

So, I mentioned that if a natal planet (particularly Sun or Moon) is conjunct with Algol, there is higher risk to suffer violent death and various amputations. 

When I had opened today’s news, I saw an article that immediately attracted my attention: Brazil model Mariana Bridi da Costa lost all limbs.

Here came an astrological hypothesis: her natal chart should have “something on Algol”. I asked my Portuguese friend to check Brazil sites and got the birth date, 18.06.1988. Not only does the girl have Jupiter on Algol (which well can be her ruler of the ascendent if she has Pisces ascending), but also her natal Sun and Mercury in Gemini are afflicted by the current slow and painful opposition of Saturn and Uranus. 

Poor girl.

Update of January 23. Today, a Moscow lawyer was buried, he was shot in the head by a killer. Imagine how I was surprised to see the grave plate with his date of birth, 20th of May - with Sun on Algol! 

In the medieval times, this constellation could mean decapitation by an executioner - now it is just a shot...

Update. Mariana Bridi da Costa died on January 24th.

Cinemundane-II

Yesterday, Jupiter moved from the sign of his detriment Capricorn into Aquarius. Jupiter’s transit in Capricorn took more than a year, and as I wrote earlier, I expected his influence on cinema to be rather disappointing: this was time to make money rather than create masterpieces.

One can hardly recall a masterpiece among all those hancocks of 2008, and even Mamma Mia, with great ABBA songs and ugly voices of the actors, was an artificial production whose main aim was to earn (certainly very favourable for ABBA sales).

All the major blockbusters came out to be too dark, secondary and unimpressive. In the BBC annual film review, I noticed phrase “failed to make much of impression”, which is quite indicative.

I might have called a masterpiece the film released last week, “The Reader”, but even this one is an illustration of the Jupiter in Capricorn: Cardano says on this constellation in aphorism 2.45 of Lilly’s edition about “power under pretence of justice” with “unfortunate issue” – come and see the film to understand how true this is.

Now, as Jupiter is in Aquarius (and weak, being peregrine yet), look at the oncoming movies to find which of them are weird enough to indicate the planetary change…

Update of February 23. I was glad to see Kate Winslet finally - and so well deserved - collecting this year's Bafta, Golden Globes and, today, the Oscar. Well done to her Venus on Regulus, at last!

Landau

This post is about the great physicist – and about verifiable astrological hypotheses.

I do not know Landau’s time of birth, but all I need here is the date, because the main issue is the transit of Saturn over his natal Sun.

Landau was born on 22.01.1908, and the chart is as follows:

One of the major dramatic events of his life was the road accident that happened on 7th January 1962 and deprived him from work till the end of his life.

It is easy to check what was happening in the sky that time: transit Saturn was conjunct with Landau’s natal Sun. I can assure you that this transit is one of the heaviest in one’s life (I experienced it quite recently, in 2006).

Then, I thought, there should be a similar very hard period in Landau’s life about 30 years before the accident (given Saturn’s period of 29.5 years on average). What happened then, around 1932? Certainly, there should be something similarly “catastrophic”?

I checked historic documents related to Landau’s life. To make it short, after living for years in Leningrad, in 1932 Landau moved to provincial Kharkov and started working in the local physical institute (which later became one of the world centres in theoretical physics, due to his efforts).

Why did he move over there? Because of the heavy and dramatic conflict with his supervisor Ioffe, whom he sarcastically criticised until the Saturn transit finalised that, in summer of 1932.

How did astrological hypotheses lead me to finding the historical facts that I had not known?

Warsaw

Yesterday I met a special person. I was very lucky to meet him. His name is Zbigniew Tucholsky, he is a widower of Anna German. I also met their son, Zbigniew junior.

As I wrote earlier, Anna German has been one of the main artistic figures in my life, since I was three years old. When I started studying astrology, she also became yet another astrological puzzle for me, because her chart and her public image had some controversies in my understanding. Therefore, I prepared several dozens of questions to ask pan Tucholsky – only he could tell me what was real among my guesses.

I cannot disclose our private conversation which continued for six hours; I can only say that it was incredible happiness for me to share my life-long love for her with the man who loves her all his life. And I feel quite proud of my astrological understanding of her chart, because he confirmed almost all of my guesses, often just saying “yes” to my questions.

It was an intense weekend: I also did my best to see the country and to test my new Nikon D60. The camera seems to be a good member of the noble family, and Poland is a really beautiful country.

I recently had a chat with a colleague of mine, a Pole, who thinks (quite typically) that Russia is a monster who caused disaster to his country. These people misunderstand the whole epoch: it was first and foremost Russia that suffered the communism, and if they wish to blame somebody, they rather have to direct their energy to Marx.

I like Poland (well, I managed to visit only Katowice, Krakow and Warsaw in two days). I am actually glad to see it recovering from socialistic times as much as I am glad to see Russia doing the same. And I love the language, it is so close to Russian, and almost as dear.

I hope people soon forget the hatred of the past.

President Obama

In June, when I wrote the post about Obama, the exact time of birth was not known yet. Therefore, I would not claim that I did predict his presidency, whatever was my reasoning. Such things happen when celebrities are being considered: their birth info is unreliable and often leads an astrologer astray.

In the case of the inauguration event, however, the chart info is much more reliable: it has already been declared that it will happen on January 20th, 2009, at noon. Therefore, just as in the case of the Medvedev’s inauguration, we can look at the event chart.

10th house of power contains a remarkable combination of Sun (noon chart), retro Mercury casimi, combust Jupiter and Rahu – these promise a term of presidency most advanced in wit and brightness. The ruler of ascendent Venus is in 11th house of the fruits of the power - and of advisors (2nd from 10th), she is exalted and in conjunction with Uranus: Obama promises to be a dignified and unusual ruler with multitude of assistants of any kind (we already know his team of financists). However, the ruler of 11th is retro Saturn in the sign of Venus fall, Virgo, Saturn being the ruler of 9th and 10th as well – it looks as a long and painful conflict with people who are supposed to be his supporters, which sounds bizarre at the moment. Since this is accompanied by the opposition of Uranus and Saturn (the one causing so many mundane problems during October and November 2008, as one can see in the daily news), the conflict promises to be rather explosive.

Furthermore, Mars is exalted and is in 9th house of science and foreign affairs. It is dignified but remains a violent planet, and thus promises scientific achievements in the arms development, which will be fully supported by the president (note sextile between Mars and Venus and the Venus placement in the sign of Mars triplicity).

Considering the state finances, these are ruled by Mercury (2nd cusp in Gemini), which is combust and in conjunction with Jupiter (hardly beneficial in this chart, because it rules malefic houses 8th and 12th and is afflicted by Rahu). Culminating cazimi Mercury indicates a still mighty power – interesting, though, that Sun rules 5th house and is in detriment, which is a bit inappropriate at the time of the financial crisis.

The most problematic body in the chart is the Moon. It is void of course and in the sign of fall in 7th house. Moon in the mundane charts indicates the population, and it is placed in the sign of Venus’ detriment: people hating the president. Not good, not at all. In fact, it would be much better to postpone the beginning of the ceremony for a half an hour or so, until the Moon has moved into Sagittarius.

It will be interesting to watch whether the actual time of the oath procedure would rescue Obama from such a bad state of the Moon. The opposition with retro Saturn is bad enough to spare him from the Moon in Scorpio.

Update of December 3, 2008. Sri K.N.Rao, in his recent article, was very kind to mention my name about those who predicted presidency for Obama.

Update of January 20, 2009. The actual inauguration took place today at 12.07. Moon was in the 30th degree of Scorpio.