Hello, welcome to 2025 friends! I’m sick with the flu, lying in bed trying to get some rest, but I’m also restless. I have so many ideas that my mind finds it hard to fall into some deep sleep. I keep falling asleep for about an hour and a half and then waking up to do astrological research. This is because I can feel the energy of this year and it will be a pretty glorious one on many levels, both seen and unseen, but especially in terms of the planetary astrological transits we will be collectively experiencing. First of all, we entered the year with a Mars retrograde and will continue in March with a Venus retrograde in its exaltation and superimposed on a Mercury retrograde. Retrogrades are times of realignment but they are also times of sensitivity and emotionality, as logic tends to take a backseat for a while. March will also bring with it eclipse season, another reason-blocking period, so be careful what you schedule for that month as many plans could go awry in the last minute. But before March we have super-hot January, made so by the closeness of Mars retrograde in Cancer to the Earth on the 12th of January, and a mere two days after the nodes of the Moon will have shifted into Virgo and Pisces, changing the themes of our collective desires and obsessions; I am so happy to leave behind the North Node in Aries as masculinity was taken to extremes and armed conflicts and violence and hatred against women has been so intense in the last 18 months. February will be quite lovely and quite slow and sweet, almost as if we are entering a really comforting bumper zone right before we are pushed into the chaotic and flowing action of March. If you want to understand how March will play out just reflect on what went down in your life in the last week of November and first week of December of 2024, as the themes will repeat.
The highlights of the second month of the year will be the lunar occultation of Saturn in Pisces on February 1st, the Moon at perigee on the 2nd (perigee meaning closest to the Earth), Jupiter going direct in Gemini on the 4th (which is always a lucky day, so mark that in your calendar), and then Mars going direct on the 24th of February. The most beautiful aspects is given by Venus, who plays a star role this year, as she will shine at her brightest in the night sky in between the 10th and 16th of February. Valentine’s Day will be quite special and karmic this year, as Venus is also wrapped up in her closeness to Saturn and Neptune so basically the love you give is the love you will receive; but schedule a lovely trip or getaway, a pampering treatment or make something nice to eat and even share it with others, as Venus in Pisces is altruistic and loves sharing gifts, making donations and giving comforting hugs to those in need.
I also feel that with the combined efforts of Venus being exalted and remaining in Pisces up until April and with the Moon making so many aspects to Saturn and Mars and literally standing in between them and the Earth during its growing phases, that a wave of softness is coming over the collective, marking for a hopeful closure to the violence, hatred, selfishness and restlessness that has marked the previous years. The Moon will also occult Antares, several times in Winter and Spring of 2025, and it being the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpio, you can expect some intense and deep feelings to rise up to the surface of our lives. The best way to harness their energy is to put them into creative work, because this is the year when individual, creative and imaginative efforts done solo will sky-rocket your career if you put a lot of heart into them and you dare to do something different and to challenge people’s habits. The collective mood will be quite dark, grunge and modest but also incredibly sexy and romantic at the same time (like a 90s rock music video playing on MTV late at night). This is also because Lilith, the Wild Feminine will also switch signs from Libra and into Scorpio on the 28th of March.
As the rings of Saturn will be at their thinnest that they have been in 14 years and as the Earth is closest to the Sun this year (in combination with the Sun’s barely decreasing solar maximum from last year’s peak), we will begin to experience less restrictions and become more emotional. Expect some epic warm showers this spring and summer as well. In addition, there may be more public outpourings of emotion involving music, dancing, peak religious and spiritual experiences and chants of free love. The social situation of the poor, the environmentally afflicted, the outcasts will continue to feel tense or blocked by the clutches of the past up until the end of March, when Neptune will enter Aries, and then momentum will begin building up as Saturn will enter Aries on the 26th of May. Slightly edgy but also pretty fun, June will be tense up until July swoops in and brings with it the movement of Uranus from Taurus and into Gemini. This will be a sky lit up with Fire and Air signs energy, after so many years of Earth and Water signs dominating the sky! You could call the summer, a period of a return of reason and illumination. Ideas will flow to us with more ease and communication will be prioritized above action. At the same time, the best Water energies which will remain will be the romantic and heartfelt dance that Jupiter in its Cancerian exaltation will make with the North Node in Pisces (finally released in the summer from the clutches of Saturn!). July will certainly be an excellent month to launch artistic projects, get married, fall in love or procreate. The downside will be that as Saturn and Neptune will be in a loose square to Jupiter in Cancer there may be issues of homeland security, displaced homes and mass migration that will have to be dealt with.
The friendly energies between Uranus in Gemini, Pluto in Aquarius, Saturn and Neptune in Aries will light up our July and August, ushering in a completely different mood of courage, action, intensified speech and passionate commitments. The energies will calm down and fall back into the moody darkness towards Autumn, as September will come with its retrogrades and eclipses, pulling us one final time into a past we will slowly start saying goodbye to. Seeing as we have so many planets in two highly emotional and impulsive signs (Pisces and Aries), and that the Moon and Venus are doing a lot of work this year, as Saturn will also be in an uncomfortable Martian energy and Neptune in a weird semi-sextile to its domicile placement, this year will be emotional in both the worse manifestations of this word and its highest. Personally, it may seem weird but I’m looking forward to feel more freely and to cry again, as Saturn in Pisces has ‘iced’ me out in recent years and it was so hard for me to release toxins through crying. Crying brings relief to the body; it cleanses the eyes and disburdens the soul. Asking for forgiveness can also repair relationships that were once broken and filled with enmity. All these beautiful manifestations of Piscean energy, softened as they are by Venus in the first part of the year, means that we can fix and repair what we destroyed because of pride and ego in previous months. A softly assertive approach will get you the desired results rather than a fearful or strongly aggressive approach. As the saying goes you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Saturn in Aries will get us to face our fears of each other and ram our heads into the unknown with confidence and a sense of adventure, while the North Node in Pisces will bring about some softness, some sweetness and a spiritual approach to the outcomes of each individual act of killing fear. It’s truly the year in which we can embody that old saying ‘make love and not war’, as long as we stay true to our hearts.
The year is almost over and it’s been a very difficult one for me on an emotional level. My mental health has severely fluctuated following from a diagnosis with extreme anxiety and paroxysmic crises at the beginning of the year – for which I had to take medication for 3 months – to the news of my father’s bone cancer. I struggled to really do my work and enjoy creating like I used to, as I was overwhelmed by negative feelings and depression. My misophonia which began in 2023 when I moved into my new apartment that was besieged by loud noises and construction work for months on end, accentuated to the point where I could only exist if I wore headphones at all times throughout the day to feel calm and balanced. After 3 months I also ended my therapy and relationship to my therapist because I found out she was swindling me for money and kept saying ‘let’s be friends’ throughout our session, when I actually needed a trained professional to help me make sense of the deep pain I was feeling. I decided to take my healing into my own hands and go to the gym, take herbal supplements of Magnesium and Valerian and try to get a corporate job, to have a steady income at least and pay off my taxes. The plan was hard to sustain as I often struggled to work in the hectic corporate environments where people would play music or speak loudly over each other and trigger my misophonia. I tried 5 jobs and failed at all of them for various reasons but looking back the reasons where all me, and the pain I was experiencing and that I couldn’t control.
As August came by and with it came extreme heat, I kind of gave up on everything and spent most of my days sleeping, going to the cinema or drinking beer to cool off, since film tickets and beer where under 5 euros and I was on a budget. Looking back on that period which contained the majestic Lion’s Gate Portal energy, I can clearly say I was a mess and felt horrible and I argued with my mom, but I kept it all to myself, like I always do, not wanting to bother anyone. I preferred showing my crew images with me at the local community pool than discussing openly my deep despair. From time to time, I would return to the tarot but all of these attempts I had at trying to ‘live normally’ while feeling like I was slowly dying inside gradually built up and made me just want to give up on tarot as well. An opportunity for another job came by in September (and I need to say just how grateful I am that Spirit kept offering second, third and fourth chances for work this year, to the point that I feel my eyes tearing up as I am writing this) and I took it. I needed the income and I thought that the job was interesting, only to discover a month into the job that the income I agreed upon when I signed the job contract was not reflected in my pay check and the stress from having been lied to and taken advantage of (yet again) just got to me and amplified my misophonia. I was working for the largest corporation in the world and I got pennies in return and I felt sick to the bone and decided to liberate myself. although with a heavy heart as I seemed to have been stacking up so many failures.
One fated and beautiful moment during this job was when a person started talking to me in the lady’s bathroom about how she knew about The Spiritual Social and how much it helped her in the past. I thanked her but felt like I was slowly burying my work into oblivion, and she wanted me to know that I shouldn’t give up and told me to keep going and to take our meeting as a sign. We hugged and I guess she doesn’t know just how much that encounter meant to me and how it was part of the decision to keep working and uploading and posting again. That was the beautiful pearl hidden inside this harsh year: that occasionally, Spirit would send me a benefactor, a friend, a gentle life-line, a sign of a hopeful kind that reminded me to keep rolling with the punches and to not give up on everything.
The last two months of 2024 have been quiet and slow but they have also been productive. I started writing articles here again, I became a Hermit and mostly spend time indoors, creating and I cannot say at all that I am not enjoying it! I am aware that it will take some time and perseverance to get back to the level of light, love and inspired dedication that I was at in 2021, but I had better astrological transits back then and less neurological damage. A part of me still wishes that none of this would have happened and that my dad would still be healthy and going to the cinema with mom, that my sister would still be talking to me, that my channel would unproblematically grow, that my income wouldn’t have halved itself and I that I would feel safe and happy in my new apartment, but I guess these things just had to happen. My recurrent breakdown this year was in some way fated. I’m usually very strong, so it was hard for me to make sense of what was going on. I still can’t say with clarity I have the answers…other than Pluto is on my IC and it feels…..like a cinema of inner horrors that wash over me like the waves of a sullen, forgotten sea.
As I gradually gave up on things, I pulled into myself for some peace and safety and as a consequence I pushed some people away – not because I had problems with them, but because it hurt me if someone wanted to get closer to me, as I felt I couldn’t reciprocate in a loving and enthusiastic way. The merest sign of kindness, love and support I would receive would get me to sob uncontrollably and I would feel like my skin was burning; and I usually cry alone, I struggle to cry in front of other people and it takes a big hit to get me to do that. I think this is because in a year in which I needed the most to cry and to release the pain, I just couldn’t do it, something inside of me just froze off. It was a dry, emotionally heavy and anxious year. And yet I am still here, I made it through and I recommitted to my spiritual work because I am aware that no psychiatrist or medication can do me good for too long, especially when I can’t trust my therapist. I need to be brave to continue to live and to create. What I need is yoga, meaningful work through tarot and astrology and exploring my environment. What I need is friends, to paint, to walk, to drink water, to keep to a clean diet and to be of use to others, helping them within boundaries so that I can heal my heart as well in this process. What I need is to go to sleep surrounded by my three cats, my little family of survivors.
On this final note, the highlight of my year has been meeting and adopting Noa, my little family’s tomcat. I met him in the Bellu cemetery, as I was having my lunch during my work break and suddenly about 8 cats were surrounding me begging for some crumbs; one of the cats was on the outside of the circle and all the other ones where pushing him and he didn’t seem able to fight them off as he was too weakened. When I saw this, I felt like he wouldn’t survive for much longer and he was such a beautiful cat underneath all that grime, so after I went back inside the corporate building I was working in and quit, I came out and took him in my arms and ordered an Uber to get us home so I could wash him. One woman who was doing the graveyard cleaning, started shouting at me and saying obscenities like “I should search for men and get fucked instead of caring for these awful cats” and after an exchange of tough replies I realised she is dead inside and that life was brutal to her and that I wouldn’t win this argument. I left her screaming and got inside the car and I started crying because Noa was almost asleep in my arms and he opposed no resistance. When the driver saw this, he switched the radio channel to one that played ‘In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleep’s tonight’ just to make us feel better after I told him I just adopted Noa and was verbally abused for it. He got us home safe and I gave him a generous tip. We were now a family of 4.
Since I moved into the new apartment, I seem to be adopting a new cat each year, and while this has always been my dream (to adopt and nurture animals who have been neglected or mistreated and to honour Artemis, the Goddess presiding over my Sagittarius stellium), I am conscious of the fact that I am going to need a bigger place and maybe also a patch of grass to keep doing this work. My dream now is to purchase a small farmland somewhere in the centre of Romania, in the country-side and to plant vegetables and herbs and to raise chickens and ducks while I grow my cats and dogs’ family. And another dream would be to solidify my training as a psychologist by becoming a Jungian analyst; because the corporate world is not the right environment for me and I seem to be struggling to make an income from just tarot and astrology, since the pandemic ended. For this I will need time and money and will attempt in the next year to redirect these efforts by doing two jobs at the same time (I worked in a similar rhythm when I was writing my PhD and I think I still have it in me, to do it from next year). As Saturn will conjunct my Sun together with Neptune and the North Node in Pisces for my 38th birthday, I feel it is time to put in the hard work that will hopefully help me manifest a dream or to. I just hope that Romania remains a free country, in the sense that it will stay in the EU and that we won’t be politically wreaked by a right-wing, extremist president. In the absence of these things, it would be impossible for me to buy a farm or train as an analyst, as I will need to flee the country.
But that’s just a bad dream for the time being and there is still so much hope that after some restrictions we can live in prosperity once more. I cling to such hopes, dearly. In the meantime, let’s come back to the present and to my thanking you from the bottom of my heart for still being here! I appreciate you so much and I find it humbling that you all find meaning in my work and words. If you are a follower to this blog, thank you especially and I promise you there will be a lot of cool articles coming up. I just felt like unburdening my heart in this post, so that I may leave some of the emotional baggage in 2024, where it belongs. I’m sorry to everyone I pushed away this year, and I hope that if by some weird twist of faith you will read this post, you will understand why I acted in this way. I just didn’t have the right words at the time being, as I was overwhelmed by emotions. Let’s see that 2025 will inspire better coping strategies in the minds of those of us dealing with grief and pain. For the time being, from me, Noa, Luna and Sol, we wish you a happy, safe and pleasant entry into the New Year and a happy New Moon in Capricorn!
This post is more of a playlist than anything else. To remind myself and others that love is still possible and that it can be found in the irregularities, mistakes and issues of everyday life. One of the least sentimental and most romantic rock bands, whose music stood the test of time, has been the American band The National. I used to religiously listen to them in high-school, specifically their brilliantly undertstated album ‘Alligator’. Then I got the pleasure of seeing them live in the Netherlands at the Lowlands festival and in special gig at Edinburgh’s Queen Hall, which I was fortunate enough to live in close proximity to, at that time.
And because ysterday, I drank some champagne for Christmas and Youtube randomly started playing ‘Quiet light’ in the background, just as the clock turned to midnight, I thought I’d put together a top 10 of my favourite love songs from The National with some lyrics that stand out to me. So courtesy of singer Matt Berninger (an Aquarius Sun) and the band, here are the songs I most listen to when I want to feel loved and hopeful:
Brainy : You know I keep your fingerprints in a pink folder in the middle of my table / You’re the tall kingdom I surround / Think I better follow you around / You might need me more than you think you will / Come home in the car you love, brainy brainy brainy
Conversation 16 : I’ll try to be more romantic / I wanna believe in everything you believe / I was less than amazing / Do not know what all the troubles are for / I fall asleep in your branches / You’re the only thing I ever want anymore
Val Jester : Build a fire for Val Jester / Build a room for your love / Take your time when you tell her / How she lives in your blood
Quiet Light : But I’m learning to lie here in the quiet light / While I watch the sky go from black to grey/ Learning how not to die inside a little every time / I think about you and wonder if you are awake
Start a War : Whatever went away, I’ll get it over now / I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again / Walk away now and you’re gonna start a war
Terrible Love : It’s a terrible love and I’m walkin’ with spiders / It’s a terrible love and I’m walkin’ in / This quiet company
The system only dreams in total darkness : Maybe I listen more than you think / And I can tell that somebody sold you / We said we’d never let anyone in / We said we’d only die of lonely secrets
I need my girl : I am good, I am grounded / Davy says that I look taller / But I can’t get my head around it / I keep feeling smaller and smaller
City middle : You said “I think I’m like Tennessee Williams” / I wait for the click, I wait, but it doesn’t kick in / I think I’m like Tennessee Williams / I wait for the click, I wait, but it doesn’t kick in
About Today : Hey, are you awake? / Yeah, I’m right here / Well can I ask you /About today? /How close am I / To losing you?
Norman Rockwell shows Santa Claus changing his itinerary depending on whether children were good – or extra good (1939). Photograph: Apic/Getty Images
It’s been a while since I wrote a light-hearted post and seeing as Christmas is just around the corner, I thought I would indulge a deep curiosity of mine and take you on a fun, astrological trip as well: What exactly is Santa’s zodiac sign? And could I track down his birth-date, time and place? And once cast, what planets would I find in this famous, jolly man’s chart? Let’s investigate 🙂 I begin my search at the source, more precisely the website santaclaus.com. If you use the search bar to look for Santa’s birthday you get redirected to a page in which you are being told the fun fact of the day: that Santa’s birthday is the 15th of March. Wow, that was easy – Santa is a Pisces Sun, just like me, whoopie! Ok, but a true investigator looks for more facts before drawing a conclusion. So I do a similar search on the website that is in charge of Santa’s yearly correspondence and the Santaverse, called elfontheshelf.com and am being given the same result. Double match! But this is suspicious, why are we not given any other details about Santa’s birth? Just the fact that this date is thrown around on the websites concerned with Santa’s lore is not enough to convince me that it is the truth of the matter.
So I take a different approach and I run quick searches for Santa Claus on Wikipedia and Britannica in order to dive a bit deeper into the history behind Santa’s life and the circumstances of his birth. Results show me that the name Claus could be the short form of Nicholaus and that celebrating Santa Claus’ arrival on Christmas Eve was an extension of the celebration of Saint Nicholas’ name day, which takes place on the 6th of December, a mere couple of days before the Winter Solstice or Christmas (21st-25th of December). I always thought it was weird how we celebrated as children both Saint Nicholaus and then also Santa Claus at a short distance one from the other, and how they both had links to gift-giving and the moral reprimand of being a good enough child to earn gifts. Armed with flashback of my childhood, I remained intrigued and continued searching.
As I was searching I pondered that the moral and generous qualities of Saint Nicholas would fit well with a Sagittarius Sun birthday, making him ruled by Jupiter, the Great Benefic, an energy of generosity, optimism, growth and excess. But I found this Wikipedia explanation as to why, Saint Nicholas gradually become associated with the image of Santa Claus and attributed the habit of giving gifts to children:
“During the Middle Ages, often on the evening before his name day of 6 December, children were bestowed gifts in his honour. This date was earlier than the original day of gifts for the children, which moved in the course of the Reformation and its opposition to the veneration of saints in many countries on 24 and 25 December. The custom of gifting to children at Christmas was propagated by Martin Luther as an alternative to the previous very popular gift custom on St. Nicholas, to focus the interest of the children to Christ instead of the veneration of saints. Martin Luther first suggested the Christkind as the bringer of gifts. But Nicholas remained popular as gifts bearer for the people.[8][9]“
Interesting. And in this context, I am slightly perplexed as to why Santa Claus is officially described as celebrating his birthday on March 15th? Why not make it 6th of December then? Traditionally it would make some sense as both Sagittarius and Pisces used to share the same planetary ruler before the discovery of Neptune during the Autumnal Equinox of 1846; both zodiac signs were ruled by Jupiter, or Great Jove, but this shared ruler hypothesis isn’t enough to help me make sense of why these two dates are competing for Saint Nicholas’ birthday. I am nosy and somewhat dissatisfied with this facile association, so I click on the Saint Nicholas wikipedia page and I am sent to this promising lead:
Amazing! Now I have something to work with. It seems that Nicholas of Myra was a bishop born during the time of the Roman Empire, on the 15th of March in what is now modern-day Kaş in Antalya, a region of Turkey. After a lifetime of service to Christianity, he died at the age of 73 on the 6th of December, a day which became associated with his name, as after his death he entered the Christian canon and became sanctified. But because of the Christian reformation that took place during the Middle Ages, Nicholas’ celebration became associated with Christmas and the act of giving gifts to children. In a nutshell: he was born in March and he died in December, this is why we have these two dates!
Ok, all of these aspects to the side, let’s cast a chart for the date of 15th of March 270 BC for the region of Patara/modern day Kaş in Antalya, Turkey. I first check the coordinates of the ancient city of Patara to the ones generated in the location provided by the birth data entry generator for the town of Kaş, and they are almost perfect aligned. However, I encounter another obstacle in that the calculator follows the Gregorian calendar and seems to stop generating charts before the year of 1582 AD. I could adjust this date by adding the particle ‘jul’ next to the year, so I do exactly that. Seeing how difficult it was to find his birth-day and the exact location of his birth, I’m giving up on the idea of there being a recorded actual time of his birth, so we’ll have to let go of knowing Santa’s Ascendant (for the time being). The final input data I have resembles a magic formula at this point, but it allows me to cast his chart and I get this image below:
Fig. A – The birth chart of Santa Claus with his birth-place included
Oh my God! A look inside Santa Claus’ chart, which is probably the best Christmas gift ever 🙂 I’ll take a short break from my excitement and let you know that there is another method for checking the planetary positions in the sky for the given date (15th March 270 BC) and that is to track down the ephemeris generated by astro.com for that specific year and look up the month of March of that year. It took me a while to track down such a specific ephemeris but following this link opens up a vault of astrological knowledge from before our Christian era. After searching for the year, the month and the day, I generated this screenshot:
Fig. B – The position of the planets in the sky generated by the astro.com ephemeris for the year 270 BC
As you can see from the images above, we now have two charts packed with astrological data pertaining to Santa’s birth. Fig. A is the more correct one, as it includes Santa’s birth-place which is not something that was used in the creation of the ephemeris in Fig. B. We can use the second chart just to compare the accuracy of the outer-planetary transits, a couple of his personal planets (excluding the Moon’s position which is strongly tied to the birth-place) and the position of the nodes of the Moon and Lilith as a significant asteroid (data on Chiron is sadly not available). Remarkably we see the same pattern: Santa was born with a Pluto in Scorpio (just like Millennials!), a Uranus in Gemini (a transit which is coming up in 2025), a Saturn in Leo, a Jupiter in Gemini conjunct Lilith (he would’ve experienced his Jupiter return, this year in 2024!) and a North Node in Cancer/South Node in Capricorn conjunct Neptune in Cancer (talk about a destiny of being associated with nurturing children, wow!). Needless to say, my mind is blown…
Let’s take a closer look at the first figure and Santa’s personal placements. So, he was born as an altruistic and spiritual Pisces Sun, with a Moon in Gemini – which would make him a bit of a sceptic and trickster, if his Moon would not be in a conjunction to Jupiter, granting him a generous and faithful heart and access to expansive and loving emotions. Not only that but his lunar energy is also conjunct an unripe Mars in Gemini at the 0 degrees and Uranus, who is operating very well in the friendly and child-like energy of Gemini, thereby ensuring that Santa’s generous optimism is delivered to people, in surprising and unexpected ways. Gemini is also the sign of toys and toy-making, puppets and pulling strings, and we see how Santa literally has the spontaneous gift-giving of toys to little ones tattooed in his chart!
That good and bad dichotomy is also present in his chart, as both Pisces and Gemini are flexible Water and Air signs, who often pendulate between being moral and immoral, kind and mischievous, honourable and treacherous; simply put they can be walking-talking contradictions. The other part of his chart which speaks about his destined connection to children is his Neptune in Cancer (a motherly and family-oriented sign) sitting in conjunction to his North Node in Cancer (a point of growth in life that is connected to feelings, artistry, sensitivity and nurturance). I can see that it wasn’t easy for Santa to walk the path of being generous and loving, since his comfort zone is one of frugality, stoicism, hardship and financial discipline (South Node in Capricorn). Santa could’ve been quite miserly before he became well-known for his generous distribution of gifts across the Globe, and it was told that he was born in a wealthy family of Greek Christians who sadly died during an epidemic. This prompted young Nicholas to give his riches to the poor and conduct others acts of kindness such as helping the three daughters of a devout merchant get married even in the absence of dowries and then resurrecting three children, who had been murdered and pickled in brine by a butcher planning to sell them as pork during a famine. We see how money and death (South Node in Capricorn) are linked to losing his family, helping women and children (North Node in Cancer) and how these themes are intertwined into his legacy and destiny.
I also find it interesting how Santa was years ahead of his peers in his behaviour and altruism for the plight of women and children. He was born with a Venus in Aquarius conjunct Mercury, which makes him a unique individual, with a piercing intelligence and a capacity to notice and reflect upon the state of society. He was also weird and aloof, with a propensity for scientific discoveries rather than casual chit-chat and heartfelt declarations of love. Santa was solution-oriented and forward-thinking and he had more friendships than passionate love affairs or romantic pleasures. This latter character trait is highlighted by the fact that his Venus in Aquarius is opposed by Saturn in Leo, which made him struggle to make wealth and hold on to it, and it also made him purify his relationships of Ego and basic desires, because most of his desires remained unfulfilled or frustrated (such as falling in love, getting married or having children, desires we all have but which remained for Santa limited or blocked).
Seeing as he struggled to have a family of his own, little remained left for solitary Santa but to offer his life to the service of God and to sublimate his unfulfilled family desires by offering gifts to children and performing acts of kindness to help struggling families. With so much Air in his chart (4 planets in Gemini and 2 in Aquarius), Santa Claus was truly a man, light-years ahead of his time and I guess he became enlightened early on in his life and struggled to fit in and cope with the muck and mire of the human condition. He needed to intellectualize his experiences in order to move past them, and Santa did have his share of traumatic memories: he experienced famine, an epidemic, the loss of his family and he was beaten and robbed and yet he chose to do good and to protect those who were vulnerable. Because of his choices and his faith, he left behind a legacy of compassion that far exceeds the act of giving gifts to children around the Winter Solstice (although that in itself is a worthy thing to be remembered by). I can honestly say, I am seeing Santa in a completely different light now, one which goes beyond the ruby-cheeked fellow notoriously popularised by 1950’s American Coca Cola ads. Armed with this precious new knowledge about his chart, here is a beautiful visual history of Santa Claus to help you doze off to, on Christmas eve.
Today marks the Winter Solstice, or Yule as the pagans call it. The longest night of the year, and just tuning into any news channel, it certainly seems so from a political and social point of view. I woke up at 7 am in the morning because my phone’s battery died and the affirmations, I was listening to in order to reprogram my mind to maintain a more positive outlook, had stopped. The morning looked exceedingly grey, with a thick coating of clouds ominously looming over the district in Bucharest under which I live. I say ‘under’ because lately everything has been feeling somehow above me, on top of me, gently crushing me into a haunting sense of submission. And I’m not in the habit of submitting. As I opened my eyes, slightly irritated that my dream had to end, there was just silence in the room, accompanied by my breathing and the sounds of my upstairs neighbours heavy, intermittent and always difficult-to-predict knocking. To counter-act the sense of dread I was feeling, I got up to recharge my phone, I pressed play on my laptop so it could unleash some soft, jazz music and moved around and woke my trio of cats who gradually made a little barrage of cuddly fur around my ankles. Making some coffee then opening up this blank page I felt like I should write something empowering and useful about the energy of the Winter Solstice. Needless to add, but I was struggling in this task. I feel like I owe it to my crew, my online community to inspire them to feel better, and yet I myself feel low on energy and uninspired to celebrate anything. My body seems to be in shutdown mode for a few weeks now and it just wants to sleep and disappear into dreams. The fact that I wake up to a reality in which everything seems unstable, dark and hopeless doesn’t help.
Against this lethargy, I try to resuscitate my body with long walks, warm and bitter cups of coffee, sweet homemade jam and affirmations, and I have some success in this endeavour, although in some moments the heaviness which I perceive in my environment is so palpable that it just overwhelms any efforts to combat it with hope and light-heartedness; like a juggernaut of despair and darkness, the Zeitgeist haunts me and moves steadily without any persuasion to do otherwise. I normally enjoy my solitude as I find a lot of space to create and time to listen to my inner voice, but the heaviness surrounding my heart is blocking me from being creative at present. So the silence and solitude in which I find myself feels hard to endure, rather than nourishing and calming, like it used to feel. I keep thinking whom to ask for help, what powerful force can I align with, in order to generate more light and to find purpose and hope? Whom do I turn to when my inner light is barely a candle-light fire, and needs some spiritual…gasoline, in order to burn brighter? I figure that if people usually have disappointed me with their lack of courage and consistency in my life, then what exists in the world beyond the veil, may be the answer I am searching. During trying time, we may ask the gods for help with lighting up our inner fire; and our ancestors will most likely, respond to us in a positive way if we turn to them for help.
The deities associated with Yule are commonly known as light-bringers and Earth-nurturers, such as the Japanese, Amaterasu – Goddess of the Sun & Heaven or the Greek Demetra – Goddess of the Harvest & Seasons or the Nordic Baldur – God of Light, Beauty and Purity. But seeing as the Sun is tethering in between the constellations of Sagittarius and Capricorn around the time of Yule, and as these are Fire and Earth astrological signs, other heavy and rather darker deities are also invited to the holiday table, deities such as Hades – the Greek Lord of Death and the Underworld or Papa Legba – the Voodoo Gatekeeper of the Spirit World or Hel – the Norse Goddess of Death and the Frozen Underworld. Perhaps the most interesting Goddess is Persephone (also known as Cora to the ancient Romans), as she represents a mediator between ground and underground. In December she is presumed to nestle under the Earth, joining her husband Hades in their wintery nest, as her mother Demeter has frozen the ground and blocked the growth of vegetation until her daughter safely returns to her from her dark, romantic journey. It is only with intense prayer and adequate rituals that one may awaken Persephone from her sepulchral slumber and one must do with care, as when you awaken the Goddess of the Underworld you also bring with her the cobwebs and dark mysteries of the world she currently inhabits. If, however the task is achieved, she is one of the most powerful ally you can summon to help you manifest spell-work in December, the type of spell-work that may help you balance your mental health.
Illustration of Goddess Persephone by Gleiver Prieto
This is because around Yule, it is assumed that a powerful energetic portal opens up and in this way, any spells, affirmations, intensions, sigils and magic artefacts can be more easily manifested and charged with magic; especially, if you dedicate any of these magic-infusing rituals to a specific deity. In her book, The Goddess in the Shadow, Allycia Rye describes how by using flower petals, dark chocolate, 4 green candles, pomegranate seeds and sweet-smelling salts for a herb bath, you can devise a simple ritual to invoke Persephone, the mediator between earth and under-earth around Yule-tide:
Persephone’s ritual should be done during the full moon (…) To begin this ritual, you must make an offering to Persephone asking her for her wise counsel. Once the moon has risen, find a path of garden. It’s best if it has flowers with blossoms or vegetables, but any path of growing things can do. Take your offering of the dark chocolate and the pomegranate seeds with you. Sit among the growing plants. Feel their joy. Envision Persephone coming back to Earth from the Underworld. Feel the happiness of that welcome from the world around you. Place the offerings among the plants. Meditate on the reason why you think Persephone’s guidance could be so important to you. Meditate on each issue separately. And then with humility, ask Persephone to guide you through her wisdom. Sit for some time longer, clearing your mind into calmness. Once you’ve finished your mediation, go in and run a warm bath. Put the Epsom salts, herbs and flower petals in the water. Light the green candles, put one at each corner of the bathtub. Turn on nature music. Now step into the bath and relax completely, body, mind and soul. Let the healing powers of the herbal bath attend to your wounds inside and out. In the days and weeks following, watch for repeated images or sightings of bats or butterflies, or any of Persephone’s other symbols (…) In the night, before going to sleep you might say a version of this: Beloved Goddess Persephone, the night has come, the moon is risen, the sun is asleep, and it is time for rest. I humbly ask you to protect me. Keep me safe and surrounded by love, until the sun returns.”
If going around your neighbourhood in search of available gardens isn’t really your cup of tea on cold December days, you may want to try these low-effort recipes that soothe the stomach lining and may help you mark the Winter solstice with a special memory. In A Tea Witch’s Grimoire: Magickal Recipes for your Tea Time, S. M. Harlow offers the following concoction:
To bond with the Spirit of Light, here is a wishful tea ritual. Set the space with a sparkling white altar cloth with three blue and three white candles. Use a purified glass bowl to hold your herbs and a teakettle for the water. If you truly wish to follow the old ways, it is said that the first full moon after Yule is considered to be the most powerful moon of the whole year. If you wish, you may do this ritual then. Blend: 1 teaspoon black tea; 2 tablespoon dried apricot bits; 2 tablespoons dried figs, 1 dash nutmeg, 1 stick cinnamon, 1 vanilla bean. As you blend each herb within your cleansed bowl, imbue the mix with your energy and intentions. Bring the cinnamon stick and whole vanilla bean together and visually bind them towards yourself with a long white string to create a wishing wand. Light the white and the blue candles and place them surrounding your bowl to empower the blend. Add a tablespoon of the blend to an infuser (or double the amount for a pot of tea) and surround the pot with clear quartz or emeralds. Heat your water to 205 degrees. Cover the tea with water and hold your hands over the brew. Focus your intent on what you wish for the season, filled with harmony and abundance. Brew for 5 to 6 minutes. Leave the wishing wand within your vessel. Add milk and sweeten with honey if you wish and use the want to stir clockwise to activate the spell. Just before serving, recite this blessing: As the winter cold rushes in, and we are put to rest, may our dreams find their reality, and our wishes blessed. The Sun shall bring them into the light, to await our warm awakening, and there we shall find our wishes calling.
And in terms of cooking something delicious and memorable, in Festive: Recipes for Advent, authors Julia Stix and Eva Fischer recommend the following dish to warm up the longest and potentially coldest night of the year:
Ingredients: 60 g stale bread, 2 eggs, salt, pepper, 250 ml milk, 1 small onion, 170 g butter, some parsley, 800 g mushrooms, 2 shallots, 200 ml cream, 50 g grated parmesan, olive oil.
Mushroom Ragout with Bread dumplings – Finely dice the bread roll. Transfer to a bowl. Whisk the eggs and salt to taste with the milk. Pour the mixture over the bread. Finely chop the onion. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat and sweat the onion until softened. Add the onion to the bread mixture and combine well. Leave to rest for 1 hour. Shape the mixture into a thick sausage and wrap tightly in a wet cloth napkin or clean tea towel. Tie the roll securely with twine. Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil, add the wrapped roll and simmer gently for 40 minutes. For the mushroom ragout, carefully clean the mushrooms. Cut any small mushrooms in half and slice any larger ones. Peel and finely dice the shallots. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the shallots and sweat until translucent. Add the mushrooms and fry over high heat, stirring continuously, until beginning to soften. Reduce the heat to low. Pour in the cream and simmer, uncovered for 10 minutes. Add the parmesan just before the end of the cooking time. Season with salt and pepper. Rinse the parsley, pat dry and finely chop the leaves. Stir into the ragout. remove the dumpling roll from the saucepan and drain well. Unwrap and cut the roll unto thick slices. Drizzle with the melted butter, sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with the mushroom ragout.
Illustration of Mushroom Ragout with Bread dumplings by Julia Stix
And finally, if you require the presence of a specific animal spirit during these dark days to give you courage and help you feel protected, then call upon the Wolf Spirit. Described by Cecilia Lattari in her book Herbana Witch as “solitary yet part of the pack, the wolf knows how to be both a leader and a follower, but his spirit always remains intact. In fairy tales, he often embodies mystery, the unknown or the sacred. Because he is linked to initiation, the wolf presides over winter, which is an initiation for us to spring into rebirth”. It could be that the current low mood in which I find myself is just a marker of the seasonal affective disorder induced by winter time and the low light in the environment. Perhaps invoking a deity, taking a herb bath, cooking a comforting meal, matching with a spirit animal and brewing tea with a magical touch may help soothe a tired soul, but nothing truly lights a fire inside like contact with another human being. The sad reality and the reason for my present sorrow is the fact that it has been so painful to connect with other people in the past year, as most people are tired, irritated, angry and desperate. It is also notoriously difficult to make friends or trust other people, the older you grow. Exchanging energy with others this year felt like a game of passing on the pain, from my heart to yours. This is why, it often felt easier to retreat from the social world and rest within solitude; to not bother and to remain somewhat calm in a storm of unpredictability and chance. Within this storm, I found that pets offered the most reliable presence and this is why my pet family was among some of the few things that grew this year.
I think that perhaps, in spite of the challenges of being alive during such chaotic times of deep social unrest, it may still be worth being here for each other and finding the light within our selves, that inner spark that helps switch other people on to the reality that they too harbour a fire within, a fire that will need tending to and a bit of discipline to stoke into a flaming warmth. Only if we continue to do these little things for each other, if we continue to remind each other of the fire within, will be able to make the best of the surrounding darkness. And this responsibility will become even greater as Saturn and Neptune will slowly move next year from a Water sign (Pisces) into the first sign of the zodiac, the protector of the primordial fire, Aries. Inevitable there will be limits to our inner fire but also a cessation of conflict and aggression across the world. Knowing this, why not become a little, local Prometheus and steal fire from your sources of inspiration, from prayers to the gods? The once this is accomplished give this fire back, place it where it belongs: into the heart of people. So that we may find the energy and drive to be confident enough to implement a creative, rich and sensory world, one in which we will enjoy waking up into.
Mariora Sterian in a movie still of Who is calling me (1979)
I saw this Saturday a unique screening of ‘Lonesome’ (1928) at the Romanian Picturehouse and since Neptune turned direct two days ago, I wanted to write about how its highest manifestatons in reality (artistic creations, such as movies) have influenced me this year. I also am writing this, out of a selfish need, to keep track and to maintain a somewhat personal inventory of my recent past. Two of the simple pleasures I allowed myself this year have been going to the cinema to watch movies and drinking tap beer/coffee in nice pubs and gardens in Bucharest. These were two cheap ways to get out of the house and enjoy being ‘social’, while also keeping to myself, because as much as I wanted to be surrounded by people I also needed a lot of personal space to just ‘be’, and to process some difficult feelings: the sadness of witnessing my father’s health decaying, the personal dissapointment of being rejected in all of my romantic connections, the heart-break of not being able to do what I love as the very low demand for my business’ services prompted me to take on a string of unsuccessful corporate jobs, the anxiety of the economy flailing and the fear of dying alone. To escape from all of these real failures and pressures, I took my tired soul to the cinema to occassionaly revitalize it. Life felt more manageable if I temporarily surrendered it to glamourous people, projected on a large, intimidating screen.
As a consequence of this, I saw many movies, as many as I could afford. I went to the cinema whenever I got a chance to see something new, interesting or worthy of being seen on the big screen. There were some notable flops (I saw Past Lives, The Crow and Kinds of Kindness and they pissed me off and I just left the cinema, which is something I don’t usually do with levity). Surprisingly, I also saw two musicals and loved them: the gorgeous Swing Time (1936) and the colourful The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) (and I am not a musical person). So in the following, I want to write about those movie experiences which I remember, those I enjoyed or that at least rattled me in some way and have given me some food for thought.
Barbara Kent & Glenn Tryon in a beach movie still from Lonesome (1928)
The first movie I saw, was in the first week of January of this year. I was intuitively lead towards the cinema, after I had a couple of days of existential dread and couldn’t stop crying. Because I work from home, I needed to get out of my house and do something social, so I went to a lovely cafe, called La Luz, which happens to be conveniently placed near the Romanian Picturehouse. After a large and comforting coffee, I dragged my melancholy to the cinema and cured it by witnessing Cary Grant (a Capricorn Sun), my favourite vintage Hollywood star, drive planes into snowy mountains in Only Angels Have Wings (1939) At the opposite end of the cinematic spectrum I experienced, there is the memory of a calm and warm November evening, when I saw at the Elvira Popescu Cinema the silent film The Polish Dancer / Bestia (1917) with Polish actress Pola Negri (another Capricorn Sun), an event which included a live music band and was delightful! In between these two events, came a flurry of other movies.
One weird experience which stuck with me for a while was watching Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer (1968), an outwardly sunny and yet psychologically bleak movie about loss. Solaris (1972) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) come to mind as well, two movies which look incredible in the cinema and kind of strange on my laptop’s screen. The poetry, spiritual struggle and sadness of Solaris just hits differently when you see it on the wide screen, it seems to gather appropriate cosmic proportions. Then came Anouk Aimee’s ridiculous beauty in Lola (1961) bringing some liveliness to an otherwise superficial and forgetable movie experience. Then there was a surprisingly heartfelt and endearing movie called Slow (2023) with a unique topic: a dancer and a sign language interpreter meet and fall in love, only to discover that one of them is asexual and they have to find creative ways of being intimate together, ways that go beyond the sexual. It was fascinating and well-played and it made me feel cozy inside.
There was also Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024), which was strangely released in September instead of November in the cinemas in Bucharest, making me feel like Halloween came early this year (and despite criticism, I actually had a lot of fun watching it). On a gloomy and rainy April day, I saw Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) a goofy film by disgraced director Woody Allen. And during the summer, I absolutely loved Queendom (2023), a stylish and heartfelt documentary about the young life of LGBTQ artist and activist Jenna Marvin, who risked persecution from the Russian regime for her bold expression of her personality (I fell in love with Jenna’s courage and will write a separate article on her upcoming Saturn return in Aries in 2025, which promises to be majestic on a creative level).
Another movie that stayed with me and left me speechless with its silent, organised and blatant horror has been The Zone of Interest (2023), a movie that is so important in the current political climate in which we continue to witness the rise of far-right groups across the world. Uniquely, I saw two documentaries about the lives of notable women who created art under oppresive regimes (and to which I will dedicate a separate article): one about the poet Nina Cassian called The Distance between Me and Myself (2018) and the other about the Czech photographer Libuse Jarcovjakova called I’m Not Everything I Want to Be (2024). In the same vein, 2024 has been a great year for my cinematic education about old Romanian films. I had the good luck of seing a number of movies from female directors created during the communist regime. I really liked A light on the 10th floor/O lumina la etajul 10 (1984) a movie by Malvina Ursianu, about a woman who comes out from prison and is given an apartment in a newly-built block of flats in Bucharest; although free, she can’t rest because she feels constantly surveilled and it is only through her relationships with the common people around her that she regains her emotional stability.
Donatas Banionis in a movie still of Solaris (1972)
I really enjoyed seeing how Bucharest looked like in those archival images and how the blocks we take for granted today (and belittle so much), looked like back then, when they were considered luxury accommodation. It was a humbling moment of appreciation for me, as I bought my flat back in 2023 in a building created back in 1966 and I felt awkwardly conscious about it. By the same director, I also saw Gioconda fara suras / The Monalisa without a smile (1969) and I liked the cinematography of it and the freedom and social status of the main character, a female engineer with a complicated love life. I literally didn’t see any movie like it, and many movies back in that era created in a similar Nouvelle Vauge style, were geared towards the many adventures of male characters. It felt empowering to see this meditative and stylish film, especially since none of these movies directed by communist female directors were ever showcased on our Tvs (instead we got the usual diet of Miscellaneous Brigade/BD films, Liceeni/ The Graduates (1986) and Sergiu Nicolaescu films, repeated ad nauseam).
I also really liked a movie directed by Letitia Popa called Who is calling me / Cine ma striga (1979), about a topic you don’t get to see in a lot of other movies, a young woman accussed of prostitution who gets sent to a reform camp on the outskirts of a communist city. She’s operating heavy machinery on the construction site while trying to fit in with all the other workers, getting her ambitious room-mate to like her and keeping the romantic attentions of men at bay, and all throughout it she looks like an angel. It again teleported me into a world that my parents grew up in, a world I fortunately don’t get to experience myself. I also saw a movie called Diminetile unui baiat cuminte / The mornings of a good boy (1967) but although I thought the father-son conflict was compelling, it seemed to work like a forced and communist version of Rebel without a cause (1955), and I didn’t like it very much.
Portrait of Dorina Lazar in character for her role in Angela keeps moving forward / Angela merge mai departe (1982)
The highlight for me has been a movie called Angela keeps moving forward / Angela merge mai departe (1982), which I actually went twice to see, just so I could gain courage. I thought that if Dorina Lazar’s taxi-driving, rum drinking, tough woman character can find love in the sparse and grim communist landscape, then so will I one day; as long as (and just like the title says) I keep moving forward and let go of looking back in anger. July has been a really eventful month for me as I was not only very busy with work but I also saw the most movies since I needed a cool place to escape the city’s scorching heat. I saw beautiful classics like Spellbound (1945), Roman Holiday (1953) and Sunset Boulevard (1950) and the weird and funny Wild at Heart (1990). I saw the obscure These Three (1936) which I kind of enjoyed (it was also my very first Merle Oberon movie!), and the brilliant M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (1931). I was completely floored by Bette Davis’ performances All about Eve (1950) and Jezebel (1938) and sadly underwhelmed by the self-destructive, precious beauty of Margareta Paslaru in Un film cu o fata fermecatoare / Amovie with a charming girl (1966).
Furthermore, movies marked most of the holidays for me this year: I spent Valentine’s Day eating cherry chocolates and watching Antoine and Antoinette (1947) create a confusing, romantic storm in their lives and then I spent Halloween in a packed cinema watching a special screening of Late Night with the Devil (2023). All in all, I think I spent 2024 not really being here, but someplace else.
After writing all of this, I kind of have the feeling that I got some sort of disparate cinematic education this year, something which in my heart, I had always wanted to achieve. I feel like the transit of Saturn in Pisces increased my cinema-going discipline and heightened my obsession with old movies, vintage films and bygone eras, who for aproximately 2 hours at a time, gave me a brief reprieve from a world which stubbornly kept reminding me, how little I am welcomed and how little I fit in. Perhaps, that’s were the Neptune magic lies: I’ll help you forget who you are by pushing you to escape into the stories of other people, so you may finally find yourself as you will inevitably separate from them once the movies end. Just like astrologer Liz Green writes in her seminal book, Neptune and the Quest for Redemption (2000) :
This protean power to identify with the psyche of the other, and to effortlesly become that which the other secretly longs for, is one of the greatest artistic and therapeutic gifts of the Neptunian temperament. But if an essential core of integrity and self-honesty is lacking (…) then the gift becomes a great danger (p.118)
After all 2024, was a year of moving images for me, the original meaning of the word ‘film’; moving images which told human stories, and from these stories my inner child was learning what to keep and what to let go of, especially as some of these moving images impacted my memory and helped it dive deep in order to bring out some old fragments from the past which I needed to re-analyse. By transit, Neptune (almost perfectly conjunct my Sun) made me into a memory diver and by keeping me in a dark fog throughout this year, by obscuring my Ego and my sense of personal value and power, Neptune had therefore allowed me the freedom to just exit, beyond the limitations of who I thought I was. It was strangely difficult to be held in such uncertainty, and still am as the fog hasn’t completely lifeted now that Neptune turned direct. But slowly, as Saturn will shift from Pisces and into Aries in 2025, the time will come to start embodying this new version of the Self created out of the debris of Neptune’s cleansing escapism. And that will mark the time of a real psychological re-birth in my life, one which I am looking forward to. But for the time being ‘ssshhhh, the movie is starting’…
Controversial opinion but I need to tell you that I haven’t seen Wicked yet and I don’t think I will watch it. The main reason I am writing this article is because I noticed some interesting details about the astrology of the co-stars. As a general note, I don’t like musicals or big productions. The more hyped a movie is, the less likely I am to watch it. It seems the opposite works better for my personal psychology: the more obscure something is the more likely I am to watch it. I think the only exception to this rule is if someone in the cast is really hot (ex. Kraven, the Hunter) or if the musical is the one made by Jacques Demi in 1967, called The Young Girls of Rochefort. I saw this French film this year in June, after I quit my awful corporate job and had a glass of prosecco, so I admit that the alcohol and the summer weather contributed a lot to my enjoyment of the musical (hey, I’m human, ok?). One thing that struck me hard, as I was watching the blonde Catherine Deneuve singing together with her brown-haired sister, Francoise Dorleac, was a song in that musical which mentioned astrology. In the movie the girls sing: “Nous sommes deux soeurs jumelles / Nées sous le signe des gémeaux” translated as “We are twin sisters, born under the sign of Gemini”, and they do it in such a fun and catchy way that the song sticks to your ears, promising to never let go.
In the following, and playing upon this twin-like theme, I would like to show how Jupiter in Gemini also benefited the cast of Wicked, specifically the leading actresses Ariana Grande and Cythia Erivo. I argue that it wasn’t their individual identities but their combined talent and their on-screen partnership, an unlikely marriage of contrasts, that catapulted them to global fame, in this specific period of time. As partnerships of any kind fall under the dominion of two Air signs in astrology, Gemini and Libra, the transit of Jupiter (the Great Benefic) to any one of these signs, is bound to bring a pairing to sudden fame. To be fortunately linked to another, to cooperate, to negotiate, to blend contradictions in a fun and open-minded way are all qualities of a Jupiter in Gemini transit. To expand on this, here’s how Stephen Arroyo in his book “Exploring Jupiter: The Astrological Key to Progress, Prosperity and Potential” describes the Jupiter in Gemini energy:
“Although traditional astrology designates Jupiter in Gemini as being in “detriment”, since it is in a sign opposite one that it rules (Sagittarius), generations of readers can only be grateful that some people are able to tell fantastic stories with a myriad of details that yet impart larger meanings. At best, Jupiter in Gemini can weave a large-scale creation through correlating many diverse details and facts. One example would be Charles Dickens, whose novels were originally published in serial form in newspapers. His writings had a major impact on public enthusiasm for social reform (…) Those with Jupiter in Gemini don’t generally consider that they are taking any risk in their intellectual endeavours, but certainly many of these people readily take risks in frank communication and in exploring ideas that are not generally considered conventional. There is an innate openness to the new and an endless curiosity. At worst, they are unfocused and have no discrimination about ideas or people. Yet, they remain constantly busy (…) In virtually all people who have Jupiter in Gemini, mental exploration and growth is a key to their self-improvement agenda.” (p. 123-125)
A sign of cleverness and ingenuity, but also a sign that showcases an exaggeration of ideas to the point that they may get lost inside the stories they tell, the transit of Jupiter into the sign of Gemini brings about a flurry of contradictory information, as well as putting the spotlight on famous pairings. One such pairing is seen in all the movie posters promoting ‘Wicked’, and the fact that it took so long for this movie to finally be adapted to the screen and released during such a transit is nothing short of cosmic timing and divine symmetry. Moving on now, to the analysis of two actresses’ natal charts.
Cynthia Erivo is a Sun in Capricorn tightly conjunct Mercury and Neptune, and she has a natal Moon in Taurus (an exalted placement). Her Jupiter is in Pisces and loosely conjunct her Mars (placed at the 29th anaretic degree), while her Venus is loosely conjunct Saturn (a sign of misfortune for women) and also the shocking and unpredictable planet Uranus. I can see that for Cynthia, feeling loved and valued at her true worth has been her lifelong karmic struggle, as well the fact that her relationships to women especially tend to be sudden, short-lived and transactional. Cynthia was born to stand out and become a leader and a fighter, as her destiny is marked by the North Node in Aries/South Node in Libra axis. Unfortunately, we do not have any credible data related to her Ascendant so we are missing the placement of these planets into specific astrological houses. I would guess she has an Aquarius Ascendant as her sense of style is wacky and avant-gardist, she comes across as literate and outspoken and after years of effort she spontaneously burst into global fame due to her role as a green witch in a musical called Wicked (we see here a lot of unique, outsider energy, hence why I believe Uranus may be her chart ruler); either that or a Gemini Ascendant, placing Lilith right in the most visible area of her chart.
The most important aspects present in her chart are: the almost perfect opposition the Moon is making to her Pluto (indicating emotional strength and also having been raised by a domineering mother who had little time for her needs), and her Mars being challenged by Neptune and Uranus (and as Saturn gets closer to her Piscean Mars, she tends to have public outburst of rage, like the one related to the editing of the Wicked poster by a fan). On a more positive note she has a beautiful trine between her Neptune in Capricorn and her Moon in Taurus ensuring that she is able to bring to film the wealth of her balanced emotions and deep sensuality, and also some sextiles between her Capricorn stellium and Pluto in Scorpio and her Jupiter conjunct Mars in Pisces (the combo of a champion, a fearless soldier who always win in any competition).
Ariana Grande is a Sun in Cancer loosely conjunct Mercury and placed in the service-prone 6th house (this is also known as the house of the witch, healing herbs and potions and diseases in ancient astrology). Her Ascendant is in Capricorn, which is usually a marker of ugliness in someone’s chart and a struggle to look good (RBFs were popularised by people with this placement), but it is conjunct stylish Uranus and dreamy Neptune, a combination which makes her seem reliable, dreamily attractive and shockingly confusing at the same time. Her Mars is in workaholic Virgo while her Venus is in Taurus (an Earthy domicile placement). Despite her watery and emotive Cancerian Sun, Ariana is a tough business woman on the inside, seeing as she has such strong, pragmatic Earth placements. What really catches my eye is her Saturn in Pisces at 0 degrees, loosely conjunct Lilith and placed in the 2nd house (as a sidenote, she shares this placement of Saturn by house but not by sign, with Taylor Swift). This means that with Wicked we are witnessing Ariana’s Saturn return (a point she is aware of since she named a song on her latest album Saturn return). Therefore, we are collectively witnessing and enjoying the reward of Saturn’s pressure to get Ariana to sign, dance and behave like a witchy fairy for the last 2 years and a half.
So when both women cry in interviews, I believe those tears are real, because anyone born with a Sun in Capricorn and someone who survived their first Saturn return and have accomplished their dream, know the hardships, fears and pressure they had to endure in the process of attaining Saturnian perfection. We also had the whole Ethan Slater scandal, which I attribute to her natal Lilith in Pisces being activated by both transiting Neptune and Saturn. By the by, Ethan is a Sun in Gemini so he is also enjoying some increased notoriety & exposure at the moment through his partnership with Ariana. As we know, Lilith is the infamous other woman trope, the destroyer of marriages everywhere, when used for personal romantic goals and not harnessed to become an industry mogul and walk over your competitors’ heads. Lilith is ruthless, and Ariana carries this energy inside of her, no matter how many soft pink dresses she will wear to fool us all. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that as soon as her promo duties for Wicked will end, so will her love affair with Ethan; it feels to me like Ariana needed a Broadway boyfriend to promote her part in a musical – you know, a callous matchy-matchy aesthetic. I sound so jaded, gah 🙂
To be fair, even if I don’t like her at all as an artist or woman, I think she is acing her Saturn return, as the effort put into Wicked is eerily visible (almost leading fans to speculate she has been having Ozempic and is dangerously thin). So I do respect her work ethic and how she relentlessly goes for the gold, which is something that I feel every North Node in Sagittarius person will intuitively be drawn towards, the act of winning and making a fortune. I personally think that as soon as Saturn hits Aries and her 3rd house, she may retreat from the public for a while and put on some healthy weight, as the pressure will now move away from her body (the 2nd house) and enter her communications area (the 3rd house). Either that or she will need some epic PR damage control for some of the controversial remarks she will make.
Coming back to her natal placements, I can see that she has Pluto in Scorpio retrograde in the 10th house and loosely conjunct her Midheaven. A placement which would whole-heartedly justify why she is perceived as controversially changing her appearance and consequently her race to suit her latest releases. She is nonetheless greatly helped in her chart by her Moon in Libra conjunct Jupiter and her North Node in Sagittarius, ensuring that while she may occasionally make a lot of mistakes she will continue to grow in her fame and remain likeable and popular (because of good luck and that Saturn keeping her a consumate professional in her work).
Coming back to their synastry, it’s important to mention a couple of details that have changed the game for me when I found out their star-signs. I think we are witnessing a game of contrasts, benefic to the career of both actresses. This favourable energy is brought to them by transiting Jupiter in Gemini, assuring them good luck, popularity and an increase in wealth through duality and partnership. Firstly, Cynthia is a Sun in Capricorn and Ariana is a Sun in Cancer, so they are exact opposites in terms of their solar astrology. Secondly, because of the obvious racial difference: Cythia is Black and Ariana is White. Thirsdly, and perhaps unimaginatively, Ariana played Glinda, the Good Witch of the South (why did it have to be a white woman though?) and Cynthia played Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West (all those www’s – Elphaba’s job is like the coded equivalent to the Internet, jeez). I guess that by now you can see how Jupiter in Gemini is underlining these optical differences in the promotional tour of Wicked. In addition, there are some past life links between the two actresses/singers, as we can see Cynthia’s South Node in Libra in a conjunction to Ariana’s Moon conjunct Jupiter in Libra, and Cynthia’s Saturn in Sagittarius conjunct Ariana’s North Node. This means that in a past life they may have had a teacher-disciple dynamic, with Ariana supplying the role of a mother figure or sister to Cynthia, or in another potential scenario: Cynthia being the father-figure or older brother to Ariana.
There is a karmic kingship between these two women and Jupiter in Gemini is now making it more obvious and publicly known; as you know, Jupiter is the worst secret-keeper of the zodiac, as it is constantly bringing up the truth to the surface (so never believe a Sagittarian that tells you ‘It’s between you and me’). I think I’ll end this article here, and in true Mercurian style, I want to pass the baton to you: Have you seen Wicked? Did you like it? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments below.
As the year draws to a close, I want to reflect on some of the most memorable and emotional gaming experiences I had in the last 12 months. 2024 has been a year in which I was gradually introduced to a variety of new games, after Stardew Valley took me ‘hostage’ since I started playing it in 2021. The gaming platform and provider, Steam played a major role in this change in my gaming, since it began to notify me of new games and offer a variety of impressive discounts. So, I gradually started looking into these new adventures and I was surprised at the range of emotions I experienced while playing them. Some of these games touched me on such a deep level that I felt transformed after I played them, and I wanted to share my impressions, in case I may inspire you to give them a try.
1)Strange Horticulture (2022), Bad Viking
A game with probably one of the most haunting atmospheres you could envision, Strange Horticulture is about a mysterious shopkeeper who is trying to keep her mind intact. She is putting clues together and identifying new plants, cataloguing and dealing with the townsfolk odd requests, while also trying to keep a rising depression at bay. As the shopkeeper, you also get to travel to collect plants and gather information. The plants are poetically named and the collection is large. The pervasive sense of dread that looms over the entire game matched by the constant rain, smoked oaky graphics and flowing controls make it such an engrossing play! It’s like nothing I’ve ever played before; kind of like a weird blend of Murder, She Wrote meets Plants versus Zombies meets the constant gloomy weather of Blade Runner and the heavy sadness engulfing Dark Water. The only downside of this game is that it ends too soon, as I think I finished it in roughly 4 hours. The highlight is that it has a number of alternative endings so you can play over and over again and meet a different conclusion. The same creators are now preparing a new game called Strange Antiquities, and if it’s half as good as this one, then I’m already excited about it. If you don’t enjoy daylight and like plants (which may sound like an oxymoron), give this sullen gem a try.
2) Sally Face (2016), Portable Moose
If Strange Horticulture grazed the surface of a potential depressive episode taking over our main character, in Sally Face issues related to murder, disfigurement, soul snatching, suicide and involvement with a satanic cult are tackle in such a direct way that it packs a powerful emotional punch. The difficult themes and gore present in the game are somewhat softened by the caricature-like drawings of the main characters and difficulty of some of the puzzles involved. Needless to say, the game begins with a night-marish situation and continues very much so for the entirety of 5 episodes. Just as a heads up: it gets worse for the main characters rather than easier for them, as they find themselves involved in a plot that is bigger than the building in which you are initially conducting your personal investigation. Time passes, characters grow but so too does the darkness and it is this passing of time and watching how they developed from deep childhood trauma, that makes the game so emotional as well as the fate of its main character and the way he manages to somehow be forever connected to the girls of his dreams (it’s not what you’d expect!).
To be honest, Sally Face had me crying towards the end, after I compulsively played through all the episodes in just two days because I really wanted to know what was going on with Sal and his group of friends. Again, it’s not a game I would recommend to everyone as it will only please a select few, but if you have any Scorpio/Capricorn/Pisces energy in your chart and you grew up in the post-communist 90s environment listening to Nirvana’s ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ on repeat, then you are going to love this game. And on a final note, I would say that escaping into a game in which you need to keep your character alive and to care for their depression, well this temporarily takes your mind off your own; and it’s a liberating feeling.
3) Paradise Killer (2020), Kaizen Game Works
At the polar opposite to Sally Face is Paradise Killer, which in my humble opinion is the best game I played in 2024! You play as the exiled investigator Lady Love Dies, a heart-adorned goddess of the law who is called back from her exiled state after serving 3M days because there was a problem in the creation of the latest version of Paradise Island, that problem being that the entire ruling council was murdered by a common citizen, one Henry Division. Until the crimes are solved, no one can escape this version of the island in order to be updated/uploaded into the new one, a more perfect version of Paradise, also known as sequence 25. What follows is sheer beauty as you get to explore paradise, collect clues and blood crystals, order funny drinks from vending machines and chat with some criminally over-developed characters.. all while enjoying some vapour-wave, synth music in the background and preparing your incriminatory case for the Judge. It’s colourful, smooth, esoteric, funny, brash and pleasant, it’s the perfect game to play during a summer holiday. And despite being a walk’n’talk adventure it never gets boring, as you always feel like there is more to discover in the kitschy-cool environment or more conversations to be had with the usual suspects. Plus Shinji is the best antidote to any creeping sadness or melancholy you may be feeling. Please, do yourself a favour and play it over the upcoming holidays.
4) Botany Manor (2024), Whitethorn Games
This game is the lighter, brighter and breezier alternative to Strange Horticulture. You play as botanist Arabella Green who is writing a book on the special and peculiar behaviours of rare plants. In the process you get to explore an English countryside manor, gather clues and cultivate magical flora until you grow specific plants. Even if you may feel green with envy at the gorgeous environment of Ms Green’s homestead, at least you get to practice your green thumb (ok, I’ll stop now) and escape your immediate reality in this beautifully sunlight game replete with inventive puzzles (my favourite was making the apple cider to water the seeds of the Pixie Tears pot). The graphics and game mechanics take a little bit of adjusting to, but the game leads to such a subtly heart-breaking and yet oddly empowering conclusion that you may just miss it if you don’t pay attention. Like an unfolding rose, this game is filled with minute, pretty details that will make you want to re-play it several times. I know I will.
5) Pools (2024), Tensori
ICONIC. This game is so innocent looking at first glance that you may be mysteriously sucked into giving it a random chance to ‘see what all the fuss is about’, only to be faced with such deep primordial fears that you feel like pushing the lid down on your laptop and seeking professional help. On the surface pools is a beautifully design minimalist, liminal masterpiece in which you get thrown from a ladder onto an odd and super clean environment in which you just walk around splashing in pools. You don’t know how you got there; you don’t know who put you there, you don’t even know how you look, nor can you look out the windows that populate the space because they are brimming with powerful white light. Are you on a spaceship? Are you an alien? Are you a person who bought a ticket to an underwater adventure-land only to be met with this string of water-filled rooms? How do you get out? And what even is out in this context? The game is advertised as “rooms filled with pools, a game which has no monsters but can invoke fears of getting lost, the dark, and tight spaces”. And wow! those fears can become so palpable: from being met with a deep howl or whispers in the dark, to walking in an unlit room knee-deep in water and randomly being touched by large inflatable ducks, to finally finding a light under the water only to see a ladder going down into the pool and a pair of human hands reaching out from below towards you.
The worst was probably the ending to chapter one in which you have to walk on a thin sliver only to reach a small diving platform but the trick is that there is not water around you just pitch-black darkness, literally encouraging you to jump from a great height straight into the unknown/the pitch-black darkness around you. I had to gather all the courage I had to jump and once I landed into the next chapter, I went out for a run just to emotionally self-regulate. Without a doubt this game is free therapy, if you are brave enough to slide on its glistening, wet tiles and you enjoy random, self-induced thrills. By the way, at the time of writing this, I am still trying to find my way out of level 2 and I am reliant upon game maps made by more experienced players.
6) Grim Fandango Remastered (2015), Double Fine Production
A classic game, not only in the genre it is part of (noir adventure) but overall, a classic as part of the string of awesome Lucas Arts Entertainment Games that were released during the 90s and that populated many of our after-school hours. The first time I played it, I think I was about 14 -15ish and I was so captivated by the story and the graphics (I always had a thing for art deco and El Dia de Los Muertos, and this game combined them both!!) only to be disappointed by the game mechanics. I got perpetually stuck in the first part of the game, not really understanding how to throw the rope made of ties to the other side of the building in order to make it stick (see, this was in the dark ages, a time before the existence of play-throughs). The game was also clunky to play on an old-fashioned computer keyboard and the rising frustration that I felt eventually made me abandon the game since I had other hobbies to focus on (like painting my bedroom door while listening to Garbage or Creed). Cut to 26 years later and here I was on a cold October day when I suddenly received a notification from Steam that Grim Fandango (the remastered version) can now be purchased for 3 dollars. I clicked all the way until I heard Many Calavera’s voice enticing me to pick up the note in his info-tube and never looked back.
And this is how I managed to fulfill a teenage dream, to finally play this game and find out exactly what actually made the fandango so grim. Oh boy, and the story is actually EPIC. It spans across years and continents, somehow driven by our main character’s (travel agent to the dead, Manuel ‘Manny’ Calavera) capacity to transform every opportunity thrown his way into a lucrative business operation: he owns a restaurant, he sails and leads a ship and all throughout it, he never stops searching for his sweetheart, a woman with a heart of gold called Mercedes ‘Meche’ Colomar. On his adventures, Manny is helped and somewhat also perturbed by his close friend, the gentle giant Glotis.
It is a deeply funny and life-inspiring game, despite the grim nature of the proceedings with many adorable little details that give you food for thought: such as seeing skeletons transform into fertile soil for flowers once they are killed. Grim manages to tell a sweeping story about difficult topics such as death, divorce, betrayal, exile and exploitation without ever falling into melodrama and always, always making fun of itself and this is why it’s such an amazing game that reaches your heart at the same time. It’s like watching a movie, a beautifully designed, cleverly scripted, demented movie that borrows elements from Casablanca, Key Largo and the Maltese Falcon (all those Humphrey Bogart classics, which true fans will appreciate). It took me 26 years to see Meche and Manny together in that amazing final cut scene, but I think in this case the wait was certainly worth it!
I wish I could extend this list to 10 games but that would be untrue as I only played and loved the 6 ones above. Honourable mention goes to: Potion Craft – The Alchemist Simulator, a game that is pretty decent and fun but a bit repetitive; Melatonin – a game which sounds and looks better than it actually is to play, as passing to new levels is strangely difficult and the story is uninspiring; and The Unavowed, a dark game I enjoyed playing but simply hated the ending, so it didn’t make this list. All of the above-mentioned games will be included in gameplays on my second YouTube channel The Eden Nearby, so it’s worth subscribing in order to be notified when I upload each clip. Comment down below and let me know what games you played this year, if at all, and what games have made it into your top 10.
Image of Elena Lasconi standing in front of her party’s banner (USR – The Union to Save Romania)
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
– The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)
If you feel that you’re in a tight spot and all the oxygen is leaving the room, then you’re not alone. I think we are all beginning to feel the collective sucker-punch of Pluto in Aquarius at the first degree. The purpose of this wave-like sucker punch is to get us to feel rattled within and to use our anger to fight against oppression. However, we may be signing our own executioner’s approval by wanting change so much that we are willing to throw away everything that civil society stands for. In the absence of rules and social norms, a military utopia may come into place: a society led by thugs, controlled by brutes and ruled by martial law. The stakes are high and so is my anxiety. Our drastic desire for social change, the rebellion against the system and the need to bring in the new at all costs (even if this new may be the implementation of neo-fascism) are all hallmarks of an immature Uranian transit (it’s immature because Pluto is currently at the first degrees of the transit, and as it progresses over 10 degrees, it then begins to ripen).
Personally, I woke up during the preliminary elections’ day, the 24th of November, on a sunny, Sunday morning, eager to get to a voting booth and have my say against the rise of far-right candidates in my country’s elections. I left the voting booth with a heavy heart since I could pick up on the vibe of the people around me who were talking about voting for Marcel Ciolacu. However, waking up on Monday morning felt like waking up to an alternate reality. A reality in which you confusedly find out that a random candidate who very few people knew about and whom the press completely disregarded, made it as a front-runner in the race for the presidency of Romania. His name is Calin Georgescu and he is an ultra-nationalist, independent candidate. The fact that he went under the radar with this surprising win or that he allegedly relied on social media (specifically Tik Tok) to campaign and rally the votes of youth and Romanians who live outside of the country, it not the worst issue.
As we are all trying to understand exactly who he is, facts are emerging about this man’s political past: he was close to George Simion (a thug in a neatly pressed suit who wants to radicalise Romania) and he is a staunch admirer of Vladimir Putin, to such an extent that he copied some of his photoshoots, trying to pose like him! The optimism I had in the morning when I saw that neither Marcel Ciolacu (the PSD candidate) nor George Simion (the AUR candidate) got ahead in the final round of elections was increasingly tempered. As I was researching more facts about Georgescu, I gradually became livid.
Calin Georgescu (an Aries Sun) is now up against Elena Lasconi (a Taurus Sun) who represents the USR party, a party whose set of values and motto I don’t particularly agree with but in the wake of these results I feel left with the inevitability of choosing a candidate who will represent the lesser of two evils in this situation. And the situation is dire, not only because of the shocking realisation of the political influence of TikTok, a platform which Calin apparently used to aggressively campaign for himself (an activity which is btw illegal in Romania), but also because there’s an ongoing and brutal war at the doorstep, between our neighbouring country Ukraine and Russia. Because Georgescu has directly said he doesn’t support Ukraine and admires Putin, it would be logical that choosing a candidate who is Pro-NATO should be the careful, collective next step of Romanians. However, I doubt carefulness enters into the mix, as the population is leaning more towards ‘let’s watch it all burn down’.
Now Lasconi declared that she is pro-EU and pro-NATO and definitively against Putin, and her presidency will guarantee our continued link to the EU and the military support it can provide us in case of a Russian expansion of conflict (not to mention that seeing a Romanian female president shake hands at future press conferences with the male, American president, Donald Trump will be a sight to behold). However, since people seem intent to vote by feeling and the optics of TikTok rather than making an educated choice, it feels like the outcome will be highly uncertain. To be fair, in the current and dysregulated political context, even making an informed decision seems like an impossible task as there is such an abundance of random opinions presented as facts, fake news, manipulated reports and hearsay that it makes the search for anything remotely truthful seem like searching for the Holy Grail.
There is also the added problem of gender, an issue that continues to divide Romanians and has also divided Americans in their recent elections, as we saw Kamala Harris, a Black woman lose the election to Donald Trump, an aging carrot. While, I don’t believe that neither proponent for the second round of elections in my country is fit to be a good leader or can defend any of mine or my generation’s rights and values, at least I keep thinking that Lasconi will be a mildly progressive choice by virtue of potentially becoming the first female Romanian president (about time we caught up with the Republic of Moldova with this one!). Nonetheless, even if Lasconi pushes Romanian politics into a progressive era by virtue of her gender, she may promote laws and regulations that ban any kind of social progress in terms of family and LGBTQ rights (she actually distanced herself from her own daughter on this matter) and may promote Christian and traditional values which will push us backward.
While Georgescu, with his intention of isolating Romania from NATO is a perilous choice, Lasconi could look good as an image but actually drag us back into antiquated family values. Nonetheless, Lasconi will maintain political links to the EU and she prioritizes education, and this is why I am leaning to give her my vote in the next round (and the fact that she is a woman is just an added benefit). While Georgescu is a man who pledges the same Christian and traditionalist values as Lasconi, but in addition: has continued ties to the far-right party (AUR); admires two infamous controversial Romanian leaders (Corneliu Zedreanu Colea, a violence-loving ultra-nationalist thug and Ion Antonescu, who infamously took part in the Nazi deportation and obliteration of Romanian jews during World War 2); vows he is a staunch patriot and will defend the country against war but also believes we should look up to the Kremlin; and lastly, believes that a woman’s role is to have babies and not to lead the country. So how is this any form of progress? Are we going to vote “against the system” with an intensity that may lead to our own destruction? Are we ready to slide back into being Russian serfs? My grandmother who narrowly escaped being forced to learn Russian in her primary school years, back in the 40s, may now be rolling in her grave (I should pay a visit just to check on her).
Image of Calin Georgescu from Mediafax
I don’t agree with either ultra-Christian and pro-nationalist opinions, as to a large extent I believe individuals can and should govern themselves in lieu of electing a representative to do it for them, especially since no one is able to represent an increasingly diversified population in this day and age. I am and I consider myself an international citizen, not just a ‘Romanian’, because the sum total of all my life’s experiences (lived out in Romania, alongside in Germany, the UK, Sweden and the US) creates who I am today. And many of us seem to forget that in an increasingly globalised world, talking about nationalist agendas or pushing towards separation and division is not only delusional but also against the flow of the current process of growth. History has indeed shown us that during times of massive growth and progress there is another counter-progressive movement which takes place simultaneously: such as how during World War 2 as women were undergoing immense cruelty and hardships, they also gained entry to jobs, they had access to the means of productions and they could wear more dynamic and flexible clothes to a larger extent than they did in the past. As we build the new, we also destroy the old. As a consequence, some sort of precarious and mysterious energetic balance is maintained.
Keeping all of this in mind (and my poor mind does go through moments in which it feels like it may break) I am wondering which one of them will succeed two weeks from now at the December 8th elections? In this anxiety-provoking interim, my beautiful consolation is as usual, astrology. The language of the stars and the occult, that always keeps on giving. Now to be honest, I am not completely mortified by the prospect of radical change. I know that on a deep spiritual level, what we are witnessing is the effect of Pluto in Aquarius, preparing to pull us back into the deep past before pushing us to rise up and rebel, but the logical & peace-loving part of me is still upset and confused. In the following, I want to see if I can determine the outcome of the Romanian presidential elections by looking at the personal energies of each candidate. For this I turn to their birth-charts to try to understand whom will the odds favour in the end.
Below you can see the chart of Elena Lasconi born on the 20th of April 1972 in Hateg, Romania. She is a Taurus Sun at 0 degrees, with a Cancer Moon at the 29th anaretic degree and an unknown Ascendant. I was struck by how her Sun and Moon energies, although harmoniously locked into a sextile aspect of friendship and support, are placed at the final and first degrees of the signs they represent! Not only that but what is probably the most fascinating aspect is her North Node in Aquarius at 0 degrees, a destined placement that is at the moment perfectly conjunct transiting Pluto! When Pluto comes calling on the point of your growth in this lifetime, this means that you are being led down the path of a deep mind-body-and-soul transformation. This placement also shows that with the proper support from the collective (Aquarius), Elena is destined (the North Node) to gain great power (Pluto). But it also shows that she is more emotionally more charged up (Moon at the 29th destroying degree), rather than she is able to balance her emotions under the cool light of reason and successful action (Sun at 0 degrees).
Just by looking at these placements and I felt slightly uneasy: she is indeed traditional and a nationalist (Cancer Moon), a person who replenishes the most by being at home, in her own land and culture and surrounded by what is familiar to her. Moreover, she is meant to gradually release stubbornness and self-obsession (South Node in Leo) in favour of working in the service of other people (Pluto in Virgo retrograde). She is meant to revolutionize the way she relates to others, although at times she could come across as weird in her speech or too progressive in her applications of the law, and even slightly insane in her personal life (natal Uranus in Libra retrograde; and currently affected by the transiting South Node in Libra!). Lasconi has been criticised by the fact that she doesn’t seem to understand international politics and I see this as a manifestation of having a natal Neptune in Sagittarius retrograde; this placement does make the native feel confused in dealing with global issues, in understanding other cultures and in making sense of international regulations. Nonetheless, Lasconi may also take a spiritual approach in establishing links with other cultures and countries and she is able to bring about increased trust and compassion in her external politics, especially in terms of maritime and naval trade.
With Lilith in Scorpio, we are dealing here with a wild character in terms of keeping secrets, dealing with issues of sex and sexuality and a person who doesn’t easily trust those closest to her. She may also idealise power, and prefer attaining it to the detriment of prioritizing her family life, or her roles as mother and wife. I like this placement because it shows she was born to be the leader of many and to subsume her Ego in service to the collective with that Leo/Aquarius axis. In a similar vein, we see here a lot of communication karma. Her natal Mercury is in Aries conjunct Chiron, which is not an ideal placement at all as she can be too direct and impolite in her speech. The benefit is that she quickly gets to the point. This placement of Mercury and Chiron also shows that it is painful for her to speak her truth without suffering in some way; and indeed, in political debates, she comes across as feisty and confrontational, often being crudely blunt and it looks as if on some level, this manner of expressing herself is also wounding her.
In her campaign she didn’t make large promises, preferring to focus on improving schools and public spaces, all while promoting her tagline ‘A Romania for the many, and not just for the few’. And we come now to what is the most fascinating part of her chart and what gives me hope that she will win the second round of elections, her natal stellium in Gemini, involving the planets Saturn, Venus and Mars. This stellium is currently energised in a positive way by the transit of Jupiter in Gemini! This means that she is helped in her personal relationships and in her capacity to earn money (Venus) by the God of Good Luck. Not only that but Jupiter is releasing her from specific karmic restrictions that are connected to her capacity to speak and use technology (natal Saturn in Gemini), while also giving her increased courage and vitality to tackle on hard tasks and overcome her opponents in public debates and verbal competitions (Jupiter transiting natal Mars in Gemini, the sign of communication). Despite her traditionalist, pragmatic and unripe Taurus Sun – unripe because it is placed at the first degree, so she is limited in her capacity to be herself in this lifetime, as she has to learn how to become someone for other people – Venus conjunct Saturn and North Node in Aquarius – and her home-loving, nationalist Moon in Cancer, I am very happy to see a lot of Air placements in her chart. This makes her more flexible than her fiery Aries placement and Taurus Sun would reveal. In addition, being a proponent of the Earth element means that she will take issues related to money and the environment very personally and that she will defend them, and I personally would love to see stricter environmental laws and restrictions to deforestation in place.
Seeing as she may ascend to the presidency of the country during her Uranus transiting her Sun era, and while also having her Chiron in Aries return (!) I believe that Lasconi will be able to use her personal wound related to her authenticity and personhood and recreate herself in terms of the population she will lead; thereby truly becoming the weird and wonderful, hippie Earth-mamma that her North Node in Aquarius is pushing her to be. I think we can help her in achieving this destiny.
On the other hand, Lasconi’s opponent, Georgescu was born on the 26th of March 1962 in Bucharest. He is a Sun in Aries (so a natural and slightly belligerent leader) with a Moon in Sagittarius (a placement he shares in common with Trump). He describes himself as a patriot but considering that he has a lunar placement in the least domestic and settled sign of the zodiac, Sagittarius, Georgescu is actually more emotionally attached to travelling, to his connections to foreigners, and to the philosophy and religion of a specific culture rather than to its daily habits, rites and the customs of everyday people; in the same vein as a man who promises commitment just to get you to sleep with him, and then he packs up and leaves, I see here a great potential to be ardently courted during the campaign only to be left abandoned once he reaches the presidency (and guess to whom he is ready to ‘give’ some territory?? c’mon have a naughty go) In addition to such passionate and fiery placements which would indeed position him as born public performer, I am not at all impressed by the large amount of Water I see in his chart. Born with a natal Neptune in Scorpio retrograde and a Chiron, Mars and Mercury stellium in Pisces (currently restricted and karmically bound by the transit of Saturn in Pisces), we are dealing here with a really good secret-keeper and a man whose movements can be very misleading, confusing and stealth. Case in point, how he snuck past those awaiting in line to the presidency and won the first round of the elections.
A Mars in Pisces is a weak placement for a man involved in leadership in politics, as this makes him quite passive, easily dominated and chameleonic. He runs a good chance of charming his voters only to disappear at the slightest threat from other leaders with stronger placements. He does have Jupiter at 0 degrees in Pisces, loosely conjunct his natal Mars, but with Chiron thrown in the mix, this tells the story of a man who willingly pursues competition but in fuzzy way, only to be disappointed by the result and become emotionally distraught. The transit of Saturn is restricting his Jupiterian aplomb, bringing him with his feet on the ground but it may also reward his zeal and idealistic thinking. It needs to be said, like I mentioned in the previous article on making sense of the results of the American elections that a natal Jupiter in Pisces carries the Archetype of the Saviour, who could end up sinking the ship it tries to rescue the crew from. This is a man who may create political drama just so he can swoop in and save the day, as he needs the hero narrative to feel he is doing his job. But the drama he may create knows little boundaries as it is placed in Pisces, so he may indirectly produce some unexpected collateral damage that would take years to remedy, if at all.
Now Neptune in Scorpio is a generational marker and it would be unfair to judge him just by that, but to my mind I’ve always had a massive ‘ick’ in relation to this placement of Neptune because (and in its lower vibration) it is connected to the mass proliferation of pornography and the increase of networks of paedophilia. Furthermore, a man born with a Pluto in Virgo conjunct Lilith, could very well go on a witch hunt when he comes into contact with educated, well-organised and financially stable women (much like he is doing at the moment with Lasconi, as he only seems to slander her and refuse to answer direct questions related to his policy at present).
The core point of tension in their charts is given by their nodal axis. They happen to share a reversed nodal position (much like Jake Gyllenhaal and Taylor Swift did at one point, even in the same astrological signs). While Lasconi is a North Node in Aquarius/South Node in Leo, Georgescu is a North Node in Leo/South Node in Aquarius. Personally, I dated a South Node in Aquarius and my experience was that he was incredibly emotionally detached from most things in his life but he was a very good communicator, who managed to charm his colleagues and spin such wonderful tales of his own morality while also undergoing a secret double-life as a degenerate. Obviously, not all people born under this placement share this description in common (see the example of Jake Gyllenhaal or Ryan Gosling) and I obviously have some more healing to do and clear up some resentment in my love life. However, there is an inherent weirdness which the native will struggle to cover up, as his destiny is to grow into his Ego, to become a leader, a star and to inspire others through the power of the role-model. He also has Saturn in Aquarius loosely conjunct the South Node, and this means that he is a man who struggled with a lot of limits in his lifetime, especially poverty and a difficult past marred by restrictions. But this placement also shows that his comfort zone is materialism, stoicism and often it can also show cruelty. Keep in mind that he can be less progressive than Lasconi, especially since pressure can make him revert into this cruel and cold comfort zone of having his Saturn conjunct the South Node in Aquarius. By the way, do you know which other famous leader had this Aquarius energy that really put us on the world map? Nicolae Ceausescu 🙂
While I love independent people, I’m not sure if we want a person who is unaffiliated to a group to lead us. Because frankly we are a group, and we need a team-player. Electing him would mean that a large amount of power will gradually become concentrated in the hands of one person, as he may start to support laws and regulations that benefit him and him only (low-vibrational, Aries Sun behaviour). Judging by his placements he flexibly adapts to winning circumstances, so after he wins, he may surprisingly reveal to all that he was indeed supporting a specific political party all along (Mars in Pisces).
The whole purpose of creating political parties is to divide the power of representatives and create space for debates in the balanced practice of democracy, but it seems somebody forgot this important reasoning in the current polarizing climate. I don’t know if it’s important to mention that as long as we live in politically unhinged times, it is important to stay aware of the middle-line, and to quote the late and great Johnny Cash ‘to walk the line’; the sooner we realise this, the quicker we can resist manipulation and being pushed into extremes. Metaphorically speaking, we need a calm plan to exist a building on fire and not a charming man who walks solo and promises he will jump into the fire to save us all. History had its share of charmers who reached political success with their passionate speeches, to disastrous effects. So, by choosing him we won’t be sliding smoothly into the future, a future free of the elite group of PSD-PNL boys, but rather we would be sliding back into 1939 Europe.
Your choices are powerful and they do have consequences. Make your vote count and make sure that it is yours. I have to admit that I was also confused about which candidate to choose, but seeing the astrology it is now clearer to me whom I should vote for. No matter whom you decided to support in the end, the important thing is to show up on the 8th of December now more than ever. On that day, the Moon will be growing (waxing) in the sign of Pisces; it’s the first quarter so a relatively balanced energy, and since Saturn & Neptune will be aspecting the Moon (our collective unconscious), this means that whomever we will choose on the day will be the leader of a number of incoming, karmic lessons for the next cycles. Let’s choose consciously and spiritually.
“Beauty will destroy your mind Spare the gory details”
Radiohead, The Butcher
Two movies I saw recently and stayed with me in a haunting way, were ‘The Substance’ & ‘Woman of the Hour‘. I really enjoyed both movies but they also shook me. They both deal with primordial fears: the fear of aging and dying, and the fear of being hunted and killed. And the discovery of these two movies is happening for me during a period in which I’m experiencing the transit of loosely conjunct my Piscean Sun, bringing up a lot of fears, anxieties and difficult feelings to cope with. In some way, by watching such movies I am daring myself to face a couple of fears as well as enjoying some good cinematic work. As I was blown away by the performances, I started doing some astrological sleuthing in order to understand what made these actresses gravitate towards such roles and topics. As always, I am perplexed to find an abundance of astrological details that all three actresses share in common, each with their own nuanced expression. There was a certain vulnerability combined with utmost intensity and emotional strength that really made the performances by Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Anna Kendrick stand out to me.
Because it’s the end of Scorpio season as I’m writing this article – and fittingly the two main actresses who star in the Substance just ‘happen’ to be two Scorpio Suns themselves – I thought I would explore a little bit their birth-charts in the context of spirituality, aging and self-loathing. I’m bringing Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut into the mix as her soul pattern also falls under the sign of the Scorpion, but in a less obvious way than Demi’s or Margaret’s. Scorpio energy is notorious for embodying the vortex of human complexes and darkness, dealing with taboo, hidden or shocking themes such as: addiction, sex, death, taxes, karma, healing. Ultimately, Scorpionic energy marks the path in the development of the human soul as it grows through the zodiac, where the soul needs to change and find its power. And both of these movies and the actresses who star in them have soul themes replete with the themes of power and rebirth, each in their own unique and specific ways.
Let’s look at Anna first, as she is not the typical Scorpio. In fact, she was born with a Sun in Leo conjunct Mars and Mercury retrograde. We do not know her Ascendant, and therefore we don’t know in which area of her life her Leonic Sun manifests the most, but she does borrow traits from Gemini and Aries energy due to her Mercury and Mars conjunctions to the Sun. This energy already makes her a natural performer with tons of energy, but it also makes her rather restless, fearless and incapable of hiding her true authenticity. See this interesting clip of Anna’s selection of interviews in which the creator discusses how Anna isn’t pretending while she is performing. Making a PR image based on awkward vulnerability, wicked humor and being a diamond in the rough, can be attributed to that Mars conjunct Sun energy in combination with a South Node in Scorpio. To add to this energy, Anna’s Moon is in the sign of its exaltation, which means that she was blessed with a stable and comfort-seeking Moon in Taurus, offering her a Venusian, loving vibe. However, her Moon is disturbed by two subtle influences: the North Node (which represents a point of uncomfortable growth) and the asteroid Lilith (or the wild feminine archetype, the OG biblical rebel of the zodiac). The next layer of intensity and darkness added to her inner planets comes from the unholy trinity of her having a South Node, Saturn and Pluto in Scorpio! And that’s where I took my cue in order to attribute her a Scorpionic Soul – Anna’s comfort zone in this lifetime is actually deeply uncomfortable, as both Saturn (the master of limits) and Pluto (the master of deep and scary change) are types of energies she feels ‘cozy’ and ‘familiar’ with.
When things get tough in life, Anna falls back on an even tougher comfort zone. For her, being pretty, patient, wealthy and valued are qualities which represent her growth zone. All the qualities which filter through the astrological sign of Taurus show what her soul expects to grow into in this incarnation. Fittingly it was her conventional, accountant role in ‘Up in the air’ in which she played alongside George Clooney (a Taurus Sun) that brought her closer to professional recognition than ever before, even if she didn’t have the money to get dressed for the Oscars! This is why the quirky girl-next-door or supporting actress persona did not really make her stand out as much as playing darker, serious or moral roles seems to work better for her.
Having a South Node in Scorpio also means her formative years, her birth and childhood were marked by hardships, drama and familial tensions caused by intense feelings that were kept secret. We can also see that with her Jupiter in Aquarius retrograde, there may have been a proliference of traumatic events in her lifetime, and shocks and surprises that had the paradoxical effect of liberating her from received knowledge such as learned helplessness or ingrained family patterns. Anna is a really tough individual and as cute and fairy-like she may seem, she is no one you want to casually fuck with, unless you want to be obliterated. I also believe that her chart markers make her a more suitable director and producer than actress, so I would love to see more movies from her as she has the potential to become one of the great filmmakers of her generation as long as she uses her talents ‘behind the scenes’ rather than performing in front of the camera. Without a doubt, she is not someone you can easily relate to, persuade or lead on. And this aspect is evident in her Taurean placements which show that her soul is growing into a more stable, highly conservative, materially abundant but also stubborn energetic imprint. We also don’t have an Ascendant for Anna, but judging by what her chart reveals so far, I would place her Ascendant in Leo, and thereby brining her Sun conjunct Mercury and Mars stellium intp the most visible part of her chart (either that of an Aries Ascendant and placing her Sun in the 5th house, the house of performance).
Now, if we have a look at Margaret Qualley’s birth-chart we see a proliferation of planets in the sign of Scorpio! This configuration in a person’s chart is called a stellium and it often is a marker of a highly imbalanced and odd lifetime. This is because when the stellium is aspected in a harmonious way by outer transits then not much may be happening in a person’s life and life can be just enjoyed; but when squares and oppositions begin to put tension in order to revitalize the stellium then everything could come crashing down all at once in a person’s life. We are unfortunately unaware of Margaret’s birth time and therefore we are missing an Ascendant but judging by her obvious beauty, nepo baby karma (she is the daughter of actress Andie Macdowell) and choice of roles, Margaret may very well have this Scorpionic stellium parked in either her 2nd house (the area of self-worth) or the 8th house (the natural realm of Scorpio, the house ruled by Pluto) in which case this would place her Ascendant in either brave Aries or beautiful Libra.
Personally, I’m leaning more towards Aries, since her hair is naturally curly, she has that bold and confrontational look and she seems quite impulsive and instinctual in her acting (sometimes veering on intentionally cartoonish). Margaret also has a Mars in Leo squared by Jupiter (a sign of excess and exaggeration brought on her life by men and the actions she takes on their behalf) and also squaring Venus (a sign of romantic problems and domestic violence). We also can see that with her Saturn retrograde in Pisces, Margaret is currently undergoing her Saturn return, a time of maturation in a young individual’s life that can come with added responsibilities and considerable rewards for past career-related choices. Margaret got married when Saturn began moving through Pisces, back in 2023 to a man called Jack Antonoff (whom I personally do not like at all – since he was together with Lena Dunham, he always gave me creepy vibes). He is an Aries Sun so I doubt he will gel well with all the water that Margaret has in her chart, and I’m having a faint suspicion that she may have married him in an impulsive decision to somehow prove herself to other people or because a relationship with someone she really loved had failed. This is typical of a Saturn in Pisces spiritual path, as someone needs to be sacrificed or surrendered in a deeply painful way for the Saturnian individual to fulfill their karma. Nonetheless, her career took off big-time as she appeared in 4 movies this year (!) and she seems to be quickly becoming art-house director’s Yorgos Lanthimos on-screen darling, appearing in two of his recent movies.
Coming back to her chart, it needs to be said that Margaret has a Moon in Gemini conjunct Lilith (an aspect she shares in common with Anna), and while I like to see some Air inside such a Water-burdened chart, her Moon does provoke some uncomfortable aspects to her Scorpio stellium. It is note-worthy to mention that Margaret is actually learning how to become a Scorpio in this lifetime by embodying and owning up to her inner darkness (her intense emotions) and shedding light on the darkness of those around her (we see this in her choices of roles but also I’m pretty sure there may be something lewd and scandalous that appears in the next few years about Jack Antonoff which will test their marriage and her loyalty to him).
She will continue to be drawn to and star in roles that portray a kind of twisted sexuality (like she did in Sanctuary or Kinds of Kindness), deep transformation (like in the Substance) or roles dealing with what is hidden, taboo and occult (like in Novitiate). I personally, cannot wait to see her act in paranormal roles which will fit her like a glove! One final thing I need to add, which shows how perfect an individual’s astral energies fit in relation to the nation, family and specific time when their souls decide to incarnate, is the fact that with a North Node in Scorpio conjunct a stellium, Margaret has past life-time karma with Taurean people, as her South Node is placed in Taurus. This is a link that shows just how connected she is at a soul level to her mother, actress Andie Macdowell who was born with a Sun in Taurus! (just as a sidenote: I love Andi’s work so much, especially since she stars in one of my favourite comfort movies ‘Groundhog Day‘)
So mother and daughter know each other from a past lifetime but Margaret reincarnated as her mother’s heavy Shadow (with that stellium in Scorpio sitting in opposition to her mother’s Sun sign) in order to change what was stagnant about her family’s (and her mother’s) solid and traditional, moral values. With both Pluto and Jupiter surrounding her Venus, Margaret is meant to create generational wealth by creating bonds with powerful individuals but she may also suffer at the hands of these powerful people, if she is not careful and discerning regarding the performers and superstars whom she interacts with (Mars in Leo).
Lastly, I want to talk about Demi Moore, and her amazing comeback to the silver screen! Literally, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Demi pulled a 360 degrees rebirth on the public, leaving us speechless with her performance in The Substance. I think this choice of role was also a little bith tongue-in-cheek and cathartic to her, since in the last decade she was pretty much a Hermit and may have had been healing from a number of alleged plastic surgeries (some of which were unfortunately botched). As I grew up in the 90s I would see her movies all the time since my parents loved ‘The Ghost‘ and ‘St Elmo’s Fire‘. She always felt familiar to me and I am in some way emotionally attached to her image and her work. When I was older, I also really liked ‘The Scarlett Letter‘ and ‘G.I. Jane‘ as some of her more controversial roles, and I thought that she was such a beautifully vulnerable, brave and self-assured woman. We can see from her chart just exactly where this bravery comes from: a stellium of planets in intense Scorpio, including her Sun, Venus, Neptune and Mercury, in combination with an exalted Moon in Taurus (sitting in opposition to her Sun, which tells me that she was born on a Full Moon, at peak lunar energy), and a Mars in Leo conjunct the North Node!I guess you can already see the many similarities between all of the three actresses’ charts: the Taurus, Leo and Scorpio vibes that all of them embody and live out in their profession. It’s also fascinating as a sidenote to reflect on divine astrological timing, as we can see that Margaret met and worked with Demi during her Saturn return, while simulateneously Demi is also having Saturn transiting through her first house – Saturn in Pisces, in the sign of film, escapism and the imagination brought them both together during an intensely karmic time of new beginnings for both of them.
But there is another detail thrown in the mix, something which makes Demi really stand out by comparison to Anna and Margaret and I would attribute this to her Aquarius south Node conjunct Saturn and placed in the house ruled by Aquarius, the 11th house. It’s kind of ridiculous how similar Demi’s energy is both to Margaret’s but also Andie’s own energy! Demi and Andie are members of the same generation (most commonly known as Gen X), while Margaret and Anna are fellow Millennials. Nonetheless, I think that it is Demi’s weird and wonderful comfort zone in mind-opening Aquarius which helps her achieve a cinematic rebirth at 60 and start alongside someone with a generational gap and somehow outshine her. Because, I personally feel that Demi is not only the star but the heart of ‘The Substance’. Her on-screen suffering transforms a story that is in parts comical and neon-colored into something much sinister and darker, a parable for the taboo of aging in an era which seems to glorify exterior good looks over and above anything of ‘deep substance’ in a person’s character. Taking the Subtance and transforming the body is then paradoxically a fight to save whatever is left in your own interior and the movie shows in a cartoonish way by playing with a lot props and body horror themes, how society is slowly killing the idea of inner beauty (or how the idea of inner beauty is currently being butchered and transformed into something violent and sinister).
That beauty can be something that is used against women and may lead to their destruction is also a theme prevalent in ‘Woman of the Hour’ in which Anna Kendrick’s game show character tiptoes around dating a serial killer, a topic which is even more shocking since it was inspired by real life crimes. The worst thing about the movie is that it shows how difficult it is to believe in love and trust someone you may just have met since not even dressing down, adopting a modest look or not wearing make-up can save you from being violently assaulted by a man who hates women because he so desperately hates himself. The visceral violence of the women’s last hours was what made this movie all the more intense and the escape of Anna’s character even more shocking.
Outside the margins of comofort, I feel that you can always rely on people with Scorpio-heavy charts to shake you up from a belief that safety is real or attainable, when in reality what is truly authentic is to survive another day and live to tell the tale. And living on also allows one to embrace the process of aging and the way in which it separates one from physical beauty by granting an individual the chance to show their inner authenticity. In the current time of speed-run superficiality, in which people can’t control much except their own bodies, I guess we fear aging because once the physical facade cracks, we have nothing left to show the world. The moral of Scorpio energy is then: work on your soul, because nothing else can save you from the force of emotions as powerful as fear, emotions which may kill what is left beautiful inside of you.
The Spiritual Social 