Tag: horoscope

  • The Vital Spark: The Passion of Moon in Aries

    Movie still of Rebecca Hall as Margaret from Resurrection (2022)

    I think by now it’s obvious from the content of my articles, that I have a soft spot for intense individuals who border on the insane. I’m fascinated to see how people cope with duress, with the challenges life throws at them, and most often the pressures that they place upon themselves. I think this is why I have always been attracted to psychotherapy and I’m actively involved not only in my own healing but in that of those who I am fortunate enough to cross paths with.

    In 2025, I randomly saw a large number of movies which involved dark, intense and rather disturbing topics. I think I was drawn to them because it was a way to safely and creatively experience my own private wrestling match with some dark and heavy emotions. It’s as if what I was feeling inside was spilling over into a warped, emotional reality, enhanced in its dream-like quality by my viewing of so many movies. I blame the transits of Saturn and Neptune for putting me in this state, and while I understand that there is an underlying logic to this sullen cosmic energy, I still cannot bring myself to enjoy the process. Around May of this year, when dad died, I started sleeping during the day and getting up around evening time to then sit all night and watch movies, read, cry and pray.

    I lost so much this year. Despite my resistance, 2025 vacuumed me of pleasure, joy, hope and faith. I felt in equal parts, shame, guilt, intense anxiety and despair. Some days I struggled to get up and when I did, I was struck by how pointless doing anything was. I often didn’t know what to do but to put on a movie with my projector, curl up in a foetus position, sip cold, black coffee and see the stories of people whose fates are worse than mine.

    During a couple of such sedated days, I got a chance to watch two rather niche but equally powerful movies. I saw Resurrection (2022) with Rebecca Hall directed by Andrew Semans, and Antiviral (2012) with Caleb Landry Jones directed by Brandon Cronenberg. I personally felt like I couldn’t shake these movies off of me, long after I finished watching them. The first movie made me weep so hard as the credits rolled in, and the second was more of a mindfuck that made me press replay, just so I could understand what I had just watched. One thing I knew for sure was that the impact of the stories I just saw was exactly what I needed: a cure for getting out of my life and my wounded Self; a fascination for trying to understand two fictional characters with fucked up fates. I felt suddenly inspired…

    Both movies display difficult subjects. In Resurrection, an abusive ex returns to torment a woman who just managed to build a better life for herself, but for most of the movie you find yourself doubting her sanity rather than believing that the villain’s comeback is doing any actual harm. In ‘Antiviral’, an employee working for a high-tech company is obsessed with a celebrity to such an extent that he injects her diseases into his body just to feel close to her.

    The movie posters for the two films I discuss in the article

    Antiviral is the debut feature of Brandon Cronenberg, the son of famously weird Canadian director, David Cronenberg (who created Existenz, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Crash etc.) Compared to his father’s work, I find Brandon’s movies to be unique and mesmerising, but even more ruthless and clinical than David’s movies are. if you are to consider Infinity Pool and what a distorted ride that movie was. I guess it’s just the astrological difference of their solar imaginarium, seeing as David is a Sun in Pisces and Brandon is a Sun in Capricorn.

    Coming back to Antiviral, I have to say that I really liked the idea which was a direct critique of our obsession with celebrities, amplified as the story was by the excellent acting. Even if the movie was engrossing, certain gory scenes could’ve been better polished if not altogether scrapped out; also, the movie did lack a certain empathy and emotionality. On the other hand, Resurrection was so tightly controlled and filmed that it made you feel slightly claustrophobic, thereby matching the viewer’s complicity with Margaret’s own palpitating and overwhelming emotions. I think I’m saying that this latter performance made me feel more, while the first experience was intellectually interesting but too clinically delivered.

    Superficially speaking, I think that what mesmerised me so much about both of these performances is the fact that we are looking at two flawed but also gorgeous people who were filmed with such a dedication that it felt their connection with the audience almost became tangible (for example, at a certain point I am pretty sure I was more familiar with Rebecca’s snot and sweat and Caleb’s bloody gushings more than with my own bodily fluids).

    Movie still of Caleb Landry Jones as Syd March from Antiviral (2012)

    Antiviral doesn’t pack an emotional punch like Resurrection does, a movie at the end of which I felt shattered seeing how simultaneously soulfully free and yet physically condemned Rebecca Hall’s character, Margaret, was. In Resurrection the psychological unravelling she experiences as a result of years of cruelty and gaslighting was masterfully done. The entire movie rests heavily on Rebecca’s acting chops and mad presence, at least up until the point where she shares a couple of scenes with Philip Roth and you feel your blood curdling in your veins as you witness their back and forth and find out what traumatized her this much that she is losing control at the mere sight of this small and insignificant man.

    Since these were two tough viewing experiences, demanding a lot from their audiences – even if the acting was so unhinged it was close to perfection – I was vibrating with curiosity to look into the natal charts of both Rebecca and Caleb and see if there were certain energies they disposed of which made them gravitate to these stories. You may be aware that we tend to play out the inherent astrological energies we contain inside, through the work that we do. Actors and performers in general do this in a very visible and public way, which provides countless study cases for interested astrologers to explore, seeing as the world of film – or the land of Neptune – is a giant projection screen for what lies within.

    Let’s first look at Rebecca’s chart. Born on May 3rd 1982 (age 43 years) in London, UK, Rebecca is a Sun in Taurus and a Moon in Aries. You can see her birth-chart below:

    Birth-chart of Rebecca Hall taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/rebecca-hall-horoscope

    Her Moon is conjunct Venus in her fall in Aries, her Taurean Sun is conjunct the Wounded Healer asteroid, Chiron, while her destiny points are a South Node in Capricorn (her comfort zone) and a North Node in Cancer (her growth area). With a witty and domicile placement of Mercury in Gemini and an almost perfect conjunction between her natal Neptune and Lilith (the Wild Feminine asteroid) in freedom-loving Sagittarius, this is a woman who can think for herself and someone who gains her sense of freedom in life through martyrdom, escapism and acting. Although her fierce core brings a lot of determination and grit to the table, while her Saturnian comfort zone makes her a natural stoic and professional, what really gets her to gravitate towards harrowing tales and emotionally-intense roles is her natal Jupiter in Scorpio and that North Node in Cancer, placements which tell me she just finds so much joy and pleasure from bringing to life twisted stories and exploring deep emotions.

    Catharsis, rebirths and life-and-death experiences are her happy place. In addition to this, with a stellium of planets in the beautiful, relationship-prone and justice-driven sign of Libra, involving Saturn, Mars and Pluto she is a force to reckon with, both on screen and outside of it. As a sidenote, her husband is a fellow actor: Morgan Spector, a Sun in Libra man whose solar energy touches upon Rebecca’s stellium in Libra, letting me know that their relationship is anything but easy but it can also be quite hot and stubborn in its longevity and perseverance.

    Now, let’s explore Caleb’s chart. Born on December 7th 1989 (age 35 years) in Garland (TX) in the US, Caleb is a Sagittarius Sun with a Moon in Aries, as you can see below:

    Birth-chart of Caleb Landry Jones taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/caleb-landry-jones-horoscope

    Caleb was born with a Jupiter conjunct Chiron in Cancer (a marker for painful success or fame that wounds the soul), a South Node in Leo and a North Node in Aquarius, and what is perhaps the darkest and most fascinating part of his chart comprising of a close conjunction between Mars and Pluto in Scorpio (further enhanced by a nearby Lilith) and a stellium in grounded and restrained Capricorn. Having just one of the Saturnian or Plutonic energies can severely weigh down and intensify your chart, but Caleb has them both! His Capricorn stellium includes the planets Venus, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Mercury. With Saturn almost perfectly conjunct his Neptune in the sign of Capricorn, he is an almost walking-and-talking embodiment of the collective energies we are at the mercy of in 2025, a year which is marred by the conjunction between these two giants of our solar system and the ensuing chaos that they are creating in our lives.

    Although Caleb’s Saturn is domicile – which means that it functions better than the current Saturn in Pisces transit – and some would argue that his Venus is not conjunct his Saturn because it is so far apart by degree, but being in the same sign makes the planet function in a similar way. We see here the roots of intense emotional deprivation and a need to mask it with toughness, rules, rigidity and calculation – similar traits he displays so well in his character, Syd March from Antiviral. His energy is further darkened by the stealth ruthlesness and volcanic desires cloaked within the Mars-Pluto conjunction in Scorpio. No wonder that more recently, he starred in Dracula: A love tale (a dissapointing and unwatchable adaptation, in my view).

    One thing that stands out is that both Caleb and Rebecca share in common a Moon in Aries placement. Aries, being the first sign of the zodiac is usually associated with new life, vitality, lifeblood and the forceful rebirth of Nature after the dead of winter. When Aries energy exists in the Moon position of a native, this primal fire energy works at a deeply unconscious level, and it is somehow softened but also even more subtly powerful as it pervades a person’s complete aura and sense of being, especially when they rest and relax. Here is how astrologer Donna Cunningham describes this lunar position in her book “Moon Signs: The Key to Your Inner Life”:

    Aries is the best Moon sign, at least according to those who have it. They have to be the best at nearly everything they do – otherwise it ruins their whole day. They’re not always aware of this instinctive competitiveness, for the Moon’s traits are often unconscious. Nonetheless, Aries represents the urge to be out in front of the pack, so many Aries Moon natives display outstanding leadership and pioneering abilities. Active and vital, they’re easily bored by routine and want to be busy all the time.

    — p. 142

    It’s fascinating that these are not the only two creepy roles that Caleb and Rebecca decided to take on, since I still have on my watchlist The Listeners and Nitram; the first movie is about a woman hearing strange noises no one else can hear and the latter about a man who committed a massacre in the 90s, a script based on a true story. I also need to say that I loved Rebecca in the Night House, but I am saving my thoughts on that movie for an upcoming post on Pluto and 4th house matters.

    The crux of this article is basically just me saying that as a depressed Sun in Pisces woman who struggled to get out of bed and continue to live this year, getting in touch with the work of two Moon in Aries performers who literally electrified the screen with their presence and passion for their craft, woke me up back up to life.

    So, if you are doubting your energy and your work, please don’t. The way you are and the effort and passion you put into your craft and into your work can be so important to someone out there, in ways you may not even be aware. Inspiring a resurrection, passion can literally bring people back up to life, as it tends to be highly infectious… and against this type of infection, I don’t think we need any antivirals.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • Navigating the Saturn-Neptune Conjunction: Insights for 2025 & 2026

    A Google Gemini generated image showcasing the Gods Saturn/Cronos (left) and Neptune/Poseidon (right)

    I have been trying to finish this article for a while now, but I find myself so depleted of energy that what I set out to do when the day begins, becomes undetermined by night-time. I find myself going from one extreme of energy to another: either completely drained and bed-ridden, as the weight of the world suddenly crushes upon me, or filled with energy but having to move through so many tiny obstacles that by the time I resolve them all, I am depleted of energy again. As a consequence, my usually prolific creative output has been low and inconsistent, and maintaining my passion for work has been a great problem. I feel both a sense of dread and an upsurge of excitement for the future.

    I’m sharing this with you now because what I am experiencing is the felt reality of the great Saturn and Neptune conjunction, and I want to focus in this article on this specific cosmic energy. The reason this planetary configuration is affecting me to my core, is because I was born with a Sun in Pisces at 29 degrees (the anaretic, misfortune degree) in my 5th house (the seat of pleasure, divinity and passion) and a Jupiter in Aries at 4 degrees in the 6th house (the house of service work and daily routines). Therefore, the Saturn and Neptune movement through the final degrees of Pisces and the first degrees of Aries throughout 2025 and the Spring of 2026, is nestled right in between my Sun (energy and vitality) and my Jupiter (faith and growth), stunting them both. To say, that I am perceiving life as some form of prison of solitude is a minor understatement at the moment, and is conducive to a number of ailments I find hard to cope with. By writing about this experience, I reach out through the divide and feel less alone, less abandoned and sick.

    The timeline

    More broadly speaking, August 2025 is a very special month, marked by the retrograde movement of 4 planets (Saturn, Neptune, Pluto, including crowd-favorite Mercury, due to a retrograde through Leo) and more importantly it features the great conjunction between Saturn and Neptune, currently in the creative sign of Aries, moving around 0 and 1 degrees of this sign. Some astrologers would disagree in relation to the perfect conjunction of these two celestial spheres; some argue that only if two planets touch the same degree are they in perfect alignment, while others consider anything between 5 degrees of closeness a conjunction. Disenting voices judge the conjunction by the presence of planets in one specific astrological sign. I am of the latter group, and as such I want to bring out the importance of the month of August 2025, and then February and March 2026 for the great Saturn-Neptune meet up.

    What is a conjunction? A conjunction is defined by Heather Roan Robbins as: “Anytime two celestial bodies conjunct – meaning they dance close together – they first work together and blend meaning and purpose, then begin a new cycle in their relationship”.

    A Google Gemini generated image depicting the planets Saturn (left) and Neptune (right)

    The present conjunction sees the blending of the energies of two of the least rational signs of the zodiac and involving the least compatible planets of our solar system, and this brings with it overt conflict and internal pain. The fact that the flowing, mystical and illusory energy of Neptune is meeting none other than that of the pragmatic, disciplined and separatist Saturn, is a symptom of tension, but what makes the conjunction so hard to bear is having to wake up daily to feelings of despair, pessimism and despondency (after all, Neptunian or Saturnian folk are not known in astrology for their cheery optimism).

    In the battle of the giants, one wants to dissolve limits and merge with emotion (Neptune), while the other wants crystal clarity and harsh boundaries (Saturn); one wants to fight & win (Aries) while the other forgives and is letting go (Pisces). All the best and worst qualities of these 2 zodiac signs and these two planets are currently emerging into the collective in confusing and chaotic ways, guided as they are by rebel-rousing motor of Pluto in Aquarius. Pluto is stealthily working to change society through shocking moments of pain and outrage that amplify our collective awareness. None of these energies is tender or loving.

    With the first movement of Saturn into Pisces in March of 2023, a temporal cycle was activated which embraced the loose movements of Saturn and Neptune through the last sign of the zodiac (Pisces) and the first sign of the zodiac (Aries), alongside Jupiter’s (for a brief period in 2023), Chiron in Aries and the North Node /South Node axis crossing through Aries and Libra in 2023-2024, and now through Pisces and Virgo. The preparatory ground was therefore created for their almost perfect encounter in the month of March 2025, when Saturn in Pisces was at 24 degrees just as Neptune in Pisces at 29 degrees was ready to switch into Aries.

    Following on from that brief tete-a-tete, we are now spectating their full-blown tango as the first two weeks of August 2025 sees Saturn at 1 degrees of Aries with Neptune overlapping. From the 17th of August onwards, and due to its annual retrograde, Saturn wil begin to slide back into 0 degree Aries and then officially back into Pisces on the 2nd of September. Saturn will stay in Pisces until just short of Valentine’s Day, on the 15th of February of 2026.

    This means that whatever concerns and themes you are riddled with in July and August of 2025, they will make a comeback in full-force (as the planets will be direct) in the last two weeks of February and throughout most of March of 2026. As a sidenote, I will turn 39 under this auspicious sky on the 20th of March of 2026 and God help me, I hope to survive this transit since Saturn can bring illness conducive to death and my health has been in shambles under this conjunction, so far. The conjunction can also bring a sense of victimhood and delusions of contempt based on being of service to society but never been valued for it, so keep your victimising tendencies in check.

    To recap, the baseline dates are: March 2025, July-August 2025 and February-March 2026. As a brief exercise, look back across the last two-to-three years of your life and see if any significant events took place during these months, as a way to foretell what areas of concern in your life will become activated next year in Spring again. For me, it’s my work and professional path, my relation to the public and my legacy, as the Sun’s transit throughout March and August is illuminating my 6th and 10th astrological houses. Whatever gets activated by the Saturn and Neptune conjunction will be set on fire by the Sun’s transit and next year promises to be pivotal since the final conjunction of Saturn and Neptune will be in a weird aspect to the Sun in Pisces loosely conjunct the North Node in Pisces.

    It may be that events are more intense and impactful the more planets and points you have in the signs of Aries and Pisces in your natal chart. If you have none in these signs, then consider any Libra and Virgo placements, as these are opposite signs of the zodiac wheel and the Shadow zones of Aries and Pisces.

    Personal Characteristics of the Saturn-Neptune Conjunction

    La Miseria (1886). Cristobal Rojas

    I’ll begin by sharing with you, some personal things I noticed in relation to this Saturnian and Neptunian energy, the cycle of which began to be felt from March of 2023, when Saturn went ingress in Pisces.

    Irrespective of the many problems this transit has brought into my life (the worst of all being my dad’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent death), I feel privileged enough that in my position as an astrologer I get to experience first-hand the effects of this once-in-a-lifetime astrological cycle. Some of the things I will describe below have been things I personally have been going through but also what I have noticed among my family members, work mates and clients.

    The biggest theme seems to be that of illness, an illness that can lead to positive changes in your life or to having epiphanies during victim-like, trance states. Being put into a position to suffer, however difficult, can be exactly the pathway forward in life. If you refuse to feel your pain you get stuck in a weird limbo until you bravely accept to feel all of your uncomfortable feelings. By undertaking an emotional ordeal you not only heal your heart and relieve some of the physical symptoms they may be causing in your body, but you also reconnect or (for some connect for the first time) with divinity, a sense of a higher being watching over you. Your suffering therefore has a purpose.

    In addition, I also noticed that things break down or are in need of fixing and repair, in a state of flow. Like a wave crashing onto the shore, a problem appears in your life needing resolve. One thing is resolved and another problem appears that requires immediate attention and effort, just like another wave crashing onto your life shore.

    There is also a pervasive feeling of needing to work to survive, but work is chaotic. You may not know exactly towards what specific goals to work towards or where to put effort into, mostly because you may be feeling like your work does not yield results or it gains you an sufficient income. Even worse, the circumstances that offer your work some structure are falling apart right before your eyes: a flood destroys your factory, the company that employs you is merging with another or goes bankrupt over-night, you can’t seem to fit your skills into any job description, your work becomes redundant due to updates and innovations, etc. Moreover, the work effort necessary to achieve a specific goal is disproportionate to the task at hand or the tools and the materials needed to accomplish it, because there are constant updates, repairs and improvements.

    To add to this, nothing is as it seems and you may be feeling like you are living under a perpetual state of dreaming, which often feels good like a sedative and other times it can quickly morph into your worst fears and transform your reality into a night-mare. If something initially looks terrifying or unappealing it is most likely a flash in the pan; while on the other hand, if something is appealing and beautiful it is most likely a mirage. Illusions of the mind abound and as such, mental health issues are on the rise. Waking up to reality can feel like taking a cold shower. What is a good opportunity can turn into something awful and what is a difficult path to walk on, can prove to be easier than imagined. It helps if you find courage to feel your fears and do what is right anyway.

    To add to this, we collectively experience a need for boundaries, for some form of control or regulation that establishes fairness. Individually, we may feel that only with discipline can we succeed in these uncertain times, but all of these tough desires seem to evaporate as soon as practical implementation begins. Schedules change throughout the day as people change their minds or fall in and out of conscious awareness, and the paradox is that the changes should be welcomed rather than resisted because the outcome will be much better for everyone involved. The part that requires some work is the one about needing to cope with the uncertainty and the delays caused by such readjustments, and here is where practicing flexibility becomes a way of life. Much like that old saying the reed that bends the wind cannot break, or something similar…

    Probably the worse side-effects of the Saturn-Neptune conjunction are the physical ailments that multiply when emotions are overwhelming. The body parts mostly affected are the skin, the feet, the eyes, the head, the circulatory and the nervous systems. In terms of astrological body archetypes, these are the organs and biological components traditionally under the rulership of the sign of Aries (the head especially) and Pisces (the feet).

    There are also frequent sleep disturbances and problems with drinking water and keeping hydrated: wanting so badly to sleep but having your sleep interrupted by other people’s activities (noise pollution especially and auditory hallucinations), then not being able to fall asleep because of all the things you are thinking of doing. Living within such altered mind states makes us more prone to consume narcotics to self-sedate and achieve relaxation at all costs, even at risk of dissociating from reality.

    This then creates a mixture of deep fear and excitement but one that is not conducive necessarily to sexual arousal. In terms of sex, there are mixed feelings about it: either too much or none at all; either complete disconnect from the sexual impulse and reverting all the energy into creative work, or being suddenly overwhelmed by horniness and not knowing what to do with it. Masturbation can prove difficult to complete in the absence of imagination. You may need the fantasy as well as the physical stimulation to reach an orgasm (with or without a partner).

    And lastly, I noticed some changes to the process of manifestation. Once needs to imagine the path and the action in order to understand what the next logical steps are. If you wake up and feel listless and confused as to what to do with your day, rather than jumping outside and engaging in any form of activity just for the sake of it, sit back for a couple more minutes and imagine your next steps. As you prime your unconscious mind with a conscious dream-plan, actions and activities begin to emerge organically, as if you are moved by something unseen on the path to achieving your goals. It is a soft and yielding process of allowing your subconscious mind to guide you in the direction of manifesting some powerful desires rather than making logical plans and sticking to them with the discipline of a field marshal (hint: it’s not going to work).

    The more you try to impose control and restrictions to how you go about getting something (or someone), the less likely you are to actually see your desires become reality. Instead, adopt a Yeats-ian approach to living, something akin to what he wrote in his poem He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven: “I have spread my dreams at your feet / Tread softly for you are treading on my dreams”. Softly, slowly, messily, sensitively, build in flexible bursts of activity. And when you run out of energy (which may happen sooner than you think), rest and dream your next steps.

    Interruptions to your plans are also possible due to distortions of speech and thinking, such as believing dreams and fantasies are real, and witnessing as the boundary between the real and imagined is frequently broken and in need of rebuilding. To feel real, check with your body, the only solid thing you actually own in this world. Delusional socialization is prevalent under this energy so forming and maintaining new relationships will be excessively tricky. This is why solitude is fruitful and benefic for living under a Saturn and Neptune transit, because you can sense and hear your inner voice and intuition better when you are not distracted by another person’s energy.

    We are generally more sensitive to energy as this transit unfolds, and it’s crucial to be aware of and to interpret emotional cues from your body when interacting with other people. For example, if you bloat around a certain person, chances are you are being lied to; if your chest warms up as you feel drawn towards someone than that person is helping you in your spiritual development.

    Reflecting on the recent events of this summer, I think I can safely conclude that a tight Saturn-Neptune conjunction also has a lot to do with the creation of cults, since Saturn offers structure to religious rituals and beliefs, which fall under Neptune’s jurisdiction. However, and because Saturn is considered a malefic planet with a limiting energy, the cults which are created are giving religion a bad reputation, increasing the fears that many people have of believing in God or of practicing any form of organized religion. Saturn can indeed materialize what is divine and Neptunian, but it may also sully and dirty up the spiritual energy which Neptune unleashed into the collective, especially when Saturn is in an incompatible Fire or Water sign, like it is during the 2023-2027 era.

    To wrap up I would say that the best consequence of this transit has been gaining keen insights into the world beyond the veil, or the realm of ghosts and those departed. If you use the Saturn-Neptune conjunction to harvest the power of the increased sensitivity to hearing and to actively listen, you can develop a greater capacity to foresee. This increased capacity to divinate usually gets activated once you do something pragmatic or physical: like after a work-out, or after you clean up your house, and often after you eat something.

    Finally, and the least important but the most noticeable has been the fetishization of goods and a state of hypnotic and mindless consumerism provoked by them: from the Stanley Cup craze, to the long lines waiting to get a Crumbl Cookie, or the current trend of purchasing boxes of eco-wasteful Labubus, people are irrationally driven to consume as a replacement for purpose in their lives and a as a way to fill up the dread created within their souls by wave upon wave of disappointment, abandonment and chaos. Like a scared child clinging onto a beloved Teddy bear as his parents are fighting in the living room at night, we are collectively clinging to our ‘Labubus’ in an effort to find some comfort as we are overwhelmed by rising taxation, forced migrations, the threat of war and the lack of cessation of other world conflicts or being obliterated by the forces of nature.

    It’s fascinating to see how the Saturn-Neptune conjunction is happening simultaneously with the Solar 25 cycle, which had space scientists forecasting a decade ago, that 2024 and 2025 will be harsh-weather years due to our Sun’s activity reaching solar maximum. In a truly weird, scary and wonderful way, we are literally being shown the true meaning of the saying ‘as above, so below’, as the Sun’s boiling super-energy is manifested on Earth in our crazed, social tensions. We are faced with the uncertain dawn of a new era of evolution, so of course, many of us are freaking out.

    Views from Other Astrologers

    St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s Great Act of Renunciation, 1891. Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833-1898). Oil on canvas; 60 1/4 x 84 inches (153.0 x 213.4 cm). Collection of Tate Britain, reference no. NO1573. Kindly released on the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported) licence. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

    To add some depth to this article and help you understand better the force of this transit, I thought of compiling some information I found in my astrological research. The month of August 2025 will usher in an opportunity that will help you finally see the path forward in your life, in that area that has been like an open wound since 2023. Whatever frustrated you and you had not clarity on, whatever you lost, will now be replaced and will provide an open doorway for you to pass onto the next level.

    However, to do so you’ll need to fulfill the requirements of the one Rudolf Steiner named “the guardian of the threshold“, a spiritual energy which can be manifested in your reality as: a difficult romance, a tough and new workplace, a qualification you have to study for and earn, a relocation to a foreign and unwelcoming land etc. You will nonetheless get a chance to begin anew, and effort will be needed to support your pioneering dreams.

    For example, here is how British astrologer Sue Tompkins in her book ‘Aspects in Astrology‘ describes the social landscape created by this great meeting of the gods of time and flow in the sky:

    Society was feeling guilty (…) Saturn-Neptune seems to describe poisoning and, more generally, lessons around purification and refinement (…) Sometimes the issue is paralysis and a psychological feeling of ‘caving in’ and not being able to cope (…) Typically, Saturn-Neptune people are frightened of loss of control and occassionally fate seems to ensure that they literally have to relinquish some form of control in order to learn lessons of some sort of non-attachment (…) With these contacts the father is not attached to the world in some way (…)

    The pattern of a missing or weak father figure, the ‘father’ who gets it wrong not because of what he does but of what he fails to do. A father who is not and doesn’t set himself up to be, the voice of authority (…) Guilt is very much a feeling that one might attribute to this combination (…) for the individual on some level often feels as if they are in debt for something and must continually be making reparation, paying a penance, often paying the father’s (or society’s) debts or avenging those that are indebted to him (…) Saturn-Neptune can be associated with renunciation (…) it is surely the combination of the ascetic. Indeed, the image in one’s mind is of a monk or a hermit (…)

    Saturn-Neptune would seek a simple and uncluttered life, free of any kind of opulence and excess (…) At best, this is the combination of the practical idealist, the person who has an awareness of their own limitations and the limitations of the given situation but nevertheless works to make some ideal a reality in the concrete world.

    (p. 240-243)

    Indeed, I can personally vouch for the theme of the sick father (due to the overlapping Saturn-Neptune link with my Pluto on the IC transit, I experienced my father’s passing away this year). In addition, it seems that emotional severity, financial hardships and the theme of sickness is also reported by the Astrology King:

    What you thought were safe and secure relationships, possessions, employment or general structures and patterns in your life may dissolve away, leaving you feeling anxious and depressed. In its higher manifestation, this transit allows you to make sacrifices and do without something to do good. You can help others or reach a particular goal. In the lower manifestation, a gift would be forced upon you to teach you a lesson about responsibility.

    Whatever the case, this is a severe phase of life, and you will tend to see the worst and not the best in everything. Pessimism can get out of control; therefore, it is essential to do your best to avoid it. Negativity must be avoided because Saturn can materialize Neptune’s illusions or delusions. It is essential to take care of your health; now is a good time for a general check-up with your doctor.

    Moreover, one of the astrologer’s I have been following for years and who taught me most of what I know in terms of relational astrology, the Bulgarian astrologer Lada Duncheva describes the Saturn-Neptune conjunction as a breaking down of illusions in one’s life and reminds us all of the fall of the ideology of communism when Saturn and Neptune met in Capricorn during the 1988-1990s era in Eastern Europe:

    When Saturn and Neptune are together- like now and in 2026, they tend to burst illusions, deceptions and long going schemes.
    Neptune in Pisces was able to operate for many years under the table, leading to many deceptions, underhanded games. Now Saturn nearing it- it is time to bear the consequences, to pay the karma, to reveal the deceptions.

    And finally, in an exhaustive exploration of the Saturn-Neptune conjunctions throughout history, the evolutionary astrologer Maurice Hernandez lays out some of the core themes of this epic transit and what it could manifest in the collective from next year, as both planets rejoin Aries:

    • A call for leadership, entrepreneurial or political. Fate can prompt a person to take the reins and step into positions of authority and command.
    • A boss or parental figure may go through a crisis, requiring care and adjustment. We may see those who once were in their prime exhibit tremendous vulnerability.
    • Accountability and ethical realignment. Unethical behavior may surface and prompt a person to take responsibility for possible misalignments. Conversely, the person with this transit prominently positioned may be the whistleblower, exposing unethical behavior.
    • The loss of meaning; losing the grip on what was once important or held in high esteem. Possibly experiencing a vacuum or emptiness until a new goal emerges.
    • A spiritual realization. Possibly the meeting of a spiritual teacher who will provide a new form of guidance or body of knowledge. Following the calling to lead a more spiritual life.
    • Adopting a new lifestyle and reinventing oneself in one shape or another. Depending on the house where the transit occurs, it may affect professional, relational, or academic matters.
    • Health vulnerabilities may affect adrenal function. Autoimmune reactions can engender inflammation in different parts of the body. This may be an opportune time to adjust our diet and get self-care support to sustain or increase vitality.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • Healing Through Chaos: Embracing Pluto’s Intensity

    Still from the movie 99 Moons

    June for me is a month of recovery. A recovery that is necessary in the wake of May’s energy. This is because last month’s energy was something beyond what I had experienced in a long time, and this confession doesn’t come lightly since I was born a Plutonic and I am used to unexpected and strong doses of life’s intensity. Due to my karmic Pluto in Scorpio Rx in the 1st house placement, life had demonstrated to me several times that this is going to be an incarnation of extremes, of symbolic deaths and rebirths, and having to understand some of the deepest emotions. However, sometimes a certain period comes along which simply turns up the Plutonic heat up a notch. Like a square aspect of transiting Pluto in Aquarius to my natal Pluto in Scorpio, during Taurus season, for example…

    For perspective, transiting Pluto in Aquarius is at the moment of my writing this article at 3’19 degrees in my 4th house; my IC (imum coeli or the bottom of the sky), the root of my chart is placed at 1’37 Aquarius. As a factual recap, the month of May of 2025 debuted with selling my small one-room flat and my moving into a 2-bedroom rented apartment in a safer part of Bucharest. A decision I didn’t easily make as I had to let go of the financial security of owning my place, but I gained the physical safety of knowing that at least, in this rental I will no longer be threatened with violent abuse by my neighbours, like I had been in my previous location.

    Escaping into a safer neighbourhood was something coming for two years now and as difficult as it had been to decide on this move, I pushed myself into making it because of self-preservation. The heavy-heartedness, however, came along with me. Just as I was getting accustomed to this new place and thinking it was better that I was somehow closer to my parent’s place and could visit them more often, on the 8th of May my father died.

    In his book ‘Pluto and the Evolutionary Journey of the Soul/ Vol. 1’ Jeffrey Wolf Green describes Pluto’s transit through the 4th house in the following words :

    “…this process will serve as an excellent time to examine the impact of the individual’s early environmental situation as reflected through the parents, and for those who are parents, how they themselves have emotionally responded to their own children, family and spouse (…) It will now be necessary to change or eliminate all forms of emotional dependency and security that are linked to external situations. These dependencies and securities are in some way limiting further growth (…) This evolutionary time frame and experience can be very difficult because many people will feel as if the very foundations of their lives are being threatened and removed. Such an experience must occur so that the individual is more or less left with only his or her self to look at, to examine, and to depend on (…) For some people this process will be enforced through the loss of a job or career, a family member or someone close to them, emotional confrontations of an intense magnitude with family members or even the loss of the individual’s own life.” (p. 322-323).

    Dad was cremated on the 10th of May and I found myself walking back from the Crematorium into a straight line back into the new flat I had just shortly inhabited. I crawled into bed like a slug and rested there for the next hours, feeling numbed out of my mind. I couldn’t cry. My body held on to the pain. It was familiar. It was a family thing to hold onto pain. I was simply being loyal.

    What weighed heavily on my heart was the fact that on the morning of my father’s death, I visited grandpa’s grave – situated near my new place – and I placed a coin on top of it. I offered flowers and asked grandpa (my father’s father) to help my family out. Hours later, around midnight my mother called to tell me that dad had given up the ghost. I immediately thought of grandpa letting me know that he listened to my prayer…although I’m not sure, that was the resolution I had asked for, but I am in no position at this point in my life to have semantic arguments with ghosts. Grandpa helped. And this helping hand from beyond the veil lingers in my heart, as a life mystery left for me to unravel. I am not afraid of ghosts, but I am mortified of living a soulless life. So the problem I had to cope with now was: How do I continue to live on, when all I can feel is just how dead I am on the inside?

    Dad’s departure happened right in-between Romania’s presidential elections, a period of two weeks of tumult as the population was faced with a pro-West candidate and a pro-Russian candidate. To say that the air in Bucharest was electric during those days, was an understatement. As the pressures kept pilling up on me, around the 19th of May – and after the results of the elections proved to be hopeful and progressive rather than medieval and destructive, I realised just how completely chewed up my nervous system had been. My body has started uncontrollably shaking after I took my morning shower and my hands were clenching without the possibility of relaxing them quickly. Only with controlled breathing was I able to physically ‘unclench’ and relax my body in roughly 20 minutes (which felt like an eternity).

    In the final days of May, I was running from one doctor appointment to another to find some treatment for my nervous system’s temporary collapse and I was lucky enough to find the support I needed in a psychiatrist, neurologist and family doctor. The treatment my psychiatrist put me on helped smooth out my over-sensitivity to sounds and helped me feel more relaxed in my body. I somehow knew this wasn’t enough and that I had to do a bit more to get the pain through my body moving and to release it somehow. I started doing yoga and gentle stretches daily, while eating a consistent breakfast of porridge with honey and fruits and making sure I am drinking enough water each day.

    I took at least 10,000 steps, and installed a tracker app on my phone to keep me to it. Each day this tracker would gentle nudge me to ‘get moving’ and then reward me by saying ‘you are getting better’, which felt like the kindest thing I could hear all day and exactly the opposite of how I was feeling. At night I worked, since work keeps me stable and optimistic and then I would watch a movie projected on the blank wall of my bedroom to take my mind off things. I would cry in the most public and inappropriate places, always surrounded by strangers and never near my mother or sister, the last two remaining members of my close family. It’s sad to write this but my relationship to them is not at all close, to say the least. I try, nonetheless.

    In ‘The Book of Pluto: Finding Wisdom in Darkness with Astrology’, astrologer Steven Forrest reflects on what happens to the human psyche once Pluto pays a visit to the root of the root of the birth chart, the IC or Nadir:

    “Psychological insights, bravely won, must penetrate down into core assumptions about yourself, and then be expressed publicly.” (p.263). He goes on to add that with this transit : “Your navigational error, if you succumb to it, would be to live the life of a ghost, with your fire, intensity and vision removed from your biographical life while you went through the motions of existence. And regardlessof outward appearances, at the psychological level you would live the life of a hearthless, homeless person (…) With Pluto in the fourth house, you heal yourself by becoming conscious of your woundedness…for you it starts with realizing the extent to which your ability to find, recognize and claim ‘your people’ has been distorted.” (p. 83)

    Remarkably, the intensity I was doing my best to smooth out or diminish in my waking life, appeared once again projected through the movies that I gravitated towards in that month. One after the other, I saw four movies that were incredibly good but each in their own way, were also intense and haunting.

    First of all, I saw ‘Sex, lies and videotape’ after I listened to antiheroines‘ insightful analysis on YouTube, about the disappearance of horny movies and the important role of emotional intimacy in making films feel erotic. I just loved this movie and if I was previously a fan of James Spader’s and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s chemistry in ‘Secretary‘, the unlikely attraction which existed between him and Andi MacDowell in Stephen Soderbergh’s film was much more subtle and sexy somehow.

    Seeing as I was in a vulnerable state of chaotic sadness, physical pain and nervous irritation, I couldn’t believe that this movie made me feel something tender-hearted again. As if a whole new mindset was available to me, through psychological sensuality.

    Still from the movie ‘Sex, lies and videotapes’

    A couple of days later, the film player I used to watch the film above recommended another European movie called ’99 Moons’. This movie was filmed after the pandemic and had actors I had never seen before, so it was right up my alley. Heavily medicated, still broken-hearted but satisfied that I had completed my day’s work, I sat on my little couch to watch this movie which begins with one of the most random, brutal and unexpected sex scenes I had seen so far. I won’t get into details but I’ll just say it involved: a parking lot, a ski mask, something aggressively oral happening and two consenting adults, one of whom breaks down crying after their intense coupling. And it’s not whom you expect.

    The curious thing is that ’99 Moons’ is a love story and the characters grow on you with so much ease that you feel shattered when you watch the surprising ending to the movie. I loved it because you get to see a completely different gender dynamic between two heterosexual characters, than you get to see in other erotic-themed movies. And the sex scenes are not at all vanilla or missionary, rather the opposite as most of them are female-led and unique but they always add to the story and the sensual intimacy between two people who simply were burning for each other across the years. This movie made me feel like it was worth bringing back to life, a part of me that once felt excited about sex and sexual pleasure…a part I had buried in April of 2021.

    Just some nights into my treatment, and I was now continuously sad but I felt somehow horny as well, like the upper part of the body broke off from my lower region. I had to appreciate however that both systems, although apart, were trying to keep me alive and away from the darker thoughts…those thoughts I had of joining my relatives, of seeing my dad’s dead and peaceful face as flowers were thrown over him, thoughts which sounded a lot like: ‘What’s the fucking point in living anymore? He seems so calm, he no longer feels pain…I wish I could feel that’. The creeping feeling that everything was falling apart around me and I wanted to just stop breathing, so that maybe then the pressure will lift and my body will stop hurting so much in every little corner.

    It felt like Freud’s concepts of how Thanatos nourishes Eros, which I first became aware of in college, it was as if they were finally being integrated skin-deep within my physicality. It was Pluto’s energy creating this cellular revolution through the way in which I was interpreting the events that happened in May of 2025 and the stories I was watching and unsuccessfully trying to escape into. The only thing these movies did was to push back upon myself the duty to live in my body and to continue to live on, no matter how painful the experience of living would get.

    I remembered this feeling. It was kind of how I felt after watching a couple of years ago ‘Normal people’, just that that experience was devoid of the pain of thinking constantly in the background of my mind: “Dad is gone and I’m never going to be able to speak to him, and I knew that the last time I talked to him in January, after I argued with mom, that it would’ve been our last moment together, because I told him this and he just sadly starred at me…he didn’t say anything.”

    A part of me, the child-part felt guilty for abandoning dad, while the rational part of me was aware that it felt like the force of karma worked through me, as I had done to dad what he had done to me when I was small and sick: abandoned me.

    Armed with this sad mix of thoughts, I went to the cinema this time to watch an old Romanian movie with a curious title “Glissando”. A movie about a man obsessed with the portrait of a woman. Halfway through the movie, the plot dissolves into two streams, two alternate realities and the characters simply float into random and beautifully-shot sequences of events in their lives. It is a movie about love, memories and obsessions and it was gorgeous to behold and spoke volumes to me about taking it easy and just riding the wave of feelings produced by all the events of the month of May. I couldn’t control what was happening, but I could control my reactions to all these things. In that at least, I had some power left.

    Still from the movie ‘Glissando’

    I guess that the intensity of May was lived inside of my body between these two extremes of deep sadness – that I was trying my best to run away from – and into erotic creativity – a sensual healing I was hoping to find some sort of solace. It helped that May in Bucharest is incredibly fragrant, as all the roses and jasmine bushes blossom, and the linden trees unleash their aromas while the market boom with cherries and strawberries and honey melons. It gets warmer each night and clothes become looser and thinner and days become longer and slower.

    In the background of this, I was tuning in and out of consciousness repressing feelings of sadness, shame and guilt. I slept throughout the day and was awake at night. Nature was so beautiful while my inner world was at war with itself and this contrast struck me. As if by magic, when I noticed the contradiction, the world around me seem to calm me down.

    The last film I saw was also probably the most difficult to watch, due to the topic. I saw Denis Villeneuve’s “Incendies” on a random whim. I wasn’t even sure how I got to watch it… All I know is that since I moved into this new flat there have been some mysterious Middle-Eastern influences that I am still trying to shake off, which have been haunting me: from finding out that the previous tenants were Arabs, to randomly stumbling upon an Arabian perfume that I couldn’t stop thinking of, to listening to Habibi Spice on YouTube because his soothing voice helped with my nervous system regulation.

    And then Incendies came along and I watched it and my jaw dropped and it helped me release a lot, because I cried my heart out. A week after, as I was walking through one of the largest literature events in Bucharest, Bookfest 2025, I felt drawn to a French-Arab publishing house and then saw the book “Incendies” written by Wajdi Mouawad – full circle moment.

    Still from the movie ‘Incendies’

    There are some other fascinating things about this new place I moved into, such as finding out from my mother that the shopping complex right in front of my window used to be a communist bread store in which my grandma (my father’s mother) used to work in and that it had a kindergarten attached to it, where I had briefly been to as a child. So without consulting anyone and after months of searching, I had unconsciously placed myself in May of 2025 in front of an energetic zone imprinted with memories from the 80s, when I was a toddler, and dad and grandma were alive and bread was rationed and we lived under a different political regime.

    In that moment of realization, I suddenly felt immensely peaceful! I understood that although things aren’t working out as I would like them too, they are working out exactly how the planets are dictating, among which Pluto is the loudest since it has begun the process of changing my soul. I know that if I just stick with the wave of chaotic emotions, memories and symbols, I will eventually get a beautiful and shocking realization as to why things are happening how they are happening. Spirit will deliver meaning and all I need to do is ride the flow of feelings and intuition and pay attention to my environment.

    And when the healing realizations begun and I was feeling a combination of illuminating thoughts and the mood-regulating treatment working, peace returned and my curiosity sparked again. During a particular difficult night, as I was wresting in bed trying not to cry again, I stumbled upon this video which although it sounds cheesy to admit, did a magical spell on my capacity to let go of fighting the intensity and simply giving in to it and accepting it:

    I don’t know why I wrote this post, except that it felt cathartic to do it. I think it’s meant to be some symbolic and blow-by-blow account of how Pluto in Aquarius is influencing my inner world at the moment, as I’m struggling to make sense and interpret this energy. I’m hoping it may help someone at some point in time, who might find themselves in similar circumstances. As tough as a Pluto transit can be, especially in electrifying Aquarius, it can also offer rest, re-education and renewal. I think this article may also be a list of recommendations, because despite the sad which create the backbone of this article, the films & resources are pretty good and you may want to give them a try. Let me know what you uncover.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • The Hero/ine

    Let me tenderly start off by clarifying that I fucking adore Gena Marvin! And one thing is the core of my intense love for her, something that runs so thinly in society at large but oozes out of her as easily as she breathes, and that precious soul element is: courage. Gena has heaps of this rare substance called bravery, despite the fact that she appears as a soft contrarian, a vulnerable artist, someone who seems more of a passive masochist than a tough fighter. The martyr quality that emerges from her character is given by the fact that Gena was born a Sun in Pisces. By her birth name Gennadiy Chebotarev, a Russian artist born in one of the most unwelcoming places on Earth, Magadan, a remote city in Siberian Russia, known for its harsh winters, famous prison and strong gender normative culture, Gena is currently living in exile in Paris, France, after a lifetime of quiet resistance.

    The other element of my intense love for her is that she is so creative. Creativity and courage when functioning optimally inside an individual result in the most irresistible charisma. This is the magical stuff of an individual who had to work at it, and unfortunately this work came about through withstanding intense violence and hatred related to her sense of self. Gena was born with a very interesting conjunction in her chart: a trifecta which involves a Saturn in Aries at a later degree conjunct a Jupiter in Aries at an early degree and in the heart of these powerful outer-planets, lies a Moon in Aries, a fire lighting the dark.

    I have started this website writing about the painful karma of being born with a Moon conjunct Saturn so I won’t insist on the subtleties of this placement in this article, (it’s just important to know that Gena carries within a deep maternal wound), but I do want to focus on the loose conjunction between her Saturn and her Jupiter in Aries. This is an astrological aspect which usually denotes a lifetime of having the harshest tests related to one’s identity and then these are shortly followed by the biggest blessings. This punishment and blessing cycle brought on by Saturn and Jupiter, touches her emotionally in a very profound way (because of the presence of the her Moon sandwiched between these significant outer planets).

    Alternatively, you could also see the Saturn-Jupiter astrological aspect as a lifetime of taking on tests and limiting situations in a willing way, and feeling the fear and doing it anyway. The pressure which Saturn stirs in the mix eventually eases into the most surprising growth and self-confidence, courtesy of Jupiter. And with the Moon in Aries left to do the emotional work, self-belief is the resurrection card. Through hardship, a link to the Divine within gets activated, much like in the martyr effect, or the idea that the more persecuted that you are the more your belief in the Divine is strengthened. Such beliefs fit with someone’s astrological energy when they have an abundance of planets and points in Pisces and Aries.

    Here is how Sue Tompkins describes the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction: “Saturn will tend to define, restrict, restrain and add an element of fear to all those things we associate with Jupiter: namely faith, meaning, joy and enthusiasm. Jupiter expands, enlarges and increases the Saturnian principles of order, responsibility, discipline and caution. Jupiter and Saturn together usually yields great persistence, patience and perseverance. Nevertheless, this is perhaps the combination associated with solid material success, and the easy aspects especially seem buffeted in this area of their lives (…) The Jupiter-Saturn individual often craves, and frequently reaches, an influential and executive position in the world.” (Aspects in Astrology, p.227-229)

    ** I’ve generated Gena’s chart based on disparate and incomplete birth-information so the natal map above may not be accurate

    To be fair, the whole collective has been soaked in these astral influences because since 2022, the transiting outer planets Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune together with the North Node and South Node axis have been touching upon the Alpha (Aries) and Omega (Pisces) of the zodiac, the first sign and the last sign of our equatorial constellations. We are all on some level having to let go of a part of our lives we grew attached to, in favour or staring anew and rebuilding everything with courage. Gena knows this process intimately, as her chart portrays such ending and beginning energies which she carries within and from which great creative ideas and potential spark out of. What I love about her is just how determined she is to keep pushing preconceived gender norms and to risk her physical safety as she does so. She inspires me to be less afraid to pursue my own self-expression, during a period in which most of our role-models and heroes are either strangely silent or dead.

    I will admit that writing this article proved challenging. Especially because I can’t help gendering her, even when the whole purpose of her art and self-expression is to go beyond gender. Gena is trying to help us understand how to live outside of gender, in a very physical and practical way. The sumptuously filmed documentary about her life, her art and her resistance (and which inspired me to write this article), a film called Queendom, details the lived aspects of crafting an existence outside of gender and how painful, frightening and exhilarating the whole process is. I highly recommend watching it and if you do, please let me know if you manage to get Sevdaliza’s song ‘Human’ out of your mind. It still haunts me to this day, it’s so powerful.

    I ultimately decided to include the ‘she/her’ pronouns since it appeared to me that in her artistic journey Gena moved from the masculine principle (within which she was born) into the feminine one, but without making her body’s transformation the core aspect of her journey. I see her message as being broader, and while deeply embodied and political, her story transcends the usual narrative of “the person who shifts genders and is oppressed by traditional gender norms in society”. Gena uses her body as a tool to subvert authoritarian politics in society. She advocates for courage and freedom, especially the freedom to dress as you please and to express who you are without fear of violence or being excluded from the benefits that other gender-confirming people enjoy in society. Her protest is not just queer and concerning identity but it is also political, as Gena is actively and dangerously resisting being part of the populist collective that advocates for war and the domination of other countries, much like we are seeing in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war.

    Simply existing in the world, especially as a woman and then as an artist, as a creative force is seen as threatening at the moment in time, as something that needs to be controlled or treated with corrective violence. And this medieval mindset has long expired and has to change. The hopeful silver-lining comes from the strangest of places: the symbolic rumbles and metaphorical earthquakes brough about by Pluto’s transit through Aquarius, which has already begun to create social chaos in order to consistently normalize what has been seen as ‘weird’ or ‘outcast’. Give it a couple of years (and the trine between Uranus in Gemini and Pluto) for the ‘weird’ to find out just how much they belong.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • Supervillains

    Photo of Elon Musk [FILE: Mike Segars/Reuters] taken from: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/24/elon-musks-wars-brazil-to-australia-uk-to-us-the-x-owners-many-battles

    A couple of hours just shy off the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump’s second chance at ruling the US, I was looking into the Elon Musk and Asmongold drama, replete with leaked DMs, removed gaming credentials and some direct accusations of Musk being a fake gamer. I found it hilarious and somehow in my weird astrologer’s brain something clicked; something I noticed a while back and I feel the need to unearth in this article and to get deeper into. I vaguely remembered that both Trump and Musk shared a really interesting astrological aspect in common: they both have a Venus conjunct Saturn in their natal charts! Normally, this aspect would portent an individual destiny marred by financial limits, setbacks and struggles, so how come these two men were put in charge with rescuing the economy of one of the biggest country’s in the world and the literal birth-place of capitalism to add to that?

    As the current planetary transits also involve the conjunction between Venus in Pisces conjunct Saturn in Pisces in the month of January 2025, I thought that the synchronicities were too good to miss out on. So, as I lie in bed covered in tissues and sipping from hot tea in a desperate attempt to get rid of a flu that is kicking my ass for a week now, allow me to entertain myself and potentially you as a valued reader with an analysis of the chart of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. It will be a light-hearted analysis, focused mainly on the weird astrological connections between these two goofy, powerful men who have the potential to really mess up world politics in the next 4 years. We truly live through magical times, and magical thinking is required now more than ever to survive…

    In my opinion, Elon Musk is a good example of what stress, power, over-fucking and a poor diet can do to a man’s brain. A man who had the potential to be great, in culturally significant and invention-empowering ways, but who sadly got lost in the hubris of making money for the sake of making money, and acting out in super-sensitive ways if things don’t go his way. These characteristics all feed into the creation of the super-villain, a man who ends up sitting on the wrong side of history due to an unstable character and the misuse of ridiculous financial and political power. And the saddest part is that he could do so much good with this power, as long as he remembers to be grateful for his power and to use it wisely. But attaining wisdom is not really Musk’s destiny..

    Image of the birth-chart of Elon Musk taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/

    His chart shows me that Musk was born with a sensitive Sun in Cancer in the softest house of the zodiac, the 12th house. So, he is a Cancerian who borrows traits from a Piscean (jeez talk about being super sensitive!) Not only that but his Ascendant is in Cancer with Mercury perfectly conjunct it, adding a Geminian vibe to any first impression he makes, and thereby adding to this super brainy persona that he likes to indulge in, but keep in mind that this is just a front as the Ascendant is not who he really is at the core. His core comprises of a Moon in Virgo conjunct the Part of Fortune and Pluto, as Musk, it needs to be remembered is a Gen X-er. Due to all of this more or less conscious Mercurian energy surrounding his lunar placement and his Mercury conjunct the Ascendant, Musk identifies with his thoughts and wants to come across as a youthful, vibrant, funny and smart lad. In reality he is an anxious and obsessed, control-freak who is struggling to keep up with the times. This aspect is further emphasized because Musk was born with a South Node in Leo in the first house, so therefore his comfort zone is being himself and this Self is rather poorly placed in the least modest sign of the zodiac: Leo, the ruler, the playful but belligerent and self-aggrandising big baby of the zodiac.

    This placement puts his growth zone in the opposite sign of Leo, that being Aquarius and to add spice to this, the Universe decided to have Musk’s Mars placement conjunct his North Node too, a fact I immediately attribute to Musk’s obsession with conquering and exploiting the planet Mars (as we know, the North Node is a point of excessive growth and obsession). Furthermore, Musk’s Midheaven is in Aries, a sign ruled by Mars, and another sign of how the public perceives him: as a pioneer, as a brave and bold guy who takes risks and chances, as someone who fucks around a lot and has a lot of children (even if he is trying to intellectualize his lusty appetite by saying he is helping to repopulate the planet; I attribute his high libido and pleasure in procreating to his natal Jupiter in Scorpio conjunct Neptune in Sagittarius in the 5th house, the house of fun and children). As we see that his Midheaven is conjunct Chiron, the Wounded Healer, there is tinge of woundedness and super-sensitivity that makes him come across as a man who is more vulnerable than we would like, a leader who suffers and is not necessarily physically ill but in terms of the fragility of his Ego, since as we know Aries rules the Ego and the Self. Ideally, he would learn from life’s challenges and spread wisdom to the masses, a wisdom that can be deeply healing and inspiring. I mean he does have the power and the platform to do so; however seeing as his internal astrological chemistry contains so much Air (North Node and Mars in Aquarius, Gemini Venus and Saturn, Uranus and Lilith in Libra), he seems to be taking a superficial and technological approach to how he is handling his Chiron and therefore misses the chance for true emotional growth through processing the real pain of feeling less worthy than other men around him.

    As Musk has been experiencing his Chiron return since 2018 and has been having the transit of Jupiter and then the North Node moving across his highly visible 10th house and the Midheaven in the last 3 years, more of this under-utilised and misinterpreted Chirotic energy made itself know to the public. It will be fascinating to see how the public’s perception of Musk (already at a considerable low) will change in the next two years and a half as Saturn and Neptune will enter Aries and begin affecting his professional legacy, as it will bring up some more of his deeply painful Chirotic energy to the surface.

    I think the interesting aspect to Musk is that he tends to make a likeable supervillain, one who can be cool and down with the kids, goofing around, acting nerdy and speaking in boyish and charming ways that put a comic intent on most of his affirmations; affirmations that have the potential to considerably change the course of the stock market. A powerful man who wants to look like the eternal cool teenager, the nerd who outsmarted them all and built a technological empire and is now impregnating the world to preserve the human race. Allegedly 🙂 I attribute all these qualities to what I consider to be the key to his sudden rise to success and maybe even the reason to his future downfall: his Venus in Gemini loosely conjunct Saturn in the 11th house.

    Let’s have a brief look over Donald Trump’s chart now:

    Photo of Donald Trump and image of his birth-chart taken from https://www.astro-seek.com/

    So Trump was born as a Sun in Gemini in the 10th house conjunct the North Node & Uranus, two aspects which make him highly volatile and unpredictable! He has a Moon in Sagittarius conjunct the South Node and Lilith and sitting opposite the Sun, which means that he was born during a Full Moon and he is someone who is lucky with partnerships and needs to be in a stable and long-term connection because he is quite inter-dependent. His Moon sits in the 4th house the place of roots, family, nation – a nationalistic house, so I don’t doubt him when he says he is a patriot. He has an Ascendant in Leo (conjunct Mars in the 12th house & loosely conjunct Pluto, cause he’s a Boomer). The current transit of Jupiter in Gemini is harmoniously helping him with being seen in a positive, funny and helpful light, but this transit is frustrating his Saturn, Venus and Mercury. Nonetheless the current transit of Saturn in Pisces is supporting his inner planets especially that Venus in Cancer conjunct Saturn in Cancer in the 11th house (conjunct Venus almost perfectly and loosely conjunct Mercury). Trump has Neptun conjunct Jupiter in Libra so people born with a Sun in Libra, like his daughter Ivanka, in a weird way make him happy and bring him prestige and good luck. He also has the 7th house in Aquarius and the generation born with the Uranus, Neptune in Aqua combo may idealise him (1998 – 2003).

    But let’s return to his Venus conjunction to Saturn in the shy and sensitive sign of Cancer and compare it to Musk’s Venus conjunction to Saturn in the brainy and speedy sign of Gemini. In her book on Saturn, Liz Green describes Venus-Saturn contacts in synastry as:

    This is the aspect par excellence of emotional rejection, and it is a difficult one to deal with unless it is taken as an opportunity to discover whether any reality lies behind the projections of the relationship. We know that Venus is the chief significator or symbol of affection, love and harmony, and the urge for companionship. As a reflection of the individual’s capacity to relate to others, Venus expresses with charm, grace and ease those qualities which Saturn cannot freely demonstrate. She will also often suggest a sense of taste and refinement in those areas where Saturn finds himself clumsy, inept, inhibited and cramped. Venus is the eternal lover and the eternal youth and this can very naturally upset Saturn, who may have a tendency to react with jealousy, possessiveness, suspicion, and a feeling of unattractiveness or social ineptness. But it seems to be an empiric fact that Venus-Saturn contacts, whether they appear on a natal chart or in the comparison of charts, have the tendency to bring first, great unhappiness of a peculiarly personal kind and second, great opportunity for the establishment of an honest relationship – something which is rarely seen. A relationship may occur out of expediency, out of a need for financial security, or a general loneliness. It may also occur because an additional responsibility such as a child makes it impossible to consider any alternative situation. Some relationships occur under family pressure or for religious or moral reasons. Often Venus-Saturn contacts will be seen in these situations, for the other side of this tie is the duty-over-love side, and it will frequently occur in relation to money. There is frequently a tie of financial obligation involved with Venus-Saturn contacts which binds two people long after the affection has ceased to exist.

    In my experience, I noticed that it was usually people who were single for a very long time who sought my astrological services and had this Venus-Saturn aspect in their chart. Saturn tends to freeze or dry up whatever it sits near to and when it embraces Venus to such a close degree, it tends to dry up a person’s love life and personal love energy; in this context, giving and receiving love tends to be an awkward process, filled with blocks and inhibitions that lead to romantic rejection and disappointment. Both Trump and Musk have this aspect which would explain why they are so weird and gauche with women, benefiting from either the attention of a lot of low-vibrational women and lewd liaisons that end up harming their reputation or coupling with high-vibrational, intelligent and beautiful women who they don’t know how to treat, appreciate and respect, so those connections end up in painful and public separations. Venus-Saturn doesn’t only affect in a negative way the way they love others, but also the love and respect they show themselves which is relatively low in both cases: Musk is known for skipping sleep or sleeping on the floor of his work office in an effort to show how committed he is to his innovative work, while Trump is a big lover of junk food and has shamelessly admitted to this several times. Eating poorly, not getting enough sleep, not valuing the way they look or dress not only changes their brain chemistry for the worse and gets them to declare stupid things in the press but it has ripple consequences on the way in which others perceive them; both Musk and Trump seem to think that only money and power will grant them the respect they would normally achieve by simply taking better care of their bodies and their health and feeling through reality in a more sensual and present way. Paying closer attention to details, slowly, carefully and patiently working through their duties rather than simply winging things all the time and declaring themselves geniuses for how fast and decisive they work, may help them both to improve a lot of ongoing issues in their lives and reduce personal and public dramas.

    Sue Tompkins, reflecting on the Venus-Saturn aspect in the book by the same name, describes this energy as:

    For some reason, it seems that those with Venus-Saturn contacts come into the world feeling unloved. For many, it takes years for the penny to drop that the issue is really self-valuation. Before that realization dawns, Venus-Saturn people tend to believe, though not always consciously, that it is others that don’t care, others that don’t love them. Saturn will always delay the development of whatever planetary principle it touches, and for Venus-Saturn types it takes time for the individual to learn about giving and receiving – and especially giving and receiving with no strings attached (…) these types almost expect rejection and are very sensitive to, nay listen out for, any clues which might herald the fact that the other person’s love has waned. And the constant demand for proof of affection and for the other person to continually define their feelings often does put a considerable strain on the relationships as does the continual saying of ‘I’m sorry’ which is often very much a Venus-Saturn phrase. Venus-Saturn men often find themselves doing all the loving of seemingly cold women. The Venus-Saturn person often attempts to make themselves indispensable to their loved ones and especially ever willing to give of their time or their money and this is how Venus-Saturn controls the relationship. The issue of love and time is often a very big one with Venus-Saturn. You can tell that a Venus-Saturn person cares for you if they are prepared to give you their time and similarly, they use the time-factor as a yardstick of your affection. Lack of time and subsequent denial of affection was often an issue in childhood. Issues of denial of love, control and love, and love and punishment are also pertinent here. At worst the person builds a wall around themselves and wails because nobody loves them. Saturn always give endurance and thus the Venus-Saturn person can describe the one who holds on through thick and thin and through doing so, really does make a relationship work, really does learn to give and take. People with these contacts do better after the initial attraction and illusion has worn off.

    Seeing as Trump is about to begin his second term as president, and his relationship to the USA has ripened, it may very well be that trying again could work in his favour this time. Although this may make sense emotionally, from a logical point of view I still wonder why Americans have given their vote of confidence to a man who went bankrupt thrice in his career and they expect such an individual to rescue their economy? It’s like getting your stylist to take care of your taxes or hiring an illiterate person to read you bed time stories. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that the president won’t fulfill his duties alone and that there are other powerful men sitting in the shadows and guiding Trump towards making the decisions that need to be taken, and I attribute this love for his flexibility to why he has won the second term in the first place. His Venus-Saturn contact shows that because of inherent father issues and feeling unloved at a deep level, he will continue to bend over backwards to please the men in his life, no matter how outwardly confrontational he may come across when talking to them (don’t be fooled by that Mars in Leo on the Ascendant, who is all roar but no bite). And an example of this is getting Musk to rule alongside him by conferring him the power to organise the Department of Government Efficiency, a right-wing sounding branch of the future Trump administration.

    Voices in the world of journalism say that the bromance between these two Venus-afflicted men will not last long, but my opinion is that as long as they both continue to make decisions that profit them, and continue to raise their assets and investments, then there would be no logical reason for why they should call it quits. In the absence of love, both these men will continue to fill the voids in their hearts with the comforting zing of green dollar bills, and spread similar materialistic values into the society, poisoning it from within. One of the reasons, why we have reached this point may very well be that with their powerful and low-vibrational Venus-Saturn contacts they are simply mirroring the unconscious projections of society at large gone wrong, in these brave two thousand twenties times. As ‘beacons of light’ in a cold, cruel and loveless world, both Trump and Musk blare out from our screens with messages of progress and finding all the comfort you need in making money, because if you think that people won’t love you, the heavy-handed arm of capitalism will always make you believe that at least you are just as worthy as the things that you purchase.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • It’s gonna get emotional

    Drawing by Ian Moore. Taken from: https://lifehacker.com/health/how-to-cry-more-and-why

    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.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • Wicked Astrology

    Wicked film poster, image via WikiMedia Commons.

    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).

    Image of Cynthia Erivo and of her birth-chart taken from: https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Cynthia_Erivo

    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 🙂

    Image of Ariana Grande and of her birth-chart taken from: https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Ariana_Grande

    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.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • The Lesser of Two Evils

    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.

    Birth-chart of Elena Lasconi, created with https://www.astro.com/horoscope?nho2=2&nhor=1

    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.

    Birth-chart of Calin Georgescu, created with https://www.astro.com/horoscope?nho2=2&nhor=1

    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.

    With universal light,

    Lexi

  • Women of Substance

    “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.

    Image of actress Anna Kendrick and of her birth-chart, taken from: https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/anna-kendrick-horoscope

    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.

    Image of actress Margaret Qualley and of her birth-chart, taken from: https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Margaret_Qualley

    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).

    Image of actress Demi Moore and of her birth-chart, taken from: https://www.astro-seek.com/birth-chart/demi-moore-horoscope

    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.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • Making sense

    Painted American Flag is a painting by Duukster fromhttps://pixels.com/featured/painted-american-flag-duukster.html

    In light of recent political events, I feel it’s necessary to focus upon the astrological transits which are influencing them. Mostly because we are gearing up for a number of great outer-planetary transits in 2025 which will change the social landscape for years to come. The transits I will focus on in this article are those of the planets Neptune and Saturn as they are joined by the North Node/South Nodes of the Moon in the signs of Aries and Pisces; but I will also reflect on the previous transits of Jupiter throughout Aries and Pisces between the years of 2022 and 2023, since past Jupiterian aplomb laid the groundwork for the current Saturnian injection of fear into the collective.

    These transits began roughly in the year 2022 and will continue up until 2027, and the two astrological signs from which they draw energy are those which represent the Alpha and the Omega of the zodiac. This is no coincidence but a fated mark representing the building of a different social landscape than the one we have witnessed in the last century. It is evident that we are living in times in which many of our social institutions, core values, ways of relating and defining ourselves are not functioning anymore. You could say that they are ‘plastically transforming’, if this transformation wasn’t so painful for ordinary people just trying to get by.

    Aries and Pisces are the first and the last sign of the zodiac, and in the last years they have been unleashing their energies in our collective unconscious, marking the end of an era and the brisk creation of the next: the first sign of impulsive and creative primal energy (Aries) and the final twelfth sign representing the wise, compassionate elder of the zodiac (Pisces).

    On a darker note, Aries (ruled by Mars) is also the sign of war, aggression and anihilation due to Ego strengthening, while Pisces (ruled by Neptune) is about delusion, addictions and pendulating between extreme self-abandonement and extremely uplifting spiritual states. Outer planetary transits impact the collective more than any other transits, especially when they are supported by conjunctions to the karmic lunar nodes: two imaginary points on the Moon’s eliptic movement around the Earth, which represent past life karmic energy and show us where we loose collective energy (the South Node) and what we are obsessively drawn towards, where we feel like the energy is never enough and we crave more of it (the North Node). To aid in my analysis I’m hitting the books and getting some support from Jan Spiller, Liz Greene and Stephen Arroyo, three well-known astrologers who have written extensively on the deeper meaning of Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter and the nodes of the Moon.

    The first outer planet to move through these two signs was the Great Benefic, the planet Jupiter. With its natural expansiveness and enthusiasm, Jupiter led the masses into increased radicalisation and heightened religious and nationalist fervour as Jupiter moved through Pisces between 2021 and 2022, and then Jupiter put the legacy of Pisces into action by intensifying global conflicts as it briskly moved through Aries, the sign of War between the 2022 and 2023. I want to allow an experienced astrologer like Stephen Arroyo to describe the energy of Jupiter as it moved from the first through the last sign of the zodiac, so he can help us put things into a larger perspective (which also happens to be the main hustle of Great Jove) :

    Jupiter in Pisces “Keeping one’s feet on the ground may be the hardest challenge for those with this position. They can float away into dreams of personal glory (…) they can be lost in self-agrandissement posing as big-heartedness; or they can indulge themselves in exaggerated, mythologised versions of their lives. In some cases of more ordinary mortals, they can ‘go to pieces’ if their lyfestyle, marriage or job to which they have been devoted, disintegrates resulting in disorientation, escapism and difficulty coping with reality. Self-esteem and confidence for most of these people, however, slowly develops over time as they align themselves with a spiritual, social, or artistic ideal (…) These folks are usually, future-oriented people and almost invariably they have some kind of special imagination, intuitive understanding of life, or breadth of vision that can inspire themselves and others, and which they need to act upon throughout their lives if they are going to feel prosperous and succesful. As Moore and Douglas explain, “success” for those with Jupiter in Pisces has little to do with money and material goods.”

    Jupiter in Aries “This is perhaps the most fearless risk-taker of all Jupiter positions. Inf act, these people usually love risk and challenge; they crave the experience of the new and the unknown, and life quickly becomes boring without such stimulation. In fact, they sometimes live in such a way that more cautious types wonder if they are bent on self-destruction! They are naturally rash and impulsive liking to act quickly and think about it later, if at all. They are frank and honest, but others must be equipped to deal with their directness and bluntness without over-reacting to them emotionally. They don’t usually mean any harm; they are merely thoughtless at times. However, there can be a mean streak with Aries, especially if other planets are there also. And almost invariably, there is substantial competitiveness, which serves them well in their natural entrepreneurial activities. Those with Jupiter in Aries thrive on constant growth towars the new, and they may best express their potential in very independent work situations, such as being self-employed. They do not like to take orders, and in fact they are the epitome of people who can be called ‘head-strong’ (…) Yet, their intuition into the future is often strikingly apt. They invariably know their future direction, although they may impuslively change it with surprising suddeness. So many new ideas and projects occur to them that many are never pursued long; finishing things may be a problem (…) For those with Jupiter in Aries, progress and prosperity depend more on directing and channeling their innate confidence and vision than on developping those capacities. These abilities are already there, but cultivating more faith in that inner initiative and intuitive sense of what ‘I can do’ may be the next step for some individuals.”

    Jupiter’s transit in Aries also debuted the transit of Saturn into Pisces, when it concomitantly worked with it in an uncomfortable semi-sextile in March of 2023. As Saturn began to move through Pisces, it also began to slowly approach the planet Neptune, now almost at the end of it’s years long transit through the sign of its domicile. Mayans adequately predicted the end of an era back in 2012, a year which eerily coincided with Neptune beginning its transit through Pisces. So Saturn is left now to uncomfortably clean up and provide structure to the Neptunian ‘spiritual spills’ in which we have been bathing for more than a decade now. The astrological expert on everything Saturn and Neptune-related is without doubt, Liz Greene, whose profound reflections on both Saturn and Neptune in these two zodiac signs, can help us understand what exactly we have been immersed in:

    Saturn in Pisces “Saturn in the twelfth house, and to a lesser extent in Pisces is difficult from the point of view of the personality because the Saturnian energies, geared initially toward self-protection and defense against the environment, are rendered ineffectual. This may in extreme situations be through hospitalization or imprisonment for a period of time, and the man may learn through his own helplessness how ultimately impotent the personal will is against the forces of his own past which he himself has set in motion. The feeling that one is helpless and must submit to something larger and greater is frequent with this placement of Saturn, although it may occur on a very subjective level. This is a cadent house and refers to states of mind, and Saturn here often generates a vague fear that someone or something, a misty or generalised fate or destiny, is going to destroy him or control him. He may isolate himself and attempt to shield himself from contact with others at the same time that he is weighed down by an oppresive loneliness and sense of powerlessness (…) It is also often the reflection of a fear of confronting external life and a sense of impotence in being able to handle practical affairs (…) Typical Saturnian ambivalence occurs with a twelfth house Saturn too, and there are both a compulsive fascination with and a great fear of losing one’s identity and individuality (…) It is man’s defense mechanism which is necessary for a long time while the unfolding consciousness needs defending; however, when Saturn is found in Pisces or in the twelfth house, the time has come for the scaffolding to be taken down for the inner structure is nearly complete, and stripping this away is initially like stripping off one’s outer skin and exposing the raw and tender area beneath (…) Saturn in water is responsible for a great deal of loneliness and isolation so apparent at the present time. It is of some help for the individual who has Saturn in a watery house or sign to recognise that his potential in terms of inner peace, understanding, and wisdom is as great as his potential for despair if he will only turn inward to the realm of feelings and of the unconscious.”

    Now, starting from 2025, Saturn will temporarily dip into Aries for a couple of months next Spring, form a great conjuction to Neptune (just enough to give us ample material to work with) and then dip back into Pisces next Autumn, for a conclusive final act. It needs to be said, that Saturn doesn’t enjoy being in any of these two signs, since Water and Fire energies are the most resistant to any discipline, structure or grounding that this Earth Papa wants to impose on them; so these transits are uncomfortable and wounding to our personalities and only with great effort can we distill the gold inherent in Saturn’s karmic lessons. But let’s allow Liz to explain it further:

    Saturn in Aries “One of the main qualities which appear to accompany Saturn in Aries or in the first house is a lack of self-assertion of a positive kind. There is often a need to enforce one’s will and to control the immediate environment; but rather than being the spontaneous and self-confident assertion of the individual, this is more of a defensive maneuvre which sometimes attempts to attack first because it is fearful of attack. Sometimes the need for control is expressed in a subtle and indirect way so that situations are manipulated without any real evidence of aggressiveness. This is the characteristic coupling of need and fear which is so often found with Saturn. The natural shyness and stiff awkwardness of Saturn is expressed more obviously with this placement than with any other although the individual often learns during life to cultivate a smooth, cool and polished surface (…) Saturn is considered to be in his fall in Aries, and from this one might deduce that this is a difficult position for him and one which is not easily carried. Possibly the most difficult side of it is the tendency to be cut off from both the flow of outer life and the flow of inner life so that the individual is stranded in a very small and very arid area of his psyche, difficult to reach, and unable to touch the mainspring of purpose and meaning which would enable him to face the outer world with courage (…) This is because a planet in its fall must generally struggle, and it is this struggle which, if carefully tended, yields insight and eventual expansion of the field of consciousness. This is particularly true of Saturn, who when placed in the sign of his fall is often stripped of the courage and confidence – the natural gifts of Aries – which are required to tackle the problems of living head-on. Yet the thing he wants the most is the joy of being free, of being first, of exploring unknwon regions and meeting unknown challenges and revelling in the innate realization that his existence is guarantee enough of his purpose. Saturn in Aries or in the first house tends first to emphasize the fear of powerlessness because it suggests a clinging to the more superficial features of the personality and a consequent loss of contanct with the rich inner person. Eventually this fear can prod the individual into a deeper exploration of what he considers to be his identity.”

    And here is Liz’s primer on Neptune’s energy as it will make an epochal shift next year (if you thought delusions related to wars and conflicts were abundant in the collective, well next yer we may never see the end of them; at the same time issues related to personal identity and who we are as human beings will become the center of our collective concerns as AI and robots will become common-place in society):

    Neptune in Pisces “In the 12th house, Neptune comes home (…) Neptune in the 12th house is a transmitter of the richness, darkness and light of that which came before us. The 12th is the house of pre-birth and therefore also describes the period of the mother’s pregnancy, when we were contained within the uterine waters. As a medium for the archetypal themes of the ancestral collective, Neptune in the 12th is particularly attuned to feelings and images of suffering and redemption (…) It is not surprising that this house is called the house of self-undoing; if we are unconscious of this vast ancestral longing to go home, we may ensure that we are dragged home in spite of ourselves (…) Commitment to a religious or spiritual path may offer consolation to Neptune’s melancholy and world-weariness, and may provide a means of redeeming not only one’s own loneliness but the victims of the past. Neptune in the 12th may shoulder the burden of redeeming family sin and unhapiness, and is particularly prone to identification with the suffering saviour (…) One may become addicted to the creative powers of the psyche, retreating from relationships with the outer world in order to partake of the universal waters of the source. The individual may see himself or herself as a Christ-like figure, come to save the suffering world (…) The line between Neptune in the 12th as visionary, artist and healer, and Neptune in the 12th as addict, invalid or psychotic, is very fluid (…) Neptune’s eternal enemy is also Neptune’s eternal friend, and a little Saturnian realism can go a long way in assisting a 12th house Neptune floundering in deep waters – although too much Saturn may provoke the very flood the individual is seeking to avoid.”

    Neptune in Aries “Neptune in the first house poses an immediate dilemma, for the nature of Neptune is antithetical to the nature of Mars. Where Mars seeks to assert its power over life, Neptune seeks to avoid birth. Where we experience Neptune, we feel helpless abd impotent, for we are in the hands of powers greater than ourselves (…) Neptune in the 1st may secretly feel emasculated and deeply anxious when confronted with choices and challenges that require a definite decision or act of will – particularly if there is any risk of separation or loneliness. Sometimes one adopts instead a strange fatalism, as though life is unreal anyway and therefore not worth struggling with. Eschewing of personal responsibility may undermine efforts to establish a coherent life direction. Both good and ill are “meant to be” (…) Neptune in the 1st often reflects gifts of tact and subtle diplomacy, one navigates rather than shapes the outer world. The needs of others take on the shape of the redeemer; to merge with others in an ecstasy of mutual pleasing is a form of redemption (…) Neptune in the 1st has a reputation in astrological texts for blindness and self-deception (…) Every personal interaction with another individual thus becomes a potential experience of salvation; and clarity, judgement and initiative dissolve as a result. But this destructive extreme of self-effacement can only occur if there is no sense of self to balance Neptune’s longing. If one has one’s own feeligns and values, the need for others will not swallow up the outlines of the identity (…) The challenge of a 1st house Neptune lies not in any intrinsically malevolent property in the planet, but in the task of balancing its chameleon-like inclinations with a healthy dose of self-value and self-preservation. Neptune in the 1st can also be the special gift of the counsellor or healer, because of its unique capacity to enter into the feelings of others. But the individual may become addicted to those who are needy (…) The inner solidity of the personality decides in the end whether the gifts of a 1st house Neptune will lead to the waters of oblivion or the waters of life”.

    At the moment at which I am writing these reflections, Pluto is a mere 24 hours away from definitively switching from Capricorn into Aquarius; this transit will last until 2044 and it will reconfigure our social landscape. To add to this transformation wave, we are collectively feeling the energies of the North Node in Aries (red and male) and the South Node in Libra (blue and female). It’s kind of on the nose how the colours and gender associated with Mars/Aries and Venus/Libra fit so strongly with the two political party which competed against each other during the American elections at the begining of this month; similarly, the upcoming Romanian elections may also lead to a negative surprise, as the old-guard political party PSD, whose logo is covered in red may become the populist darling, thereby sealing the deal on the gradual “Russification” of Romania during Saturn in Aries’ reign (although, I pray that votes will be disparate and PSD won’t get the majority and my fears will resist to manifest; I also pray that Saturn will freeze & limit conflicts at global level).

    Because the North Node represents a point of collective obsession, and its transit usually describes what we become attached to and constantly crave more of, we would understand why Trump’s campaign which it’s fleet red caravans covering the US and it’s sexist but direct rethoric, had more success than Harris’ – people unconsciously wanted Mars-like energy, so that their personal anger would be reflected on stage, in a form of political anger that was mistakenly associated with true power. Here is how astrologer Jan Spiller describes the core traits of the Libra SN/Aries NN axis under whose spell we have been since July of 2023:

    Aries North Node people have spent so many incarnations supporting the identity of others that in this incarnation they have no sense of who they are. On an energetic level, they are missing the insulation of a sense of identity. When a baby is born, there’s a band in its aura called “identity”, and people in other nodal groups have this. It acts as a shield against the strong energy field of others. Because of it, people can interact intensely without damaging one another (…) In this incarnation, Aries North Node people face the challenge of stregthening their sense of identity. Because they have no preconceived idea of “self”, they are open to discovering what is real and natural within themselves. It’s an innocent process. Their natural impulses validate their identity, and their identity is strengthened through their actions (…) They don’t have enough personal identity left in their “battery” to hold the “charge” for the other person. To be deeply happy in this lifetime, they must focus on developing their own identity and recharging their own battery (…) When they encourage independence and individuality in their relationships – dealing directly with the other person and supporting him or her in being strong and separate – they win, because the other person will give back in the same way, supporting Aries North Node’s independence and individuality (…) For these folks, bein drained and being overly excited are two sides of the same coin: not dealing with what’s actually happening in the moment (…) The balance lies in being consciously aware of others’ energy without being consumed by it. Aries North Nodes need to stay connected to their own power and be in touch with what they can comfortably contribute. The idea is to share their talents freely, to be of service, and to give from the heart without trying to be more – or less – than they actually are.”

    Notice the proliferance of images of ‘birth’ and ‘identity’ in the quotes I shared above. Despite the fact that most of these descriptions are referring to individual circumstances in a person’s chart, they can be extrapolated to explain the current energies we find ourselves navigating through; and the struggle to form identities in the debris of a dying world speaks volumes to what is happening to us, as human beings, on a collective level. As the nodes of the Moon will switch signs on the 11th of January 2025, and as we will move from Aries and into the North Node in Pisces, the collective obsession will turn to spirituality, dissolving, addictions and losing our personal identities in order to recover a feeling of unification; we will long for some sort of connection, with what has previously been separated in the past years, but we may also attach to that which is toxic to us and build up a Stockholm syndrome around it, also because we will long for wholeness, peace and unconditional love and forgiveness. Again, I invite Spiller to describe in her own words how the Virgo SN/Pisces NN axis will manifest in the coming 18 months:

    “The Achilles’ heel Pisces North Node people need to be aware of is their compulsive need for order (“My survival depends of everything being in order according to my view of how life ought to be and how others ought to behave”), and it can lead them into the trap of an unending search for perfection (“If only the people around me were more perfect, I could relax and trust”). But it’s a bottomless pit: Since life and other people are never in a static state of perfect order long enough for Pisces North Nodes to feel secure, their expectations can lead to continual tension and anxiety. Because life – and others – are never ideal enough for them to let go of control, they continually postpone trust and joy. The bottom line involves acepting the universe’s plan is better than their and that things are unfolding properly, regardless of how it seems. The only place they can create “perfect order” is within themselves, by surrendering to a Higher Power and trusting that everything is indeed in order. The irony is that when Pisces North Node people blindly trust the infinite and accept that everything contributes to their greater happiness, they suddenly become aware of the larger picture and begin to sense how things are working to their advantage. Then they can let go of control and be happy (…) They are filled with calm and feel in alignement with ‘the plan’ because the spiritual vision is the energy of perfection they are seeking.”

    In a period in which we may have to bite the hand that feeds so that a new system of feeding that helps all get nourishment can come into place, we may also decide to caress and allow the hand that feeds to even strike us. With both Saturn and Neptune in Aries, we may not be able to see clearly ‘the enemy’ and considering that Chiron, the Wounded Healer is still moving through Aries for the entirety of 2025, we may decide to turn our violence against the enemy within. The hardship of our coming years will stem from the fact that we may be up against forces which we will have no control over, as the changes that will follow are in a large way, fated. Each one of us will feel called to play their part, at the right moment and in order to do so we will have to rely on nothing else but the strength of our faith and the force of our convictions. Living in a world whose material foundations are shacking can be taxing on the nerves so time alone to decompress will become imperative. But at the same time, we may also allow the energy of the unknown to surprise us with what we discover, to create ripples of fun and imaginative exploration, and in this way, the dark path ahead can become illuminated by our everyday, common sense courage.

    We may need to ask ourselves ‘why are we so obsessed with safety?‘ If Pluto in Capricorn broke our souls and spirits and transformed us into pragmatic capitalists so that we could survive, we may need to revise why we do the things we do each day, in order to reclaim control over our minds and souls. At this point in time, we all crave more money but then when we manifest it we just buy shit we don’t need, thereby contributing to the environmental collapse that is defining the current limits of our lived reality. Maybe time spent dreaming, resting, saving up, trusting, fluidly going through life may help both our mental health, and the environment and allows us all to see just how deeply the two are connected.

    Looking at these transits, I have already decided that 2025 will be my year of testing the limits of my solitude. I want to own being a Hermit, to dive into the study of occult scriptures and commit to a disciplined form of mediation and stillness that may help me achieve a state of inner oceanic vastness. And whatever I will find that is meaningful I will share with you all. Who knows? Perhaps once I have made this difficult but empowering decision, life will surprise me in a powerful way by showing me just how connected I am to everything and everyone in the pit of this self-imposed, militant solitude. I look forward to the discovery.

    With universal light, always

    Lexi