TGIF!

The Moon is in networking junkie Aquarius for the next  couple of days. Use it to make innovative connections; hang with your besties; organize your mindset (as it recovers from Mercury’s retrograde) in preparation for action once Mars turns direct, which it will do on MONDAY. Meanwhile, we’ll be seeing plenty of action/assertion in the headlines, with Mars putting its agenda in focus as it prepares to change course.

Moon will be void of course all day on SATURDAY — no impulse shopping. Roll with the twists and flakes that may disrupt your efforts to move forward in a straight line. Chill!

Meanwhile, Saturday’s trines among Sun, Saturn and Uranus suggest a rare cooperative spirit, as opposing parties reach across the aisle. Think hybrids and reaching across the aisles, as in:

• “A Blended Family: Her Mother Was Neanderthal; Her Father Something Else.”
• “She Works for P45. He Can’t Stand Him. Life with Kellyanne and George Conway.”
• “One hates P45. The other loves him. Two West Virginians wait for the president to come to town.”

With SUNDAY’s Full Moon in watery Pisces, we may be seeing quite a flood (of action), intensely emotional and cathartic (suggested by the Venus-Pluto square noted in the last forecast, also exact on Sunday). Add in the last of three super-charged squares between Mercury and Jupiter on TUESDAY at 1:31 AM ET, and we have potential big news indeed — in publishing, courts and the usual scandals (Jupiter is still in Scorpio).

Structuring and focusing an all-encompassing vision is a theme echoed in the Sabian Symbols for this Full Moon. Don’t know the story of these cryptic Symbols? Here it is. For the Sun at 4 Pisces: “a colored child playing with white children” (remember that these Symbols were channeled in 1925); for the Moon at 4 Virgo: “heavy traffic on a narrow isthmus”.  Huzzah for the ever-helpful Sabian Symbol guru Blain Bovee, who points out that “‘play’ is an activity that blissfully ignores boundaries, rules and narrowly drawn lines of convention and bias”; whilst the latter of the two Symbols suggests “a well-defined sense of procedure that narrows into a bottleneck situation.” We are advised, says Bovee, to apply these Symbols “with a mind to the challenge of being tolerant while following a focused, narrow path to one’s goal; crossing social and ethnic boundaries with childlike ease…bottleneck issues slowing progress…needing to get away…funneling energy towards the key thing.” Bovee offers many other insights too numerous to mention here, but are readily available in his wonderful book.

It is interesting to note that the Full Moon in February 2016 featured these same Sabian Symbols. Here’s what was happening back then. 

In other news, happy birthday to all the Virgos in the room. Sun entered your sign at 12:09 AM ET on Thursday. Virgo is an earth sign (as opposed to fire, water or air). It is also a mutable sign, as opposed to cardinal or fixed. What does that mean? Cardinal signs are Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn; they need to come up with the idea and take action.  Fixed signs are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius. These signs need to organize and give form to the concepts pitched by cardinal signs. Mutable signs — Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces — get to spread the word about the cool form the fixed signs made. Got it?

More about Virgo: it is ruled by Mercury, which also rules mindset. Virgo is symbolized by a virgin with a shaft of wheat. Its keywords are I ANALYZE. Virgo needs to apply its mental energy to discernment and discrimination, as it separates the wheat from the chaff. In health matters,  Virgo rules the intestinal tract and assimilation. If you have planets in Virgo in your horoscope, and they are under a great deal of developmental tension, you may have some issues with your digestive system, especially how your system absorbs nutrition from food.

And now, the news.

Fun stuff, huh? Many of you noticed that Paul Manafort’s conviction on eight charges of chicanery and Michael Cohen’s guilty pleas (also on eight charges) were handed down on the anniversary of last year’s Great American Eclipse. You may recall that the eclipse hit P45’s “l’etat, c’est moi” regal Leo Ascendant.  So did the solar eclipse of February 2018. Meanwhile, Mercury was slowly getting back up to speed at 11 Leo, triggering the lunar eclipse on January 31st, which fell on P45’s Pluto. For the first time, WaPo’s Fact Checker, which has logged over 4200 false claims made by P45 since assuming office, called him on a flat-out lie

In Manafort’s horoscope we see transiting Mars exactly conjunct his Jupiter. I suppose the “lucky” potential of a Mars-Jupiter transit is that he was only convicted on 8 counts, not 18. Here’s what I wrote about his horoscope in June. He’ll likely be feeling squeezed when transiting Saturn squares his Mars and Venus later this year, before squelching his Aries Sun in January. Note that transiting Sun was exactly on his Saturn when the verdict came in (same measurement P45 had when he met with Putin); Manafort’s Saturn was totally eclipsed last August, suggesting a need for a major karmic reality check.

Also eclipsed last August: the 28 Leo Sun in Hawaii’s horoscope. Kilauea continues to erupt, changing the landscape forever….and Hurricane Lane is on its way….

Meanwhile, this was an interesting act of cyber (Uranus)-aggression (Mars): “New Russian hacking targeted Republican groups, Microsoft says.”

More fun stuff: “National Enquirer boss and longtime Trump friend David Pecker gets federal immunity in Michael Cohen case”   — and with macho Mars now almost at the dead stop, of course we’d be focused on a Pecker. Ooh — and looky here –“Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, who allegedly helped arrange hush-money reimbursement to Cohen, receives immunity”.  What could happen?

UPDATE: P45. After the 8/19 measurement (solar arc) between Mercury and Uranus, suggesting disruptive, impulsive thoughts and action, P45’s horoscope is bereft of hard aspects from the outer planets (Mars and beyond). The next super-charged transits happen in mid-October, when transiting Mars finally opposes his 12th house Pluto (a potential self-undoing power trip) and transiting Jupiter (children, creative self-expression, gambles) opposes his Midheaven. We also see a measurement between the Ascendant and the lunar nodes, perhaps bringing to a crest the wave of formerly close associates now turning against him.  Let’s watch mid-October.

UPDATE: Mike Pence. I wrote plenty about his horoscope two years ago. This year he’s been juggling the potential fog of transiting Neptune square his Sun, with the reality check/new lease on life of his second Saturn return. Though the fog won’t lift until next year, this October his chart embarks on a disruptive and expansive streak, with transiting Uranus squaring his recently-eclipsed Venus-Mars in Leo. He’ll have a Jupiter return in October, followed by the third hit of Saturn in November….and then we see a need for a declaration of independence, with a separate hit of Uranus to his Sun in January. A pattern between karma cop Saturn and powerbroker Pluto suggests there is much at stake through the rest of the year.  The independent streak continues into 2019.

UPDATE: Melania, who is also on an independent and expansive streak, as transiting Uranus squares her Jupiter in 2018….and conjoins her Taurus Sun in 2019. As the NYT’s Frank Bruni reports:

We’ll note that on Aug. 20, 2018, the first lady, again with a pussy bow, publicly chided cyberbullies at the same time that her husband ranted and raged on Twitter, likening Robert Mueller to Joseph McCarthy and demonstrating a grasp of history commensurate with his grip on civility.

We’ll admire the wickedness of her announcement, just hours later, that she’d be making a solo trip — her farthest and flashiest yet as an official ambassador — to Africa, whose nations the president can’t pronounce, let alone respect. She didn’t choose that destination randomly, throwing a dart at a map. She chose it defiantly, throwing shade at her husband.

Is she trolling her husband? I really don’t care…do u? Seriously, though — no idea…but the seemingly rebellious expression is sure to continue.

UPDATE: P45 Jr and Eric, whose horoscopes are not looking expansive or rebellious (though admittedly we do not have birth times). Junior is in the middle of transiting Saturn conjunct his Venus and his 9 Capricorn Sun. A hit to the latter happens in December and then Saturn moves on to Pluto — not easy. Eric’s 15 Capricorn Sun will be eclipsed in January and then hit three times by transiting Saturn through the rest of 2019. I have other reasons to believe 2019 and 2020 will be exceptionally challenging for Junior, but the astrological clues are simply too fascinating to just give them away.

UPDATE: The maple trees — remember them? I am not alone in my love of trees, as email from many Avid Readers will attest. Thank you for your support!

So there I was, listening to my friend (and member of the co-op board) tell me with a straight face that the trees had to come down “because nothing will grow there.” And the idea of a gorgeous moss garden, such as one might see in Japan, apparently hadn’t occurred to them. I told her I appreciated that she cared about making our building a beautiful home; acknowledging she worked long hours on everyone’s behalf. However,  the tree-cutting plan was Not the Thing To Do. After laying out a case for the amazing benefits of mature trees: beauty, shade (reducing A/C costs), flood prevention, haven for birds and other critters, air purification, noise reduction and increased property values (at which she scoffed), it seemed she remained unconvinced.

Quietly and deliberately I spoke from the bottom of my heart.  “If you cut down those trees on August 13th without asking for input from shareholders, you will never be able to undo it. People in this building. Are going to be. Very. Upset.”

I left her apartment, not knowing if my words had made an impact — and feeling a little shaky inside at how I had challenged her authority. I went home and — bless you, Facebook — posted what I shared with you last week. Such a valuable sounding board!

Several friends encouraged me to take action, which was a daunting thought. Why? Well — let me ask you this: how well do you know your neighbors?  Have you had them over for coffee? Could you count on them in a crisis? Do you even know their names?

I live in a building of 155 apartment owners. It is not a social building. We have no common spaces. The shareholders who are board members — most of whom have been in control for close to two decades — have never made communication a priority, even when requested to do so multiple times. They make decisions with our collective pool of maintenance fees  without asking for input — and they do this because they can. This is how the by-laws of the co-op are set up. They have broad discretion to do and spend just about anything they want.

Why has this happened?  Because we shareholders have allowed them to do it! We have been too busy with our our lives — families, work, health, etc. — to devote time to the governance of our biggest investment: our home!  Does this sound familiar?  We gave our power away. In order to take it back, we would have to be connected and organized. And someone would have to start somewhere. Does this microcosm of a courtyard mirror the macrocosm of much of the rest of the world?

I could do no work the next morning. No forecast for you. I went downstairs and looked at the trees. I pondered long and hard about what to do….what could I do…me — just one person — in a building of 155+….against a co-op board of seven. The plans for the destruction of the trees had been made. Contracts had been signed. Thousands had already been spent. Men with jackhammers were starting work (without telling anyone in the building). Who was I to think I could do anything to stop it?

But if not me, then who would?

What would you have done?

So…when neighbors walked through lobby — most of whom I did not know — I screwed up my courage and approached them. It is surprising to have a neighbor speak to you after years of walking past them without even saying hello. I could tell by their reactions. I asked my neighbors if they knew about the trees being cut down. I held my breath. What if they did not care?

Thankfully, most everyone I spoke with was horrified. But y’know — a couple were not. They were rushing out the door…they had places to be…as long as there was something green being put back in the garden, they didn’t really care. Besides, they didn’t even go to shareholder meetings.

I asked for their names, emails and phone numbers — even from people who didn’t have time to talk. I planned to follow up with them later. Based on my conversations with my new-found friends (and neighbors), it was resolved that we should write a petition to stop the planned TreeAsco. And by “we,” of course — that meant “me.” So again — apologies — no forecasts for you.

Stay tuned…and I’ll tell you what happened next.

Thank you for reading this forecast. To schedule a personal consultation, here is how to contact me.