January/February2025

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

NOTE… Linda was featured in a Podcast interview in January… https://youtu.be/Sas_Hgq0BDI

US Pluto returns in Capricorn, moving forward into Aquarius for the next 19 years.

The US is getting its Uranus return into Gemini from July 7, 2025, to November 7, 2025 (it will retrograde back into Taurus on November 7, 2025, and return to Gemini for its full transit from April 26, 2026, to May 22, 2033).

Is this the Second American Revolution or is this the American Devolution?

From an astrological perspective, it is quite interesting that the horoscope of Pres. Donald Trump is amazingly similar to the chart of “Mad King George”, the monarch who reigned over England at the time of the American Revolution (born: June 4, 1738, St James Square, London, England)). It raises the fascinating and engaging question about whether or not we are “reversing gears” and leaving behind the concepts and ideals of democracy in favor of a centralized dictatorial power.

January’s afflictions with Pluto present a power struggle, possibly between Pres—Trump and Elon Musk, the latter who has been exercising his billionaire status to influence Congress. Musk has his Sun and Mercury in the sign of Cancer (the Sun sign of the US) with Gemini Venus and Gemini rising. Trump has his Sun, Uranus, and North Node in Gemini. This sign is associated with the mythical twins Castor and Pollux along with the concept of “sibling rivalry”. Will their “bromance” come to an end? Ironically, Musk, who continually wants to cut government programs, requested and was given a sizable rescue loan from the US government in 2009 when Tesla was threatened with bankruptcy! He is known to have contributed $277 million to Trump’s campaign.

In the present era, rather than re-adopting a monarchy, we may have moved toward fully embracing a “Plutocracy” or the unfettered control of a billionaire dictator, whose economic “class” controls the nation’s wealth and is now, in the absence of checks and balances, in charge of the government, making his own rules. Could this president be a reincarnation of King George, coming back to get his revenge? I tend to think that our Pluto return and soon, our Uranus return are here to “rehash” and challenge the concepts of the American Revolution with players on the stage that remind us that “history rhymes.”

Trump has promised us that he will enlist the US Military to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants, a massive undertaking that would invade millions of families and locations throughout the nation. This intent is remarkably reminiscent of the practices of the Third Reich in Germany in the 1930s. Apparently, it is thought that this is “perfectly legal” and would run into little resistance. Most of Trump’s recommended cabinet appointments are not only unqualified but hostile to the departments they would manage. Over the Christmas and Hanukkah, holidays of “Peace, love, and light”, Trump published multiple “hate” messages on his Social Media. He has “proclaimed” he wants to buy Greenland, absorb Canada into the US, and take over the Panama Canal – all of which nations have announced a resounding “no” and would require a war to accomplish. He fabricated a story that the Chinese are inhabiting the Panama Canal which is an outright absurdity.

Many observations and interpretations can be made of this horoscope. With the Sun, Pluto, and the Part of Fortune all conjunct in Aquarius in the 10^th House, we can count on issues rising around the “abuse of powers” in every aspect of governance. Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, and his bowing down to Trump’s every wish to hold onto power; Musk’s unjustified presence in Washington; Trump’s use and/or abuse of power along with his frequently unqualified appointments to government posts as mentioned above, will unfurl consequences many people never expected. However, it is the legislature (both Houses of Congress) that may form an unexpected resistance.

THE PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION CHART:

( Jan. 20, 2025, 12:00 Noon EST, Washington, DC., 77W02, 38N54 )

Mars is retrograde in Cancer conjunct the 4^th House (homeland) of this chart, suggesting Trump’s promise to use the military (Mars) to invade people’s homes and deport undocumented immigrants may come into play. Jupiter is in its fall in Gemini and is retrograde near the 2^nd House (economics), making no favorable aspects, suggesting real problems in the economy including the national debt crisis, coupled with an afflicted Moon in Libra in the 6^th House of work and health exactly square (conflict) Mercury in the 9^th House of travel, foreign nations, expansion, information and education — pointing to crises in all these sectors, especially if Trump goes through with the imposition of tariffs. We may be facing new viral epidemics and struggle with their prevention and cures.

My theory is that Trump, who is a “deal maker”, will use this is a negotiating tactic to get other things he wants. He has already threatened tariffs with European nations who refuse to buy our oil and gas. Venus sextile Mercury points to a possibility of this tactic working in some cases. Neptune in Pisces in the 12th House of Secrets conjunct the North Node points to serious climate collapses, and an increase in the number of volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes here and in other nations. Global drug cartels will likely be uncovered. News has recently been released that most of the firearms these cartels use are smuggled into Mexico and sold to them by US Gun manufacturers.

With Saturn, Venus, Neptune, and the North Node in Pisces healthcare and Social Security reforms will be on the agenda, but the efforts to “privatize” these programs will fail in the face of the fact they would simply disappear for most Americans.

DEMOCRACY is about power directed to “the people”, defying thousands of years of human governance and abuse in the hands of monarchs, dictators, and military governors. It relies on people who broadly and comprehensively have an excellent and relevant education, are capable of critical thinking, keep themselves informed of historic events, both locally and internationally, and have a “free press” that takes responsibility for publishing “the truth” as they see it aligned with a population that cherishes the right to vote. Freedom of speech is essential, but perpetual lies and distortions need to be upended and exposed. In today’s Artificial Intelligence world, cyber security should be a framework placed around all institutions. Media on all levels that proclaims itself to be “news” needs to be held legally accountable. Currently, these guard rails, piece by piece, have been systematically removed. US Public education, once the envy of the world, has been underfunded and downgraded.

CORPORATE RULE, or control of the government by the giant, monopoly corporations and financial institutions, for many decades, have been absorbing and investing most of this nation’s wealth, and have instituted and entrenched giant wage gaps between the top and the bottom levels of employees of US companies. We know that the top 1% (America’s billionaire class) controls more than 80% of the nation’s wealth. Since the 2008 crash and recession, brought on when the “banksters” issued sub-prime mortgage loans, traded as derivatives “crashed”. These same corporations and “investment funds” bought properties back at “fire sale prices” from multiple foreclosures. What is so relevant at this time is a major need for policing and regulating AI and Cryptocurrency trading. Under Trump, most people think he is the “king of deregulation” which would risk failures of our banking and financial systems.

According to the online newsletter More Perfect Union, “Blackstone is now the largest corporate landlord on earth,” owning 300,000 homes in the US, while there are “16 million vacant houses, 28 for every homeless person.” This fact is exposed — billionaire-controlled corporations have bought millions of homes and either raised rents or left them as empty investments. A deadly practice of owning apartments or condo complexes, charging enormously high rents for a few people who can afford to rent them, and leaving the rest unoccupied has replaced the normal rule of “full occupancy” with rents based on market affordability. Higher interest rates (which have recently come down) limited mortgage availability. Prices skyrocketed for houses. The result: many gainfully employed Americans can no longer afford to own a house or rent a decent apartment. This is the reality most working people face that keeps them from home ownership.

Ironically, this nation has voted for real estate billionaire Donald Trump to “fix this,” in part, because, they can no longer afford to rent or buy a home! This is one of the major reasons we are suffering from serious inflation. Marching onto the American stage comes the old “wolf invading the hen house!” In addition to all this, we could be experiencing a “surveillance state”, concentrating on Trump’s enemies and opponents. One of the platforms Republicans ran on was fear of “the Deep State.” On Nov. 20, an article by Ronan Farrow was published in The New Yorker, entitled: “The Technology the Trump Administration could use to hack your phone.” Will Trump form his own “deep state”? How monumentally ironic!

Giant investment funds, Vanguard, Black Rock, and Fidelity, plus giant hedge funds managed in Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America, hold or control most of this nation’s invested wealth. Trump is ditching environmental regulation favoring the giant and rich oil and gas companies’ motto: ”Drill, baby, drill.” He has announced the pressuring of European nations to buy oil and gas exclusively from the US. Meanwhile, we already have the least federally funded healthcare system in the developed world (much of it being privatized) The newly elected government is currently interested in downsizing Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. This has gotten to be so serious that there is sadly, public support for Mr. Mangione, who recently has been charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of United Health Care.

At this historic point, we have turned away candidates for office who have promised that billionaires need to pay their “fair share” of taxes and opted instead to agree with Pres. Trump’s pal-in-chief, the world’s richest man who is “allergic” to being taxed, Elon Musk, that they should be “exempt.” Trump has announced his policy to make government “cuts” which can only mean programs that service the public at large. His policy that proclaims he will impose tariffs on imported goods from Canada, Mexico, and China will balloon the inflation that people who voted for him wished to end. Federal budget deficits are increasing, private debt is rising, and medical bankruptcies in the US are the highest in the world.

Wars of the Worlds:

Syria’s rebels, a conglomerate of various factions, just overthrew the genocidal Assad regime. Eight African nations have overthrown their elected governments and are fighting civil wars, the worst of which is in the nation of Sudan, with armed militias murdering millions of their people. Israel is at war with Palestine and Lebanon, recently blew up the Syrian Navy and is occupying Syrian territory, and is unofficially at war with Iran and Yemen. They have successfully “taken out” many of the leaders of terrorists in multiple nations who have been fighting them for decades. The Palestinians have lost over 45,000 people and no agreement for a two-state solution yet lies ahead. This year some kind of ceasefire deal will be made. Russia is still at war with Ukraine but Trump has announced he will “end” the conflict. We currently do not know what this will cost Ukraine, since Putin is a “friend” of Trump.

Civil chaos:

South Korea impeached its Prime Minister after he declared martial law. France shut down their parliament and tossed the prime minister. Germany’s Chancellor Scholz lost a “vote of confidence” in December and has called for an election. The UK, having thrown out numerous prime ministers in the past several years and who just had an election in the Fall putting in the Labor Party, now wants to ditch their prime minister again. There is a global trend veering into chaos.

The US has elected Donald Trump, who promises to disrupt all the US government’s institutions, proposing heads of departments that would “blow up” the function of the federal government, dismantling all social safety nets, including Social Security, Medicare, and even the FDIC that insures all banks. He has also threatened to leave NATO. He has revived the “drill baby drill” campaign promise and denies the existence of climate change emergencies, even though multiple hurricanes, droughts, massive wildfires, and other climate extremes are accelerating in the US and elsewhere. Trump’s MAGA Party (that subsumed the original Republican Party) emerged as a direct result of severe economic inequality, failure of education to include people from all walks of life and a mass media that sells products at the expense of truthful reporting. More disruption will play out in the US political environment.

The Economy:

Financial markets have never liked the level of “uncertainty” we are now witnessing. Interestingly, the budget funding package recently approved by Congress comes “due” on March 14^th – when there is a Lunar Eclipse on the US Neptune conjunct Saturn, and Mercury is retrograde – both not favorable for a budget decision. This would also point to climate catastrophes and bad economic news. I will go into more detail about this in my next newsletter. However, markets will be optimistic the week of Jan. 19^th following Trump’s inauguration, returning to uncertainty the week of Feb. 9^th when Mercury is square Uranus.

Where do we go from here?

By July 2025, Pluto’s new transit into Aquarius will be accompanied by Neptune and Saturn going into Aries, and Uranus going into Gemini. Many of the most serious locations and instabilities point to China and the Koreas. This all follows a Lunar Eclipse on March 14 on the US Neptune. These planetary transits point to huge breakthroughs in technology, including warfare. Questions loom. Will we come out of our collective “coma” and have “buyer’ remorse” as a financial crisis, a series of climate disasters, and a possible WW III threaten civilization? As an astrologer, I would predict “shock and awe” just over the horizon. Between Feb. and April, Pres. Trump’s astrological chart will present him with serious personal conflicts and instabilities.

Science and Technology:

Medical Breakthroughs:

In the Nov. 9, 2024 Issue of “News Medical Life Sciences”, an article was posted entitled “Breakthrough research reveals how to target malignant DNA in aggressive cancers.” The article goes on to say: “In three groundbreaking papers published today in ‘Nature’, scientists from the Cancer Grand Challenges team, eDyNamic, and their international collaborators at the Francis Crick Institute and University College London (UCL) shed light on the unique behavior of extrachromosomal DNA (eDNA), small circular DNA structures that are common in some of the most difficult to treat cancers.

The Papers identify, for the first time, how to specifically target cancer cells – such as glioblastoma, triple-negative breast cancer, or small cell lung cancer – much easier to treat in the future.” It goes on to report: “In one paper, the researchers identified a drug which specifically targets and kills ecDNA-containing cancer cells while sparing normal cells.” In previous newsletters, I have called attention to the coming new transits: Pluto in Aquarius, Neptune in Aries, and Uranus in Gemini would usher in major breakthroughs in medicine and technology.

In the November 2024 Issue of Scientific American, an article was published entitled “The Staggering Success of Vaccines” by Tara Haelle. In recent years, conspiracy theorists such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have questioned the safety of vaccines. I am old enough to remember horrific diseases like smallpox, polio, TB, measles, mumps, chickenpox, influenza, and the millions of lives lost or permanently damaged by these highly contagious illnesses. The article reports: “Around the globe, the measles vaccine has saved nearly 94 million lives over the past 50 years. This and other vaccinations have revolutionized global health. ‘Immunization is the most universal innovation that we have across humankind.’ says Orin Levine, a fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. He notes that there are people around the world without access to telephones or even toilets, but they find ways to get their children immunized. ‘ It’s the innovations that demonstrate what is possible in terms of delivery of service to everyone everywhere.’ The author goes on to report: A May study in the Lancet estimated that vaccines against 14 common pathogens have saved 154 million lives over the past five decades – at a rate of six lives every minute.” This article goes on to describe the history of vaccines, how they were developed, and their staggering success. I recommend reading the entire article to correctly inform yourself about this recently “politicized” issue.

Recently, on Globalpositive News, an article was posted: “Japanese scientists have created non-toxic plastic that dissolves in seawater in hours. No microplastics remain”. This discovery is amazing as plastics may be the most widespread and destructive form of life-killing pollution on the globe.

Nuclear Fusion:

I am happy to announce that on Dec. 17, 2024, The RoanokeStar.com posted: “Youngkin Announces World’s First Commercial Fusion Power Plant.” The article goes on to report: “Governor Glenn Youngkin has announced that Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the largest private fusion company, will make a multi-billion dollar investment to build the world’s first grid-scale commercial fusion power plant at the James River Industrial Center in Chesterfield County, Virginia, on a site owned by Dominion Energy. The project will create hundreds of temporary and permanent jobs in the region. ‘This is a historic moment for Virginia and the world at large,’ said Governor Glenn Youngkin. ‘Commonwealth Fusion Systems is not just building a facility, they are pioneering groundbreaking innovation to generate clean, reliable, safe power, and it is happening right here in Virginia. We are proud to be home to this pursuit to change the future of energy and power.” I would recommend reading the entire article to get a perspective and an education on what this will entail.

Youngkin, a moderate Republican, has often come up as a possible future candidate for President. Virginia has been a coal economy state for decades and this installation will take us into a clean energy future. As all of you know who read this newsletter, I am of the opinion that fusion will become a reality sooner than most people think and that this breakthrough is the “holy grail” of energy. It may be the most important invention of the century.

Auto Technology:

It was recently announced that Australia has launched its first hydrogen-powered car, the Hyundai Nexo. This vehicle covers 900 kilometers in a single tank, takes only 5 minutes to refuel, and, purifies the air around it as it drives.

Nature and the Environment:

Earthquakes and Volcanoes:

There was a recent report that a Super Volcano, at Solfatara crater in Italy, west of Naples in the Phlegraen Fields is producing a spike in carbon dioxide emissions, along with small earthquakes. The last time this volcano erupted was in 1538.

Recently, there was a 7.0 earthquake in the San Francisco area, the largest in recent decades. Mt. Kilauea in Hawaii has begun to erupt again.

Between February and April 2025, the transits colliding in Pisces on the North Node of the Moon, in opposition to the Lunar Eclipse on March 14, point to global tectonic instabilities, especially in the Pacific Rim. This degree was last activated when Mt. St. Helen in Washington State erupted in 1980.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

On a personal note, at my age and stage of life, many would think I might consider retiring from my 51-year astrology practice and no longer feel I have to be so personally concerned with the political, social, economic, political, and environmental crises we are currently navigating. I am deeply saddened by too many people who are simply “escaping” into their cell phones and screens obsessed with glamorous celebrities — joining “cults” in which they may revoke all responsibility for careful and critical thinking – shrinking into narcissism by caring only about their fears and addictions, or simply “dropping out.” Simultaneously, I am also inspired by the many courageous, intelligent, self-sacrificing individuals “out there” that you may or may not know, whose lives are effectively committed to a greater good and a better world. Through the ages, these people have made history.

Two possibilities lie ahead for all of us. We will either go extinct or we will evolve. If we do not blow ourselves up, we may be entering the most amazing age of discoveries, inventions, and breakthroughs since the first humans walked the earth. I still have a passion in my heart and mind to be part of all this until my time here on earth comes to an end.

My directive comes from the acclaimed poet Robert Frost who writes:

“And I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep,

and miles to go before I sleep.”

I invite and encourage all of you to come along for the ride of your lives!

Blessings to all of you throughout the New Year,

Linda

Important Points of Reference for Astrologers:

Full Moon at 24 degrees Cancer Jan. 13 (opposition the US Pluto) conjunct retrograde Mars and sextile Uranus; Retrograde Mars in Leo is opposition Pluto Jan. 2; New Moon at 9 degrees Aquarius Jan. 29 conjunct Mercury; Mercury is square Neptune Jan. 6; Mars retrograde back into Cancer Jan. 6 (goes direct Feb. 23 and goes all the way through the sign March 17), is trine Neptune Jan. 11, is sextile Uranus Jan. 23; Venus goes into Pisces Jan. 3, is square Jupiter Jan. 16, is conjunct Saturn Jan. 19 and is sextile Mercury Jan. 20; Mercury goes into Capricorn Jan. 8, is sextile Venus Jan. 20, is trine Uranus Jan. 23, is sextile Neptune Jan. 26, goes into Aquarius Jan. 28, conjunct Pluto; The Moon’s North Node goes into Pisces Jan. 12.

Full Moon at 21 degrees Leo Feb. 12 is square Uranus; New Moon at 9 degrees Pisces Feb. 27; Mercury at 23 degrees Aquarius is square Uranus Feb. 10; Mercury in Pisces is conjunct Neptune Feb. Feb. 23; Mars still retrograde in Cancer is trine Saturn in Pisces Feb. 7, goes direct Feb. 23 and is trine Mercury; Venus in Pisces is conjunct Neptune Feb.1, goes into Aries Feb. 3, and is sextile Pluto Feb. 2; The North Node is conjunct Neptune Feb. 1 through Feb. 8; Jupiter in Gemini goes direct Feb. 3 and is square Mercury Feb. 20.