Volume 54, 22 September 2021

“There are so many stars shining in the sky, so many beautiful things winking at you, but when Venus comes out, all the others are waned, they are pushed to the background.”

Kinda Deja Vu

Last fall and winter we saw dramatic astronomical events involving the two giants Saturn and Jupiter dancing together in very close proximity (Dec 2020 Newsletter). However, what was not discussed was the importance of Jupiter in the very consequential charts of Biden and Trump. Both were running the daśā of Jupiter who was making all those intricate moves and changes in speed. In the two charts, Jupiter was activating different themes which, along with several other factors such as the bhukti lords they were running (Rahu for Biden and Saturn for Trump), account for the outcome. Yet, even for the victor, it was and still is a tortuous, contentious and fraught time.

Now Saturn and Jupiter are flirting with each other again, though more at a distance. And while there is no grand conjunction or planetary war, the unusual gatis (ways of moving) of Jupiter and Saturn are very similar to last time. As was the case last summer, both have been retrograde since June and still are. And as it did last year, Jupiter moved back into the previous rāśi (this time it was from Aquarius to Capricorn). It will likewise turn back around to forward motion and accelerate as it returns to Aquarius November 20^th. The gas pedal is to the floor into 2022 and just like last year, Saturn also becomes a speed demon. When two giant grahas are at their fastest speeds for a prolonged time, what could go wrong? Check the events November 2020 through February 2021. I think you can come up with some answers and the deja vu events unfolding even now have eerie echoes.

A Jupiter Omen?

USA Today ran a story recently about an amateur astrophotographer named José Luis Pereira.* José loves photographing Jupiter when it is bright in the heavens as it has been this summer. On Monday night, September 14^th, he inadvertently recorded a bright white flash which was most likely a huge rock crashing through Jupiter’s atmosphere.

He didn’t realize until the next morning that he had captured this explosion, a rare event and even rarer recording. This is an achievement professional astrophotographers will envy.

However, my astrologer’s mind took a different turn. The time signature of the event was duly recorded as 23:39 PM on the 13^th which means that explosion took place just a few hours before Jupiter transited into its debilitation rāśi of Capricorn.

Here is José’s video:

Venus Rising

Most astrologers are aware that the enchanting morning star that plays hide and seek with us is none other than the alluring Venus. But do most astrologers put two and two together about what that might mean when looking at charts where indeed, Venus is the morning star? More to the point, do they know when Venus is truly visible as the morning star?

Many articles in this newsletter have emphasized the role of direct observation as a primary tool for understanding a destiny pattern. The visibility of a graha adds the “wow” factor that can make a huge difference in charts that might otherwise look similar.

A few weeks ago I had a session with a senior group of students on the recall election of Gavin Newsom. This was at a time when there was concern as to whether he would survive the recall and before he started to bump up in the polls. Though there were clear indications in his chart from the traditional techniques of yoga and bhāva analysis that he would do fine, I could not take my eyes off Venus.

Let’s take a quick look at his chart with our usual methods and then step into the role of an ancient skywatcher and look at the sky at his birth. Can we do that from the chart? Yes. And we can also use modern tools to project ourselves back in time.

What should strike anyone looking at Newsom’s chart is the lagna with both natural benefics Jupiter and Venus. They are neither joined by malefics nor under malefic aspect. Newsom’s ascent in politics started in Rahu. Note Rahu acts like that strong dig bala Jupiter as well as a sva rāśi Mars and Mercury. Jupiter and Venus are making several big yogas including a mahārāja yoga (the 5^th lord and 10^th lord), a rāja yoga of Venus in the lagna aspected by or yuti with Jupiter and a charisma yoga from BPHS (Bṛhat Parāśara Hora Śāstra) known as a Camara yoga. Much more can be said about his yogas but this will suffice for now.

Not everyone with Venus and Jupiter in the lagna, however, will reap the same results. Once you have the knack of picturing the natural sky in a chart, you will discern just how extraordinary his ascendant actually is. With Venus in the first bhāva and the Sun in the second bhāva, it is clear that Venus comes up over the eastern horizon sooner than the Sun and is the morning star. In fact with Jupiter there, there are actually two morning stars and even that is not all as we will soon see. If you count from Venus to the Sun, you will see Venus is about 42° away from the Sun. The maximum elongation of Venus from the Sun is around 48°. Therefore his Venus is well away from the Sun’s glare, making it a blazing morning star-close to the brightest it can be.

Jupiter is also bright enough to be clearly visible and completing the beautiful tableau, right in between Jupiter and Venus is the kingly star Regulus, one of the four Royal Stars of Persia. Known as Magha in the Indian tradition, it is among the brightest stars in the heavens sitting right on the ecliptic at 5°59’ Leo and very close to Jupiter at 5°3’. This display would certainly catch the attention of a star-gazer of old who upon observing this brilliant combination, might well proclaim it heralds a consequential birth.

Indeed, Newsom became governor in his Jupiter daśā and at the recall election, he was running Jupiter Ketu. Ketu acts like Venus and as my students noted, he was going into his Jupiter Venus period in December and would be running those big rāja yogas. It did not look like the chart of someone who was about to lose power. Indeed, Gavin Newsom won in a landslide with a wider margin than any of the projections.

Here is a screen cap from Stellarium of the sky at Newsom’s birth:

Media Corner - A Friend In Need is a Friend Indeed

This was sent to me recently and I thought in these troubled times this precious universal message of caring companionship is a balm.

The lighter penguin is an elderly female whose partner died this year. The darker one is a younger male who lost his partner two years ago. Biologists have followed them as they meet every night to comfort each other. They stand for hours together watching the lights. Photographer Tobias Baumgaertner captured these images of two widowed fairy penguins looking over the Melbourn skyline. The bottom right picture won an award in Oceanographic magazine’s Ocean Photography Awards 2020.