2019 is going to be really historic.
So, what more lies ahead in 2019?
Well, I can start answering the question by first just saying that, compared to 2019, the political chaos of 2018 will look like the “calm before the storm,” even though this year will also be full of wondrous technological breakthroughs (the full effects of which may take many years to surface in our daily lives).
Overall, this article’s aim is twofold:
1) To address the double entendre in its title, “What More Lies Ahead…?” and
2) To suggest how each of us can be at our best, regardless of what 2019 has to offer.
I want to focus more on that latter aim in this article than the first, but in order to describe how we can best orient towards 2019, I’ll need to describe what we are orienting towards. So, this article will also supplement my last article with more descriptive and predictive content to paint a fuller picture of this coming year. Yet, I want to make it clear from the outset that my main interest in this post is not the predictions themselves, but rather the suggestions I’ll make about how to handle what I’m predicting.
First, let me get the customary review of my latest predictions out of the way…
Review of the Last Post’s Predictions
As with my last article’s review of predictions, this article’s review will be extremely long (since my last article made a lot of predictions). So, if you’re not particularly concerned with tracking my predictions, this is your chance to save a lot of time and skip to the “What More Lies Ahead?” section below. The rest of you will want to make sure you have plenty of time to read this post, or you may want to read it in installments. Another suggestion I’ll make is that you first preview the section below called “How to Be Your Best in 2019,” since this is the most useful part of this post, and it would otherwise take you a while to reach it.
Let’s jump now into our lengthy review of the main predictions from my last article (posted on November 19). Here’s a recap of the events I was expecting (I will just list the predictions themselves here first, and then I will address each one further below):
Mueller
i) Mueller would “publicly reveal something huge and damning to Trump over the next 1-4 weeks” (i.e. between Nov. 20 – Dec. 17)
ii) Mueller would be busy completing a “peak of his life’s work” during the week of Thanksgiving and the following week too (i.e. this was when Mueller would do the pivotal work that would result in some damning revelations about Trump in the subsequent 1-4 weeks)
iii) Mueller was in a “horserace” with Trump and Whitaker, but Mueller wouldn’t have to worry about much interference from Whitaker until mid-December
iv) Michael Cohen would probably be “a big part” of what, on Nov. 19, I said was about to “explode in Trump’s face.” I was referring to an explosion that I first mentioned last March, just before the FBI raided Cohen’s office, and which I said that Mueller would eventually detonate in the fall/winter (2018).
v) Mueller could have as many as three more peaks in his life’s work in 2019 (my uncertainty came from not knowing Mueller’s birth time and ascendant degree).
Manafort
Manafort would still continue to be pivotal to Mueller’s investigation, regardless of Manafort’s level of cooperation. Manafort’s violation of his plea agreement would ultimately look like a big miscalculation, and this would become clear through Mueller’s peaking astrology within a few days of Thanksgiving.
Matt Whitaker
Matt Whitaker would be in the pressure cooker in 3-4 weeks (i.e. by around December 17). Matt Whitaker was slated from mid-December to the second week of February for “a kind of ‘date with destiny’ that someone in Whitaker’s shoes really shouldn’t enjoy.” I expressed concern that Whitaker would try to move against Mueller in mid/late December, and for this and/or other reasons, Whitaker would wind up “in a heap of trouble with Congress” starting as soon as the new Congress took session in January and lasting until the second week of February.
Brett Kavanaugh
Brett Kavanaugh would wind up in the spotlight again next summer, probably through a congressional investigation, and it would go awfully for him by late September.
Trump’s Children
Trump’s children would face great legal jeopardy in 2019, and Trump would be very concerned about them for much of the year.
Trump
i) Trump himself would leave office in November/December 2019 (despite that scenario looking unlikely as I wrote).
ii) Trump would have several “peaks of accountability” between November 2018-December 2019:
1) in mid-December 2018,
2) nearly the entire first quarter of 2019 (building to a crescendo in March),
3) June 2019, and
4) November/December 2019.
iii) By mid-December both Trump and Whitaker would begin “a bizarre and heated frenzy” that would characterize their behavior well into February.
America
America would start to pull apart at the seams in 2019. The political upheaval would lead to social unrest and internal partisan conflicts that defied resolution because each side saw the other as lying or “unresponsive to the truth.” The stock market would plummet (40-60%), and military/geopolitical tensions would be increasingly likely to escalate to threatening levels or actual conflicts. In the next section, I will address all of the above predictions except these ones about America, which I will address toward the close of this article.
That’s a lot of predictions for us to review, but I’ll dive right in, taking each one in order… (and this is another chance to skip ahead to the “What More Lies Ahead?” section, for those who don’t care about tracking my above predictions)
Tracking My Mueller Predictions
Regarding Mueller’s life-work peak around Thanksgiving and his Trump-related moves by mid-December:
The Monday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 26), Mueller filed court documents revealing that Paul Manafort had been lying to the Mueller team since Manafort began “cooperating,” and that Manafort had also been feeding information to Trump’s legal team about Mueller’s investigation of the Trump-Russia connection. This filing also led to the December 7 filing, in which Mueller’s team spelled out more details of Manafort’s lies, including information corroborating this month’s report that Manafort had been advising the Trump administration on how to discredit Mueller’s probe. (see this article). I will say a bit more about Manafort in a moment.
The Thursday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 29), Mueller got Michael Cohen to plead guilty to lying to Congress. Cohen said then that Trump had not stopped communicating with the Kremlin in January 2016 about the proposed Trump Hotel in Moscow (as the Trump team had uniformly asserted, even under oath in Congressional testimony in 2017). Rather, Trump had continued communicating with the Kremlin about his gargantuan hotel deal until June 14, 2016, which coincidentally is the same day the Washington Post reported that the Russians had hacked the Democratic National Convention and stolen the Democrats’ secret opposition research on Trump. (Mueller also filed a secret indictment on Nov. 20 that will surely be explosive when unsealed.)
The dots that Mueller connected publicly through Cohen’s confession revealed that Trump and the Russians didn’t want the public to know that the Kremlin had sabotaged the Democrats’ presidential campaigning efforts at the same time that presidential candidate Trump was deeply involved in personal dealings with the Kremlin. If it had been known that the Kremlin had sabotaged the Democrats’ presidential campaign while the Kremlin was still negotiating a quid pro quo of some kind with Republican candidate Trump, Americans would have been far more suspicious of Trump-Russia collusion. Such suspicions, I believe, would also have been correct, as I’ve said in prior articles, and as I’ll cover in the “What More Lies Ahead” section below.
Mueller also effectively revealed that Michael Cohen and other Trump associates had proffered a coordinated lie to Congress, namely, that Trump had ceased the hotel negotiations with the Kremlin in January 2016. The post-Thanksgiving Cohen court proceedings, therefore, were indeed an enormous explosion in Trump’s face from Mueller, the full effects of which will not be visible until the new Congress has furnished Mueller with transcripts of the false testimony by Trump associates.
On that note, a lawyer friend recently pointed out to me that Mueller will file his final report directly with the Attorney General, and not with Congress. I had been under the misconception that Mueller would report his findings directly to Congress. This new information, however, may help explain the Ketu subperiod that Mueller has either just begun or is just about to begin, because it is likely to represent that Mueller will face strong threats to stifle and conceal his work.
As I composed my last article, my awareness that Mueller would soon start a five-month Ketu subperiod was a large part of why I felt that Mueller might be sacked in December. Now, I believe that Mueller’s Ketu subperiod probably represents the stifling and concealing of Mueller’s work, rather than Mueller’s sacking (although Mueller’s Ketu subperiod still offers that possibility). By this, I don’t mean to say that Mueller will issue his final report during his Ketu subperiod; I just mean that Mueller will surely face strong efforts to marginalize and sideline him until the Ketu subperiod finishes, somewhere between May and July. The timing of Mueller’s next big move, which should be no later than the first week of March, will enable us to zero in on Mueller’s exact ascendant agree, which in turn will enable us to pinpoint the end of his Ketu subperiod (I will cover that in a future post).
Tracking My Manafort Predictions
I have two things to say about my prior prediction that Manafort would remain central to Mueller’s probe, regardless of Manafort’s level of cooperation:
1) In light of the recent report that in last February Mueller found out that Manafort had passed secret and proprietary Trump campaign polling information to the Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, I think it’s worth revisiting the same point that I revisited in my last post, about how last February was a pivotal initial peak in Mueller’s lifework. Remarkably, thanks to a redaction error on court documents by Manafort’s attorneys last week, we now suddenly know that on multiple occasions Manafort gave secret proprietary polling data to Deripaska through Konstantin Kilimnik (intriguingly, Mueller indicted Konstantin Kilimnik in June 2017, during what I called the “second peak of Mueller’s lifework” in a prior article).
As I’ve repeated a few times now, Mueller’s indictment of Paul Manafort during Trump’s October 2017 astrology indicates that Paul Manafort must figure centrally in Trump’s ultimate accountability to the law. So, if Mueller discovered information in February 2018 that looked like collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, then Mueller will surely reveal a strong case of Trump-Russia collusion in his final report (I’m not saying that the Manafort piece is the only significant piece of the puzzle, but I am saying that the Manafort piece will play a significant role, in the final analysis).
2) Manafort is scheduled to be sentenced to prison on March 5, 2019. This date corresponds almost exactly to when Saturn squares Trump’s Jupiter (his planetary period lord) for the first time—the first of three times this year (and Mars will exacerbate this Saturn transit for Trump for virtually all of March). Between now and then, Trump’s Saturn square will be building pressure on him.
A Saturn aspect to anyone’s planetary period lord will bring that person down to earth and face-to-face with reality. But in the case of Trump, who is astrologically predisposed to operate with little regard for reality (as I described in this article, “Trump and the Astrology of Alternate Realities”), being brought “down to earth” will feel like a crash landing and coming “face-to-face” with reality will feel like getting hit in the face by reality. This is especially true because Mars, by transit, will also increasingly be afflicting Trump in March (particularly in the second half of March, but see my note below about Trump’s protection from Jupiter this spring).
Trump endured similar Saturn influences twice last year, when Saturn opposed his Mercury in April/May 2018 and last month (December 2018), both of which were exacerbated by Mars. Anyone who has followed the news will recognize those two periods as the most perilous turning points for Trump in Mueller’s investigation thus far. Trump still faces three more such turning points this year—the last of which I still expect will lead to his departure from the Oval Office (those three turning points are this Feb/March, this June, and this November/December).
Tracking My Whitaker Predictions
I had said on November 19 that, within about 3-4 weeks of that date, Matt Whitaker would probably take steps against Mueller, or at least do some other controversial thing, that would land him in the hot seat with Congress. About 4 1/2 weeks later, it was reported that Whitaker had by then already ignored the guidance he received to recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation from professional ethics advisors (and he did so twice).
Days later, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said it was “unacceptable” that Whitaker didn’t inform members of Congress about his decision not to recuse himself, and Nadler vowed to question Whitaker before the committee. In my Nov. 19 article, I mentioned that Ketu’s transit over Whitaker’s Mars—which is the astrological fuel for the trouble Whitaker is attracting—would be very tight from mid/late December until the 2nd week of February. On Jan. 15, we learned that Nadler had compelled Whitaker to schedule testimony before Congress on Feb. 8. Whitaker was the first person that the new Congress decided to summon.
Whitaker has managed to escape further public scrutiny since mid-December, but as I posted twice of Facebook, I believe that he has been silently working to inhibit Mueller in the interim. We found out on Dec. 21 that Trump had berated Whitaker at least twice following the Michael Cohen court proceedings (Nov. 29 and Dec. 7) that had publicly cast heavy shade upon Trump. I believe that these fiery outbursts from Trump triggered the judgment-skewing influence from Ketu in Whitaker’s December astrology and thus put Whitaker in a more obstructive stance toward Mueller. In any case, since mid/late December, Whitaker has been hiding something that he doesn’t want publicly exposed, and obstructing Mueller is my best guess of what that hidden thing could be. We are likely to figure out what it is in early/mid-February (although, it may start peeking through the fog of Ketu between now and then).
Tracking My Predictions About Kavanaugh and Trump’s Children
These predictions were for later this year, so I’ll address them in future posts.
Tracking My Trump Predictions
Most of my Trump predictions were for future dates, so I will address those in subsequent posts.
Clearly, with Cohen’s and Manafort’s court proceeding in late-November and early/mid-December, mid-December was a peak of accountability for Trump, as expected.
But here’s a Trump prediction that I didn’t get quite right in my prior article: Trump and Whitaker’s “bizarre and heated frenzy.”
In my last post, I should have said that only Trump, not Whitaker, would exhibit a “bizarre and heated frenzy” from mid/late December onward (elsewhere I had said that Trump’s behavior from mid-December through mid-February would border on the “patently bizarre”). Clearly, Whitaker exhibited no such behavior, at least not publicly thus far. I’m certain that Trump and Whitaker have been engaged in a dance of deception since then, but I should’ve distinguished between the effects of Rahu and those of Ketu on the two dance partners. Rahu is more responsible for bizarre heated frenzies than Ketu. But, Rahu is only influencing Trump’s chart for the 2 months in question, and Ketu is influencing Whitaker’s. Ketu’s influence (as I tried to clarify later on Facebook posts) is more hidden and internalized. So, what I should’ve said was that Trump would exhibit the bizarre heated frenzy while Whitaker hid in the shadows and didn’t exhibit much behavior at all.
But, as far as bizarre heated frenzies go, Trump himself did not disappoint.
To name just a few examples, Trump:
a) Abruptly announced an unplanned withdrawal of US troops from Syria (prompting General Mattis to hastily resign with a statement of only thinly veiled protest);
b) Reneged on an agreement with Mitch McConnell to sign a temporary government funding bill and then took credit for creating the longest government shutdown in US history (his flip-flopping apparently having been triggered by a single day of public criticism from ultraconservative talkshow hosts like Ann Coulter);
c) Parroted Kremlin talking points, such as the claim that Russia invaded Afghanistan because of terrorism;
d) Addressed the nation on air from the Oval Office during TV primetime, on the pretext that the US-Mexico border situation was a “crisis”;
e) Claimed, while shutting down the government over his demand for $5 billion from Congress for the US-Mexico border wall, that Mexico was “paying” for the wall through the unknown financial benefits to the US of an unfinished trade agreement;
f) Began lifting sanctions on the Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who is still accused of having a role in Russia’s meddling in the US presidential election; and
g) Found himself fielding serious questions on whether he was a Russian asset, amidst reports that he had kept the contents of five private meetings with Putin a secret—even from his own senior advisers—since taking office.
What’s even more mind-boggling is that Trump still has almost another month left of this Rahu transit (then quickly to be followed by another Rahu transit in March). This means that the effects we’ve already seen are merely the build-up to the peak of Trump’s bazaar heated frenzy. That’s why it’s so significant that Michael Cohen will testify before Congress on February 7 and that Matt Whitaker will do so on February 8. It’s also why Paul Manafort sentencing hearing on March 5 should be such a deep concern for Trump. Trump will have so much more to respond to and answer for in February and March. How will he handle it?
That question leads neatly to our next section…
What More Lies Ahead?
Now it’s time to unpack the double entendre in this article’s title, “What More Lies Ahead…?”
What lies ahead in 2019 is, in fact… more lies. The reason I said “more” lies, by the way, is because I already used the title, “What Lies Ahead” in my September article (which was indeed another intended double entendre, although I didn’t explicitly say so in that article).
Yes, there are many, many more lies ahead this year. What lies, specifically? Well, like debris from in tornado, they will swirl around us in random shapes and sizes. However, most will share the central quality of either being the exact opposite of the truth or hiding some ugly truth about the one telling the lie. With Rahu on Trump’s Venus (lord of Trump’s professional/public status) until mid-Feb and then quickly on from there to his Saturn (Trump’s subperiod lord, a “barometer” of his general wellbeing), and with Trump’s natural predisposition to cultivate alternate realities, Trump will undoubtedly be leading the pack of fabricators over the next couple months.
Despite his familiarity with alternate realities, Trump simply has no other alternative to lying now, not at least without admitting to horrible mistakes and outright defeat. Yet, Trump’s personality has never allowed him to tolerate either admission, so that just leaves us with lies—many, many more in 2019 (especially between now and the end of March).
But, we should also see an impressive charade from Matt Whitaker over the next month. The new Congress wasted no time in demanding testimony from Whitaker, so in the second week of February, Whitaker will have to account for his refusal to recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation. I expect that Whitaker’s testimony on that subject will open the can of worms about what he’s been up to as Mueller’s boss since December. Again, more lies ahead.
Trump does have an extended period of protection/grace from Jupiter’s aspects to his Sun and Moon, from February-May of this year, which I believe will enable him to evade the clutches of political destruction until about June (note the parallel to Mueller’s Ketu subperiod issues described below). But by then, I think that the accumulation of evidence against Trump–finally compounded by the snowballing negative effects of economic, social, and geopolitical challenges to the country that Trump clearly cannot manage–will trigger a wave of Republicans breaking ranks with Trump for the sake of the nation (note the correlation with my reference to people “jumping ship” in the “How to Be Your Best” section below).
Trump’s last moment of Jupiternian protection this year happens in late October and early November—just before his final Saturn square in late November and early December (see the list above). So, I think that Jupiter transit is more likely to mirror Nixon’s Jupiternian protection of 1973, which protected Nixon from criminal prosecution but didn’t save him from having to leave office (for more detail, see my article, “Trump in Nixon’s Footsteps” from January 2018). Trump would only resign with a pardon from Pence in his pocket, so I expect that’s how his Jupiternian protection will play out (no, I don’t think that Pence will be implicated by Mueller enough to deny Pence his succession to the presidency, but that is for a future post).
That’s why I think that Trump will leave office between Thanksgiving and Christmas of this year. Trump does have 2 more strong Saturn oppositions (to his Venus and his Saturn) in February of 2020–which would be an alternate window for his exit–but Nixon also had strong Saturn aspects after he resigned, so I’m sticking to my belief that Trump will closely mirror Nixon and thus will resign (under threat of being impeached) at the end of this year.
Curiously, it also looks like Elliott Broidy may make his own cameo return in the theater of the next month as well (for a little background on Broidy’s controversial connection to Trump and Cohen, see this sample news article and this one).
Meanwhile, since January 2016, at least 17 Trump associates have also lied about their part in, or knowledge of, the Trump-Russia dealings: Michael Flynn, KT McFarland, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump Jr., Jeff Sessions, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Erik Prince, George Nader, Felix Sater, Carter Page, Randy Credico, and Michael Caputo.
Not at all coincidentally, the main obstacle to the Trump-Kremlin Moscow hotel deal was the US-imposed sanctions on VTB, the Russian bank that was willing to fund Trump’s Moscow hotel (no other bank would loan Trump money, because of Trump’s many personal bankruptcies and failed businesses). We now know that lifting those sanctions on Russia has been a consistent, if surreptitious, focus of Trump’s Presidential agenda. To take just a few illustrations: Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017 about discussing such sanctions with Russians in December 2016; Jared Kushner was caught trying to develop a back channel to Russia for discussing such sanctions in December 2016; and just last month, Trump began to lift the sanctions on Deripaska’s companies and VTB (Congress members are presently trying to block the lifting of the sanctions, though).
Trump first publicly suggested lifting those pivotal sanctions just one month after announcing his presidential candidacy in 2015, in response to a question from Marina Butina, the Russian agent who just pled guilty in December to deceptively infiltrating Republican political movements like the NRA (the NRA received millions of dollars from Russia and donated millions of dollars to Trump’s presidential campaign, curiously). It’s extremely very telling that a Russian secret agent would be the one to tee-up Trump for his first public announcement that he thought sanctions against Russia were unnecessary.
Since last year, Trump has portrayed himself as “tough on Russia,” presumably in reference to Russian sanctions levied by the US Congress last summer. Yet, it’s worth noting that Trump actually opposed that Russia sanctions bill (which Trump had to sign, since Congress passed it with a veto-proof majority). It’s also worth remembering that Trump also quickly reversed Nikki Haley’s announcements about Russia sanctions last April, and that Trump was reportedly furious after he realized that he had unwittingly signed off on other Russia sanctions. These are just a few of the hundreds of Tump-Russia oddities.
Trump’s history with Russia dates all the way back to 1989, but since Saturn was in Sagittarius in 1989, Trump’s relationship with Russia is having its own Saturn return, with Saturn in Sagittarius again this year. That means the Trump-Russia relationship is undergoing a major transformation this year. But, this raises questions about what kind of relationship Trump must already have with Russia, such that his relationship is even capable of being majorly transformed. That is, to majorly transform something, there must be some substantial content that could be transformed in the first place. Robert Mueller surely has much to say about that content.
Another “fun fact” is that the Magnitsky Act, a law that impedes Americans’ ability to adopt Russian babies, is also the Congressional act authorizing the very sanctions against Russia that prevented VTB from funding Trump’s Moscow hotel deal. So, every time Donald Trump or Donald Trump Jr. has mentioned “Russian adoption,” this was likely a veiled reference to the source of the sanctions that Trump and Russia were negotiating to lift.
An even “funner” fun fact is that, after the now topical private meeting with Putin where Trump seized his interpreter’s notes and ordered her to keep the contents of the meeting secret, Trump stated publicly that he and Putin had merely exchanged pleasantries and discussed “Russian adoption.” During his flight home the day after the Putin meeting, Trump dictated the now infamous cover story for the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Don Jr. and the Russian government asset, Natalia Veselnitskaya (see this article)—saying that the meeting was just about Russian adoption, which we now conclusively know was simply a lie.
More of the same lies ahead this year…
What More Lies Ahead for Mueller This Year?
Here are my revised predictions about Robert Mueller, which are based on updates I made to his chart following the events of the last two months:
After describing the late November peak in Mueller’s life work, which spilled into December, I mentioned in my last post that Mueller might have as many as three more peaks left in his life work, all of which would occur this year. I said then that the number of peaks, and the timing of them, would be determined by the degree of his ascendant, which remained obscure at that time for lack of a public birth time for Mueller.
But now, given that Mueller has not yet submitted a final report, and isn’t likely to do so until at least February, we can deduce that he indeed still has 3 peaks in his life work left to come through his investigative work. I’m quite convinced that Mueller is Sagittarius Rising, and that the degree of his rising sign is not greater than 24 degrees—the degree of Trump’s Jupiter in Virgo – which means that the Saturn conjunctions to Mueller’s ascendant will come before, or at the same time as, the Saturn squares to Trump’s Jupiter. If I’m right, then we can deduce that Mueller will have the next peak of his life’s work in February (or very early March), followed by another peak in June (but a more internalized and incomplete one, due to Saturn’s retrograde transit over Mueller’s ascendant degree then), followed by his third and final peak in November. This will tightly parallel Trump’s astrology of accountability that I’ve described in a few articles now.
What this also means is that Mueller should be delivering the next major installment of his investigation very soon. Given that he has two more peaks of his life work left after this winter, I can’t say for sure whether this next installment will be his complete final report, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was at least some kind of “final” report—perhaps just covering a single matter (like the question of Trump’s collusion with Russia or his obstruction of justice). Mueller will definitely make a big move during this next peak, regardless—somewhere between early February and early March.
What’s important to note here is that, regardless of the precise timing, Mueller’s next big step occurs after his Ketu subperiod has begun (depending on Mueller’s exact time of birth, that subperiod begins somewhere between last November and this February). Because of Ketu’s influence, Mueller’s work between now and May/June is highly likely to be suppressed, hidden, invalidated and marginalized throughout this spring.
However, by no later than the end of June, Mueller will be out of his Ketu subperiod, which means that he will start to find his power again well before his third peak. Since Saturn will be retrograde for that second peak (occurring somewhere between June and August, again depending on Mueller’s exact birth time), Mueller’s second peak will involve some incomplete work. That work will finally be completed in his third peak—when Saturn goes direct over Mueller’s ascendant agree, sometime in November 2019 (again, depending on Mueller’s exact birth time). This third peak corresponds to the timing that I was already giving for Trump’s resignation from office (and, yes, I am still sticking to my prediction that Trump will leave office in November or December of this year). This timeframe suggests that, even if Mueller gave a final report this spring, that “final” report would somehow not reach its finality until November/December.
The Challenges and Breakthroughs that Lie Ahead This Year
Breakthroughs
The good news is that 2019 will bring a wave of major breakthroughs in science and technology (some of which were seeded in 2017, when Saturn sextiled Ketu). In particular, as I wrote in detail in my September and March 2017 posts (this one and this one), that I expect these breakthroughs to occur in the arenas of:
1) Medicine—primarily in surgery and imaging
2) Transportation—probably with self-driving cars, primarily
3) Communications—not just 5G cell phones, but something even better, I believe
4) Space—both in mapping our own solar system and in making significant progress toward our inevitable discovery that life exists elsewhere in the universe (an inevitability that I justified in my article, “How Astrology Could Trigger the Biggest Renaissance Yet, Part 2”)
5) Consciousness—breakthroughs in this area may be highly personal, but also will pertain to the “sorting” process that I’ll mention below, by which people will raise their consciousness through their deliberate identification with selflessness, and
6) Quantum physics—this is an area that could easily dovetail with the previous two areas of consciousness and communication. Quantum entanglement can potentially provide instantaneous communication, with none of the ordinary worries about atmospheric interference. Meanwhile, quantum phenomena (as seen in the “double-slit experiment”) will eventually reveal that consciousness is not subject to the presently conceived limits of physics; this year might be a big step in that direction.
I think we will at least make significant leaps in our ability to preserve the fleeting informational state of the “qubit,” the quantum computing analog to the traditional computer bit (bits are the 1s and 0s at the core of information technology). Also, we’ll likely see advances in the areas of cooling and purity, which are keys to quantum superconductivity. We probably won’t see quantum computers in the public realm until at least the next Saturn-Ketu cycle (2028-2031), but this year should nevertheless be a breakthrough in making quantum computing a realistic part of our future.
Despite all these areas of important breakthroughs, as I said recently on Facebook, 2019 will be a great year to “make like turtles — go slow and steady, stay low, stay humble, and wait for the storm to pass overhead.”
On that note…
Challenges
If we just consider the challenges coming this year in isolation, then we won’t see the underlying forces driving all them—and if we don’t know what’s driving them, then we won’t understand them. So, before describing the challenges, let me describe what I think are the forces behind them.
There are two primary drivers of the challenges ahead in 2019: the Saturn-Ketu conjunction (especially when it’s tightest and exacerbated by Mars), and the fact that this conjunction is happening in Sagittarius, which is America’s ascendant.
Any Saturn-Ketu conjunction will create difficulties worldwide (for more info, see this article), but the fact that this conjunction is happening this year in Sagittarius means that America itself is being effectively audited, reappraised, and reoriented in 2019 (both internally and externally). I wrote about this already in, “Saturn in Sagittarius: When Challenges Reframe the American Agenda,” so in the interest of time I’ll direct readers to that article for more detail, but the basic idea is that every time Saturn transits through Sagittarius (once every 29 years), America changes its agenda through challenges that reshape its identity and direction. In that article, I claimed that much of this reshaping has occurred in America’s ethical conception of itself, and I also claimed that in the last two such transits, that ethical conception has eroded noticeably (especially in the last transit, around 1988-1990).
Now, I believe that we are about to feel the effects of our ethical erosion, which I hope will it last show this country that ethics and morality do indeed matter. As I posted on Facebook, following the disgraceful and discordant Kavanaugh hearings:
More than we realize, Senator Jeff Flake’s recent remark, “this country is being torn apart,” is likely to be ominously correct. This widespread evasion of integrity and truth is simply unsustainable for the country, with the coming astrology of 2019. When we abandon truth and ethics, we discard our best shield against karma. Next year is a year of challenging karma. The planets of karma (the malefic planets: Saturn, Ketu/Rahu, and Mars) all take center stage from April through October (for the US especially, and for the whole world, by extension). Karma is based in truth and integrity, love and unity. So, for the sake of all, be noble, be truthful, serve others, and pray for divine grace!
How to Be Your Best in 2019
Regarding that last prediction, namely that America would face internal tensions this year that would threaten to pull the country apart, I want to make a broader observation. I believe what is happening at this juncture in America’s history (and in global history as well) is that people are being pushed toward two poles of behavior and individual identity: the poles of selfishness and selflessness.
By the forces of karma and astrology (both national and global), people cannot avoid being pushed through a “sorting” process that is causing us to identify more fully with whichever pole is closer to our core identity. Those who are more strongly identified with the base and animalistic ego are being driven toward fully embracing the qualities of selfishness, while those who identify more strongly with the lighter and more spiritually advanced pole of selflessness are being forced to drop the egoistic traits that obscure that identity in them. In short, selfish people are becoming more selfish, brutish, divisive and hostile, while those who aspire to selflessness are being forced to let go of such behavior in favor of service, compassion, generosity and acceptance.
My assumption is that all of my readers lean toward that latter category of selfless aspirants. For you, 2019 will be both a golden opportunity and a trial by fire. By this, I mean that every new report or incidence of negative behavior out in the world will provide another opportunity for you to respond with an attitude of optimism, patience, compassion and service (i.e. an inward solution to an outward problem). But, this also means that, to the extent that you fail in such responses, you will probably be unable to avoid some kind of pain that endures until you align yourself better with selflessness. That’s not to say that you will be miserable if you are not always entirely selfless. But it does mean that you can expect to be pushed and channeled toward selflessness by a goad and guardrails that are generally painful to resist.
I don’t mean to suggest that I know who the selfish and selfless people are. In fact, given what I said in my last article about each political party seeing the other as deceived and unresponsive to the truth, I think it is possible for people of any political persuasion to be in either the selfish or the selfless camp. For instance, if I’m right that Trump’s natal astrology gives him very little regard for the truth, then I can still see those who accept Trump’s fabrications as good-natured, well-meaning and selfless people (after all, Trump is very persuasive, and if he were speaking truth, his followers would be correct on most of their points). That is, I should allow that, given their perception of reality, Trump’s supporters can still be innocent and respond with selflessness, even if I believe they are steeped in a false reality. Meanwhile, I would hope that those same people could allow the same possibility for me, if I turn out to be the one who is misperceiving the truth.
This brings me to a semi-tangent: another part of what makes Trump so seductive is that many people simply resonate, or identify, with his core nature—which apparently is selfishness. People love what affirms them, and by openly and proudly displaying his central identity, Trump affirms the central identities of others like him. This also suggests that as Trump intensifies his displays and assertions of his inner nature this year, his followers will be forced to decide just how committed they are to identifying with that nature in themselves. This will make one segment of America even more deeply identified with selfishness, but it will also force others to jump ship and swim for better shores.
Thus, the two camps of selfishness and selflessness will become even more crisply defined this year, with fewer and fewer people lingering ambivalently on the periphery. As the distinction between the camps grows ever greater, the incompatibility of the two camps will grow ever clearer. This will lead to hostilities, mostly on the side of the selfish camp, I believe, although those aspiring to selflessness will not always refrain from reverting to such behavior themselves.
To be clear, an affinity with selfishness is not the only reason why many Americans identify with Trump. In fact, I believe that many Trump supporters are understandably drawn to the sense of personal freedom that Trump exudes. Freedom and Equality are the two primary values that America represents; Republicans tend to prioritize freedom over equality, while Democrats tend to prioritize equality over freedom (notice that to emphasize one seems to require deemphasizing the other). There is nothing wrong with valuing, or even prioritizing, freedom. The problems emerge when the emphasis on freedom is just an excuse or phony justification for selfishness (equivalently, an emphasis on equality can be a phony justification for laziness or weakness, too). I’m sure that many of Trump’s followers are noble champions of freedom, but those others who borrow the Republican trumpet of freedom merely to mask their selfish disposition are an entirely different breed. Those people are going to be a problem this year in the US.
Whoever you are, it will be important to champion the side of truth in 2019. But just remember that the highest truth is that you are, at your core, a selfless being. That is to say, none of us is an ego. Rather, we all share a root identity that far outshines any egoic identity, and which makes us instantly love and appreciate each other each moment it is tapped. Selflessness does not mean devoid of self; it means full of oneness and thus devoid of selfishness.
To be selfless means to be identified with the peace and grandeur of oneness, not lacking an identity.
So, to be your best in 2019, do not oppose those in the camp opposite your own. By being “against” those in the opposite camp, you would embrace selfish qualities like self-isolation, divisiveness, impatience and intolerance. Opposing “the opposition” would thus amount to failing in your mandate to be selfless and identify with oneness. As I said above, such failures will be increasingly painful henceforth. Rather than digging in against those you believe are wrong, try first to remember that they see a different reality than you do. Then try to be patient and compassionate toward them. Wish them well, in other words, even if you believe they shouldn’t win the political battle, or that they are doing harm through their misperception.
That said, I do believe that the “sorting” process I mentioned above is operating on a level that is essentially vibrational—or based in the subtle polar magnetism of the two di-poles (selfishness and selflessness). Selfishness is a “negative” polarity, while selflessness is a “positive” polarity. By this I mean that what is attractive to selfishness is repulsive to selflessness, and vice versa. Selfishness pulls us downward and outward toward an identification with our body and our temporal status (our race, our physical age, our social position, etc.) and the dissatisfaction of that relatively paltry identity. Conversely, selflessness pulls us upward and inward toward the higher spiritual identity and the sublime qualities that characterize it.
I also believe that the people who are attracted to selfishness will naturally tend to be drawn together by the sorting process I’m describing. Similarly, those who are attracted to selflessness will be drawn together as well (people of the same polarity have similar habits, desires and interests, and thus polarized people tend to converge and congregate with other people of the same polarity). This would also mean that the consequences of associating with the opposite polarity will be more intolerable than they have been in the past, and this in turn means that it will be more important now to avoid associating with those who you believe are identifying with the pole opposite to your own.
By contrast, associating with those of your own polarity will affirm the selfless polarity in you. This is why all religions consider their spiritual gatherings so important, and its why Jesus’ words from the New Testament, “When two or more are gathered in my name, there is love,” are so important to remember this year (and always).
So, to be your best in 2019 and surf the astrological waves of this year, be as selfless as you can be. Be full of oneness. Be as kind, patient, giving, and compassionate as you possibly can.
Doing so would make our soon-to-be historic 2019 the right kind of “year for the history books.”
May you be your best!!
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