Finding the afflicted feminine in Trump’s chart.
Astrologers have offered a number of fascinating takes on this fractious man. Mine focuses on the feminine asteroids, which are particularly suggestive in his chart.
We know Trump’s birth time. He’s a Leo rising (is anyone really surprised?). Mars on the Ascendant makes him pugnacious as well as defensive, though in the 12th house, he may be less than aware of those tendencies.
His Sun in the 10th house shows his focus will generally tend to be on career and achievement—and, in the sign of Gemini, the communicator, may explain why he thinks he’s so intelligent. “I have the best words,” the “extremely stable genius” has boasted.
With the Midheaven in Taurus, he is a builder—Taureans frequently gravitate toward the construction trades, real estate, architecture. Uranus at the top of the chart, closest to the Midheaven, and conjunct the Sun, however, points to his capriciousness and short attention span. He is inclined toward constant change, if not chaos. The Moon is conjunct the South Node in Sagittarius: this points to a globe trotter, certainly, but also suggests the overemotional “big baby” he is often caricatured as.
With his Sun trine Jupiter and that Leo Mars on the Ascendant, he’ll feel driven to do big, aggressive things, and have the ego to go with it. With his Sun exactly sextile Sedna—using Henry Seltzer’s read on this recently discovered dwarf planet—he’ll be incredibly tenacious. And with Pluto and Mars in the 12th House—to work with astrologer Maurice Fernandez’s interpretation of the 12th house as where we interact with the public—he’ll care about action, aggression, and unadulterated power while in the public eye.
Where are the women?
Yet another reflection of his hypersensitivity, along with his notorious issues with women, is in the glaring conjunction of Venus and Saturn in his Cancer 11th house. He may have felt unloved by his mother, a somewhat mysterious figure who was apparently quite distant from her children. As a writer for Vanity Fair has described: “As a child, he was so boisterous that his parents sent him away to military school. ‘That was the way it worked in the Trump family,’ a longtime friend [said]. … ‘It was not a loving atmosphere.’” When he divorced Ivana Trump (after cavorting publicly with Marla Maples), his mother reportedly asked Ivana, “What kind of son have I created?”
His Sun opposing a Moon that is quincunx to Saturn doesn’t help matters—these placements suggest difficulty integrating emotions, as well as perhaps an emotionally unsupportive mother and parental conflict. Venus-Saturn in sensitive Cancer suggests a deep wounding around self-image: he may believe he is unlovable and be himself largely unable to love others. In a rare moment of candor, he once told an interviewer: “I don’t like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see.”
In fact, there is no feminine cosmic body in his chart that isn’t in some way afflicted (a term I’m not really a fan of, and don’t use lightly). A retrograde Ceres, which represents the principle of nurturing in the chart, in detached Aquarius and opposing Pluto, is in nearly exact semi-square to Vesta in sensitive Pisces (5 minute orb): his most sensitive motivations and needs (Vesta) are always at odds with finding support (Ceres). What he loves will not love him back, and as a result he must destroy what he loves—or at minimum deprive it of care and nurturing.
Insight in the asteroids
Trump has Juno exactly conjunct Chiron (at a miniscule 6-minute orb), a conjunction flanked by Jupiter (at 3 degrees) and Neptune (at a wide but still active 9 degrees). With Juno-Chiron, the ability to understand fidelity may be forever wounded, resulting in a tendency to betray—notice how Trump is very quick to demand “loyalty” but repeatedly betrays fidelity in relationships himself, in the classic loyalty bind of the narcissist. I’d suggest he thinks he’s being fair (Juno) but actually has no idea (Neptune) what fairness is.
More ominously, with Jupiter close to Chiron, we may see a great ability to wound. The treatment of young children at the border is among the most horrific abuses of his administration; Ivana Trump’s charges of domestic abuse, recounted in a biography and her divorce papers but later recanted, are also horrific (content warning regarding graphic description of assault and rape at the link). With Neptune in wide conjunction to this Juno-Chiron, again, he is unable to see (Neptune) the havoc he wreaks.
Meanwhile, Pallas makes tense aspects to Pluto and to his Midheaven: while he’ll have a quick mind in his work, he’s also inclined to making thoughtless mistakes. Black Moon Lilith is also square his Ascendant and exactly contraparallel his Midheaven. With these placements, we may see the dark side of these two goddesses: Pallas can be so sharp and cold as to be cruel—“diamond mind,” my teacher Dawn Bogrodi called her, pointing to the possibility of fanaticism and lack of humanity with difficult Pallas placements. In Goddess Asteroids, Demetra George also warns, “Pallas themes can signify an obsessive need for victory at any cost, ruthless competition, and the destruction of a relationship in order to prove one’s own point.”
Black Moon Lilith can take the cruelty up a notch further, and, sadly, may even find that enjoyable. “Trump was famous for his skill at squeezing every last bit out of his transactions,” Vanity Fair reported in 1990. He has been repeatedly accused of refusing to pay those who work for him. “Trump won’t do a deal unless there’s something extra—a kind of moral larceny—in it,” the magazine quoted “a rival” as saying.
Finally, Eris, the warrior goddess, is exactly opposite Neptune natally: Trump will fight by deceiving, redirecting, deflecting. With a magician’s sleight of hand, he redirects attention (“look over there!”) to hide what’s actually happening.
We’ve seen this pattern over and over again as major announcements that negatively affect his administration are eclipsed by an unrelated, controversial policy decision that then takes over the news cycle. In early May, impeachment debate intensified over Trump’s insistence his administration would simply ignore Congressional subpoenas—a bald dismissal of the rule of law—while his son, Donald Trump Jr., was subpoenaed to appear before a Senate committee. This news, and the gravitas of the debate surrounding it, was then immediately usurped when Trump set off a trade war with China on May 10. The media is caught repeatedly chasing his erratic Uranus, as his Neptune-Eris effectively creates chaos and confusion.
It is a chilling picture. While it’s never appropriate to wish harm, Trump’s current and upcoming transits are also remarkable, and some may find the brick wall Trump is more than likely about to hit rather cheering. Trump’s heavy upcoming transits and progressions may finally mean some good news for the rest of the world. More on that in an upcoming post soon.