The Global Financial Markets - Prepare For Corrections & Geopolitics
Is The Middle East On The Brink of War?
"It’s an Earthquake!"
Beirut responds to Hassan Nasrallah’s Death
Presages, Portents & Signs:
An Annular Solar Eclipse
And,
Your Nativity, Progressions & Returns:
Get Ready For 2025 & The Mid-2020s
GLOBAL ASTROLOGY
by Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.sci
We live in fast changing times. As the world prepares to enter 2025 and the middle years of the decade of the 2020s; there is angst as conflicts around the world rage, as in the Middle East - prime among these deadly conflicts.
Then, there is the climate and weather. As the good reader will know, I have been warning of powerful storms, floods, large magnitude earthquakes and even volcanic events.
The geophysical power of the Sun, Moon and planets relative to Earth continue to remain at strong levels throughout October, November, December and into early 2025.
Caution:
Adverse Travel Transits For Extended Travelers
by Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.sci
The good reader who may be living and/or working overseas is advised to push up by weeks their holiday season travel plans.
During this time in October 2024, if you live overseas from your natural home, I would make plans now to return earlier than in December.
I also caution against extended travel through the upcoming holiday season as criminal and terrorist activity can be seen in planetary configurations.
I urge those who are thinking of extended travel - especially in December 2024 - to push up those plans and to make your travel plans take place earlier than normal. It may involve cancelling matters where you are now in order to do so, but it will be one of the best decisions you made in your life.
If you want to know the best travel dates according to your own natal transits and progressions, then contact me at astro730@gmail.com
Due to planetary configurations, I have surmised that international travel from late November through December 2024 is not advised. Flying by commercial airlines will be dangerous at that time.
Caution is 'strongly' urged.
Presages, Portents & Signs:
An Annular Solar Eclipse
Also, Before Sunrise Comet Races in the Heavens
For that Wednesday, October 2, 2024, the eclipse will have an extraordinary duration of 223 minutes. At the moment of maximum visibility (at the center of the eclipse path) the Sun will be 86% covered by the Moon, and only the outer edge of the sun will be visible
The annular solar eclipse will be visible over the South Pacific Ocean, South America, the Atlantic Ocean, and Antarctica. It will not be visible in North America, although Hawaii will be able to see it as a partial eclipse.
click on image to enlarge
In the midst of the annular solar eclipse in the southern hemisphere, there is a comet racing through sidereal Leo and Tropical Virgo that can be seen just before sunrise, and the planetary transits of the next several months indicate that the year 2025 will be one of major events to come.
Right now, the comet is as bright as a star of magnitude +3.4 and that makes it an easy sight for those with binoculars, cameras and telescopes.
The comet has a tail 1° long and glowing at magnitude 3.4 as that puts it into range of human eyes.
However, the onset of early morning twilight can make viewing difficult.
To look for it, get up early as I do before sunrise, look east, and use your binoculars or a telescope at low power.
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)
Image by Yuri Beletsky on September 24, 2024 at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile.
For some stargazers who get up early before the Sun rises, the comet will be as high as 16 degrees above the horizon, well clear of the brightest twilight.
Later this week the comet will pass by the Sun near the orbit of Mercury where it will get a high dose of the Sun's radiance.
Then Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will head toward Earth for a close encounter at 0.47 AU providing a daytime sight during the second week of October 2024.
For viewers, you can also wait until Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS makes its closest approach to Earth in early October 2024.
At that time, the comet will again be at and near its discovery position, but within the boundaries of the constellation Virgo.
To find it, look about 4-degree southwest of globular cluster M5.
The comet will quickly transit through the constellation Serpens Caput and then enter the constellation Ophiuchus on October 19th.
Then, by October 28th, it will be found just south of Ophiuchus’ second-brightest star at magnitude 2.8 Cebalrai.
Through early October, the comet will race through tropical Virgo while the view of sidereal Leo also holds sway.
click on image to enlarge
During each day of the month of October 2024, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will rise higher and higher in the morning sky - peaking in altitude.
Virgo is where Venus is in her 'fall,' and in Mundane Astrology, Tropical Virgo rules the Sixth House of public health and sickness; also, the national services; the Army, Navy and Civil Service as servants of the country and workers and employees in general.
The countries, cities and towns ruled by Virgo where Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is from now and into October 2024 can expect to see malefic events take place according to my calculations, they are:
Syria, Greece, Crete, Turkey, Croatia, Switzerland, the state of Virginia in the U.S., and the West Indies.
Also, the towns of Bury, Cheltenham, Maidstone, Norwich and Reading in the United Kingdom; the cities of Boston and Los Angeles in the United States, as well as Corinth and Heidelberg, Germany.
The city of Jerusalem, Israel is also strongly highlighted here; also the French cities of Lyons, Paris, Padua, Strasburg and Toulouse.
Adrian Bonaparte, a Australian (Sydney) based health practitioner with an interest in astrology, esoteric subjects, art and science writes this on the comet:
Images by Joe Perulero on September 23, 2024 at Shellharbour, NSW, Australia
"Comet C/2023 A3 was first discovered on January 9, 2023 by the Purple Mountain Observatory in China and the ATLAS sky survey.
It has a retrograde orbit, and is now approaching perihelion (27 September) it has just began to be visible by the naked eye.
It may become nearly as bright as Jupiter, and this has astrological significance. Soon after perihelion it will conjunct the Sun.
According to classical authors, comets are generally bad omens.
They can bring about a variety of calamities such as earthquakes or weather extremes, or sudden unexpected events. Its position on the zodiac and relationships to other bodies can give a clue to the nature of events that may follow.
If the comet is oriental to the Sun, events can take place soon after it becomes visible; if it is occidental, they may be delayed.
The direction the tail of the comet may give some clues about localities where the effects are felt most strongly.
In the case of comet C/2023, it has become visible at 21*21’ Leo (sidereal) or 15*21’ Virgo (tropical). Its declination is about -6*.
Being oriental to the Sun, we would expect effects to take place within the next few weeks.
The comet is in opposition to retrograde Saturn, indicating severe outcomes.
Being in [sidereal] Leo, it could indicate the fall or demise of heads of state, or adverse events in countries ruled by Leo, such as France, Italy, Bohemia and Sicily.
Cities traditionally ruled by Leo include Rome, Bath, Bristol, Taunton, Cremona, Prague, Ravenna, and Philadelphia.
This comet originates from the Oort cloud, with a long period of 80,000 years.
Whatever calamities it brings about, it will not come back to our skies for a long time."
So, there will have both the tropical and sidereal view of what this comet can indicate it just ahead.
I agree, as the world transits, including the speeding comet, are presages of adverse events to come.
The global planetary transits relative to Earth will have significant effects on the lives of a great many individuals, groups, organizations, governments and nations during this second half of 2024 and into the new solar year of 2025.
Again, I urge caution, prudence and patience due to additional planetary signatures that are in play all through the coming months, and into solar year 2025 as well.
Those who want to know how their own horoscope, nativity, solar and planetary returns as well as your secondary progression are influenced by the world transits of 2025 can contact me at astro730@gmail.com
When you write, please include your name, birthday, time of birth and city/town and country of birth.
Please include your current geographic location if different from your city of birth. Include brief comments and/or questions on your aspirations, goals and plans for the next 3-5 years.
As 2025 nears, it is my astrological perspective that the lives of a great many people will undergo major changes that, if prepared for as best a possible, can lead to more fulfilling events into the mid-2020s.
One of those changes concerns the financial markets in my perspective...
The Financial Markets
Get Ready For Corrections & Geopolitics
Forecast by Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.sci
Into the month of October 2024, the Dow Jones Industrial Average have been between making gains and losses as investors and traders try to make sense of fast changing events such as geopolitical events in the Middle East and the upcoming American Presidential Election in November.
My forecast here is to prepare the investor and trader for what will be a very interesting three months of October, November and December.
There is also the advent of the port strike that began on Tuesday, October 1, 2024 and stretches from Maine to Texas in the United States means trouble for U.S. imports and exports that will have an impact on the markets and economy going forward into 2025.
I urge investors and traders at this time - with the Lunation, or the New Moon of October 2, 2024, to make significant adjustments in their investments and trading to match what the planetary transits of the markets - especially the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 - are indicating going forward.
As of Wednesday, Oct. 2nd, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) closed at 42,196.52 (+39.55) which was up +0.09%.
The S&P 500 (GSPC) closed on Oct. 2, 2024 at 5,709.54 (+0.79 which is up +0.01%.
According to my calculations, the economic stability of markets worldwide will be affected by the entry of the Moon's North Lunar Node into tropical Pisces.
That will take place on Saturday, January 11, 2025 and last for 18.6 months.
The Moon's Lunar Nodes (north and south) move retrograde, or backward through each Sign of the Zodiac.
The North and South Lunar Node spend 18.6 months, or a year-and-a-half in each sign and defines the trend of the Business Volume in general and the financial markets in particular.
Currently, as you read this in early October 2024, the North Lunar Node is at 6-degrees Tropical Aries and the South Lunar Node is at 6-degrees Tropical Libra.
They have been on the Aries-Libra axis since July 17, 2023 but will shift onto the Pisces-Virgo axis on January 11, 2025 and continue there until late July 2026.
This span of time now (October 2024) to the North Node's entry into Tropical Pisces in January 2025 is 'key' to investors and traders who want to get ahead of the markets before significant corrections take place.
If you want to know exact dates, then email me at astro730@gmail. com for your consultation. When you write, please include the market sectors where you are trading and/or invested as well as your birthday, time of birth and place of birth.
Understand that the Lunar Nodes have a cycle of 18.6 years (rounded to 19 years more or less) as it takes the Nodes at least 19 years to transit through the Signs of the Zodiac.
The 'Node' is called so because it is the name for the positions in the orbit of a planet where it cross the ecliptic, or what is the Sun's path.
So, the point where a planet or the Moon itself, crosses from south to north is the 'North Node,' and the point where it crosses from north to south is known as the 'South Node.'
I apply the Nodes to forecast the highs and lows of the market, according to the techniques I learned as a teenager in the late 1970s and into the 1980s.
My childhood tutor, mundane astrologer Charles Jayne, was one of two astrologers who did the astrological work and forecasted the financial markets for W.D. Gann.
click on graphic to enlarge
All the events and trends of the markets in my forecasting can be tied directly to the cycle of the North Lunar Node which shows which way the business volume will turn and how the basic trend of business activity will go, also according to secondary influences of the planets and their configurations and aspects relative to Earth.
All of the major and primary directions and trends of business and finances are determined by the 18.6 year cycle of the Lunar Nodes through the Zodiac.
For instance, when the North Node transits through Scorpio and Libra it has the influence of a 'transition' span of time as the business volume guides the financial markets gos from normal to rising above normal.
The peak of the business volume cycle is when the North Lunar Node transits tropical Leo as the prior transit of the Node backward by retrograde, passes through the Signs of tropical Cancer and Gemini - this is when business volume is heading above normal and slowly to just normal.
Now, when the North Lunar Node made transit through tropical Taurus (as it did from January 2022 to July 2023) it marked a 'transition time' from normal to below normal in business volume curve,
We are currently in the Aries transit of the North Lunar Node (Oct. 2024 to January 2025)
Now, the lowest point of business volume arrives when the North Lunar Node enters and transits Aquarius and we are heading in that direction.
As for the New Moon of October 2, 2024, the Nasdaq 100, a higher-beta index among the major US stock indices because of its higher weighted concentration of growth-oriented artificial intelligence-related (AI) component stocks - was seen to have declined by 1.4 percent at the start of Quarter 4 and October 1, 2024 which was its worst daily performance since September 6, 2024.
Overall, the bearish movement of October 1, 2024 was accentuated by a jump in geopolitical risk premiums in the Middle East, where Iran unleashed a volley of missile attacks on Israel.
Investors and traders are worried that geopolitical events will trigger a further rise in hostilities with the possibility of more stakeholders such as the US and Russia being drawn into the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
Nvidia (NVDA), which is huge AI GPU maker, has been a stock market darling, and leader since 2022.
Its 2024 year-to-date triple-digit return of 142.95% as of October 1, 2024 has surpassed significantly other major US stock indices' returns (S&P 500 +20.37%, Nasdaq 100 +19.52%, DJIA +11.78%, Russell 2000 +9.15%) and the iShares Semiconductor sector ETF index (+21.65%.)
First, on July 24, 2024 it led to a significant jump in the VIX from 18.03 to a closing level peak of 38.56 on August 5, 2024 (Volmageddon 2.0).
The second one followed the exact Jupiter-Saturn world square on August 19, 2024 as 10-11 days later on August 30th, when the VIX made a smaller-scale increase from 15.01 to 22.37.
So, the jumps seen in the VIX triggered a negative feedback loop into the price actions of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, which saw multi-week corrective decline sequences over the same periods.
Planetary transits, in my view, has seen market breadth turning bearish on the Nasdaq 100.
And on September 26, 2024 exactly on the first Saturn-Pluto semi-square aspect, there was a similar price action weakness fell on Nvidia where the VIX has shaped an increase to 19.27 as of Tuesday, October 1st from 15.36.
The good investor and trader will want to know that the next Saturn-Pluto semi-square will occur on January 26-27, 2025 (a Sunday & Monday) so you will want to be prepared for what is also ahead on this matter.
The day before the New Moon, the October 1, 2024 price actions of the Nasdaq 100 CFD Index (a proxy of Nasdaq 100 E-mini futures) reintegrated back below its most recent medium-term swing high of 19,880. This indicates a possible failure bullish breakout scenario in the past week.
Moreover, as the North Lunar Node transits down in Aries; the planetary configurations of the first of three Jupiter-Saturn world squares (Aug. 19, 2024) and the first Saturn-Pluto semi-square (Sept. 26, 2024) proved out the the price actions:
That being that the Nasdaq 100 CFD Index scaled new higher swing highs on August 22nd and September 26th - the 10-day moving average of the Nasdaq 100’s 52-week high minus 52-week low market breadth indicator has moved in the opposite direction which is a bearish divergence.
It means to this forecasting astrologer that there are fewer Nasdaq 100 component stocks that are hitting new 52-week highs and is a sign of market breadth weakness; a potential bearish signal on the Nasdaq 100.
A break below the 19,155 intermediate support (also the 50-day moving average) on the Nasdaq 100 CFD Index may expose the next medium-term supports at 18,310 and 17,250.
However, a clearance above 20,790 long-term pivotal resistance invalidates the bearish scenario to see the next medium-term resistances coming in at 21,680 and 22,470/980.
The overall planetary signatures, in my astrological view, is a prelude to a series of looming multi-week corrective sequences and declines for the Dow Jones, the S&P 500; Nasdaq 100 and related markets and industries through the months ahead and into 2025 and 2026.
ASTROLOGICAL MARKET ADVICE
As a mundane astrologer versed in Financial Astrology, my advice through Quarter 4 of 2024 and into the first two new financial quarters of 2025 - is to know your planetary transits.
I always receive inquiries on when the markets will be up or down, what most investors and traders, companies, etc., do not know are their own personal transits, returns and secondary progressions that are directly contacted by the world transits that turns the financial markets - and when that will happen.
Those who want to know the times and dates of the market events to come can contact me at astro730@gmail.com
When you write, please comment on which sectors of the markets you want to know about, including stocks, bonds, commodities, cryptocurrencies, etc.
Include your name, birthday and time and place of birth. If your current location is different than the place of your natal birth, include that as well.
Planetary History to Financial Markets
Providing a tutorial on the intricacies of Financial Astrology takes much time; so I provide here only a minimum of history of financial astrology in a real life cast - the stock market crash of 1929.
The mid-20th century astrologer Louise McWhirter pointed out that all previous stock market crashes had been identified by the North Lunar Node on Business volume as well as previous lunations of the Sun and Moon.
As part of my applied astrology training in financial market forecasting when I was a teenager, I studied both W.D Gann and Louise McWhirter and have found that the techniques I used to forecast business volume and market trends worked.
McWhirter's 1938 book: 'Theory of Stock Market Forecasting,' was required reading for me when I was 15 years of age in the late 1970s.
McWhirter writes on planetary transits of the New York Stock Market Crash of 1929
"The lunation, or New Moon of 2 October 1929 in 8-degrees Libra, in exact opposition (180 degrees) to the chaotic and epoch-making planet Uranus, which was posited on the Midheaven of the New York Stock Exchange Chart.
Uranus was the 'key' planet to this crash since it had been occupying an elevated position for some time on this important angle of the New York Stock Exchange Chart.
Uranus has the most unusual, revolutionary, unexpected and epoch-making effects upon conditions, and surely this financial crash, for which Uranus was responsible, was epoch-making.
It caught most traders unaware of the danger and then wiped them out.
This is a presage, or a warning that the normal position of the Business Volume Curve, as McWhirter defined, has been reached.
Right now, here in early October 2024, my forecast is for investors and traders to begin to make significant financial adjustments for the present, and plans for the near future as well.
Forecast: 2024-2025
Rosh Hashanah - Year 5785
Wednesday, October 2, 2024 is ' Rosh Hashanah,' an observance and celebration over two days that begins on the first day of Tishrei, that is the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year.
It is the traditional anniversary of the Creation of the Universe and Adam and Eve, the first man and woman on Earth, according to the Hebrew Bible, as well as the initiation of humanity's role in divinity.
Rosh Hashanah 5785 begins at Sundown on the eve of Tishrei 1 (Oct. 2, 2024) and ends after nightfall on Tishrei 2 (Oct. 4, 2024.)
ROSH HASHANAH BEGINS:
WEDNESDAY, 2 OCTOBER 2024
FRIDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2024
Both sunset charts of Rosh Hashanah for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem obviously strong indicate that the Lunation, or New Moon of 2 October 2024 falls in the 7th House of Partnerships of all kinds and contention with partners and also enemies.
The solar year from 2 October 2024 to the next lunation in September 2025 calls for prudence and patience.
It would be wise to keep a lower profile during the second half of 2024 and into the second half of 2025 so as to focus on your aspirations, goals and plans for the future.
The international and geopolitical atmosphere will continue to be contentious under the planetary skies and according to my calculations, the best way to navigate 2024-2025 is to focus patiently on one's own goals and aspirations.
In contrast to the ecclesiastical lunar new year on the first day of the first month Nisan, the spring Passover month that marks Israel's exodus from Egypt, the observance of Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the civil year, according to the teachings of Judaism.
Rosh Hashanah customs include sounding the shofar (a hollowed-out ram's horn), as prescribed in the Torah, following the prescription of the Hebrew Bible to "raise a noise" on Yom Teruah.
The rabbinical customs include attending synagogue services and reciting special liturgy about teshuva, as well as enjoying festive meals.
Eating symbolic foods, such as apples dipped in honey, hoping to evoke a sweet new year, is an ancient tradition recorded in the Talmud.
Rosh Hashanah feasts traditionally include round challah bread (studded with raisins) and apples dipped in honey, as well as other foods that symbolize our wishes for a sweet year.
Other Rosh Hashanah observances include candle lighting in the evenings and desisting from creative work.
Together with Yom Kippur (which follows 10-11 days later on Friday and Saturday, October 11-12, 2024) it is part of the Yamim Nora'im (Days of Awe, or High Holidays.)
Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism, is when Jews reflect on sins or wrongdoings from the previous year. Many Jews will attend services at synagogues or other congregations, reciting special prayers and singing special songs.
image by: Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle
My forecast for this Rosh Hashanah year of 2024-2025 planetary indicate that it is a transition year of major changes and adjustments into the mid-2020s.
The affairs of the planets into 2025 show plenty of forebodings, angst, anger and despair over the events in Israel and elsewhere in the world since 2023 and throughout solar year 2024.
This year, and into next year mean that 'high holidays' from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur call for special attention to the deadly events in the world and much prayer and sacrifice for peace.
The planetary transits ahead and into 2025 are significant - domestically, business wise, professionally and personally for many people.
The span of time from the second half of 2024 into the second half of 2025 call for insight, flexibility and prudence to navigate the events to come into the middle years of this decade.
The choices and decisions made will determine, by the late 2020s and into the early 2030s, the outcomes - for good, or for ill.
"It’s an Earthquake!"
Beirut responds to Hassan Nasrallah’s Death
by Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.sci
The deadly situation in the Middle East has now spread to Lebanon, a beautiful nation with a violent history that are sitting sucks between a terrorist group, Hezbollah, and the nation of Israel.
The Atlantic reported that as word spread on Saturday, September 28, 2024 that Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had been killed in his underground Beirut bunker by an Israeli air strike, people began quietly reckoning with the possibility that Lebanon’s political architecture might be about to shift for the first time in more than three decades.
And that, in turn, raised the prospect that locked doors might soon open across the Middle East.
Those who have fought against Hezbollah - not just Israelis - but also Lebanese from across the nation’s confessional divides (as well as Syrians and Yemenis) could see the tantalizing possibility that the Shiite movement’s dominance might be at an end.
Many others worried that a sudden power vacuum might lead Lebanon back to the kind of civil war that tortured its people for 15 years before Hezbollah emerged in the early 1980s.
Hassan Nasrallah was more than a political leader. After 32 years in power, he had become synonymous with Hezbollah, the most well armed non-state actor in the world and the linchpin of Iran’s tentacular 'Axis of Resistance' to Israel and the United States.
You could feel the moment’s gravity almost as soon as the bombs struck on Friday evening, September 27, 2024, as the biggest bombardment Israel has unleashed on Beirut since Hezbollah attacked Israel last October 8, 2023.
People said that they could hear and feel the attack miles away from where they struck in the city’s southern suburbs.
The deep sound like rippling thunder that shook the ground lasted several seconds.
People on the street glanced anxiously skyward and clutched their phones, calling to check on their loved ones. Numerous car alarms sounded.
Reports said Nasrallah was killed in that air raid that levelled six apartment buildings in Beirut.
Hassan Nasrallah, 64, was a Lebanese cleric and politician who served as the secretary-general of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and militia, from 1992 until his assassination in September 2024.
Born into a Shia family in the suburbs of Beirut, Nasrallah finished his education in Tyre, when he briefly joined the Amal Movement, and afterward at a Shia seminary in Baalbek
Born on August 31, 1960, at Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon, he was reportedly killed in the airstrike on September 27, 2024 at Dahieh, Lebanon.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said that six people were killed and 91 others injured in the strikes, which leveled six apartment buildings.
Iran announced that a prominent general in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard sanctioned by the U.S. also died in the same airstrike.
Abbas Nilforushan, 58, who the U.S. identified as the deputy commander for operations in the Guard, was killed on Friday, Sept. 17, 2024, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency.
Additional reports added that Ali Karki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front and other commanders were also killed, said a spokesperson for the Israeli military.
Nasrallah's body has reportedly been recovered following the airstrike.
The recent airstrikes in Lebanon and the assassination of Nasrallah are a significant escalation in the war in the Middle East - this time between Israel and Hezbollah.
Air raid sirens sounded across central Israel on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 29th - including at the Tel Aviv international airport - shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed after a trip to the United States.
The Israeli military said that it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen. It was not immediately known if the missile strike was aimed at Netanyahu’s flight.
The planetary transits that ended the deadly month of September will continue into the month of October as well.
As the waxing Jupiter-Saturn square re-sets by mid-December 2024; along with the current Saturn-Pluto semi-square and the eclipses of September and October 2024; it appears that both hemispheres of the Earth will see headline news.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli army spokesperson, said the Sept. 27th airstrike in Beirut was based on years of tracking Nasrallah along with “real time information.”
He declined to say what munitions were used or provide an estimate on civilian deaths. He said Israel takes measures to avoid civilians whenever possible.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas in a statement issued condolences to its ally, Hezbollah.
Nasrallah frequently described launching rockets against northern Israel as a “support front” for Hamas and Palestinians in Gaza.
Immediately after the confirmation from Hezbollah, journalists reported that people began firing guns in the air in Beirut and across Lebanon to mourn Nasrallah’s death.
“Wish it was our kids, not you, Sayyid!” said one woman, using an honor title for Nasrallah, as she clutched her baby in the western city of Baabda, according to the Associated Press.
News of Nasrallah’s killing stunned travelers at Lebanon’s only international airport, where hundreds of people were scrambling to leave the country despite limited flights.
Some people cried while others spoke on their phones in disbelief.
One woman was heard to scream at the airport: “No! It was just an announcement! No, he didn’t die!”
Hundreds of people then took to the streets of Tehran after Nasrallah’s killing was announced.
Protesters chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to Netanyahu the murderer” while waving Hezbollah flags.
Israel vows to keep up attacks on Hezbollah
Israel’s Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said on Saturday, September 28, 2024 that the elimination of Nasrallah was “not the end of our toolbox,” this means that even more strikes were planned.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called it “the most important targeted strike since the founding of the State of Israel.”
Israel has vowed to step up pressure on Hezbollah until it halts its attacks that have displaced tens of thousands of Israelis from communities near the Lebanese border.
The recent fighting has also displaced more than 200,000 Lebanese in the past week, according to the United Nations.
Israel's military said that it was mobilizing three more battalions of reserve soldiers to serve across the country. It already sent two brigades to northern Israel to prepare for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon.
Shoshani, the army spokesperson, said Israel inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah’s capabilities over the past week by targeting immediate threats and strategic weapons, such as larger, guided missiles.
But he said much of Hezbollah’s arsenal remains intact and that Israel would continue to target the group.
The Israeli military updated their guidelines for Israeli citizens, canceling gatherings of more than 1,000 people due to the threat.
Approximately 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes along the Lebanese border for almost a year.
This month, Israel’s government said halting Hezbollah’s attacks in the country’s north to allow residents to return to their homes is an official goal.
Hezbollah began firing rockets on Israel in support of Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023 - a day after Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people and abducting another 250.
Since then, the two sides have been engaged in escalating cross-border strikes.
At this juncture of October 2, 2024, the Middle East is heading closer to a long-feared regional war the day after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel and Israel said it began limited ground incursions into Lebanon targeting the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia.
Israel said it intercepted many of the missiles, and officials in Washington said U.S. destroyers assisted in Israel's defense.
Iran said most of its missiles hit their targets. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed late Tuesday, October 1sr to retaliate against Iran, which he said “made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it.”
An Iranian commander threatened wider strikes on infrastructure if Israel retaliates against Iran's territory.
The United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting for Wednesday, October 2, 2024 to address the spiraling conflict.
In September 2024, thousands of explosives that were hidden inside pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated, killing dozens of people and maiming thousands, including many civilians.
Israel is widely believed to be behind the attack. Israel has also killed several other top Hezbollah commanders in Beirut, especially in the past two weeks, in addition to the attack that killed Nasrallah.
Associated Press reported that there may be a window of opportunity for Israel and Lebanon
According to the report: "Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based think tank Institute for National Security Studies and former intelligence analyst for the Israeli military and prime minister’s office, noted that Nasrallah was sometimes a “voice of reason,” - interested in engaging Israel in a war of attrition and holding the militant group back from using the full force of their formidable arsenal against Israel.
Nasrallah’s death could prompt some less senior members of Hezbollah to unleash much stronger weapons than have been used in the nearly year long exchange of hostilities, Mizrahi said.
The biggest question mark right now, though, is how Iran will respond.
She said that Nasrallah’s death could provide a window of opportunity - while the organization is significantly weakened - for Lebanon to dilute Hezbollah’s influence, especially in the south of the country that threatens to drag Lebanon into a full-scale war with Israel.
Both Sides of the Border Are Hot
On Saturday morning, Sept. 28, 2024, the Israeli military carried out more than 140 airstrikes in southern Beirut and eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, including targeting a storage facility for anti-ship missiles in Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.
Israel said the missiles were stored beneath civilian apartment buildings.
The IDF called for people living in more than two dozen villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately and move to the north of the Al-Awali River, which is around 30 miles inside the country.
While the IDF announced the "limited" ground operation on Tuesday, October 1, 2024, its spokesman Daniel Hagari said that Israeli forces have been operating inside Lebanon dozens of times over the past months, where they had destroyed tunnels.
"The purpose of this ground operation is to clear hubs that Hezbollah was preparing in proximity to the Israeli-Lebanese border," former Israeli intelligence official Avi Melamed told Newsweek.
"Those hubs are depots of weapons and communication systems and were supposed to be the launching pads to conduct a ground attack on Israeli communities next to the border," he said.
"The purpose here is to degrade and actually neutralize the master plan of Hezbollah, to conduct a ground attack style October 7 on the Israeli community."
Meanwhile, reports said that Hezbollah launched dozens of projectiles across northern and central Israel and deep into the Israel-occupied West Bank, damaging some buildings in the northern town of Safed.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, smoke rose and the streets were empty after the area was pummeled overnight by heavy Israeli airstrikes.
Shelters set up in the city center for displaced people were overflowing.
Many families slept in public squares and on beaches or in their cars.
On the roads leading to the mountains above the capital, hundreds of people could be seen fleeing on foot, holding infants and whatever belongings they could carry.
A total of 1,030 people - including 156 women and 87 children - have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon in less than two weeks, the country’s health minister said on Saturday, Sept 28th.
Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, said that Iran will be under significant pressure to respond to Nasrallah’s killing without escalating violence in the region.
“At the same time, Iran is severely constrained in its ability to respond,” Juneau told The Associated Press. “Iran understands that its military options are limited, given the conventional military superiority of Israel and the U.S.”
The IDF said in a statement on X that a 'political decision' had been made to target Hezbollah terrorist targets in southern Lebanon "based on precise intelligence."
It added that Operation "Northern Arrows" will continue "according to the situational assessment and in parallel to combat in Gaza and in other arenas" as the statement reiterated one of its goals to "return the citizens of northern Israel to their homes."
ON THE ROAD TO ALL-OUT WAR?
Under these planetary transits, it appears that transits over Israel and Middle East since 2022 are heighting the violence throughout the entire region, with growing populations of refugees forced on the road and into camps.
As Rosh Hashanah A top Iranian military commander has warned that his country will hit Israel’s infrastructure if it takes any action against its territory.
Iran’s armed forces joint chief of staff Gen. Mohammad Bagheri said Wednesday that the Revolutionary Guard was prepared both defensively and offensively to repeat its missile attack with “multiplied intensity.”
“If the Zionist regime, that has gone insane, is not contained by America and Europe and intends to continue such crimes, or do anything against our sovereignty or territorial integrity, tonight’s operation will be repeated with much higher magnitude and we will hit all their infrastructure,” he said.
Bagheri said Iran avoided targeting Israeli civilians although it was “completely feasible.
Israel’s United Nation's ambassador says his government will decide when and how to respond to Iran’s barrage of close to 200 ballistic missiles that forced Israel’s 10 million population into bomb shelters.
“But I can tell you one thing, it will be noticed," he said. "It will be painful.”
Danny Danon reacted to a statement from Iran’s U.N. Mission that any new Israeli action would be met with a “crushing response,” saying: “I would not advise Iran to challenge our determination, our capabilities. In the past, we have proved it. We will prove it again.”
“We have no desire for war or escalation, but we cannot sit idly by when our civilians are being attacked in such manner,” the Israeli ambassador said.
“Iran used to send boxes but now, when they send almost 200 ballistic missiles, that’s something that I don’t think any other nation in the world will ignore.”
However, as of October 2, 2024, there is still suspense surrounding the actual cause of Nasrallah's death.
Despite the intensity of the attack, no visible injuries were found on Nasrallah's body, raising questions.
Experts are speculating that the powerful shockwaves and or toxic gases from the massive bomb explosions could have been the cause of death, rather than direct impact or injuries
Adored by his Lebanese Shiite followers and respected by millions of others across the Arab and Islamic world, Nasrallah held the title of 'sayyid,' - an honorific to signify the Shiite cleric’s lineage dating back to the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam.
A fiery orator viewed as an extremist in the United States and much of the West, he was also considered a pragmatist compared to the militants who dominated Hezbollah after its founding in 1982, during Lebanon’s bloody civil war.
Despite the power he wielded, Nasrallah lived largely in hiding for fear of an Israeli assassination.
Born in 1960 into a poor Shiite family in Beirut’s impoverished northern suburb of Sharshabouk, Nasrallah was later displaced to south Lebanon.
He studied theology and joined the Amal movement, a Shiite political and paramilitary organization, before becoming one of Hezbollah’s founders.
Hezbollah was formed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard members who came to Lebanon during the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Libra. They arrived in the summer of 1982 to fight invading Israeli forces.
Hezbollah was the first group that Iran backed and used as a way to export its brand of political Islam.
Nasrallah built a power base as Hezbollah became part of a cluster of Iranian-backed factions and governments known as the Axis of Resistance.
Two days after its leader, 39-year-old Sayyed Abbas Musawi, was killed in an Israeli helicopter gunship raid in south Lebanon, Hezbollah chose Nasrallah as its secretary-general in February 1992.
Five years later, the United States designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
Under Nasrallah, Hezbollah was credited with leading the war of attrition that led to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from south Lebanon in 2000 - after an 18-year occupation.
Nasrallah’s eldest son, Hadi, was killed in 1997, fighting against Israeli forces.
After Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Nasrallah rose to iconic status both within Lebanon and throughout the Arab world.
His messages were beamed on Hezbollah’s own radio and satellite TV station.
His status was further cemented when, in 2006, Hezbollah fought Israel to a stalemate during the 34-day war.
When Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, Hezbollah fighters rushed in, siding with Assad’s forces - even though Hezbollah’s popularity took a dive as the Arab world ostracized Assad.
A day after the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7, 2023, Hezbollah began to attack Israeli military posts along the border calling it a 'backup front' for Gaza.
In speeches throughout the conflict, Nasrallah argued that Hezbollah’s cross-border strikes had pulled away Israeli forces that would otherwise be focused on Hamas in Gaza and insisted Hezbollah would not halt its attacks on Israel until a cease-fire was reached in Gaza.
Nasrallah maintained a defiant tone, even as tensions rose dramatically in September 2024 with Israel announcing a new phase in the conflict intended to push Hezbollah back from the border to allow thousands displaced from northern Israel to return.
Israel launched that killed top military commanders with the group. Israel was also blamed for the explosion of thousands of communications devices, mainly used by Hezbollah members, that killed 37 people and wounded thousands.
To the contrary, Israel is likely to take advantage of Hezbollah’s disarray to do everything it can to destroy the group’s offensive capabilities, including its entire arsenal of precision-guided missiles and what’s left of its infrastructure for cross-border attacks in southern Lebanon.
Hopefully, Israel will achieve its objectives swiftly and avoid the fatal attraction of the long-term reoccupation of Lebanese territory.
This could lead to reckless plots to kidnap foreigners inside Lebanon; efforts to launch cross-border raids into Israel through underground tunnels; and perhaps even activation of Hezbollah terrorist cells around the world, including in America.
As an Arab, Nasrallah was not as important to Tehran as Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani, whose killing in a 2020 U.S. drone strike prompted a retaliatory attack against American troops in northern Iraq.
But he was closer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei than any non-Iranian, and his death will be viewed as a personal blow.
Iran-backed terrorism against soft targets in the West cannot be ruled out.
Given that Iran relied on Hezbollah as a deterrent against U.S. or Israeli direct attack, the group’s weakness means Iran is less likely to launch its own revenge assault against Israel, along the lines of its April 13 volley of missiles and drones.
A key unknown is whether Iran’s sense of vulnerability triggers a rethinking of nuclear strategy, with its leaders now more determined to acquire a weapons capability as quickly as possible to compensate for the loss of Hezbollah.
Just days ago, Hezbollah was the unquestioned power in the country, behind the mere facade of a Potemkin government.
Now, there is a moment of opportunity for the disparate, often disputatious elements of an anti-Hezbollah coalition to organize itself before the remnants of Hezbollah find their footing and try to reimpose control.
Another question is whether external actors - from Washington to Paris to Riyadh - will coordinate effectively to empower local allies to fill the void left by Hezbollah’s disarray.
In this stalemate, Hamas cannot mount a serious military threat to Israel, but the rag-tag remnants of its fighting force remain enough to terrorize the local population and to prevent anyone else from governing the Gaza Strip.
In this situation, the real losers are local Palestinians, who will likely remain caught between the roving street gangs of Hamas’s diminished but still potent brigades and the targeted operations of Israel’s counter-terror missions in Gaza.
But this is also a moment for the Biden administration to shift focus from its Sisyphean pursuit of a Gaza cease-fire to taking advantage of the opportunities presented by Israel’s seismic shock to Hezbollah.
Your Nativity, Progressions & Returns:
Get Ready For 2025 & The Mid-2020s
The year 2025 is just ahead and it will be that year that officially starts the middle years of the decade of the 2020s.
In my astrological view, those at the ages of 28-30, also the ages 43-46 and those in their mid-50s should be especially keen to know their own horoscopes, the transits to their nativites and their secondary progressions.
I consider the soon-to-be Saturn-Neptune conjunctions of 2025 and 2026 to be malefic. Not only is Saturn afflicted and debilitated in 'fall' in tropical Aries, but the conjunction itself is sinister.
It has an affinity with the midnight point, the Imum Coeli, or Nadir in applied astrology, and so with that, I would advise that individuals and families use the second half of 2024 into very early 2025 to get ahead of matters in due course.
It should be a working autumn 2024 and winter 2025 for those in the northern hemisphere and the same for those experiencing spring and then summer in the southern hemisphere.
So that by the time the Saturn-Neptune conjunction is well within orb by April 2025 and for the rest of that year - you will have already planned in advance and can make successful choices and decisions based on your previous thinking and then concrete plans.
I have seen that under the Saturn-Neptune world conjunction, as it rotates around the world in 2025, that there will be major issues that, if left unattended, can cause great turns in family fortunes. The complications, losses and even an entire breakdown of credit to families and their prestige will be under threat.
There can also be vast political changes within nations that are chaotic and destructive as the Saturn-Neptune conjunction among the last degrees of Pisces and the first degree of tropical Aries signifies great endings, but also great new beginnings for many people worldwide depending on their personal horoscopes and secondary progressions.
These solar, lunar & planetary transits of 2024 initiate a year filled with action and presages:
*Red color indicates strong global influence*
· September 1, 2024 – URANUS RETROGRADE AT 27-TAURUS
· September 18, 2024 - PARTIAL LUNAR ECLIPSE AT 25-PISCES
· September 26, 2024 – SATURN SEMI SQUARE PLUTO (2nd exact world semi-square)
· September 28, 2024 – MERCURY HEADS SOUTH IN DECLINATION
· October 2, 2024 – ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE AT 10-LIBRA
· October 9, 2024 – JUPITER RETROGRADE AT 21-GEMINI
· October 12, 2024 – PLUTO DIRECT AT 29-CAPRICORN
· November 15, 2024 – SATURN DIRECT AT 12-PISCES
· November 26, 2024 – MERCURY RETROGRADE AT 22-SAGITTARIUS
· December 6, 2024 – MARS RETROGRADE AT 6-LEO (until February 23-24, 2025)
· December 7, 2024 – NEPTUNE DIRECT AT 27-PISCES
· December 13, 2024 – JUPITER SESQUI QUADRATE PLUTO
· December 15, 2024 – MERCURY DIRECT AT 6-SAGITTARIUS
· December 24, 2024 – JUPITER SQUARE SATURN (2nd of 3 world squares)
· January 26, 2025 – SATURN SEMI SQUARE PLUTO (3rd exact world semi square)
· January 30, 2025 – VENUS HEADS NORTH IN DECLINATION
· January 30, 2025 – URANUS STATIONS DIRECT AT 23-TAURUS
· February 4, 2025 – JUPITER STATIONS DIRECT AT 11-GEMINI
February 4, 2025 - VENUS ENTERS ARIES
· February 24, 2025 – MARS STATIONS DIRECT AT 17-CANCER
· March 2, 2025 – MERCURY TURNS NORTH IN DECLINATION
· March 2, 2025 – VENUS RETROGRADE AT 10-ARIES
· March 14, 2025 - LUNAR ECLIPSE at 23-24 VIRGO
· March 15, 2025 – MERCURY STATIONS RETROGRADE AT 9-ARIES
20 MARCH 2025 - VERNAL EQUINOX - SUN ENTERS ARIES
· 22 March 2025 - VENUS TURNS MORNING STAR
· March 29, 2025 - PARTIAL SOLAR ECLIPSE AT 9-ARIES
· April 3, 2025 – MERCURY TURNS SOUTH IN DECLINATION
· April 4, 2025 – SATURN SEXTILE URANUS - 1st of three sextile aspects)
· April 7, 2025 – MERCURY STATIONS DIRECT AT 26-PISCES
· April 13, 2025 – VENUS STATIONS DIRECT AT 24-PISCES
· April 17, 2025 – JUPITER SESQUI QUADRATE PLUTO
· April 23, 2025 – MERCURY TURNS NORTH IN DECLINATION
· 30 April 2025 - VENUS RE-ENTERS TROPICAL ARIES
· May 4, 2025 – PLUTO STATIONS RETROGRADE AT 3-AQUARIUS
· June 4, 2025 – JUPITER SEMI-SEXTILE URANUS
· June 15, 2025 – JUPITER SQUARE SATURN (3rd and final world square)
· June 19, 2025 – JUPITER SQUARE NEPTUNE
· June 24, 2025 – JUPITER QUINCUNX PLUTO
Copyright © 2007-2024 Theodore White
Excerpts may be republished with attribution in the body of the material. Please include the Global Astrology link to your site.
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