The semiannual eclipse season is here -- with tonight's partial solar eclipse.  Then on January 20/21 there will be a total lunar eclipse.

Eclipses are destabilizing, like driving over ice on a road or sailing a boat through a rogue wave.  This is because the Sun and the Moon are the luminaries, source of nearly all the light reaching the earth.  And because eclipses do what the word means -- block -- light energy from the heavens is also blocked.

When the planets are generally calm, eclipse effects are typically not potent, sometimes not even noticeable.  However, when the planets are stressed, eclipses accentuate, or intensify, the stressful karmas.

This was the case last summer, when Mars was careering through Capricorn from May to November.  Three eclipses in July and August brought all kinds of strife.  See the July 10, 2018 A Busy, Busy July!.  There were lots of earth crust events, storms, floods, scandals and public disgust.  This last actualized in the November 6 elections sweeping Democrats into the House and thereby ending the total Republican control -- Congress and the Presidency.  (By comparison, there are only 2 eclipses this winter, making the eclipse season a little milder.)

Now, we have Rahu ending its tumultuous eighteen months in watery Cancer, which is also the home and our deepest feelings.  This cold blooded serpent energy is always uncontrollable and unanticipated -- and often brutal -- but these qualities are amped-up at the end of each transit -- which is happening now.  The effect is like throwing gasoline on a fire.  Head-of-the-dragon Rahu will leave Cancer March 22, and until then, expect the dragon to be spitting fire.

Staying with that entry for a moment, recall the prediction for Trump becoming crazy because transit Rahu is on his birth chart Venus and Saturn until March 22, creating all kinds of havoc.  And he's stuck between a Jupitarian rock and a Saturnian hard place.  It's made him crazy. This must obviously hasten Trump being thrown out of the White House in 2019.

Will this winter's eclipses cause more trials and tribulations during this Rahu-intense winter?  Yes, absolutely.  Even his diehard base is choking on Trump's now totally bizarre claims to force funding for his wall, or fence, or, as Nancy Pelosi said, a wall along the southern border has shifted from a cement structure to a "beaded curtain."

Tonight's solar eclipse is only visible in China and the Pacific Basin.  The location is 21:17 degrees Sagittarius.  It's a Ketu eclipse, weird for this tail-of-the-dragon's otherworldly energy.  Although solar eclipses are more powerful than lunar ones, tonight's being partial, naturally mitigates its harms.  Still, with Rahu raging, and Rahu being an eclipse point, eclipse disruption should not be ignored.  When you're driving toward an ice patch, slow down!

The January 20/21 total lunar eclipse will be at 2:40 Cancer.  This is a Rahu eclipse -- which means the Moon will be blocked by Rahu.  And since Rahu is intensified now in his last interval in Cancer, slow way down when you drive over an ice patch.

This lunar eclipse with a punch will hit Trump hard.  As you can see in this chart from the December 25, 2018 Nerve Wracking, backward moving Rahu was 3:06 Cancer at Christmas, and the 2:40 Cancer location for the lunar eclipse will be almost exactly on his Venus -- females, close associates, career, desire fulfillment and losses.  Well, with Pelosi in action against him, shouldn't we expect other women to be drawn into conflict -- like Ivanka, Melania and Kirstjen Nielson?...  (An eclipse within 2 degrees of a planet is a direct hit.)

The U.S. chart is also hit hard by Rahu and the lunar eclipse. The 2:40 degree Cancer lunar eclipse is less than a degree from Mercury -- communications, business, relationships of all kinds.

Finally, backwards moving Rahu will go into Gemini March 22.  There, the dragon will have a bounty of four planets to attack -- like a flock of sheep for a wolf.

But, remember, this is all the beginning of the Second Progressive Age, and Rahu is the destroyer of now and creator of tomorrow. So, while the path ahead is torturous and full of calamity, the destination is a much better U.S. for all of humanity.

PS There's a lot more about Rahu than I've explained.  It would be impossible to go through all its significations.

However, one I omitted fits perfectly into this situation.  Rahu is insanity.

Also, I didn't mention that while eclipses block, they also reveal.  This results because when the Sun is eclipsed, the sky darkens,
revealing the stars. An eclipsed Moon does the same thing, to a lesser degree, of course. Then, the stars close to the Moon, otherwise washed out my moonlight, can be seen.

These karmas -- insanity and revealing -- are general, global and hit individual charts in specific ways.  While many charts of people and nations are impacted to some degree, the charts for Trump and the U.S. are hit hard, as explained in this entry.

BTW, just to show how weird eclipse energy can be, last night our cat, Lucy, pushed my girlfriend's stuff off her cosmetics tray to sleep on.  Cats can see into other dimensions.

Here she is in another strange location.  Look at her eyes.

The Celestial Wheel 2002-2018©
Doug Riemer

The most current Celestial Wheel entries have laid out the planetary karmas afflicting the world, the U.S. and Trump.   See the December 25, 2018 Nerve Wracking and the January 5, 2019 The Eclipses Are Coming!

This is clearly and obviously a pivotal time.  Here's a way to understand how the lunar eclipse and transit Rahu will combine to blow Trump out of the water and bring catastrophes to the U.S.

The January 20/21 total lunar eclipse in Cancer will be caused by Rahu
Transit Rahu's destructive karma is simmering during its ending in Cancer March 22
The eclipse is the detonator igniting first one, and then continued, Rahu explosions through late March

This transit chart (where the planets are in today's skies) shows Rahu (Ra) in its typical backward motion approaching Cancer's sign edge.  The eclipse will occur when the Moon, currently in Aquarius, reaches Cancer late January 20 at 2:40 degrees.

There are two more planetary significations happening during the next few days.  First, notice the Moon is currently approaching Mars.  That will stir up the lunar emotions.  Second, notice that mental Mercury is approaching restrictive Saturn.  This blocks the mind and can also bring deception.

Combining these influences on the two mental planets, expect disruptions and the inability to find and understand issues (and solutions to them) through the weekend and into next week.  Confusion and frustration will result.  The government shutdown/border wall issue will not be resolved.  In fact, both sides will harden their positions due to this combination of Moon/Mars anger and Mercury/Saturn stubbornness -- just as the consequences for this impasse become increasingly severe and disruptive.

Growing and arising crises these next few days will thereby set the stage for the detonator effect of the January 20/21eclipse, which will then reverberate even more with all kinds of disruptions until March 22.

PS  Vedic Astrology's uniqueness extends to its being a true astronomical based system.  That is, the planets in the sky are in the same positions as in the Vedic chart. So, the astronomy matches the astrology.   You can thereby look up at night to see the Vedic planets to understand emerging planetary karmas. As above so below.  Is that cool, or what?:-)

Today's Celestial Wheel astrology entry Detonation, discussed the current conjunctions of Moon/Mars and Mercury/Saturn.   Here are two articles from Earth/Sky describing these astronomical events.

This today EarthSky article about the Moon/Mars conjunction, which is visible in the evening sky, Moon sweeps past Mars January 11 to 13,

This article, January guide to the bright planets, discusses the Saturn/Mercury conjunction.  Because these planets are not visible in the night sky, the article does not highlight them and states, Mercury and Saturn actually have a conjunction in the morning sky on January 13, 2019.  But these two worlds will be so deeply buried in the glare of morning twilight that they’ll be next to impossible to see.

Thereby, it is not only true that Vedic astrology matches scientific astronomy, but that the astrology sometimes describes planetary dispositions that sometimes aren't even visible to astronomers!

In closing, please remember the Rahu inspired tribulations for Trump are in his twelfth house of loss, which house meanings include hidden enemies.  And because Saturn is in the twelfth afflicted by Rahu, Saturn ruling the sixth house results in that house also being harmed.  And guess what the sixth house signifies? -- open enemies.  Considering too that the sixth house and Rahu both signify foreigners, Trump is being beset by hidden and open foreign enemies.

Along with this, it seems inescapable that Trump's enemies must include Mueller.  For isn't Mueller, with his great honor, essentially foreign to Trump?  We thereby have hints about the nature of emerging Rahu explosions started by the lunar eclipse detonation.

The Celestial Wheel 2002-2018©
Doug Riemer

The Celestial Wheel has long predicted the 18 year Rahu Dasa (planetary cycle) in the U.S. chart will bring the Second Progressive Age -- to rebalance shared democratic values.  (Recall this cycle began December 1, 2015 and ends in 2033.)

Trump's role here is that of Rahu, the cold-blooded serpent, the destroyer of today and creator of tomorrow.  He's certainly done well in that endeavor.  The era of the Bushes and Clintons is over, as is truly the rest of traditional political parties and agendas.  All are in tatters. In this process, of course, he blows himself up.

It was believed Trump would do himself in in the fall of 2017, when restrictive Saturn was finishing its transit in Scorpio and over his Moon.   Trump took some hits then, but his fellow cold-blooded Republican allies in Congress covered for him.  Plus, of course, his base, well fed on his offerings of hate, fear and racism, held firm.  And the Democrats were frozen out due to Hillary's loss and the Republicans holding both houses of Congress.

It's a new dawn now with the November 2018 midterm elections giving the Democrats control of the House -- and already their first victory by holding firm against Trump's border wall funding.

By happenstance, though perhaps truly by design, the planets in today's skies reflect this new dawning.  The Moon, Jupiter and Venus are the best benefic planets and also the brightest in the sky.  This article from EarthSky.org Moon slides past 3 morning planets explains and illustrates,

The Celestial Wheel has predicted this shift by identifying and pointing out that as Rahu finishes his 18 month transit in Cancer (March) 22, it crosses Trump's Venus and Saturn, which sign is Trump's twelfth house of loss.  The January 5 The Eclipses Are Coming! included this graphic of Trump's chart showing backwards-moving transit Rahu then at 3:06 degrees, closing in on his Venus and Saturn.

Notice that transit Saturn is in his fifth house of the mind, across from his Mercury (the mind), which slows his mental processes, making him stupid, and also harming his friends, children and long term goals.  Saturn in Sagittarius is the sign just past the Moon and thereby the third and last sign of Sadi Sati -- when Saturn crosses the three signs around the Moon and transforms the life by bringing reality.  So, the prediction for his fall in 2017 because Saturn crossed his Moon was/is part of this Sadi Sati, which twice in his past has thrown him out of his home -- once as a child into military school and the second time when he was thrown out of his Atlantic City casinos.  Thereby, the prediction he would be thrown out of the presidency in 2017 was not so much wrong as early.

Coming back to transit Rahu, here's Trump's chart now.  See the transit Rahu at 2:36 Cancer is just now passing his Venus? -- females, close associates and career.  And have these caused Trump lots of trouble, which continues.

Rahu continues to move backwards and next attacks his Saturn.  Although Rahu eclipsed both Venus and Saturn, which blocks them and also reveals hidden things, Rahu also performs his essential role of intensifying.  Thus, Rahu on Saturn intensifies this planet of powerful restriction, making Trump push ahead remorselessly and regardless of consequences.  He simply won't give up on his wall, though surely, he'll never get it from Congress,.  And declaring a national emergency would be political suicide.

Finally, not shown here is that Mercury, the planet of the calculating mind, transits into Pisces, its fallen (weak) sign February 25, and then goes into a three week retrograde (weakening) March 6.  Remembering that Rahu finishes in Cancer March 22, this means the month of March will be mentally troubled -- and all havoc will break lose.

Buckle up.

The Celestial Wheel 2002-2018©
Doug Riemer