Alex's Asteroid Astrology

“As a man soweth, so shall he reap.” – Galatians 6:7

Former US president Donald Trump, foremost promoter of political violence in America, was injured in an unsuccessful assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, PA on Saturday, 13 July 2024.  Nicked in the ear and bloodied by a shooter some 150 yards away, Secret Service agents quickly swarmed on the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, covering him bodily until word came that the shooter was down.  At that point Trump was taken to an armed vehicle and whisked from the scene.  Several attendees were injured, and one man died, as well as the shooter.

The shots were fired at 6:11 PM EDT, and a chart set for Butler perfectly portrays the circumstances.  The venue was the Butler Farm Show, located at 625 Evans City Road in Butler; asteroid matches include Butler 13543, Evans 3032, and Farmer 6271.  The shooter was identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20; asteroid matches include Thomas 2555 and Mathieu 1592 (alternate spelling).  We’ll also be using TNO Ixion 28978, named for the first murderer in Greek myth; Gunn 18243, phonetic match for “gun;” and Assafin 28987, closest to “assassin.”

Let’s put this in context first.  The shooting occurred just two days before the triple conjunction of Mars, Uranus and Algol, which blends energies of violence and weaponry (Mars), shootings and assassinations (Uranus), and decapitation (Fixed Star Algol, with Trump technically shot in the head).  The conjunction occurs at 26 Taurus, just two degrees past Donald Trump’s natal Midheaven (career, status, reputation) at 24 Taurus and squared his Mars/Ascendant conjunction at 26 and 29 Leo.  Laurien Rueger, Canadian political astrologer extraordinaire, also well-versed in Astrocartography (a technique that applies planetary longitude to terrestrial coordinates) informs me that Butler, PA lies within a degree of his Mars-Ascendant line, which correlates to zones on planet earth where these celestial energies would most naturally play out and manifest.  She adds that the USA’s Uranus Descendant line runs just a degree east of Butler; with Uranus ruling assassinations, the confluence of Trump’s Mars line (attacks, gun, violence) and the USA Uranus line produced this pop-up manifestation.

Moreover, asteroid Butler at 23 Pisces is at station, making it an embedded factor for the timeframe, exhibiting outsized importance and influence on events.  Butler is turning retrograde on July 17^th, and is sandwiched between Saturn (the presidency, also ancient lord of death) at 19 Pisces and Neptune (zealotry and fanaticism, unstable mental states, conspiracy) at 29 Pisces.  Butler also squares the 15 Sagittarius Ascendant for the shooting, and exactly squares asteroid Farmer (for the Butler Farm Show setting) at 23 Sagittarius, opposed asteroid Mathieu at 20 Virgo (Matthew is shooter’s middle name), in a T-Square with asteroid Karma 3811 at 24 Gemini, a fated point which involves payment for prior bad acts. Transit Butler is also squared Trump’s Sun at 22 Gemini, and conjoined his natal asteroid Gunn at 25 Pisces; natal asteroid Butler at 27 Cancer conjoins natal Saturn/Karma at 23 Cancer.

Also angular on the Horizontal Axis is asteroid Assafin at 12 Sagittarius on the Ascendant, opposed asteroid Troemper 28130 (our celestial referent for The Donald) at 16 Gemini, with asteroid Lachesis 120 (named for the mythic Greek Fate who determines the span of life) at 17 Gemini, on the 15 Gemini Descendant.  Jupiter here at 10 Gemini displays the political nature of the act, and also provides the positive outcome of the near miss from what could have been a fatal shot.  Just barely conjunct the Descendant is asteroid Gunn at 6 Gemini, in close square to asteroid Donn 4689 (for Donald) with Damocles 5335 (the doom or peril hanging unseen overhead; shooter was in an elevated position) at 2 and 4 Pisces. Asteroid BAM 2031 at 9 Virgo (the onomatopoetic sound of a gunshot) completes a T-Square.

Asteroid Thomas (for shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks) at 5 Aries is also angular, exactly conjoined the 5 Aries IC (giving Thomas Crooks prominence in the moment), in square to TNO Ixion at 4 Capricorn (murder), with a T-Square formed by opposition to asteroid NOT 2857 at 2 Libra on the 5 Libra MC.  NOT is a general disqualifier or symbol of negation, so the effect here is of an unsuccessful (NOT) murder attempt (Ixion) by a Thomas (Crooks), which is highly visible (MC, the point of highest elevation in a chart, the focus of all eyes) and powerful in the moment (angularity).  TNO Chaos 19521 (confusion, disorder, bedlam) at 2 Cancer makes this a Grand Cross, and the post-shooting scene was indeed chaotic, with people scrambling for safety.

Pluto (modern lord of death and planetary ruler of homicide) at 1 Aquarius opposes asteroid Whitehouse 4036 at 9 Leo, associated with presidents current and former.  Also here is asteroid Cori 6175 at 9 Leo, representing victim Corey Comperatore, a local firefighter killed by a stray bullet.  Remarkable to find his asteroid exactly conjunct Whitehouse, representing the intended victim, marking him as a sort of sacrificial lamb, a surrogate for Trump.

In addition to Mars (now at 25 Taurus) and Uranus (at 26) conjunct Trump’s natal MC at 24 Taurus, we see asteroid Requiem 2254 in exact conjunction.  Requiem is named for the funeral mass for the dead, showing the potential for a highly visible (MC) death (Requiem) from a firearm-based (Mars) assassination (Uranus).  This cluster also squares asteroid Nemesis 128 at 24 Leo, a symbol of ruin or destruction.

The Moon at 21 Libra is just minutes away from its first quarter waxing square to the Sun at 21 Cancer, an aspect known as a crisis of action.  With the Moon is asteroid Evans at 23 Libra, for the Evans City Road location.

My thanks to dwarf planet expert Sue Kientz for supplying me with birth data for the shooter.  Thomas Mathieu Crooks was a registered Republican, his voter registration listing 20 September 2003 as his date of birth (no time available).

Incredibly, the Sun at 27 Virgo conjoins both asteroid Troemper at 28 Virgo, and Assafin at 24!  That just says it all, doesn’t it?  Someone who will now forever be defined as a would-be Trump assassin has his self-defining Sun conjoined points which describe his target and his attempt.  The Sun is further enmeshed in a T-Square with asteroid Nemesis at 24 Sagittarius (conjunct the Ascendant/Farmer of the shooting) and asteroids Mathieu and Karma at 23 and 25 Gemini (conjunct the Karma of the shooting).  So Crooks had just experienced a “Karma Return” which had set off the entire natal pattern, a moment of meeting his destiny.

The Sun is also conjunct dwarf planet Makemake at 19 Virgo, and again we turn to Sue Kientz for clarification.  She assigns an “unpredictable” energy to this point, saying it can also express as the “wacky-wacky,” something unhinged or explosively shocking.  She further cites Makemake’s key placements on 9/11 and at Pearl Harbor as evidence that attacks with a Makemake signature often come from above.  In this case, Crooks fired from an elevated position, and Makemake for his attack was at 8 Libra, on the 5 Libra MC and opposed asteroid Thomas at 5 Aries.

Also remarkably, Crooks sports a natal conjunction of Uranus and Mars, at 29 Aquarius and 0 Pisces, reflecting the transit conjunction, which squares it.  Also here, an exact pairing of asteroids Whitehouse and NOT at 21 Aquarius, exactly squared natal asteroid Anubis 1912 at 21 Scorpio, named for the ancient Egyptian deity governing funerary rites.  We see there the failed (NOT) attempt to kill (Anubis) a former US president (Whitehouse), using a firearm (Mars) to assassinate (Uranus).  Asteroid Thomas at 15 Scorpio ties to this pattern as well, making it highly personal and, as with a solar connection, somehow self-defining.

But what stands out most is a T-Square in low-mid degrees of Mutable Signs, which overlays similar placements from the shooting.  Natal Jupiter at 5 Virgo anchors the pattern, conjoined by asteroids Butler and Evans (the venue and the address) at 5 and 9 Virgo (with transit asteroid BAM also here at 9 Virgo).  This opposes natal Mars with asteroid Gunn at 0 and 10 Pisces, aligned with transit Donn/Damocles at 2 and 4 Pisces for the assassination attempt on Trump.  On the fulcrum is TNO Ixion (murder) at 6 Sagittarius, conjoined transit Assafin at 12 Sag.  Transit Gunn and Jupiter at 6 and 10 Gemini makes this a Grand Cross.

Additional connections to the transit chart include asteroid Rip (a death indicator in the form of the acronym RIP, “Rest In Peace,” a common tombstone inscription), conjoined the 15 Sagittarius Ascendant, and accompanied by natal Pluto at 17 Sag, indicating homicide.  Natal asteroid Osiris 1923 at 24 Leo (named for the Egyptian god of the dead) is an exact match for transit Nemesis, suggesting that Crooks would bring down a self-created ruin (Nemesis) on himself by his act, resulting in his death (Osiris).  Natal Osiris is also squared exactly by transit Requiem, as well as Mars and Uranus. 

Natal Farmer at 22 Cancer is highlighted by the transit Sun and Moon at 21 Cancer and Libra, and squares natal asteroid Atropos 273 at 29 Libra, named for the Fate who severs the thread of life at death, an indication of his own mortality at the Farm Show.   This becomes a T-Square with natal asteroid Donn at 18 Capricorn, identifying his intended target.  Note also that the Sun conjoins Trump’s natal Saturn/Karma conjunction at 23 Cancer, suggesting death (Saturn) for his prior acts (Karma), with Crooks presumably taking offense to something Trump did, or feared he might do (though his actual motive has yet to be determined).  Natal Nemesis at 24 Sagittarius conjoined transit Farmer at 23 Sagittarius reinforces the sense of self-destruction at that venue.

Oddly, natal Venus at 6 Libra is aligned with the 5 Libra MC for the shooting, opposing Thomas.  Associated with beauty, harmony and love, at first blush Venus in this placement makes little sense, until we reflect that Venus also rules our values, and in taking to that rooftop to assassinate Trump, Crooks was expressing his value system to the full for all to see.

The upcoming Lunar Eclipse of 17 September at 25 Pisces will oppose Thomas Matthew Crooks’ natal stellium of Sun/Troemper/Assafin.  Perhaps that building pressure impelled him to take action on a potential that had been bequeathed him at birth.