In April and May, I wrote Sharon Stone would have a difficult and emotionally frustrating year due to her current planetary influences.

No doubt 2008 has been a difficult year for Sharon Stone. She has recently lost joint custody of her 8 years old adopted son to her ex-husband, Phil Bronstein, who lives in San Francisco. Despite the court documents, Stone's lawyer insists the actress, who lives in Los Angeles, still has joint physical custody of Roan.

Stone, 50, and Bronstein, 57, divorced in early 2004 after six years of marriage. Separated for several years, they were pursuing an endless court battle over their son. The Mars/Pluto opposition in her Solar Return chart is also very representative of her battle, since Mars and Pluto represent very strong pulling and conflicting energies.

New Moons are times of new beginnings, the start of a new cycle in life when fresh new energies are available to you.

It’s usually an excellent time to start something new, such as a project or an endeavour. New Moons – Sun and Moon in the same sign – occurs two weeks after the Full Moon.

Today’s New Moon in Libra brings the focus on to all kinds of relationship: personal, business, friendship, family and intimate ones. Libras born between September 23rd and October 9th will be particularly given a boost.

Hollywood movie legend Paul Newman has died on Friday, at the age of 83, after a battle with lung cancer.

The American Academy award actor was nominated 10 times, received an Honorary Oscar for his career in 1986, won an Oscar as the Best Actor in 1987 for 'The Color of Money' and appeared in 80 films in a career that spanned 60 years. Paul Newman retired from acting in May 2007.

The American icon was also a businessman but for good causes, giving tens of millions of dollars to charities through his food company, Newman's Own. His face was seen on the vinaigrette bottles he created. His involvement with charity came from his humanitarian and universal Aquarian Sun, his sensitive and caring Pisces Moon and his generous Venus-Jupiter conjunction on his businesswise Capricorn ascendant.

On September 15th, on the day of the Uranian Pisces Full Moon, it was originally reported 1,320 babies were ill from the melamine-tainted formula milk in China.

Now over 53,000 Chinese babies have been poisoned by the intoxicated milk. Most of these children are under 2 years old.

Melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastics and fertilizer was deliberately added to the baby milk by dairy giant Sanlu Group and 22 other companies, to give the appearance of higher protein levels.

This industrial chemical is said to cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure. Four babies have so far died from the contaminated milk, over 109 babies are seriously ill with kidney failure, 13,000 remains in hospital, and 40,000 have been treated as outpatients.

Mercury, the planet of communication and movement, is retrograde through October 15th.

It is common-knowledge amongst astrologers the Retrograde of Mercury is not a time to sign contracts, open a business, start new projects or buy electronic equipment, as problems, delays and unexpected glitches are likely to arise.

The Mercury Retrograde phase happens three times a year for three weeks. During this time, you need to allocate time for yourself to process and digest all the information you have learned recently. It is usually a time to slow down, review your ideas, figure things out, see things from a more internal perspective and revise and re-evaluate your plans.

'We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything more.'

Carl Gustav Jung (1875 - 1961)

This week, through the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the bail out of insurance giant AIG by the Federal Reserve and the speedy acquisitions of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America and Lloyds TSB by HBOS, we have witnessed the start of Pluto's breakdown phase.

The financial turbulence and chaos on the global stock markets coincided with the arrival of the unsettling Saturn/Uranus opposition, Pluto and Jupiter's stationery direct motions and the culminating and destabilizing Uranian Pisces Full Moon. Add to the mixture, transiting Mars quincunx to Uranus, and Uranus opposite the Sun/Saturn midpoint, and we have a recipe for more unpredictability, uncertainty and nervous tension.

Freddy Mercury, Barry White, Ray Charles, Peter Sellers, Greta Garbo, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Mother Teresa, Roald Dahl, Agatha Christie, D.H. Lawrence, Goethe and Tolstoy were all very talented people and connoisseurs in their respective professions, all born under the sign of the discriminator and the perfectionist.

If your birth date falls between August 22nd - 23rd and September 22nd - 23rd, your Sun is in the Sign of Virgo.

Your ruler, Mercury, known as Hermes by the Greeks, was the 'Messenger of the Gods' on Mount Olympus. Mercury, the planet of communication - rules the signs of Virgo and Gemini.

Today the Full Moon in Pisces is called a Harvest Full Moon as it is the closest to the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.

This particular Full Moon (Sun and Moon opposition) has a great significance not only as it marks a seasonal time, but also as both the luminaries are conjunct to an outer planet.

The energy of the Full Moon is intensified by the pull between the two outer planets Saturn, planet of structure and stability, and Uranus, planet of change and the unexpected, since the Sun-Saturn (conscious - stability and structure) conjunction opposed the Moon-Uranus (unconscious - instability and unpredictability).

JUPITER & PLUTO DIRECT

If you feel you have been stuck in the past few months and nothing much has moved, the good news is with Jupiter, the large planet, and Pluto, the planet of deep transformation, now stationery direct since September 8th and 9th, and unleashing powerful energies, things should start to move forward now.

THE SATURN/JUPITER CYCLE: A TIME OF CONSOLIDATION

The two traditional 'political' planets, Saturn, the planet of consolidation and structure makes a harmonious aspect to Jupiter, planet of luck and expansion (exact on September 8th and on November 21st). This suggests that the laws (Jupiter) are well-integrated within the structures (Saturn). This is a time of consolidation where new laws may be conceived, promulgated or put forward.