2004 annual horoscope
from Planet Waves

NOAA

My original idea for aquasphere was to create an astro-meets-eco projet to explore the nearly simultaneous ingress of two massive planets, Saturn and Uranus, into the water signs Cancer and Pisces, and their connection with the ecological themes of water that are gradually (i.e., in the manner of water) moving toward the forefront of critical issues facing our world. Forefront is the wrong word. The forefront is shielded by a veil known as the television screen, studded with nauseating commercials and haircuts pretending to be journalists.

At the last major historical turning points -- late 2000, late summer 2001 and the approach to war in early 2003 -- the dominant elemental energy was air. Now it is water. Water allows us to feel, but, as Jeanne Treadway explains in her essay We Are Water, the emotional realm is the scene of all the manipulation we endure. That's how we can be so smart, and so manipulated at the same time. Emotional manipulation bypasses intelligence.

Planets in the water signs will no doubt fuel manipulation, and they will also foster sensitivity to it. Then we get to decide what to do.

In addition to Uranus in Pisces and Saturn in Cancer, we also have the newly discovered planet Varuna, the pre-Vedic lord of waters, oceans, rains and storms, on a long trip through the sign Cancer, where Saturn has been recently in a long conjunction to it, and where Chiron has opposed it from Capricorn.

Varuna is depicted carrying a noose. He takes revenge on liars. He has the ability to bestow immortality. He can knock you down to dust and he can raise you up from the dust. He is presently conjunct George W. Bush's natal Sun and the natal Sun in the July 4, 1776 chart.

Once held as the supereme creation god before being demoted to the (theoretically lesser) god of waters, his name was given to a planet discovered orbiting our Sun out past Pluto in 2000. Varuna is back, in all his forms, with a lot of energy.

It seems like water is suddenly all over the celestial symbolism, which is a big change from many previous years.

Some of us learned quite a lot about water in the process of researching the articles for this site. Uncovering the connections between the psychological and emotional issues we face at our complicated time in history, and linking them and the global water crisis, seems a worthy metaphor. Though it's been going on a lot longer than these recent transits, most people I know have never heard of any global water crisis. Heck, I just flushed the toilet, and it was working fine.


LET'S LOOK at a few world water facts in this age of water.

"Water covers about two-thirds of the Earth's surface, admittedly. But most is too salty for use," reports the BBC. "Only 2.5% of the world's water is not salty, and two-thirds of that is locked up in the icecaps and glaciers. Of what is left, about 20% is in remote areas, and much of the rest arrives at the wrong time and place, as monsoons and floods.
Humans have available less than 0.08% of all the Earth's water."

''Meanwhile," reports the Inter Press Service, "there is no more freshwater on Earth than there was 2,000 years ago, when population was three percent of its current size."

"Already one person in five has no access to safe drinking water," the BBC reports.

"By 2025, demand for water will outstrip supply by more than 50 percent," reports Capital.net. "Some say this will eventually overshadow oil as a threat to international security."

How about this.

"The continent's largest aquifer, the Ogallala, a subterranean reservoir the size of Lake Huron stretching from South Dakota to Texas, is being pumped out eight times faster than nature can resupply it," says Capital.net. "That will soon leave Great Plains farmers high and dry."

Contrast that with a bit of history, told by Europa.eu:

"The most sophisticated forms of water harvesting consist of groundwater tappings, including the famous qanats originating in Iran some 3,000 years ago. Qanats or kariz are tunnels dug into uphill aquifers conducting water by gravity to use in lowlands. The system spread to the Middle and Near East as far as Algeria (foggara), Morocco (khottara) and into Andalusia (madjirat), but is also known from China and sites in Mexico, Peru and Northern Chile. These systems were enabled by strong community organisation and were sustainable because they could only withdraw as much as was replenished through the water cycle. Until the advent of cheap motor pumps, particularly since the 1970s, these tunnels were maintained and functional. They still account for significant shares of water supplies in Iran and elsewhere."

And some modern history, told by the Environmental Protection Agency and culled from the World Health Organization web site:

As of 2001, "Environment Protection Agency of The United States of America has estimated that some 13 million of the population of USA, mostly in the western states, are exposed to arsenic in drinking-water at 0.01 mg/L, although concentrations appear to be typically much lower than those encountered in areas such as Bangladesh and West Bengal."

Arsenic, you know: rat poison.

The oceans are in trouble too, and they have been for a while:

"Bottom trawling and dredging, two widespread but under-studied methods of commercial fishing, are the most destructive human activity affecting the world's oceans, according to new scientific studies released Monday," reports OneWorld.org. ''Each year, trawlers drag an area of seabed twice the size of the continental United States. Like a forest, the seabed is a complex ecosystem that provides habitat and food essential for the reproduction and growth of fisheries and other marine life. Trawling and dredging destroys these structures -- which can take decades and even centuries to fully recover, according to the studies."

There is very little fresh water on the planet, but most of what's available seems to be going fast. According to Scorecard.org:

"In its National Water Quality Inventory: 1998 Report to Congress, EPA concludes that 40 percent of the nation's assessed waterways remain too polluted for fishing and swimming. Over 290,000 miles of 840,000 miles of assessed rivers and streams do not meet water quality standards. EPA also assessed nearly half of all lakes, reservoirs and ponds, finding nearly half polluted. Of the Great Lakes, 90 percent of their shoreline miles were assessed; of those, 96 percent of the shoreline miles indicated pollution exceeding water quality standards to protect human health."

So we stand at the beginning of seven years of Uranus in Pisces.