ONE IMAGE keeps haunting me from this week's journalism,
spun by William Rivers Pitt at truthout.org -- that of presidential advisor
Karl Rove standing on the roof of the White House in a magician's hat and
cape, with a big staff, conjuring Hurricane Katrina. Given the witch-hunt
against climate change scientists reported in The Guardian earlier this
week, that may not be far from the truth (links below, in blue).
On its face, this storm happened at a brilliantly convenient time for world
managers who thrive on chaos and distraction, right in the midst of the
first meaningful protests against the catastrophic Iraq war gaining momentum
-- and with George Bush's approval ratings lower than any president since
Nixon at the height of Watergate. If you recall, moments before Katrina
arrived, we were in a reflective, concerned moment as the situation in
Iraq descended into worse condition than even staunch pessimists predicted.
The US military death toll is near 2,000, and the number of journalists
killed in the 30-month conflict has exceeded that of two decades in Vietnam.
New, uncontrolled violence takes more Iraqi lives by the day, and sometimes
by the hour.
Public attention has now been swayed to a domestic emergency the like
of which we have not seen since Sept. 11, 2001. But New Orleans makes
what happened four years ago in New York City seem rather dim by comparison,
in terms of the number of lives devastated, loss of life, and the destruction
of homes. An entire major city has been taken out, not 16 acres of one
and the surrounding buildings.
The difference now is, there's no one to blame, no emotions of hatred
and enmity of some alien outsider to whip up and use to dial in the team
spirit -- and the disaster happened to a poor, predominantly black city
instead of at the heart of the world's financial and banking operations.
Deprived of our prerogative to get revenge, we may actually have to pay
attention.
News channels are reporting a state of urban warfare, and troops have
consent to shoot and kill American citizens. Police officers are turning
in their badges. Scanning the news reports reveals that people are still
trapped in the city, on rooftops and in high-rises, and thousands are starving.
The condition is deteriorating to the point where vigilante sniper fire
at recovery personnel has been reported. Is this even vaguely possible?
Who, stranded in their own city, would shoot at rescue workers just for
the hell of it?
There is no drinking water. Bodies are everywhere. Widespread disease
will be inevitable. Tens of thousands of refugees are still left behind
at the Superdome and the Convention Center as people die before the eyes
of onlookers. The city remains completely flooded because breached levees
and overwhelmed pumping stations have made it impossible to remove the
water. Due to a breached levee, water from Lake Pontchartrain is still
flowing into the city. The stories of cuts to budgets for maintaining
these structures only makes one feel sick, in hindsight.
It's starting to make the tsunami look good.
CNN reported Thursday that a police officer working in downtown New Orleans
said police were siphoning gas from abandoned vehicles in an effort to
keep their squad cars running, like a detail straight from the mind of
Stephen King.
Incredibly, no organized relief program appears visible. Indeed, police
have received federal orders to privilege stopping looters against delivering
aid and searching for survivors. In other words: the priority (as we
have so often come to expect) is to protect property, though it would
seem there is little property left to even bother with. The effect: poor
blacks can die. What we are witnessing is beyond incompetence at this
stage, and is approaching the level of genocide.
It is important to remember that cities are highly toxic environments,
and floods release everything that is usually contained, or held at the
bottom or rivers and lakes, into the general environment. Containers and
pipes burst. Fires cannot be controlled. In addition, the Mississippi Delta,
thanks to generations of contamination by Monsanto, is one of the most
dioxin-tainted areas in the world. Though it may not be acknowledged, there
is likely to be a serious dioxin problem in New Orleans and nearby areas
right now, and for generations to come.
In my mind's eye, I am seeing this unfold along another strand of time.
A fully financed, well prepared Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
would be on the job years before the hurricane made landfall, as this was
a predictable event, contrary to recent assertions. (Indeed, FEMA is being
absorbed into Homeland Security and damaged by budget cuts.) Hundreds of
Coast Guard helicopters from coastal states and many others would be bringing
supplies, and getting those most in need to medical help. Old Army bases,
so recently closed by budget cuts, would be used as massive relief centers,
complete with airstrips, bathrooms and mess halls. Sports facilities, with
all their problems, would not have to be used as refugee camps. America's
standing Army and National Guard units, themselves not trapped in the disasters
of Iraq and Afghanistan, would be widely available to assist, with all
their equipment, rations, supplies and other resources.
There would be enough manpower. There would be plenty of money for the
operation; America is the richest country in the world. Which may be
the problem.
But this is not happening in a different time, under different national
leadership: it is happening now. And due to the damaged oil-refining
infrastructure along the Gulf Coast, the effects of this storm will be
rippling, or ripping, into the world economy. The price of gasoline has
suddenly risen well beyond $3.00 per gallon many places in the U.S.,
and has exceeded $6.00 per gallon at some retail outlets in the south.
Apparently, many places in the southeast have no gas at all. We are hearing
the first calls for fuel conservation since the mid-1970s.
Generally, this is the one thing that can key people into the fact that
something is wrong; America's real religion is practiced at the filling
station, and nearly all of its transportation energy comes from petroleum.
But it's becoming obvious many more ways that something else is wrong.
Imagine if this were a multiple city emergency -- that is, if the damage
were to more than one city. Imagine if the casualty toll were higher. Are
we now to understand that the federal government is incapable of responding
to an emergency? It would seem so.
The Astrology
As I've reported elsewhere [please see cainer.com], a dominant image of
Saturn in Leo (which began six weeks ago, on July 16) is that of dams bursting.
For some reason, when Saturn changes from water sign Cancer to fire sign
Leo, structures that hold back bodies of water (and in one famous instance,
hundreds of tons of molasses) tend to give way, often with catastrophic
effects. While we are seeing the results of a huge cyclone, we're also
seeing those of failed levees -- many of them.
You might call this a watershed event. In looking for Saturn imagery,
we find plenty working in the chart of the City of New Orleans, but it's
difficult to miss the fact that Saturn is now crossing the so-called
president's ascendant.
As I've also said elsewhere, this would be the big turning point for
the non-president's career, with a wave of awareness really coalescing
about nine months to the day after the inauguration. In addition, I proposed
a couple of months ago that "something is up with the price of gold" --
in this case, black gold, petroleum, the blood of our society. But let's
come back to that later.
Libra is the astonishing connection that three key charts, the City of
New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, and Mr. Bush, have in common. Also looking
at a fourth chart, the progressed horoscope for the city, we find the
same effect -- Libra is the dominant energy, with its quest for justice,
balance, rebalancing and sensitivity.
Between these four charts, there are 17 major planets and points
in Libra. And a solar eclipse in Libra is coming in just one month, nestled nicely
into the action. This is followed by a lunar eclipse in Aries two weeks
later, precisely aligned with many critical factors in Aries, Libra,
Cancer and Capricorn.
We are in a situation that's going to develop rapidly, in large, significant
ways and, as all eclipses do, come with events that do their work on
a global scale. Most of the effects of this will be in October -- when
the chart for the presidential inauguration comes thundering to life
and the media begins to put the many pieces of this rather large, surreal
puzzle together.
Cosmic Trigger One: Venus conjunct Jupiter
Between this past Monday, when Katrina made landfall, and today, Venus
in Libra crossed the Moon's South Node and formed a conjunction to Jupiter.
This was one important cosmic trigger of what happened in New Orleans,
a kind of collective ignition point that released the considerable energy
of Venus, Libra and what you might call the Goddess. This conjunction actually
affects everything both in Libra and on the entire cardinal cross (Aries,
Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn), which is heavily loaded in these charts.
Venus is now on course for a conjunction to Pallas Athene early next
week, the planet of protection, politics and strategy. We may see a shift
in the political climate with this activity, which occurs over the weekend
-- a rising expectation that something reasonable or strategic has to
happen.
Neptune has been involved in this setup: the Venus-Jupiter conjunction
is trine the most watery planet, in the sign Aquarius.
Chiron in Capricorn is a prominent factor in this configuration. The
city's chart has this placement, showing up in many square aspects to
the Libra planets all of the charts. Chiron in Capricorn is the "post
9/11 factor," a consistent element between late 2001 and today (though
the transition to Aquarius began earlier this year, Chiron is now back
in Capricorn). Chiron in Capricorn has shaped up to be an extremely painful
lesson in government, its conduct and its power. Chiron has a way of
shining the light in the dark places, exposing what is in the shadows
-- and in Capricorn on the collective scale, there is plenty.
What we have here is a lot of action in the cardinal signs, including
two of the most important global factors, lunar nodes (in cardinal signs)
and eclipses. The cardinal signs are the initiation points, and they
are the points of public contact. The nodes, as do eclipses and cardinal
signs, tend to bring in large numbers of people and events that act like "attractors" or
points of contact.
And Two: Uranus and Pluto -- and Prometheus
One of the most remarkable events of these charts occurs in the sign Pisces,
and it is outstanding both for its symbolism and precision. In the City
of New Orleans chart, Pluto is located at 8 degrees Pisces and 53 arc minutes.
In the chart for landfall, transiting Uranus is located exactly in
this degree and arc minute. An arc minute is 1/60th of a degree. This is an
exact, to the minute, transit involving two outer planets that, together,
are associated with upheavals, revolutions, breakthroughs and social movements.
Indeed, many of the great revolutionary movements of the past few centuries
have happened under Uranus-Pluto aspects, and the word "revolution" itself
was invented under this astrology. When you think Uranus and Pluto, think
uranium and plutonium.
To convey the feeling of this on the social level, there was recently
a long conjunction of transiting Uranus to transiting Pluto that we think
of in its entirety as "the Sixties." The revolutionary quality
of this conjunction is related beautifully, using many cycles of history,
in the book Prometheus the Awakener by Richard Tarnas, which title is
the subject of an accidental discovery made by Lise LePage, who has been
handing research on this article.
In his book, Tarnas argues that the planet Uranus should really have
been named Prometheus, after one of the Greek gods of creation. The energy
of Prometheus, who gave the fire of the gods to mankind, is precisely
the kind of sudden awakening energy that is associated with Uranus. Under
the influence of this idea, many astrologers who have gone over the author's
historical research and mythological theory are content to think of Uranus
as Promethean energy (most say uranian, meaning the same thing -- high
voltage and rebellious). And this, I suggested in an email to Lise, referencing
the title of the book.
Lise misunderstood, and thinking I was referencing the asteroid Prometheus,
promptly put that into the city's natal chart -- and discovered that
it's in the same degree as Pluto in the natal chart for New Orleans.
So, in its basic, inherent makeup, New Orleans has the asteroid Prometheus
conjunct evolutionary mover Pluto in Pisces, to the degree. And the city
was destroyed, setting off a chain of events that will seem quite nuclear
in hindsight, as Uranus made a to-the-minute conjunction to Pluto (something
that happens with this precision for a total of three times for just
12 hours every 84 years).
Checking the Sabian symbol for this degree (9 Pisces), Dane Rudhyar gives
the keywords "self-quickening," a rather energetic image considering
the astrology that degree contains in these charts. In all, we're looking
at an enormous release of energy.
Saturn in Leo
Now we come to Saturn in Leo, a critical era-defining astrological factor
for the next three years, and probably well into the future. What happens
under Saturn in Leo tends to be extraordinarily stable and have lasting
effects, often for many decades or longer.
The city's chart has numerous placements in early Leo and Aquarius, including
the Part of Fortune (calculated for noon), a rather precise opposition
of Mars in Leo and Mercury in Aquarius, and Venus in Aquarius. This is
a grand opposition, which (thank the gods) is trined by Jupiter in Sagittarius.
That trine from Jupiter is what I'll call the "it could be worse" aspect.
Jupiter in Sagittarius, trine the personal planets and trine transiting
Saturn, is acting as a protective influence.
Note also that the Chiron-Nessus conjunction in early Aquarius that has
been in effect for much of this year. Another era-defining event, this
conjunction
But Saturn in Leo is rather personal event for Mr. Bush, as it is for
anyone whose ascendant it crosses. Under this combination of factors,
when it's angular (that is, in the ascendant), Saturn can act exactly
like Uranus, propelling sudden and unexpected movement, change, progress
or something like that. Saturn has not quite made it to the Bush ascendant,
which is 7 degrees and 7 arc minutes of Leo, but it does so the morning
of Sept. 12, 2005 (Washington, DC time).
New Orleans is very much his responsibility -- and the world is watching.
One thing that's clear is that Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent devastation
will not be a path of escape for those who have hijacked the government
and are holding it hostage. To the contrary, we all may be looking at
the one event that finally gets our attention, and tips the scales.++
-- Additional research & reporting by Lise
LePage in the US and Dan
Miller in the UK.
Witch
Hunt Against Climate Change Scientists
Brace for More Katrinas,
Scientists Say
FEMA Phased Out as Disasters Keep Coming
