In this week’s premium members’ edition of Planet Waves, Eric delves into perhaps the most compelling leg of the April grand cross: Pluto in Capricorn. You may read the entire issue, which includes this week’s horoscopes for all 12 signs, through a single-issue purchase. Or, sign up for a free one-month trial membership here, and you’ll be covered through next month’s exciting developments.
Urgh, Jude, you really know how to make me feel old. Mount Saint Helens had completely slipped my mind – and I even climbed it, post eruption! Yes, that was by far the worst, and the long buildup certainly contributed to the victim count. I can hear them now, “Nothing’s going to happen, so let’s go up there” justifications. As I recall, only a handful of people were in the blast zone with permission, the rest refusing (like poor old Harry) or just driving round the ‘back way.’
I missed the eruption: I had just been transferred to San Francisco for the last two years of my Coast Guard service in April, going there from Port Angeles. I missed the whole thing, which is maybe why it didn’t come to mind.
Sigh. Too many years…
The Uranus-Pluto square has been discussed in so many contexts, but this tragic mudslide in Washington is certainly one where, as humans, we feel totally helpless. This is nature ripping the foundations out from under us, not a financial system or a political scandal.
I’m hoping the evolutionary forces at work will contribute to healing these huge disparities between what happens in reality, and what is right in theory. If the homes on this hillside were not insured against mudslides, then that points to (yet another) glaring problem in insurance policies. When government and industry make irresponsible decisions, we suffer.
By the way, E, a pleasure to be reminded of Fiddler, of the joys of musicals past. Profound experiences, all, and it pains me that they are no longer in fashion for our young ones to treasure. At least once a week, here with the clannish folk — and especially if I travel the few miles to the Dutch Market and watch the Amish deal with the public — I see hands waving over lit candles in my mind, hear, “Strengthen them, Oh Lord, and keep them from the strangers’ ways.”
I think I knew those people, Brendan — or at least, know the type. For reasons that smack of group karma, I’ve lived in a number of these kinds of “spit in their eye” zones, which includes the Pea Patch as a hard-scrabble remnant of Hillbilly consciousness distrustful of Revenuer’s and other gub’mt types. The problems you describe — the kind that sets the EPA’s hair on fire — are still going on here, and I’m sure, there.
When I lived in Spokane WA (on the outskirts, in the tall trees) there was similar attitude and a sense that everyone minded their OWN business — nobody else’s, if they were smart. In short, all the “country’ism’s” applied. Me and mine bought twenty acres in Deer Park just three weeks prior to Mt. Saint Helen’s erupting, then went back to Southern Ca. Moved up permanently two years later, and the ash was still swirling on the side of the road when you drove past.
As for natural disasters, MSH is right up there with WA worst; 57 lives lost, not counting the ones that occurred from breathing complications over the next months, and certainly enormous destruction to property. Thank God/dess the area was not more populated.
St. Helens really WAS natural, not manipulated, although anyone building on the side of a volcano has to take the inevitable into account. Remember octogenarian Harry Truman, who lived at his resort on Spirit Lake with over a dozen cats? Even when the dome began to bulge, Harry refused to leave. The volcano hadn’t erupted in 123 years, but he saw it coming and made his decision. Looking at the topography in Oso, you’ve got to wonder if the locals weren’t at least subliminally aware, themselves. So sad. I’d like to see some of the developers and those who made it easy for them held responsible.
Great edition as usual, E — merci.
Brendan’s story reminds me of my brother’s girlfriend from years ago. She was from Hazard County KY, and told us about the time a new highway was coming through, close to their farm. Her father kept shooting at the bulldozers, so he was arrested and kept in jail until the highway was finished; and then he was released. I am convinced this attitude began with ancestral indentured servants, especially the Irish Catholics who were nearly starved out of existence – but there were also many poor English among the ranks. Talk about fractured families, maybe it is one more thing that needs to be remembered, then forgiven. Unfortunately, it is still considered acceptable to make fun of anyone with a southern accent. I know another man, college degreed and works for the Dept of Natural Resources, who told me that when he went to purchase and pay cash for $12,000 in lumber for a building project, the cashier heard his accent and then began speaking to him slowly and condescendingly so he could understand her. He was quite upset.
Brendan: Thank you for your comprehensive (not long-winded) and informed elaboration on the complexities beneath what once was an unstable hillside, and is now a tragedy. The situation along the Stillaguamish is not (and never was) simple and straightforward. Nevertheless, it is clear that most (if not all) of those who reaped profit in denial of hazard were not among those who paid the ultimate price when the hazard could no longer be plausibly denied. May the innocent be redeemed, may those who mourn the innocent be comforted.
What a remarkable story Brenden, so glad you shared with us. Mother Nature doesn’t take kindly to abuse anymore it appears. So sorry for your friend/co-worker’s loss.
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Eric, your overview of Pluto in Capricorn in today’s edition was outstanding. Excellent work!
Thank you for the discussion of the Oso landslide, Eric. I know the area well: my family had a riverside parcel just half a mile west of Oso proper for many years, and I spent many, many summer days there camping and loafing in my earlier years.
It is a peaceful and fairly serene valley in the summer months, but the winter and spring seasons are cold, gray, and very wet as you well know. The valley is one of the narrowest there is western Washington, and the hills close in the farther into the mountains you go. The play of clouds, hills, and rain in the cold months can be beautiful, so mystical that one can be reminded of ancient Japanese prints by artists of the Shogunate period, and it is easy to be transported to a different time and place.
You wonder why people were allowed to build where they did in spite of the geologists? Here’s my take, which is based on some knowledge of Snohomish county. The upper Stillaguamish Valley (and the town of Darrington further east of Oso) was broadly settled in the early 1900’s by loggers and farmers who were a fairly libertarian bunch. In the teen’s and 20’s they were bolstered by large numbers of Tarheels who came from Applachia via the Ozarks. Moonshiners, rebels, what have you, they were decidedly anti-government – and still are. Their descendants today do not trust any branch of government, and have been very hostile in word and action towards any government agency for decades.
We sold our parcel because of a neighboring parcel had been bought by one the descendants. They had bulldozed their entire parcel clear of trees and brush and installed a double-wide trailer on it. Their offspring were running wild on our parcel, slashing trees and brush, vandalizing a picnic table and bench that had been there for over 20 years. They were quite shocked when we ordered them off our property as trespassers and they remained rather combative for each interaction until we were gone several years later.
What was most galling was their septic tank. It was illegally installed on the river bottom, a clear violation of county, state, and federal law. The county never inspected the planned location, and simply signed off on it. Why, may you ask? We were told by a surveyor we hired that the county did not inspect anything in the northeast of the county: they did not want to get shot. So these modern day slash and burn settlers got away with a serious violation of environmental law scot-free. No agency would do anything for us, no matter what we said.
Karma, however, had another plan. About 6 years ago, after we had sold the parcel to our neighbors on the east side (who were quite nice and abhorred the others), the river took things into her own hands and took care of it. She wiggled hard in a northerly direction at a bend and put her channel right on top of the septic tank, tearing it out of the soil and sending it downstream one stormy winter. No septic tank, no living there. The obnoxious neighbors had to move on: there was nowhere to set up a percolation field on their remaining upland property, and the county refused to allow a new one. Heh heh.
No one should have built on Steelhead Lane at all in the last twenty years or more. But, no one who knew the geography and geology of the area actually had the authority to refuse private property owners the right to build in that area. The only people that could have actually done anything were the insurers, who had they known, probably would not have insured anyone’s home in the area. I understand from Seattle media that it is most likely no one had landslide insurance, so the survivors may be out everything. Which brings in FEMA: they may be the only entity that can provide fiscal aid of any kind other than private donations. So much the anti-government stance…
I have been horrified and saddened by this incident. The young friend of a former co-worker is among the missing along with her fiancee, no word as of yet about them. They were to be married at her parent’s house in the stricken area this summer. As much as I can recall of my birth state’s history, this has the potential to be the single greatest natural disaster in the state since white settlers began arriving in the early 1800’s. I don’t think anyone will live there again. Sorry to be so long-winded.
Thank you, Eric, for everything from the anchor back to Pluto (and last week’s masterful lead piece, which you have now released for all of us to read) to a closer look at Mercury. It’s as though you have condensed the entire solar system (and world) into this week’s subscriber edition with both creative continuity and what Strawberry cogently commented said as well.
Of course, the horoscopes remain to be my favorite – best in the world.
Eric, they’re going to have to create a new word for this thing you do: the unrelenting call to a heightened impeccability in awareness, personal responsibility, & social conscience, based on the astrology of the moment. Your work goes far beyond the astrology, without leaving us flopping about helplessly in new-age “therapy.”
You’re doing something great here, Eric.