Om Trayumbakam Yajamahe
Sughandhim Pushti Vardanam
Urvar-ukamiva Bandhanan Mrityor
Muksheeya Mamritat

Today the Sun is conjunct the discovery degree of Chiron. That is to say, on Nov. 1, 1977, when an astronomer named Charles Kowal, noticed Chiron in a photograph using something called a blink microsocope (Chiron was discovered under a microscope, looking at photographic plates made using a telescope) Chiron was in the 4th degree of Taurus. And that is where the Sun is today.

The Sabian symbol of this degree is “The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” which symbolizes the link between the mundane and the celestial order. This degree was given a touch of literary immortality in the title of Barbara Hand Clow’s book about Chiron, which has the subtitle “Rainbow bridge between the inner and outer planets.”

In 1977, Chiron was given the minor planet number 2060. Today the catalogue goes up to about 150,000 or so. That is a lot of discoveries in 32 years, particularly considering that the first one, Ceres, was discovered in 1801. So for the first 176 years there were 2060 asteroids and minor planets discovered, of which Chiron was by far the strangest; and between 1977 and today, we actually know of well over 200,000 — orbiting our own Sun — if you include the ones that have not been given permanent catalog numbers.

This being said, Chiron remains the one to watch if you want to understand how a small planet works. As Barbara, one of my old teachers, mentions in her book, Chiron provides a connecting point between the difficult to grasp energy of the outer planets, and the easier to understand but generally less meaningful energy of the inner planets. Out in the middle are Jupiter and Saturn (and a heck of a lot of new centaurs), and these two are what were called (starting in the 70s) the transpersonal planets, because they give us components in the psychological model known as astrology that help us bridge the inner world with the collective world.

Where Chiron fits in is giving all the planets, from Jupiter out through Pluto, a way we can observe, see and use them; or use them in different ways than we learned in the past. For example, Chiron gives us a way to go through the at times solid barrier of Saturn, and to use its structuring power to create a boundary. It can help us ground the energy of Uranus, which often feels too strange to grasp. It can lighten the energy of Pluto and make it useful, whereas otherwise it might just feel relentless.

The aspect we are in now is a triple conjunction between Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune. This is really three different conjunctions (Jupiter-Chiron, Chiron-Neptune, Jupiter-Neptune) and with all conjunctions it helps spending some time sorting out the energies involved. I will skip that exercise for now, and point out again that Chiron is focusing and helping us penetrate the veil of what has been an extremely challenging transit — Neptune in Aquarius.

It is difficult to see mass delusion because so many people are zonked out on the same lies, the same trends, the same fundamentally warped values. It is difficult to see through the thick fog of not knowing whether something happened inside a video game or whether it happened in reality. It can be done, however, and Chiron is here to gently show us what the problem is; what the addictive pattern is; what the thing we believe because everyone else believes it is.

This will call on some of us to make decisions about what exactly we’re going to do. Let’s not wait for 2012. I will say that I am seeing a lot fewer people stand there like deer in headlights as the necessity to participate in their own life comes at them. That is a violent metaphor, but to witness so many intelligent, soulful people stare hypnotized into oncoming lights has been distressing. Confusion may be an excuse, but it’s not a particularly good one. Con-fuse means to take apart; and what Chiron is helping us focus and reassemble is the sensitive nature of our psychic awareness, our perception and our ability to focus and apply wisdom. Not a day too soon, of course, and we can see signs of it many places, if we look…yet what we may soon be asking Chiron is what to do if most of us wake up too late.

“I am going to tell you a number of things, but if you really want to be a good journalist you only have to remember two words: governments lie.”

– I.F. Stone

I am up late browsing the news, in my hotel room in Madison, WI (of note, the city where The Onion was founded). I just found this article on CNN, about missing equine virus samples from an Army depot. At first I laughed, because of the irony of 1. what assholes who run the lab would leave the viruses unsecured and 2. out of black humor that this is the world we live in — a bad science fiction movie. Then I remembered the recent article about 21 dead polo horses. I have a vivid imagination but in all my life it would not have occurred to me that they picked up some virus that got loose from an Army base, until right now. Nobody official has said this out loud, yet…

Under the influence of Chiron-Neptune conjoining, we are going to see through a lot of lies. The recent revelations about torture that Steve Bergstein has been covering for us would qualify. The problem with very large, widely believed lies is that nobody wants to take them on because it’s like taking your finger out of the dyke, expecting the whole dam to burst.

This is going to go on all spring and summer. There is healing in truth, but we are going to need to keep it in context, so we can figure out what it really means. I think that one thing we can take away from the torture issue is that governments lie. For eight years we listened to Bush and Cheney tell us that there was no torture going on, even as the photographs and accounts came bubbling out of Baghdad. The real question is why we believed those lies, and I think the answer is because we thought it made us feel better about ourselves.

By Kelly Cowan

Editor’s Note: I have acquired my photographic education, such as it is, from a number of talented artists and photographers over the years, and someone I spend a lot of time communicating with about images these days is Kelly Cowan. She is one of the people who suggested that the image of Alyssa from last week’s edition of Planet Waves Astrology News had an anti-woman message implied. In that dialog I asked her to offer an analysis of the photo, drawing on her theoretical knowledge base and her experience deconstructing the implied messages of photographs. She said today that this is not a complete analysis; but in conclusion of this week’s conversation, I am sharing her thoughts here. — efc

The image depicts a woman’s torso without her head. The image is a body part. Color is often the first thing noticed in an image. Color is different from black and white images, which are dependent on different viewing characteristics. This blue is a soft blue. Blue is one of the most popular colors and it feels familiar. В It is associated with water and sky. Certain blues can produce chemicals in the body that are calming.

Photo by Eric Francis / Book of Blue.

This is a tight crop, which suggests intimacy. There is a piece of fabric with a knot. What is the fabric? Is it a matching belt? Matching hair ribbon? The fabric is taut but the viewer does not have access to what or who is causing the material to be taut.

The position of the fabric creates a diagonal line across the whole image nearly from corner to corner. Diagonals are always perceived as tension. It bifurcates. When a diagonal interacts with horizontal lines or any opposing diagonals, it can create a triangle that may converge on an area in the image. This leads the eyes to linger on that area of the image before the eyes move back out again across the whole image. The eyes are compelled to move.

A diagonal is dynamic energy in motion. What action is expected? Does the motion appear to be moving upward or downward? There is the neck of a woman and by the smooth skin texture the viewer can see that it belongs to a younger woman. What if the woman was quite old? The neck is brightly lit, causing sharp shadows. Sharp shadows are often perceived as tension. Light and shadow create focal points. There are numerous sharp diagonal shadows including one that originates at the neck and crosses down the body into the area of the heart.

What is the meaning or the suggestion of the sharp shadow? What does the shape of the shadow suggest or reveal? What did the artist intend by the light and shadows?

There is no overt violence in this image. No, what makes this image and other images like it so insidious is it’s surface depiction of ordinariness and sense of normal.

This image could be made by anyone and be seen anywhere in society. The color and the light is pleasant to look at. It draws the viewer in. There would be no resistance or questioning before the act of viewing is complete which often occurs when viewing an overtly violent image or distasteful image. When viewing unquestionable violent images most viewers would experience a sensation that signals resistance or rejection. В The surface depiction of this image allows any embedded messages to flow freely into the viewer’s perception unimpeded. It flows as freely as the water and sky we associate with the color blue.

Today we’ll be running a series of archived photos from our picture archives. You can find the galleries they originate from on any page with tabs across the top (not this page, any more). Just click the PHOTO tab. Also, in honor of Earth Day, which is being hailed as the 39th anniversary of the modern environmental movement, here is our environmental website, called Dioxin Dorms. Today’s astrology coverage is below these pictures. — Eric Francis