Today’s Oracle takes us to the Aries weekly of May 22, 2009

If you’ve ever doubted your capabilities to say the word and make it happen, now would be the time to put your abilities to the test. You’ve always known you were born for greater things; your ability to dream the impossible and dare to meet your soul’s longing, is your gift to the world. What ensues from your actions this week should be nothing short of miraculous, if you can resolve emotional or financial insecurities that hold you back when it comes to reaching for your dreams. You are now channeling a higher wisdom that allows you to see beyond the horizon and divine possibilities everywhere you look. What matters then is what you choose. Choose based on your deepest values, grandest vision and that which fills you with a sense of purpose. If you can dream, you can do.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. New horoscopes by Eric are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. The Oracle itself is a divination tool available to subscribers to either of these services.)

A view of a monument to "liquidators" (R, front), emergency workers who fought the blaze at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, with a sarcophagus covering the damaged fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the background; March 31, 2011. Photo: Reuters/Gleb Garanich

In a strange coincidence, I was able to have a video chat with Anatoly this morning for the first time ever. He lives in the Ukraine, but I did not realize today was the Chernobyl anniversary until a bit later. It may ‘mean’ nothing, but I can’t help but keep thinking about that first face-and-voice meeting and its timing; he and I are both in the age range most of the “liquidators” were 25 years ago. – amanda

This is an article from a few weeks ago, introducing the Nuclear Axis chart — the chart for the beginning of the nuclear age. The chart is for the first time scientists created a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, the kind that would be necessary for the creation of atomic bombs or their incestuous first cousin, nuclear power. The article we posted earlier, Chernobyl: Witnesses Near and Far, includes the chart of the explosion at the reactor. It is what you might call a classical Nuclear Axis chart, with planets piled up across the critical degrees of Gemini and Sagittarius. There was also a lunar eclipse about two days before, during which key (bad) decisions were made. I am republishing the Nuclear Axis article for astrology students who would benefit from knowing this chart exists, and what its implications are. –efc

Nuclear Axis -- the chart for the first self-sustaining atomic reaction.

While we’re on the nuclear topic, this is a good time to get the conversation going about the Nuclear Axis. For more detailed background and some chart examples, check this old article I wrote for Star IQ. The Nuclear Axis chart is the chart for the first self-sustaining atomic pile, created in a secret lab under an athletic field at the University of Chicago toward the beginning of the United States’ involvement in World War II. This was part of the Manhattan project.

What we have is a chart for the Nuclear Age. It is exceedingly rare to have exact data for such a profound event in the history of humanity, particularly given that this one happened under the cloak of absolute secrecy.

The ‘axis’ part of the chart is the opposition from Gemini to Sagittarius. This is fairly easy to see: you know the glyphs for Gem and Sagg, and the planets are connected by a series of purple lines that form the axis. In Gemini we have Uranus and Saturn; in Saggitarius we have Sun, Mercury, Juno and Venus. Not shown in mid-Sagittarius is the Great Attractor, an inter-galactic point. The ominous thing about the Sagittarius alignment is that it has themes of international and death; as well as obsession, and lots of money.

Indeed, after WWII in many respects the entire economy would be based on the vast expenditures of the nuclear industry — all those bombs and airplanes and personnel and missiles that needed to be developed and countless spies and so on and on — and all the apparatus of defense that had to be erected around the nuclear arsenal: indeed the whole military industrial complex.

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Editor’s note: this piece was written in Brussels for the April 27, 2007 subscriber edition. We are running it today as part of our commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. This article includes a chart for the event.

Photo by Elena Filatova

By Eric Francis

I can relate to Chernobyl because I have seen so much environmental damage in the United States. Chernobyl was and is a lot worse, but it never seemed like someplace else, or something we were exempt from elsewhere.

Among these disasters I am most familiar with is the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, a neighborhood where 700 homes were contaminated with dioxin. There, on the site of the 99th Street School, is a grass-covered clay cap that buries the schoolyard, and the toxic waste dump directly beneath it, three-quarters of the way to the tops of utility poles. They poke up a few feet and follow the line of a long-forgotten street.

Seeing that for the first time one afternoon, I witnessed the tragedy of civilization. It was like finding the Statue of Liberty’s torch sticking up out of the ground. No place is exempt. This is both frightening and reassuring; we’re all in this environmental game together.

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What would it take to figure out that nuclear power is a bad idea? For some, that took a lot less than the Chernobyl disaster. Twenty-five years ago today, the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine, then in the Soviet Union, exploded and caught fire after a safety test experiment went badly wrong. It sent radiation all over Europe, and beyond. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated, never to return, from Prypyat, the city closest to the site. Back then it had a population of 50,000. Today it is a ghost city, one of many in the dead zone surrounding Chernobyl.

A combination of images, taken in 1982 and on March 31, 2011, shows before and after view of the abandoned city of Prypyat near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Photo: Reuters/Vladimir Repik and Gleb Garanich

How long is 25 years? Long enough to figure out nuclear power is not safe? Apparently there are those who need more time. Long enough to develop cancer even though you ‘weren’t there’? For some, much less than that — their time ran out years ago, and their children’s clocks are ticking faster than they ought. Long enough for nature to fully reclaim a space conquered by humans? It’s a start, but not quite.

Is 25 years long enough for all the radiation to dissipate? Hardly; the containment structure made of lead and concrete that was erected over the failed reactor has begun to leak radiation. One news story indicates that it was the recent and ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster, not the simple fact of the leaking radiation, that has spurred what that newspaper called ‘the world community’ to pledge 550 million euros ($780 million) to help build a new containment shell over Chernobyl’s reactor No. 4.

If 25 years, two disasters that defy imagination for most of us, and the inability for a concrete-and-lead sarcophagus to contain the radiation are not enough to convince the holdouts in favor of nuclear power that it is a bad idea, what is? When do we realize this is not simply a problem for the Ukraine or Belarus, the other former Soviet state just over the norther border which received a tremendous dose of the radiation? It would seem Fukushima is beginning to bring the message home, as its crippled reactors continue releasing radiation that is traveling the globe. But will it take another 25 years for us to leave nuclear power behind completely? That’s not even the half-life of cesium-137 — and that’s considered one of the ‘medium-lived’ fission products.

In modern psychological astrology, we think of Taurus as the sign of values. It’s about having and possessing, but when you translate that into the language of thought, decision and self-understanding, we get a process of evaluating what is important. The result of those evaluations are our values.

The symbol of Taurus is a cow, or a bull. For now, let’s take the cow aspect. Up until recently, the cow was the poverty line. If you had one, you had dependable food; if you didn’t, you stood a good chance of starving. Notably, a cow wasn’t something you just slaughtered and ate; it was a living creature that had to be taken care of — that is to say, valued. Valuing something or someone is an active process, and it calls for maturity and constant attention.

We are definitely in a values crisis in our culture. Besides being raised to be spoiled kids who can always get a new one, we’re really seeing this come home to roost in big ways — the proposed ripoff of Social Security and Medicare come to mind. Poke around the Internet and check out what’s going on with that story; it’s truly outrageous, that something that we have paid for all our working lives, from the first hour we collected a paycheck, is being derisively being called an “entitlement” and we’re being told that it’s not going to be there. The plan? “Privatize” it, which means, take what working people have earned and saved, and give it to Wall Street and insurance companies.

I could go on about this, but for the moment, let’s stick to the astrology, which is connected to this question of the public wealth, and the public good; our collective wealth as revealed in an issue like Social Security.

In modern astrology, we associate the 2nd house with Taurus, the second sign. It’s true that there are associations, but in recent years, a document has come to the attention of astrologers called the Thema Mundi. I’ve written about it before. It’s an ancient Babylonian ‘chart of the world’ that is really a teaching device. It’s been available for a while, but with the current revival of ancient astrology, more people are aware of its existence (they just don’t know what to do with it, for the most part).

Now, in this Thema Mundi chart, Cancer is the ascendant. That is a clue that the 1st house is associated not with Aries (as we usually think of it) but with Cancer. And if that is the case, then Taurus comes up in the 11th house — the house of the public, and with Taurus there, it’s associated with the public wealth and shared resources. We think of Taurus as being this private, personal kind of sign, associated with the 2nd, this personal, private kind of house.

Yet it would seem precisely the opposite is true. Taurus and all that it represents are very much about public matters, the common good, and values that are shared not in that ‘between me and you’ kind of way, but among all of us here.

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Cancer monthly of Nov. 11, 2007

Mars in your sign is pushing you to push yourself, but you can be carried forward gently enough by the momentum of deep dedication to your purpose. Remember that meaning is always a process of discovery; it is not fixed in any one place or time. For now, you are stretching out into the world. Soon, you will be stretching into yourself, breaking down barriers between you and your deepest desires, and fueling your spirit on your own inner fire. Then as the winter progresses, you will push back out into the world. To sum up, get ready for a time of retreat, which is preparation for a time of joyful conquering.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. New horoscopes by Eric are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. The Oracle itself is a divination tool available to subscribers to either of these services.)

In this phial is caught the light of Earendil’s star…May it be a light to you in dark places…”

Gladriel’s gift to Frodo (from “Fellowship of the Ring”)

Overnight tomorrow and into Wednesday, the heroic quest of Venus in Aries reaches its second great milestone aspect, a square with Pluto. This follows a conjunction with Uranus over the weekend just past. That’s a big shift. The conjunction was a combination of energies in the context of one sign. The approaching square symbolically indicates something entirely different: contrast and tension.

In astrology, a square takes place when at least two objects are separated by 90 degrees on the zodiac circle. That means they are necessarily in different signs. That’s where a lot of the contrast comes from. The energy a planet expresses at any given time includes not only the identity it carries around, but also where it is, the planetary ruler(s) of that location and the distinguishing combination of element (fire, earth, air or water) and quality (cardinal, fixed or mutable).

The tension part comes from the geometric figure of the same name. It is structurally unstable in the material world. If you build something with a square shape, the 90 degree corners need to be reinforced to maintain the tension and hence, the form. Otherwise it will become a parallelogram and the structure will ultimately collapse. That is not a good thing for buildings and furniture. For our inner lives, however, the release of tension means that stability has not been lost but in fact re-attained.

It is perhaps because we are so involved with our outer lives that the square aspect has an undeserved reputation as something to be dreaded, avoided or despised. If we buy into the cookbook astrology formula that we are about to encounter a difficult and discouraging setback, who would feel otherwise?

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