Planet Weather for the Week of September 4, 2005

                                                                                                                                  

SkyWatch – Erratum – Last Week’s New Moon was @ 11 Virgo and not 1 Virgo!

Moon phase of the week: There is no change in Moon phase this week. The New Moon occurred on 9/3, and the First Quarter Moon occurs on 9/11. It is highly unusual for a week to pass without the Moon entering a new phase. To make up for this, however, there are several skywatching events of the "close encounter" type. 9/5 -- Venus comes within 2 degrees of the bright, astrological star Spica in the constellation Virgo, their point of closest approach coming at 5:00 PM EDT. They will still be close near the Western horizon just after sunset. 9/6 -- The Crescent Moon passes within 2 degrees and just to the South of Jupiter, with their point of closest approach coming at 8 PM EDT. This will make a beautiful sight in the West-southwest shortly after sunset. Even more beautifully, Venus will be a few degrees to the upper left, with Spica directly below. 9/10 -- The Moon passes so near Antares (also an astrological star) in Scorpio that, viewed from locations in Western Africa across the Atlantic to northern South America, the Moon actually occults (passes in front of) the star. Unfortunately, this occultation happens about 4 PM EDT before sunset in the Western Hemisphere. However, the Moon and Antares will still appear very close together after sunset as seen from the U.S. Space news of the week: Engineers have completed a set of key tests in readying NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft for launch to Pluto in the January-February 2006 time frame. New Horizons will be the first spacecraft ever to perform a close flyby of Pluto and its moon Charon. Every other one of the nine original modern planets has been photographed close-up and personal. New Horizons is expected to rendezvous with Pluto in 2015, and complete the picture, so speak. Only now there's also the newly discovered Planet X, larger than Pluto and three times as far away.... Go out! Look up!

                                

News Bits – Multiple Disasters! True to its potent and transformative, often traumatic nature, the Pluto station (9/2/05) produced two events that changed the lives of thousands. One of Pluto’s messages is survival, and it forces us to process our essential nature on many levels. Certainly we’ve seen this in the collective level this week and it has touched us all indelibly, which is another of Pluto’s characteristics -- to bring us to deeper feelings and understanding of what moves and motivates. The Pluto station pinpoints and intensifies and Uranus is the planet most associated with weather. Currently Uranus in watery Pisces (water, over which hurricanes form) is also likely involved in the recent frequency and intensity of hurricanes over the past several years.) Hurricane Katrina goes down in history as one of the worst natural disasters in  US history. By many accounts, much of the damage could have been averted had the US government made good on its promises to give aid for urgent levee repair in New Orleans. The same levee that gave way and put the city under as much as 20 feet of water in places, was the one on which repair work was halted due to Bush administration cutbacks. The human misery and agony that followed Katrina’s path can hardly be comprehended, or that this could happen in the US. With Saturn in Leo (the king, CEO, the leader), we have to ask the tough questions of our government and president. Where was homeland security, where was the National Guard? Where was the President? Why such a long delay in getting help to these devastated citizens? What a disgrace and an abandonment to New Orleans! Still another disaster costing hundreds of human lives took place in Iraq earlier this past week. A throng of people crossing a bridge and journeying to a religious ceremony panicked when a rumor spread through the crowd that a suicide bomber was among them. People began stampeding killing children and elderly first. Many jumped from the bridge into the water below. Surely Iraqis have suffered enough? From last week’s issue of PW: “Pluto will destroy what needs to end and at the same time cause a rebirth on new levels of understanding. Often these lessons of Pluto are painful, especially if we refuse to let go. Pluto teaches yielding and surrender, so that we are tempered to become more self-realized and allow for the vulnerability of being human.” These tragedies go beyond these personal lessons of Pluto and reverberate deeply, reminding us of the vulnerability and preciousness of life.

 

New Orleans, Why? It’s in the chart. The birthchart of the city of New Orleans tells the story of a tremendous disaster – something that we hardly thought possible in our present-day USA. If astrology was respected in the world today and competent astrologers had looked at the chart of New Orleans, what happened there this past week could have been clearly indicated and this potential foreseen. As an American city (it was originally French until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803), New Orleans was incorporated on 2/17/1805 @ 12 Noon. When the hurricane struck, transiting Uranus/Pisces was exactly on the New Orleans Pluto @ 8 Pisces. This one single aspect tells of the fury that was unleashed through the power of water and the destruction and devastation that followed. Additionally, transiting Jupiter/Libra was within a degree of conjuncting the city’s Uranus @ 20Rx Libra and transiting Saturn/Leo was triggering the chart’s Mars/Leo opposite (180deg.) Mercury conjunct (0 deg.) Venus/Aquarius, and also making a trine to Jupiter @ 4Sagittarius. All the aspects together express unprecedented, unexpected breaches and overwhelming, magnified results. We know that this danger was previously indicated -- the experts called it imminent due to problems with the salt marshes that buffer the city and the levees. This dire need was documented and urgently lobbied for, to no avail. And now the cost will likely be triple of what it would have cost to restructure and shore up the levees, etc. A severe lesson is given.

 

Mercury enters Virgo on Sunday, September 4, 2005 @ 1:52PM EDT until 9/20/05. Mercury moves on and away from its retrograde sign, Leo, and enters one of its “home” signs, Virgo, (the other being Gemini), where it is comfortable dealing with the organization of details and the daily practicalities of life on earth. This sign will surely demand an accounting of the disaster in New Orleans, too.