Placements & Degrees!The following article was posted late in September, 2001 on the Esther & Son Website. I wrote it within the context of the Pluto/Saturn opposition.
I was inspired to re-post it after listening to a podcast from Astrologer Eric Francis Coppolino where he referenced an Article that he wrote following the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. What intrigued me most about the observations in his podcast are the reversed nodes on the ninth anniversary of the attack and the fact the Mercury turns direct the day after the ninth anniversary. The focus of his podcast is the Virgo New Moon that happened yesterday.
It is truly fascinating that the uproar about the Mosque near ground zero and the crazy Florida pastor threatening to burn copies of the Qu'ran is coming up under this retrograde Mercury. Those issues certainly seem to be heating up under this New Moon and are probably going to backfire dramatically on those who are pushing the fear and hatred.
I have long believed that the September 11th attacks were a false flag operation and that the Mars/South Node conjunction in the 9-11 chart was an indication of the costly, misguided anger that has lead to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that continue to devastate the United States. Pluto is now transiting the Mars/South Node conjunction in the 9-11 chart and may be offering the best opportunity yet to bring truth and light to how tragically we have been misled and manipulated.
September 11, 2001 : What is the Truth in our Pain?
“One cannot reach a state of mental clarity and of “ultimate concern” if one does not experience a deep surge of unchallengeable faith, courage and persistence, even under the most difficult circumstances. Both the mind and the deepest emotions must be set aflame by what one has come to realize is true and undismissable evidence.”
- Dane Rudhyar
Astrological Timing – The Transition to the New Age
Despite the tragically violent events of September 11, 2001 , we continue to hold tight to the belief that the ongoing Saturn/Pluto opposition will ultimately help all of humanity to build a shining new bridge to global communication and cooperation. As we have seen already, the bridge will not be built or crossed without pain and sacrifice.
What seems most certain from the timing of the tragedy (using the time of 8:48 AM EDT , when the first plane hit the first tower) is that there is a message here for all of us, if we can understand it. Mercury, the messenger, was rising and just beginning its move into ‘retrograde territory’ at 14 degrees of Libra. It will return to 14 Libra to turn direct on October 21. By that time, we may finally begin to get a clearer picture of where to look to find the meaning of the message. But the next few weeks suggest that we may make some wrong turns in pursuit of answers
Mercury, was in an exact trine to Saturn at 14 Gemini offering the suggestion of careful planning. Mercury’s (The Messenger) degree influence suggests a masked actor, possibly mimicking someone else. Also, there is the suggestion of obsession. Saturn’s (Structure, Authority) degree influence points to dishonesty and “trickery in coloring the truth.” (from Degrees of the Zodiac.)
So is the message obvious? Did careful planning produce tricks and deception by a masked messenger? The Moon was void-of-course in Gemini, suggesting to us that the actions of those moments will not stand and our initial understanding may not be the final word. There is more here than meets the eye.
Since the acts were violent, we look to Mars, which was in Capricorn, ruled by Saturn and conjunct the South Node. For us this clearly shows that an angry response is our worst enemy. Saturn’s degree of dishonesty colors the placement of Mars in this chart, suggesting that by acting on our anger we will continue to be subject to deception. In fact, Saturn’s deceptions seem to actually be goading or manipulating our anger.
With this perspective, we must use collective caution and wait for clearer information before taking irreversible action that may only compound our fear, anger and even the national embarrassment at being tricked by the planners and perpetrators of this violence. Dane Rudhyar’s comments about Saturn’s degree (An Astrological Mandala) suggests the need for transcendence: (This degree) “. . . can also bring confusion and many failures, as well as illusory claims and self deceit.”
And what about Pluto, so often feared as the bringer of pain and disruption and death? Pluto’s degree influence, at 12 degrees Sagittarius, offers benefits and help to “those in the home.” To us, this sounds like the rescue workers and the national support for victims of this tragedy. This is what we can learn from Pluto’s message. We can find unrealized potential to come together and care for each other despite our differences.
As painful as it may seem, Pluto in Sagittarius is helping us to find a better understanding of the truths we must see in order to be prepared for the new age we are moving into. Outmoded beliefs and principles are being challenged. The events of September 11, 2001 have ripped away a great deal of our national innocence. We remain certain, however, that the message of that day will not be clear until we are able to step back from our pain and anger and turn towards faith and truth and hope. The next six weeks will give us an opportunity to do that.
Finally, we would like to note that the last opposition of Pluto and Saturn took place in 1965 – a time of obvious social and political upheaval. In June of that year, Martin Luther King addressed the graduating class of Oberlin College. Here are some excerpts from that speech that we believe are so very, very important to all of us at this moment in history. The speech was titled: Remaining Awake During a Great Revolution. If we are to find truth at this moment in our history, we must remain awake and on guard, not so that we can face violence with more violence, but so that we can see and hear the truth when it cries out to be heard.
“There are all too many people who, in some great period of social change, fail to achieve the new mental outlooks that the new situation demands. There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution. There can be no gainsaying of the fact that a great revolution is taking place in our world today. . .
“I'd like to suggest some of the things that we must do in order to remain awake and to achieve the proper mental attitudes and responses that the new situation demands. First, I'd like to say that we are challenged to achieve a world perspective. Anyone who feels that we can live in isolation today, anyone who feels that we can live without being concerned about other individuals and other nations is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The great challenge now is to make it one in terms of brotherhood. . . .
“Now it is true that the geographic togetherness of our world has been brought into being, to a large extent, through modern man's scientific ingenuity. Modern man, through his scientific genius, has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. Yes, we've been able to carve highways through the stratosphere, and our jet planes have compressed into minutes distances that once took weeks and months. And so this is a small world from a geographical point of view. What we are facing today is the fact that through our scientific and technological genius we've made of this world a neighborhood. And now through our moral and ethical commitment we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers - or we will all perish together as fools. This is the great issue facing us today. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone. We are tied together.
“All I'm saying is simply this: that all mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be - this is the interrelated structure of reality. John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms: No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main... And then he goes on toward the end to say: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. And by believing this, by living out this fact, we will be able to remain awake through a great revolution. . .
“Now there is another problem facing us that we must deal with if we are to remain awake through a social revolution. We must get rid of violence, hatred, and war. Anyone who feels that the problems of mankind can be solved through violence is sleeping through a revolution. I've said this over and over again, and I believe it more than ever today. We know about violence. It's been the inseparable twin of Western materialism, the hallmark of its grandeur. I am convinced that violence ends up creating many more social problems than it solves. This is why I say to my people that if we succumb to the temptation of using violence in our struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness. There is another way - a way as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth and as modern as the techniques of Mohandas K. Gandhi. For it is possible to stand up against an unjust system with all of your might, with all of your body, with all of your soul, and yet not stoop to hatred and violence. Something about this approach disarms the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses, weakens his morale, and at the same time, works on his conscience. He doesn't know how to handle it. So it is my great hope that, as we struggle for racial justice, we will follow that philosophy and method of non-violent resistance, realizing that this is the approach that can bring about that better day of racial justice for everyone. . .
“In international relations, we must come to see this. We must find some alternative to war and bloodshed. In a day when man-made vehicles are dashing through outer space, and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death in the stratosphere, no nation can win a world war. It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence; it is either non-violence or non-existence. The alternative may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, our earthly habitat transformed into a tragic inferno that even Dante could not imagine. So this is our challenge: to see that war is obsolete, cast into limbo. . .
“I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But we shall not have the courage, the insight, to deal with such matters unless we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual change. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. We must love peace and sacrifice for it. We must fix our visions not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race. . ..
All that I've said is that we must work for peace, for racial justice, for economic justice, and for brotherhood the world over. We have inherited a big house, a great world house in which we have to live together - black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, Moslem and Hindu. If we all learn to do this we, in a real sense, will remain awake through a great revolution. . . .”
- Martin Luther King
Oberlin College Commencement - June, 1965
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