In my recent re-kindling of interest in astrology based on the prognostigations posted below, I subscribed to an email group from geocosmic.org. I thought it would be instructive to post some handwringing of astrologers over issues raised by prognostication of historical events:

I.
Astrology is about timing, about attitudes and feelings, and it's acted out with concrete
physical events and intangible emotions. We can point to phases in the
individual's chart(s) and speak of trends, but it's a bit harder to
pinpoint Aunt Grace tripping over Bobby's Hot Wheels Ferrari on the
fifth step from the top at 3:46 pm the day after Thanksgiving. We can
look at the chart of the event afterwards and ooh and aaah over the
correspondences, but putting it all down in black-and-white 6 weeks
before the incident is something else again.

We can see Significance in a WTC chart after the fact, in several USA
charts, and in (I'm sure) many of the victims' and perpetrators' charts
as well. Perhaps if the Earth had only two countries, six buildings and
eleven people, we might be able to speak in more detail, but Alas, and
Joy! the dynamics are more interwoven and complex than that.

Even if I never accurately predict an event with pinpoint precision,
even if I never come half as close as Hand or Shawvan, I'll still pore
over the charts of future and past in order to see a ray of light to
guide me and those who ask my help.

Paula

II.
While drafting an article this past July on the
Saturn/Pluto Opposition, I struggled with the option of citing
escalating suicide terrorism in the Palestinian uprising this past year
as both 1) an expression of Pluto in Sagittarius/Jupiter's recent Opposition
to Pluto and 2) indicating potential for escalation of suicide
terrorism to a global scale during the current Saturn/Pluto Opposition.
Generally, I write my articles for public/client information so as to bridge
social transits/trends and personal processes.

In deciding whether to include a terrorism prediction in
my article, I explored my sense of purpose and responsibility as an
astrologer. I discussed my deliberations with friends as I developed the article, and I included a
prediction for escalating suicide terrorism in early drafts of it.
In the end, my decision was consistent with my consultation practice
philosophy - that my purpose was to describe for readers/clients the
process, historical precedents, and specific social and personal
opportunities of this Saturn/Pluto opposition. In an educational supplement ('Basic Delineations') to my main
article published August 9 ('Saturn Opposes Pluto: Evolving Structures of
Thought, Language, and Communication'), I simply listed 'terrorism, organized labor, global
banking and finance' as expressing the 'extremes of size, power, and
experience' associated with Pluto. The 9/11 attacks gave me reason to question my decision to exclude a
prediction of suicide terrorism from my article.

In the days immediately following the attacks, friends encouraged me to
include such predictions in future articles, noting that even my thematic
prediction could have served to further my struggle for a consulting
livelihood. I examined more closely my basis for excluding the prediction
from my article: was it mostly an avoidance of professional risk and
responsibility? of being wrong? of falling into a stereotype of doomsday
profit? of contributing destructive energy to an open process?
In these ensuing weeks since the attacks, I am gradually reassured about my
decision to have excluded the terrorism prediction from my article. The
mundane articles by Rob Hand and Jim Shawvan published earlier this year are
masterful and invaluable contributions to our astrological community, world
culture and consciousness. As primarily a consulting astrologer for
individuals, intending to bridge social transits/trends and personal
processes for conscious living, I am satisfied that my article sans suicide
terrorism prediction also serves this purpose.

Now a month past the 9/11 attacks, I consider the salient features of this
historic event are 1) that we fully experience and thoroughly process our
experiences of this event, and 2) that we consciously respond as individuals
and cultures to the evolutionary opportunity that is the context for these
events. Except for the personal tragedies of all who suffer direct loss
from these attacks, predicting the terrorist attacks pales in significance
to offering a context for meaning and conscious, life-affirming evolution in
this historic juncture.

For any interested in reading my article, which includes a fair amount of
historical research, the link is
http://www.waterbearerastro.com/Astro_Info/astro_info.html#summer2001.

Karen

There is a lot of hand-wringing all around as we try to make sense of last month's attack and try to think what the future means for us. The Edge asked its illustrious membership of scientists, writers, thinkers, et.al. "What now?" and posted the 42,000 words of response. This is a different sort of handwringing than the examples above, richer in thought and response. In the end we ask ourselves what gives us more pleasure or resonates more greatly within us? And which of these words, if any, will make our lives safer from terror?

Our dogs, Chocolate and Freckles, must have been proud. They planted themselves in front of our picture window knawing at the remains of some animal. I went out to investigate, and Chocolate took the time to greet me with tail wagging, leaving what looked to be the fur coat of a deer behind for the moment. Freckles, the more independent one, kept chewing on a smaller but more impressive prize, a bone. Meanwhile, the fallow plains under the cloudy autumn sky, the bite in the air, and the sound of the distant train contributed to a brief bit of exhilaration, and a respite from my twin pursuits of learning html and monitoring the war on terrorism.

I think we all envy dogs their simple pursuits and their obvious wagging pleasures. Another less considered fact is that dogs, unlike some humans, don't believe in astrology, even though they are subject to the same natural cycles of day and night, moonlight and not, and the yearly changing of the seasons. Some of us humans, myself included, take an occasional and even obsessive interest in astrology. It occured to me, a few weeks after the attack, that if any event in recent history would be amenable to astrological analysis, the attack on the WTC would be one.

A Brief Apology for Astrology
I became interested in the subject several years ago, when I was driving a cab for a living. In one of my last years of driving, my brakes failed me three times, all with different vehicles that are maintained regularly. I lived down the street from a reclusive driver-colleague and astrologer. I began to follow my "transits," i.e., how the position of the planets in the daily sky were interacting with my birth chart. In each of these three cases, Mercury (the planet of transportation and my "ruling planet" as a Gemini) was aspecting my natal Uranus (representing machinery, upsets, and accidents) – with an exactitude of minutes. From that point on, I had no question that astrology "worked," though I continue to question whether it is useful. I became very enmeshed in it for a few years, probably because it seemed to me a repressed knowledge, true but archeologically buried under centuries of a widely different world view. Now I check-in from time to time to look at a friend's chart, or in times like these when one seeks understanding.

Astrology and the Attack of the World Trade Centers
I spent an evening and a morning researching sites and commentary regarding the WTC attack and found some interesting material, which I'd like to share with you. A word of caution: when visiting astrology sites, keep in mind that the graphics are usually horrible, and that many smart astrologers are not very good writers either. However, to use Robert Reich's terminology, they are in some cases excellent symbolic analysts, though the economic benefits don't usually acrue to them as readily as to the Reichian ones. (A dark thought: under an Islamic theocracy, astrologers might become more powerful, and our high-tech computational astrologers could give back to Arab culture the science that Ptolomy taught the West 2000 years ago.)

This listing of the more influential articles about the attack is a good place to start. I will refer and link to many of the articles in what follows.

The most interesting prognostication I find is from an article by Robert Hand, one of the smartest and most respected astrologers, and for years the head of the National Association of Geo-Cosmic Research, aka NGCR. It was published in August, and it goes into great detail about the Saturn-Pluto "face-off," with a table linking this aspect to great national events (wars and depressions, mostly) over the last century. This "oppositional" aspect he specifies is operational between August 5, 2001 through May 26, 2002, and prognosticates conflict in the Mideast. He writes, "...since World War II, there has been a marked tendency for these Saturn-Pluto aspects to coincide more or less with unrest in the Middle East, especially involving oil. It is hard to know whether there is something intrinsically "Saturn-Pluto" about the Middle East situation and, possibly, oil. Or is it just that Saturn-Pluto indicates stress that manifests wherever there is some kind of chronic historical situation? I suspect that it is the latter case, but at the same time, I also believe that the Middle East and the oil situation will continue to manifest Saturn-Pluto energy until the underlying historical stresses are resolved".

In an earlier article on the Bush presidency, published in the same magazine in April, outlines the potential for violence based on a reading of Bush's birth ("natal") chart, current planetary transits, as well as other accepted astrological techniques. The key date for him, writing last Spring, is January 14, 2002, concluding, "although we can never know in advance the exact events that will unfold under a given set of astrological indicators, it is quite possible to be clear about their nature. I set out to look for dates when Dubya’s Mars will be activated, specifically because I am concerned about the dangers that such activation brings. The potential for violence always exists. Although we cannot say whether these indicators point to terrorist attacks, an attempted assassination, or a more conventional war, they do seem likely to bring at least one major violent event affecting the U.S. and its president – and perhaps an entire new scenario of violence, which could last for quite a while."

In a compelling sidebar to the article, he maps Bush's natal chart onto a map of the world (a fascinating technique called "astrolocality," which I have used on occasion with great interest, if not results), he points out his Mars/Midheaven line (Mars being the planet of war, the Midheaven signifying ambition) mapped directly over Afganistan and Pakistan.

The key chart of the event is for 8:46am in New York City, the moment of the first attack. What seems so strangely and stupidly obvious for anyone who has a basic knowledge of astrology is that, at the precise moment of the plane colliding into the first tower, the planet Mercury –known traditionally as the "winged messenger"– was rising directly on the horizon (in astrological terms, Mercury was conjunct the Ascendent). Mercury is a fast-moving planet and, as in the three cases of my brake failures, is often the agent of timing for a larger event. In the case of the WTC attack, Mercury was not only coming over the horizon, but it was also aspected to the dreaded Saturn-Pluto opposition detailed by Rob Hand. It is truly a remarkable astrological configuration, and will keep astrologers busy applying what they have learned through the synchonicity evident on September 11, 2001 to the analysis of future (and past) events.

For those interested in reading further about "mundane" astrology (the use of astrology for the analysis and interpretation of worldy events), there is an interesting article which emerged from this flurry of astrological thinking, concerning which version is the correct birth chart to be used for the founding of the United States – here. For an introduction to history and astrology in the context of September 11, see The New Global Perspective by Rick Levine.

Of course, who of us really cares about the astrological indicators of all of these worldly events? What we really want to know is whether it will be a good day following our morning cup of coffee. So this post wouldn't be complete without a link to a site you can get free daily horoscopes based on your birth time and place data. Enjoy it while you can – and fasten your seat belts for this Saturn-Pluto ride, courtesy of our winged messenger Mercury.