Small world - August 1998 (calendar glitch; US Embassy bombs)

Happy Hols, everyone!

and welcome to several new readers again this issue. Skip the next couple of paragraphs if you want to; they are largely anecdotal, but you may find them entertaining.

Regulars will have realised that there has been something of a hiatus over the early summer; would you believe I actually abandoned astrology for nearly a month to answer the twin demands of (a) that Scorpio garden and (b) 200 visiting American choristers who were short of a tenor or two and would take any short tenor, male or female, that turned up to rehearse on top of breakfast? As yours truly has Polyhymnia conjunct Moon in 10th, how could I refuse? A gloriously operatic week ended with a sell out performance in Rochester's ancient Cathedral, supported by the London Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and three very fine soloists.

Two days earlier, Gerard and I gate crashed the Lambeth Conference. "Now, class, for your homework you are to write as much as you can on The Day I met The Archbishop." OK We go in this big tent to listen to gorgeous Celtic music, observe a lunch counter, gather two delicious lunches onto trays, look for the cash desk in vain and realise we are eating the Bishops' wives free food. It's too late to stop pretending Gerard's purple shirt is the conventional badge of a visiting Anglican Bish, so we tuck in greedily and guiltily in a calm sea of green and white tables, cloths, chairs, and asap head replete for the escape exit. It's about half past two. Mercury culminates with the N.Node, Chiron rises opposite the Sun/Jupiter of Jesus' Nativity. Out of a blazing blue sky rolls a fat cloud, down hurls a precisely aimed shower, and when I look up from a fiddly brolly we are being grinned at by the one person we don't want to have to explain ourselves to! Gerard makes some comment to me about stair rods and His Grace beams as only he can beam: "You must be British!" Er, yes, with a Blackburn accent that thick it would be hard for him to be French, Congolese, antipodean or from outer Mongolia. We grin back speechlessly and escape to the ecclesiastical Mecca of the market marquee, where we debate the finer points of vestments and try not to covet our neighbour's' liturgical luxury. My personal bishop is trying on a small magenta item that sits quite nicely over the bald bit when a dreadfully familiar voice beams, "Does it suit you?" Desperate, beaming back, "Do you think it goes with my eyes?" All laugh ingratiatingly, and we are trapped there while Archbp. George does his archepiscopal duty and poses self consciously in front of numerous lenses with a small huddle of Women For Ordination. I didn't tell him about Jesus and Mary and astrology; how can you spoil a chap's day by telling him he has nourished heretics and occultists in his bosom?

The 300 year glitch!

But I'm going to have to rattle somebody's cage during this astrological sabbatical I picked up a beautifully produced free commemorative booklet at SPCK (the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge), this year celebrating its tercentenary. Pages of history, fascinating illustrations especially the facsimile of the 1st page of the minutes of the first meeting on Wednesday March 8th 1698. Good! We have a chart! No time, but we can speculate. This morning I got down to it and fell at the first hurdle. It wasn't Wednesday. Ah I needed to correct the calendar, no problem. I must input March 18th instead. Oh dear it still wasn't Wednesday! Then I had a closer look at the date on the minutes; where it said "1698" there was a line under the last "8" and under this a "9". Follow the hunch try 1699 instead and voila! March 8th OS in 1699 was a Wednesday! I double checked this in Frank Parise's Book of Calendars, and sure enough there was no Wednesday March 8th in 1698, only in 1699. No one at SPCK had checked!!! They are a year early for their 300th birthday! The clerk/scribe/secretary chap must have done what we all do on cheques for ages after New Year and put last year's date then not wanting to make a messy correction penned the correct year in underneath without actually striking the mistake through. The muddle is understandable when you look at the pattern that day Sun late Pisces with S.Node in 2 Aries all square a chaotic/visionary opposition of Uranus and Jupiter! But the Draconic positions are of course almost exactly opposite these, with the nodes reversed to the equinoxes, so despite conscientious attempts at neatness and accuracy (dr. Sun Virgo) confusion, Pisces, managed to prevail!

US Embassy Bombings

Now to more sober matters these bombs in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam. You may well have looked at the charts by now as the times (10h35 and 10h38 am BAT respectively on August 7th '98) were published quickly. Unless you work interdimensionally you may have missed the usual signature of sudden trauma, the contact of Uranus and the angles this time doubled, with Sidereal (public, historic) Uranus on the Tropical IC, and Tropical Uranus close to the Draconic (karmic) MC.

The Sun also joins these alignments of course, with the T square from Chiron. Asteroid America in Scorpio 17 is conjunct the Draconic Desc, configuring the draco Mars/Asc midpoint. Asteroid United Nations rises in coelo. Also in the sky in the MC is Koranna with a cluster of destructive asteroids, Siva, Alekto, Cannonia, Burns and Martir. Nemesis and Kaali are conjunct America and Chiron, square Karma, Dolores and Palach on the Sun-Uranus axis all these configured by the draconic angles. All this suggests that we are right to look to an Islamic faction as perpetrators of this horror; that it may have been a 'kami kazi' bombing in at least one instance; that, because most of the asteroids associated with nuclear war are also involved in this pattern ( Hiroshima, Nuki, etc) this may be part of the inevitable karmic consequence to the allies for the bombings that ended WW2, as well as conscious retaliation for the US and UN probing uncomfortably into Iraq's lethal arsenal.

A More local Tragedy

Terribly sadly, Kent has lost its one and only, cherished, charitably funded Air Ambulance. The helicopter was returning to its base at Rochester airport in Kent after an emergency call to a crashed car (in which nobody had been injured) on Sunday July 26th; it was nearly home, over the village of Burham, (51n20, 00E29) when it turned sharply, hit power lines (Uranus), and crashed in a ball of fire (Mars) in a field. All three on board were killed instantly, two paramedics and the pilot. The pilot was about to leave for another, long dreamed of job with Britannia Airways. The Kent Messenger says "The first anyone knew of the crash was when two members of the public called the emergency services at 5h46 pm." Ironically, at first it was suggested the Air Ambulance be called out, nobody realised it was this that had gone down. It was an Aero Spatiale 'Squirrel'. At just after 17h30, the Sagittarius-Gemini horizon gathered together a lethal opposition of dwad Mars on the Asc/ dwad Uranus on Desc, plus asteroids Demiddelaer and Spacewatch (tightly conjunct) and Malin; Ultrajectum, Alekto, Atropos and Latona squared the Libra MC from their 7th house conjunction with Mars, and Osiris (as usual when bodies are broken in death) was at the IC. Shortly after, Requiem, Swift and Aeria aligned on the Asc/Desc. As I have been finding over and over again these past few years, the devil really is in the detail. Don't neglect your fine tuning.

All In The Family!

Now for a bit of fun a Sittingbourne, Kent man named Terry Wall became a father and a grandfather within eight hours on August 3rd' 98! At 0h40 his daughter gave him a granddaughter, Jasmine; eight hours later his wife, who was in another ward of Chatham's All Saints Hospital unaware of the drama, and had actually gone into labour as the little girl was born, produced his son Devon at about 9h00 am! Howzat! (I haven't looked at the charts yet for lack of time.)

TW goes Nuclear

On July 22nd the BBC's "Tomorrow's World" scooped a first the popular science program televised the first public demonstration of nuclear fusion from the Jet Laboratories near Oxford, at 19h56 BST.

The Founder of Homoeopathy

David Bergin has sent me the birth data for Samuel Hahnemann: 10th April 1755, 23h06 GMT, 51n10, 13w29. Many thanks! Lots of study to do here.

Books/Tools

Thanks also to Astrid Fallon, whom I had the great pleasure of meeting on Lilly Day when I was up in Nottingham doing my bit for the Lilly Cottage appeal. (What a delightful place!) Do try to obtain Astrid's book of analogue graphic ephemerides from 1920-2040. She has provided us with the ideal visual aid to transit patterns when the need is to work swiftly, immediately and effectively. I find them invaluable when working with a client, face to face or over the telephone. She has followed up with "Cycles et Calculs Astrologiques" this is untranslated so far from her French, so you will need to be sufficiently fluent.

I shall have to send this out now. I have run out of time for the present and will be in touch with you all again in another few weeks. But there is a postscript to the Scorpio Garden!... this from John Ball:

Your Scorpionic garden rings a bell. Here's one for your files if you wish: On 2 November 1991 I moved into my favourite residence to date no longer there of course. I rented the rural farmhouse where pop singer Jim Croce lived when he became famous, most of his major hits were written there. It's in the hamlet of Lyndell, Pennsyvlania, house was built in 1750. Evidently this had been coming for the previous 10 years, because I took a liking to Croce's music in 1981 and often sang his standards during a spell in the Rocky Mountains. I was particularly fascinated by the cover photo on his album, "Don't Mess Around With Jim," (Scorpio) where he appears in the cathedral shaped window of a whitewashed building. Looked like a Spanish Mission and I assumed it was in Puerto Rico or New Mexico. However when I answered the ad for the residence and went to inspect, the landlady asked if I were familiar with Croce (his association had not been adverstised), and she pointed to an old outhouse (Scorpio!) about 5 feet circular where the photo was taken. For years I had wanted to find the site of that cover photo but it found me. Sun, Mercury, Mars and Pluto were all in Scorpio when I moved in, and I have an intercepted 5th house in scorpio, tenanted by Neptune. Jim is, of course, deceased. Usually I played his recordings for my guests when I entertained there. I grew nothing there but the premises are partly wooded and full of wild fertile growth of all kinds. The central bit of flora is an ash tree which is over 300 years old and therefore a contemporary of the first white settlers. The house is reputed to be haunted. While there I adopted a stray cat, who moved in under a Moon-Pluto opposition and found his first proper home. I also experienced my one and only earthquake there, which is extremely rare in Pennsylvania. .

.. and our prickly, dramatic, resilient patch has now acquired two corners of Fixed Water one surveyed by the serene gaze of a stone Buddha, the other guarded by a fiery eyed green lizard!!! Bless you all,

Back soon!

Pam