Small World - March 2001 (Mirror transits; Pluto; England-weather & traumas

STARLET TREK

Was it deliberate, or the happiest of coincidences, or the Macrocosm's usual sense of humour, that sent probe 'Near Shoemaker' into orbit around asteroid Eros on Valentine's day last year, and actually landed the craft on its surface only two days short of Feb 14th 2001? The time the probe bounced and rolled amazingly gently into the love-rock's saddle was 20h07 UT, courtesy both of The Times and friend Stephen Watt who kindly forwarded the requisite information, gleaned from Carol Willis' article in ASTROLIST. She made a chart with coordinates for Johns Hopkins University nr. Baltimore; better by a small margin is one set for the probe's launch site at Cape Canaveral, which gives an MC in orbs of conjunction of both lovely an apt Venus in Aries, and Eros itself (himself?) in 29 Pisces 34. "Photographica" rises triumphantly in Cancer in the Dragon's Head to ensure a set of excellent pictures of Eros' surface to make it famous - "Fama" setting. The entertaining extra in the asteroids for an asteroid First Contact, is the legendary pairing of recently-named "Jean-Luc" on the Desc with "Pickard" on the MC at 3 Aries along with Gondola (the landing capsule?) and Phaethon! Will all our Star Treks from now on carry the signature of the charismatic Patrick Stewart's alter ego?

On Reflection...

Over and over again, as dramas hit the Cranes' nearest and dearest it is drummed into me how much crucial astrology rarely gets into astrology books.
A couple we know have to appear in court to sort out a business problem. Their marriage has been under strain for years, and is currently very vulnerable. Both have Saturn on their Desc - but you would never see it; it is invisible to conventional practice. You only see it when you make a composite chart of each partner with the current transits.

I cannot stress enough the importance of this technique; a composite chart is in fact only a graphical way of displaying a little-considered phenomenon which occurs just once in every planetary transit cycle - the Mirror effect.
If you take the above example, the two partners' horizons are like the reflecting surface of a mirror. Saturn on one side of it 'reflects' at an equal distance on the opposite side.

If it were mine, for example, the arc between Saturn at 5GE52 and Desc at 20PI14 is 75.38. Subtract this from the Desc and you get a 'mirror' position of 4CP36. Whenever a transit or direction hits this degree it echoes the natal Saturn-horizon arc - 'strikes the same chord' or 'rings a bell' - and the first time this happened to me was in March, June and November of 1959 when I was uprooted from home, friends and school in the North to start a whole new life in Buckinghamshire (Gerrards Cross, as it happens ... and I end up marrying a devoutly Christian northerner called Gerard! prog. 'Gerarda' was still close to my natal IC - and smack on it when relocated to 'GX' as we all called it! Also the asteroid was setting on my 1959 solar return) I was 16, and suddenly dreadfully, desperately lonely, and longing for a boyfriend - understandable when you also have a p.New Moon on your 5th house Venus!!! The mirror Saturn had to clear before things cheered up and I made my new friends and found a lovely bloke to go out with.
The next time was in December 1988; I had spent that year planning deliberately to cut myself off from all things familiar to do a speaking tour of the USA for 7 weeks in October/November. After 4 days I had to cut my losses and come home, because my Dad had got bowel cancer and as it turned out I was also far from well. I spent that December fighting doctors and insurance companies for compensation for the aborted trip. Even Capricorns can be miserable with Saturn on the horizon!

I may have mentioned that it was with t. Uranus in its Desc. mirror position that I had the shock and upheaval of my Mum dying.

Of course, there is the complementary mirror, too, of horizon reflected over Saturn or Uranus, or whatever. But this will happen once a day, unless you concentrate on the slower angular movements of the Daily Progressions and Q-charts, or the angles' tertiary, annually progressed, or return positions. *In the longer term it is the mutual reflecting of planets that is most useful, this re-striking of their natal chords. *A composite chart of native with event, placed in a tri-wheel between the two radix charts, will show up the crucial axial contacts immediately.

In 1959 I had p.Asc conjunct Neptune, and wrote reams of cathartic poetry. In 1974, fifteen years later, the p. Asc had come to its own mirror, at 12 Libra, reflected over that Neptune. A thriving little poetry circle I'd had going for three years at last resulted in radio work - Neptunian media exposure!
And if you completely relocate the progressed pattern, that same 12 Libra Asc. arrived precisely three years earlier when the poetry circle started in my front room. How about that?
My Desc flipped over Saturn, mirrors at 21LE30. I've checked my Q-charts for 13th July last year and 1999 (which is the day every year when this happens ... think on!!!) and in 1999 we had a power failure, while last year the diary entry is, "Bleak". The day before it says, "Wept". Why? because the day before that, with t. Uranus on the Q. Asc at my birth-time, this lovely new laptop went completely screwy and had to be sent back to be loved better after hours of vain effort on phone-lines.
My Daily Progressed Asc/Desc hits the same axis on May 19th this year; each year before this, it will have happened a day or two later - a 'moveable feast'!
Checking, now, the tertiary patterns, it amuses me to find that today specifically, Saturn is exactly setting!!! If ever a technique picks up daily themes, this must be amongst the best.

ENGLAND IN THE MIRROR

Well, I have just used Solar Fire's flexible Returns tool to log some of the key mirror transits for out sceptr'd isle. I opened the England 1066 chart and that for the UK, placed them side by side - and was dumbfounded to observe something I for one had completely missed: the UK was 'born' on England's Pluto Return! 1066 Pluto, 3PI50; UK Pluto, 2PI42. No wonder the England chart is still alive and kicking - it generated its 1801 makeover! But with one Noon and one Midnight 'birth', hence diverging horizon axes, their respective Planet/angle mirror degrees usefully scatter.

Now, over the lifetime of a nation, patterns that are rare in a human incarnation repeat quite frequently. To find the exceptional years when the radix and mirror degrees midpoint the angles (and Sun, of course, here) we need to concentrate on something really slow and dramatic - like the afore-mentioned Pluto ... what else?

Kicking off with England, Pluto/MC mirrors at 4AQ52, and Pluto/Asc at 18TA05. Interspersed we also have the Pluto returns to 3PI50. What do we get?
Pluto returns:
in 1310, 1311 - Edward II is so weak a king that he appoints Piers Galveston as Regent in his absence and is deposed and murdered by his barons.
in 1555, 1556 - 'Bloody Mary' Tudor has recently succeeded her father HenryVIII ... and promptly restores Catholicism to England, burning unrepentant Protestants.
in 1800, 1801 - The Act of Union creates the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. London is the largest, most populous capital in the world. Richard Trevithick develops the steam engine and runs the world's first steam vehicle! Pisces!
in 2045-47 - I wonder?

Pluto/Asc mirror:
in 1138, 1139 - Civil war in England, Matilda, the rightful heir, vs. Stephen, whom she captures and imprisons during her own brief reign. David I of Scotland supports her and gains some control in the North of England. (Good Lord. Stephen was buried at Faversham Abbey!!! Just down the road!)
in 1382, 1383 - Richard II, only 14 years old, is challenged in 1381 by Wat Tyler's rebellion and accedes to the serfs' demands. But Tyler is betrayed and murdered; in 1382 the reforms are all repealed, and the people of England are at odds with the Crown. Academic freedom is abolished by the archbishop of Canterbury - and the city of Canterbury is rocked by an earthquake. (My local city - help! Is nowhere safe???) - and the Black Death sweeps Europe.
in 1626, 1627 - and the Black Death sweeps England! 41,000 die in London in 1625 at the start of Charles I's fateful reign. His obsessive insistence on the Divine Right of Kings leads eventually to rebellion, his own beheading, and the institution of a Republic.
in 1870 - 1872 - oddly, nothing of sufficient note to get a mention in my Chronology! But the account of the Great Flood was found in the newly-translated Epic Of Gilgamesh at the British Museum; and negotiations were finalised to abolish the African slave trade.

Pluto/MC mirror:
in 1289, 1290 - Edward I exiles the country's Jews to please the Italians, who want to take over England's finances.
in 1535 - only the previous year Henry VIII breaks with the Church of Rome and establishes the Reformation by the Act of Supremacy. He is destroying the monasteries and putting to death those who oppose him, including Sir Thomas More. The Act of Union joins the principality of Wales to England.
in 1780, 1781 - Furiously at war with both America and the Dutch, as the American Revolution draws to an end. Herschel discovers Uranus! The Severn Bridge - the first iron bridge - is opened for traffic.
in 2026, 2027 - wait and see!

Of course, these are only a select few of the possible patterns we can study - but it is notable how often they centre on major constitutional and eccleciastical changes, rebellions, purges, war, inadequate monarchs.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

From Mike Burns:

 (my apologies for not including it with the last issue! Pam)

A Present from Heaven
I'm still happily exploring and experimenting with your wonderful approach to astrology, and I continue to use it mainly as a tool towards gaining a clearer perspective of the spiritual dimension behind my own simple experiences. You may be interested in one curious occurrence that happened this summer, which I find significant on a personal level.

The background to what happened was that on the 30th July this year, our little dog died. He was 14, so he'd had a good innings, and a happy one... but his kidneys had given up. But of course with modern medicines and so on, it was possible to prolong his life a little. But it reached the point where he was suffering... and I was landed with the job of having to agree with the vet that the kindest thing to do was to let him go. Even now, I am grieved and upset when I think of my having to make that decision, even though I know that I would be equally grieved and upset if I had let him suffer unnecessarily by not giving the vet permission to deal with the matter as he considered best for doggy. Agonising.

Next day Eila and I went out for our first walk without doggy, both of us bursting into tears now and then. I wouldn't have believed how soft we could be over a pet - and he wasn't even technically our dog, but my Mum's. We had been landed with looking after him in his 3 last years of life.

On our way back from our walk, on the 31st July, at 20-54 BST (give or take just 1 minute), I saw on the ground in the lane a white rosary! In a country lane in Wales!... I hadn't seen it when we had walked in the opposite direction; nor did Eila even notice me picking it up when I saw it coming back. A white rosary on the ground, quite near to our home... (A sign to comfort me?)

I've never ever ever come across a lost rosary before, I don't know anyone who has! Nor can I imagine who would carry one around in this area, nor lose it at that time, nor in that place... The odds must be millions to one against that happening. The stunning feature of the rosary - which is not an expensive one, nor new - was that in the centre of it, there figures an image of the mother of God, wearing her crown as Queen of Heaven, and holding baby Jesus. The wearing of the crown is significant. I don't know - maybe too it's an image of the Our Lady of Carmel? Possibly.

The chart of the moment is fantastic, in my view - Caernarfon, 20-54BST, 31-7-2000. My natal Moon position at 3.5 degrees of Leo was descending right then. Neptune is rising at 5 degrees Aquarius, conjunct with PREZIOSA & DOLORES, and opposite SOR (=sister).

The Sun was at 8, nearly 9 degrees of Leo, setting. But look at the asteroids REGINA and PORTA COELI bang on the Sun... "The Queen of Heaven". And at that degree.... surely the position of the Sun at Mary's birthday? The rosary is very much a Catholic rosary... with ROMANSKAYA ( = Roman Lady?) on the Descendant at 5 degrees of Leo.

For whom was this sign meant?... Maybe MICHEL at 10 degrees of Aquarius (9.5 degrees Helio)? An inter-cosmic message... draco-INTERKOSMOS was at 9 degrees of Aquarius; surely sent with love: draco-AMOR at 9 degrees of Aquarius. The message was sent by way of a rosary: draco-BUDROSA at 8 degrees of Leo. All of this was a religous message: draco-Jupiter at 11 degrees of Aquarius too.

Venus was at 22 degrees of Leo, opposite my natal Venus, and at the degree of the Sun at the feast of the Assumption (and square to the Sun at Fatima)...REGINITA is close to Venus, as is ADOREA, and BIANCA (= white in Italian); draco-ANGELINA is opposite as is helio-DONNA.

The Moon is at 19 degrees of Leo directly opposite Uranus with draco-LA PAZ (= peace) at the same degree.

There's a large cluster of relevant planets near the mean/true node positions: ROMA, ROSEMARY, YESHUHUA, FLORENTINA, DE SANCTIS, ROSER, helio-DEVINE, helio-KASAN (the Mother of Kazan is an important icon for me... within a few weeks I was in the Cathedral of the Mother of Kazan, in St Petersburg, lighting candles before that very icon), helio-VERITAS.

There is another small but significant cluster near my MC/IC natal axis, and nodal axis at ca. 10-12 degrees of Pisces and Virgo... ROSAMUNDE, ROSALIA, MICHELANGELO; and similarly CARMELMARIA close to my ascendant, as adjusted to my location at Caernarfon.

DEVOTA and FIDUCIA and more widely AMATA are all opposite my natal Sun....

I'll spare you any more... it just goes on and on... Oh, except to say that by the time the Sun reached Venus' degree in that chart, I was in a Carmelite Convent at Vespers - in Finland, on our way to St Petersburg, the only day we could revisit that Convent after many years, totally by chance (as regards my planning), and it turned out to be the day of the Assumption - And to my shame, it was not until the short Vespers service started that I remembered what day it was!!! (And since our previous visit, they had also put into their chapel one of the most beautiful images of Mary that I have ever seen).

By the way, yesterday I had to attend a court in the Midlands as a witness; the precise moment I was called to give evidence, you have MICHELA rising exactly opposite MICHELLE at 29 degrees Aries/Libra - with the draco positions of these asteroids matching my natal Asc/Desc axis. (And my Desc on the midheaven within a degree or so).

I never cease to be surprised that more astrologers have not taken on board this extensive cosmic vocabulary provided by all these 8000+ asteroids.

* * * * * * *

On spiritual matters -
- and specifically the matter of women priests:

The issue has arisen in the context of our own small ( but beautifully formed!) Liberal Catholic Celtic Mission. We already ordain women to Deacon, but one has requested that she be priested, so that she can extend her valuable ministry to the sick and dying to the full Requiem Mass for those who have passed to the Higher Life.
Accordingly we are seeking guidance from our clergy and congregations ... and I am revisiting the charts of the first ordinations of women to deacon and priest in the Anglican Communion.
When asking during meditation for higher guidance, it was conveyed to me unambiguously that we should not introduce priestesses into our particular church, but that we most certainly should go ahead and ordain our women clergy to the Priesthood according to our established rites. Not only this, but that it was God's will that the priesthood in all churches should be open to women; that human interference was preventing this important step forward on our collective spiritual path.

Archetypally, there are good symbolic reasons for sacrificial priesthood hitherto remaining a male role - it is Solar in its essence, and to use a female, Lunar body as a vehicle has not been appropriate. However, you can see for yourselves the heavenly harmony in these two precisely-timed charts (for the priesting I was glued to the TV with a stopwatch!!!)

The first Anglican women deacons: 27th February 1987, 19h30 GMT, Canterbury, England.
The first Anglican women priests: 12th March 1994, 17h46 GMT, Bristol, England. The setting Pisces New Moon was conjunct 'Priestley' as 'Osterbrock' (Easter Bread - the Communion) rose and all the words for wisdom were angular.
It is a New Age. It is time.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

HELP NEEDED!
Peter in Oz is investigating hypothetical planet Ov/Melodia, clairvoyantly perceived by Charubel in the 1890's. He wants to know its current position and motion ... do any of you have this information? If so, do please email me at this Small World address so that I can pass it on to him and put him in touch with you.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS.

I've been watching with trepidation the ever-closer approach of the Dragon's Tail to the Sun of the UK, and England 1066, and the EEC - and the start of every current year including the Millennium. Because the modern Western Calendar starts on January 1st with the Sun in 9 or 10 of Capricorn, this degree-area is peculiarly sensitive, along with the Suns of the myriad institutions that get 'born' under its rays.

Britain Drowning
That extreme weather we've been watching out for this winter? It's back again - this time paralysing Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Borders. Driving snow on high winds has blocked roads and railways, and brough down so many power lines that over 40,000 households and businesses are shivering. Here, it's very very wet. So wet that for the first time since 1966 the Nailbourne stream, that once made of our Ospringe Village a famous 'Little Venice' and fed our watercress beds until culverted to construct the M2, has surfaced triumphantly in at least three places. There are of course local legends about the drying and running of this stream, and it is curious that the same interval of time has separated two devastating episodes in our rural life ...

Britain Burning
...For amidst this considerable discomfort, we now have an unfolding tragedy, a catastrophe rapidly affecting our entire way of life here in Britain and threatening to spill over into Europe - over 30 years since the last serious outbreak we are in the midst of an epidemic of Foot and Mouth Disease that has brought funeral pyres to the countryside as thousands of cattle, sheep and pigs are slaughtered and burned in hay-pits to try to stem the tide of the lethal virus. It has given a poignant new meaning to Ash Wednesday, and a terrible sacrifice for Lent. In Water Lane just round the corner is Queen's Court Farm, with its royal history, its cattle herd .. and the risen Nailbourne. Here and throughout the country all rambling is now forbidden. Zoos and parks are closing to protect irreplaceable breeds. All horse-racing is on hold for at least a fortnight, with the Cheltenham Festival in doubt and certainly no Irish contingent. Crufts Dog Show has been cancelled. Animal hauliers along with small butchers, specialist food-shops, and farmers already threatened by five years of BSE, risk going to the wall. Food prices will rise. Freedom of movement is curtailed. Disinfection is compulsory. Both the local and General Elections may have to be postponed because of the infection risks of campaign travel. Last time, it took eight months to run its course.

February 19th 2001, Brentwood, Essex, UK, 11h36 am GMT.
The date, place and time of the first official notification paints a dramatic picture of the suffering that has only just begun, and the upheaval that has to take place before we adopt radical new policies for our future - Chiron exactly sets as Uranus culminates. . . a planetary connection that repeats itself over all the charts I've been able to look at for this year and November 1967. England (1066) currently still has the miasma of t. sidereal Neptune close to its Sun, while tropical Chiron is on its sidereal Sun at 28 Sagittarius. Helio Chiron is on England's tropical dwad Ascendant (22 Sagittarius) and the transiting sidereal dwad Chiron rapidly approaches 10 Capricorn. Back in 1967 as the infection took hold it was the tropical dwad transit of Chiron that was on the England & UK Sun. The midpoint of Uranus/Chiron transited England's sidereal Sun, while its tropical dwad Desc was burdened by both the transiting trop. dwad Saturn and the square from transiting Pluto in Virgo. Uranus had progressed to the precise conjunction with the England MC. Progressing the dwad brought Pluto to England's dwad Desc, Neptune to Sun, Mars to N.Node, and Sun/Uranus to Pluto/MC.

We were tried then, and are still found wanting! We cannot go on abusing the creatures upon whom we depend, by treating them (like almost everything these cold-blooded days) as a global industrial 'product', as 'agribusiness', feeding them recycled death, and hurling them along motorways, airways and sealanes as casually as junk mail. We must slow down. We have to stop wanting the world without paying the bill. We must re-start urgently the dying heart of our local economies.

Corrupt Capricorn is ambitious, and mercenary, greedy, heartless, patronising and power-hungry, coarse and unfeeling; it will trample all kindness, all beauty, all gentleness, all peace into the dust to get what it wants. Its eyes are so fixed on a grandiose and profitable goal that everything and everyone else is ignored. The price of this hybris is high - it is utter destruction. Witness Hitler. His natal Draconic Sun in Capricorn fell in his Tropical Dragon's Tail. How were the mighty fallen!

The coming Summer Solstice sees a total solar eclipse culminating over London, as England's chart wheels toward its date with Destiny - p.Sun and MC now almost within a degree of the radix nodal axis and the dwad progressions showing a quartet of Sun, Pluto, Moon and Neptune all conjoined in the radix 8th and p.12th houses opposite t. Pluto in coelo. This lot is about to collide with England's radix dwad Descendant in Gemini, helped again next year by Pluto as it reaches 22 Sag. Adding the converse sidereal dwad to the England sidereal radix reveals Pluto conjunct and Saturn opposite Sun/MC with Uranus setting. The converse patterns are full of angular nodes and Saturn. God help us.

Britain Grieves
And today, February 28th 2001, in a blizzard at Great Heck just south of Selby in Yorkshire, a Land-Rover towing a low trailer with a car on top slid off the M62 by a bridge (before reaching the safety barrier) and down the railway embankment below. It was now on the main Edinburgh-Kings Cross line. The driver got out, saw a train coming, phoned 999 at 06h12 am on his mobile - and then at 06h16 had to watch, traumatised, as the 04h45 Newcastle-on-Tyne to London commuter express slammed into the vehicles at 125 mph, derailed half a mile down the track - and was immediately crushed by a 70 mph fully loaded, 1000-ton local coal train coming north from Immingham, which it had left at 05h00 for Ferrybridge. A house by the line miraculously escaped damage, only the occupants' touring caravan was demolished.
It was the very same locomotive that derailed in last year's pivotal Hatfield train crash!

So far, 13 are known to have died, 31 seriously injured, 40 'walking wounded'. But more than one badly-smashed carriage has yet to be cut apart.

Pluto was in the Midheaven as Mercury in Aquarius exactly rose - and the Pluto/MC conjunction was within a degree in the Helio chart, opposite H. Jupiter. The Dwad chart is, as usual, powerful in its added description of the situation - Neptune conj. MC opposite Uranus at the IC evoke the shock and confusion and material disintegration, the prayers of passengers trapped and suffering in a moment when the dwad nodes aligned fatefully with the radix MC/Pluto, and dwad Sun opposed radix Chiron. At the departure of the express from Newcastle, this was exactly joned by the dwad Moon, and in the dwad wheel Uranus precisely set. A pattern once again spelling "too fast"? Or "Act of God"? Probably both. In the media's eyes, this is seen as a freak accident... but consider the presence on the four angles of asteroids 'Godart' (MC), 'Hekate' (IC), 'Siva' (Asc) and 'Lucifer' (Desc.)

And then there's poor Mozambique ... and Seattle ...

Now it's March 2nd, and yesterday after the I.T.-rich northwestern Indian state of Gujarat, the I.T.-rich northwestern US state of Washington was rocked by a magnitude 7 deep earthquake that caused billions of dollars of damage in Seattle and disrupted - - but failed to spoil - Bill Gates' day. The US Geological Survey timed it at 10h54m33s, coordinates close to the state capital Olympia, 47n12, 122W42 (their data are decimal.)

Mozambique is suffering the consequences of the upriver Zambezi dam, which emptied the flood-plains of water and attracted all the farming families and communities whose world is now drowning . Where was all this rain-water supposed to go??? We interfere with nature's order at our peril.
This poor suffering country has - unsurprisingly - progressed Asc. conjunct Chiron, whom we are getting to know rather well, and opposite Uranus. The prog. Sun is still closing its square to them both. Converse MC is with Neptune, having aligned with the conv. Sun a couple of years back.. Neptune rose at the 1999 solar return, and both last June and this June 25th the return charts have the nodes tightly, fatefully angular. Will Governments learn???

On A Lighter Note...!

You may remember in an earlier issue we had a peek at a few Beanie Baby birthdays, as these are helpfully TYed to their ears.

I bought a couple more the other day ... I can't resist rabbits, or amazingly crazy colours (guess who has an overplus of Virgo and Aquarius!) so home came Hopper, born 7th August 2000, and Kaleidoscope Cat, born June 24th Y2K.
The thing that works with Beanies, so far, as a multi-cultural phenomenon, is to put up the sidereal sunrise chart for the local TY HQ (which for Europe is Gosport in Hampshire); this is delightfully apt, and cross-contacts to the other zodiacs suitably enhance it. Plus asteroids, of course....

Thus, Hopper, with silvery fur, white tummy and cotton-tail, has sidereal rising Sun in Cancer, smiled on by the Draconic Cancer Moon - and tropical 'Hopmann'. A sidereal conjunction of 'Babel' and 'Hoppe' conjoins the tropical Asc and Sun. As befits a Beanie Baby, the Moon is strong - we also find the sidereal Moon on the draconic Desc... and asteroid 'Beny' sets! There is nothing closer to 'Beanie'.
Kaleidoscope the cat is a sidereal Gemini, attractive, fierce, weird and wonderful with a Mars/Venus conjunction to the rising Sun, and Tropical Pluto and Neptune on the sidereal angles. Another angular baby Moon, appropriately in sidereal Aquarius on the tropical MC. Blissfully, 'CheshireCat' is setting in coelo with 'Iris' -the rainbow - at the IC. Which ain't bad for a rainbow-coloured cat!

When I paid for them in Faversham at 11h27 on February 26th, the Asc and MC were the Cat's own sunrise angles; it was having its Saturn return already! ... and the Sun was on its draconic Sun in Pisces. 'TYr' was setting, and 'Hopmann' was on the IC (with a 3rd, secret Beanie asteroid - conjunct 'Granule'! - on the Midheaven. Which I may disclose later.)

Well, I had hoped to end on a lighter note - but today's news had me in tears. There is surely enough misery in the world without others in our islands adding further to it. At 00h30 today, 4th March 2001, the 'Real IRA' (we assume) detonated a car bomb in a taxi parked ouside the BBC Television Centre at White City in London. Thank God only one person was injured. Twelve hours later at 12h33 there was a second alert at London's Victoria Station and a controlled explosion took place before the station was re-opened at 14h00.
The following text was copied from AOL News:

04/03 (13:16) COUNTDOWN TO BOMB BLAST

By Laura Elston, PA News

This is the timetable for the car bomb attack on the BBC Television Centre.

1100 Saturday - A taxi is bought for £300 by a man speaking in a Northern Irish accent from a dealer in the Pickett's Lock area of Edmonton, north London.
2300 Saturday - The taxi is left in Wood Lane, parked outside the BBC Television Centre main entrance on the wrong side of the road with its headlights on.
2322 Saturday - A London hospital receives a coded warning reporting that a maroon hackney cab-style taxi containing a bomb is parked near the BBC Television Centre.
2324 Saturday - A second coded warning is issued to an unnamed charity. Neither warnings state how long it will be before the bomb goes off.
BBC newsroom workers are evacuated and the BBC's Laurie Margolis and a cameraman go to a nearby car park to film the scene.
2340 Saturday - Bomb disposal officers arrive and locate the red taxi - registration D902 GYH - parked near to a bus stop outside the main entrance to the BBC Television Centre.
0030 Sunday - As a bomb disposal officer attempts to carry out a controlled explosion, the device, containing between 10-20lbs of high explosives, detonates due to a timing device.
A huge yellow fireball erupts sending debris soaring over a wide area, smashing the windows of the glass-fronted BBC Television Centre and destroying the taxi.
One London Underground worker suffers cuts around his eyes in the attack and is treated at the scene.
Windows in nearby houses and flats on the Wood Lane Estate are blown out by the blast.
Nearby residents hear counter blasts after the main explosion, which knocks pictures off walls in homes up to a quarter of a mile away.
1120 Sunday - Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Fry tells a Scotland Yard press conference that the prompt action of the emergency services prevented the bomb from having more serious consequences.

The historic, social/political nature of such events requires the Sidereal to be the focal zodiac, and as usual this approach proves correct. In both charts the Sidereal Meridian carries tropical and helio Uranus, with draconic Mars opposite. At the later alert, tropical and helio Chiron are on the sidereal Desc; at the first detonation Saturn is setting in coelo opposite a sidereal Scorpio Ascendant which also carries draconic Mercury and helio Mars. Rising opposite Saturn is a nasty conjunction of asteroids 'Loke' (the Norse mischief-maker), 'Taguacipa' (who turns good people bad)... and tropical IRAS is on the sidereal Desc, its dwad in 13 gemini aligned with the closing Mars-Pluto conjunction. This bellicose horizon is squared by 'Ireland'.


Till next time, then:
May God bless you all - pray for our embattled world and the healing of human ignorance.
Love, Pam