Asteroid-World Fall 1987

Zip Dobyns

As usual, I have far more material than can be covered, including an exciting new technique for mundane astrology. We have another birth time for Oliver North. That is becoming a regular event. The time of 12:43 A.M. comes from Renee Goodale of Atlanta, Georgia. She says the source cannot be given, but she thinks it is reliable. It might be. The chart puts natal Neptune (and Atlantis) on the IC, exact to the degree. But then, this might also be some astrologer’s idea of an appropriate position. My first speculative chart put Neptune on the MC on the local (Washington, DC) house cusps. The chart is reasonable, but at this point, I have not wanted to invest more time in checking it against events in his life. Other things seem more important. This early time produces a Moon at 18 Capricorn which is conjunct the south nodes of both Saturn and Pluto, as well as quincunx natal Mars-Vesta-Fanatica. That combination fits North’s power-struggle life very well.

I have a birth date and place but no time for Judge Anthony Kennedy, the latest nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy after Bork was rejected and Ginsburg bowed out. Kennedy was born in Sacramento, California on July 23, 1936. He has a strong grouping in Cancer and Leo; a warm person. He also has a mutable cross: Vesta-Chiron in Gemini, Neptune in Virgo, Jupiter in Sagittarius, and Saturn in Pisces. The mutable dilemma suggests intelligence with multiple interests and often a struggle between ideals and the limits of the possible. Questions involving beliefs and morality are often important to people with such charts. Kennedy is a Catholic and described as a moderate conservative who will not try to turn back the clock as Bork threatened to do. His students and employees speak well of him and he seems likely to be confirmed though NOW, (National Organization of Women), opposes him. His mutable emphasis fits the ethical issues that society has to resolve in the years ahead.

I also now have a birth certificate time for Albert Gore, thanks to Marian March via Lois Rodden. Gore was born in Washington, DC on March 31, 1948 at 12:53 P.M. EST. This birth time brings enough angles into action to justify taking another look at Gore’s prospects in the 1988 race. I still think he has no chance at the Presidency, but now think he might have a shot at being picked for Vice President. At the time of the November 1988 election, Gore will have P Moon conjunct his natal Antivertex, semisextile natal East Point, octile (semisquare) P Antivertex, and sextile natal Mars. It will sextile Saturn when the Democratic nominations are decided in July 1988. His P Mars will be conjunct P East Point with both trine P Jupiter. P MC will be octile natal Vesta for a potential job change, and square natal Juno, while P Mercury will move into a square to P Ascendant during the interval between the election and the inauguration on January 20, 1989. Other aspects suggesting a change of work and/or home include P Venus opposite natal Moon; P Sun opposite P Chiron across the fourth-tenth houses; P Uranus quincunx natal Chiron (an aspect that lasts for years) with P Pallas also quincunx Chiron—a yod; P Vesta quincunx natal Jupiter; P Neptune opposite natal Sun (another aspect lasting for years); etc. There are plenty of stress aspects, but whoever wins this next election will inevitably face monstrous stress trying to deal with the problems of the world.

Some years ago we published the birth data for Mario Cuomo, current governor of New York. He has firmly declined to run for the Presidency, saying that he could not compete for the office and also be an effective governor. He also said that he had no desire to be a Democratic Hoover, obviously anticipating the financial trauma that will follow the Reagan disaster. But a visitor to a couple of our Mundane discussion groups feels strongly that there will be no clear winner in the Democratic race and that at the Convention in July, Cuomo will be perceived as the one person most able to win the election. Our visitor, a lawyer from New Hampshire, thinks Cuomo will be offered the nomination, will accept, and that Gore will be the V.P. candidate since he can pull more of the votes from the south and from the more conservative Democrats. For those who want to explore that scenario, Cuomo was born on June 15, 1932 at 10 A.M. EDT, in Queens county, N.Y., 40 N 43, 73 W 47.

Cuomo does have the potential to be a winner with P Sun conjunct his natal Jupiter and Washington, DC Ascendant along with P Mercury conjunct P Jupiter. P Venus is conjunct P MC and they are sextile P Neptune. If his birth data is accurate, natal Vesta is exactly conjunct his Washington, DC MC, to the minute of longitude! At the election, P Moon is quincunx that Vesta-local MC and his natal Antivertex, forming a yod for a possible major change of direction in his life. P Moon will be quincunx his birthplace MC for the inauguration. P local MC is just coming to a quincunx to natal Saturn and in orb to the midpoint of natal and P Saturn. P local Ascendant trines the Saturn midpoint. Many more aspects could be mentioned, including his P Saturn in Aquarius in the sixth house conjunct the asteroids natal Makover and Jackson.

I have speculated from the chart of Jesse Jackson that he might be appointed to a high position, maybe Cabinet level, after the new inauguration since Jackson’s P Sun reaches his natal MC about February 1989. Cuomo’s P Saturn (executive power) conjunct the asteroid Jackson could symbolize making such an appointment. But Jackson is also a common name so there are lots of possible appointees. And if Jesse Jackson was born a few minutes earlier than his reported time, his P Sun could already be on his MC. Returning to Cuomo’s chart, his P Saturn is also quincunx P Mercury and P Jupiter and approaching a trine to P Vesta. The chart certainly suggests change and potential power, but even with astrology we are still making educated guesses. In fact, it is actually his relatively harmonious chart which makes me doubt that he will be the next President. Whoever wins the office in 1988 will be tackling the impossible so he is bound to have a chart full of stress. Cuomo has been a good governor and I would be happy to see him elected President; it just seems improbable at this point. It is also true that no convention since 1952 has been able to choose a candidate who had not done well in the primaries. By the election of John Kennedy in 1960, the modern primaries had become strong enough to replace the “backroom deals” of the professional politicians. Gore (along with Gephardt) would be my last choices of the Democratic candidates, but I have to concede that Gore has a chance to end up on the ticket. Fortunately, V Ps generally fade into the woodwork and rarely carry much clout.

Perhaps the most dramatic event of the past month was the biggest-ever one-day drop in the DOW Jones Industrial Average; 508 points on October 19, after a drop of over 100 on the preceding Friday. I have been planning for over a year to devote a major part of one issue of Asteroid-World to a more thorough discussion of the world economic situation, but have kept putting it off. The events of October 1987 pushed me into doing it now but after two weeks of intermittent writing, it is still incomplete so I decided to send the more typical Asteroid-World material which was ready. So the economic overview will follow in time. Those uninterested in the area can skip it while it can go to some people who are very interested in economics but know little astrology.

The new (at least to me) mundane technique came from Helen Clerf of Washington state. She commented in a phone conversation that she had seen interesting results in charts calculated for the time when the Earth was conjunct Pluto, looking from the Sun (heliocentrically). She said that both the Earth-Pluto conjunction before the first atom bomb on Hiroshima calculated at Hiroshima, and the Earth-Pluto conjunction before the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption calculated at the location of St Helens had Pluto exactly on the Ascendant. My immediate reaction was WOW! Why didn’t I think of trying that? Intuitively, it makes perfect sense that the patterns at the time Earth is conjunct a planet should offer a symbolic key to how Earth would handle the affairs of that planet during the period until the conjunction comes again. Once the helio timing was obtained (using the ACS heliocentric ephemeris for this century), I ran normal geocentric charts and added the heliocentric planetary positions to the charts. The results have been mind-blowing!

I have done Earth conjunctions with Venus, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto so far, for a variety of different past events at different places. Almost without exception, the charts have had dramatic and appropriate aspects. The most impressive results have been the number of times that major planets were on or closely aspecting the angles, usually the MC or Ascendant. Aspects listed are within a one degree orb with exceptions specified. In addition to Pluto being conjunct the Ascendant in Hiroshima, it squared the Tokyo MC within one degree and 18 minutes and the Tokyo Ascendant was at the midpoint of Pluto/Moon. Of course when the Earth is conjunct an outer planet as seen from the Sun, the Sun will be opposite the planet as seen from Earth, so the Hiroshima chart put the Sun on the Descendant. In the same chart calculated for Washington, DC where the orders were given for the bomb, heliocentric Uranus was on the Descendant. The same chart calculated for White Sands New Mexico where the first bomb was exploded had 19 Scorpio rising on the heliocentric south node of Mars, with Saturn trioctile the Ascendant, heliocentric Neptune octile it, while heliocentric Mars and geocentric Chiron squared each other and were in just over one degree octiles to the Ascendant.

I also ran the Earth-Saturn conjunction before Hiroshima, and found Saturn conjunct the IC within one degree and 13 minutes. Neptune squared the MC-Sun and IC-Saturn and opposed the East Point, forming a cardinal cross. The asteroid Nippon (Japan) was at the Saturn-Neptune midpoint, octile-trioctile the cardinal cross. A Urania-Mars-Mercury conjunction was trioctile Pluto. Siva was quincunx Pluto and square Uranus. There were many other conflict aspects in the chart, and I would encourage those who are interested in going further to calculate some of these charts for personal additional study.

I confirmed that Pluto was on the Ascendant in the Earth-Pluto chart prior to St Helens eruption, and I also ran the Earth-Saturn chart prior to the eruption. It had a square between a rising Saturn and a fourth house Neptune, but the planets were 4 degrees from the angles. The aspects would have been exact about four degrees east of the coordinates given for the mountain in our atlas, so allowing some orb, (the mountain covers a sizable area) the planets aspected much of the region that received the volcanic dust and debris.

The Earth-Pluto chart in 1985 before Chernobyl was less impressive though Mars opposed Saturn with an orb of one degree and 38 minutes while Mars was quincunx the IC within 4 minutes of longitude and Saturn was more widely quincunx the MC. The Pluto-Sun opposition was octile-trioctile Uranus. The next Earth-Pluto conjunction actually occurred one minute after noon on the day of the nuclear explosion, presumably while they were still fighting the fire and starting to evacuate people. Saturn was just over one degree from the IC with the Moon three degrees before it. Pluto was quincunx the MC and the Sun quincunx the IC along with the Moon/Saturn midpoint. There were many other conflict aspects in the chart including Mercury, ruler of the rising Virgo, quincunx the Ascendant from the eighth house.

The Earth-Saturn conjunction prior to Chernobyl had Saturn on the Ascendant within four minutes of longitude! Pluto opposed Mercury-Pallas with all of them octile-trioctile the nodes of the Moon and the MC-IC. Jupiter was quincunx the MC while Uranus squared it from the first house. More widely, Uranus was conjunct the East Point and opposite Mars. It is a really dramatic chart!

The Earth-Mars chart before Chernobyl has Pluto conjunct the IC, Moon quincunx MC, Saturn opposite Venus just over one degree, with both more widely square the Ascendant. The Mars-Sun axis is octile-trioctile the Vertex axis.

The Earth-Uranus chart before Chernobyl had Uranus-Sun square the mean nodes of the Moon and octile-trioctile a fixed T-square of Moon-Venus-Pluto though only Venus was within a one degree orb to Uranus. Pluto was conjunct the MC in Moscow. The Pripyat and Moscow Ascendants were almost identical in that chart and transiting Uranus-Ascendant conjuncted them when the explosion occurred over ten months later.

Of the charts preceding the Challenger explosion and calculated for Cape Canaveral, the Earth-Uranus was impressive with Neptune on the IC and square the Ascendant-East Point while Venus, ruler of the Ascendant was just over a one degree orb quincunx to it from the eighth house. Mercury was one degree and one minute from the Sun in the opposition to Uranus while Mars-Ceres squared Juno and opposed the Part of Death. In the Earth-Mars chart, Mars-Sun were octile-trioctile the MC-IC in Canaveral, among many other aspects. Mars ruled the Aries rising and was in Scorpio in the eighth house.

Looking at a couple of charts prior to the 1929 stock market crash, the Earth-Pluto conjunction had the true nodes of the Moon square the New York Ascendant in fixed signs. Saturn opposed Mars and was quincunx the New York MC, with the Moon ten degrees earlier. The crash occurred when progressed Moon reached the conjunction to Saturn, opposition to Mars, and quincunx to the N.Y. MC. The asteroid America was on the IC in Washington, DC and ARA, one of the asteroids named for Herbert Hoover, was on the Ascendant in Washington along with Sisyphus, the guy who kept rolling the rock uphill only to have it roll back down. Asteroids Washingtonia and Tantalus (whose desires were always out of reach) were on Vesta, all within the one degree orb, with Washingtonia and Vesta within a one degree square to the Vertex axis and Tantalus within a one degree square to Pluto-Sun. In cases like this where there are a series of overlapping planets and asteroids, the whole network must be considered included in the aspects.

The Earth-Saturn chart has Uranus conjunct the New York IC, Pluto quincunx the Washington Ascendant and just over one degree from the New York Ascendant, Vesta opposite the New York Ascendant, Mars octile the Washington MC and square the true nodes of the Moon.

Coming closer to this year, the Earth-Mars conjunction for July 10, 1986 covers the period to September 28, 1988, including the Irangate revelations and the market crash this fall. Mars is on the MC in Washington, DC within 8 minutes of longitude as well as octile Saturn in the eighth house and quincunx Chiron. Of course, that puts the Sun on the IC. Pluto is opposite the midpoint of the Washington and New York Ascendants. Earth conjunctions with the outer planets occur at intervals of a few days more than a year, but the faster movement of Mars extends the interval between conjunctions. The 1986 Earth-Saturn conjunction is also dramatic, with Saturn on the Ascendant in Washington within one degree and 26 minutes. Venus is quincunx the Ascendant and Ceres squares it. Pluto squares Moon and with Neptune forms a yod to the Sun that is just over the one degree orb.

In the Earth-Pluto chart for April 29, 1987, covering this fall’s market crash, the Sun-Pluto opposition falls across the midpoint of the Washington, DC and New York Ascendant-Descendant axis. Venus is quincunx Pluto and square Neptune. Saturn in the eighth house is trioctile the Washington Ascendant within 8 minutes of longitude. The Earth-Saturn chart for the year from June 1987 to June 1988 has Saturn on the Washington MC, putting the Sun again on the IC. The progressed Moon was just coming to the quincunx to the IC when the crash occurred on October 19. But there are many water trines in the chart, suggesting that a lot of people still have faith whether it is in God or in the system. The asteroid America is on Pluto in Scorpio in the eighth house trine the Ascendant. Washingtonia is on Psyche which is on the Descendant. I often see Psyche as a key to feelings of helplessness.

The 1988 Earth-Saturn chart has Venus-Mercury-Juno conjunct, all within one degree of the Ascendant in Washington, DC while Venus is within one degree of the Descendant in Tokyo, pulling the others in with the network effect. We will be doing a lot of communicating. Mars-north node in Pisces and south node in Virgo form a cross with the Ascendant-Venus. A Sun-Chiron conjunction in the first house opposes a Saturn-Uranus conjunction in the seventh house, with Uranus bringing them into a square to Ceres and with Saturn-Uranus also quincunx the East Point. The Earth-Pluto chart for 1988 puts Uranus at 0 Capricorn on the MC with the Ascendant in Washington on the Aries point. Saturn is at 2 Capricorn and the New York MC is 3 Capricorn. Heliocentric Mars is also at 2 Capricorn. Mars is conjunct Pallas (Aquarius, eleventh house) and octile the Ascendant and MC-Uranus-Saturn, strengthening the network of aspects. It does look like a year for action involving both the executive and the legislative branches of the government. Elections are covered by that chart. Both the Earth-Mars and the Earth-Uranus charts for 1988 also have oppositions across the fourth and tenth houses fitting the change of executive and suggesting a possible change in the Party in power.

The Earth-Pluto chart for 1989 has Jupiter ruling the MC and conjunct the IC in Washington. In New York, home of the stock market, the mean nodes of the Moon fall on the Ascendant-Descendant while the Saturn-Pluto sextile forms a double quincunx (yod) to the IC. That puts the Sun quincunx the New York MC. The Earth-Saturn chart for 1989 has Pluto at the midpoint of the New York and Washington ICs. Saturn is on Neptune in a grand earth trine to Juno and the Washington MC while Mercury conjunct Jupiter in Gemini is more widely trine the north node of the Moon. The fifth and eleventh houses are most activated, including Vesta conjunct Uranus in early Capricorn, opposite Moon and quincunx Venus in Leo in the twelfth house. It looks as if the government will be trying to be optimistic, intelligent, but also practical with the fifth house stellium in Capricorn.

1990 is as far as I have gone, and faith versus fear still looks like a basic issue. In the Earth-Saturn chart, Jupiter is on the Sun in the ninth house opposite Saturn with all of them square the Ascendant in just over one degree. However, Venus rules the Ascendant and trines it from the ninth house. Franklyn Roosevelt was the one who said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. But the need to deal with debts, resources and power is still highlighted in the Earth-Pluto chart for 1990 with Pluto on the MC in Washington, Juno just 2 minutes over a degree beyond it, and Saturn on the Ascendant in New York. The Moon opposes Vesta and is quincunx Sun-IC within 2 degrees; exactly quincunx the Washington/New York midpoint of their ICs. Vesta is quincunx Juno exactly and hits the midpoint of the Washington/New York MCs. But many people will still be working and offering an example of personal faith with Mars in Pisces in the second house trine Ceres-Chiron (and Jupiter more widely) in Cancer in the sixth house.

Obviously the preceding are only a few highlights from these charts. I have done little else since starting to work with them a couple of weeks ago and have still not had time to look at the asteroids for most of the charts. I ran cartography coordinates on some which did not have the key planets on the angles to see where this would occur. The 1988 Earth-Saturn chart puts the Uranus-Saturn conjunction on the IC and square the Ascendant in Baghdad, Iraq. The missiles hitting there recently have already told us that is not a good place to be. Uranus-Saturn will be on the Ascendant across part of Western Australia, New Guinea, and some of the Pacific islands. Eclipses are also marking that part of the earth.

I am excited about this new technique, and hope that others will try it! Even though the Earth-Pluto conjunction as seen from the Sun should be the same as the Sun-Pluto opposition seen from the Earth, we found a discrepancy between the aspect times in the different ephemerides published by ACS. The original geocentric ephemerides were calculated for apparent positions; these are where one would actually see the planets in looking at them in the sky. The later heliocentric ephemeris is calculated for geometric positions; these are the planets’ actual locations in the sky at the time. The difference depends on the time it takes for light to reach Earth from the planet. We found differences up to 19 minutes for the timing of the aspects. The charts I have described all used the heliocentric times which are the geometric positions.

We will close with our usual comments by Seraphita on the sources of asteroid names. [Not in the web archives.] I really appreciate the time and effort which Seraphita is putting into tracking down this material. Some day, we will have a book of her work. She has been concentrating on names related to the Near East, hoping they might throw light on that tinderbox of tensions. Several are not yet calculated for our collection, but we will get them eventually. The most exciting news on the asteroid front is that Mark has worked out the Icarus problem. It had to be calculated twice a day but we now have accurate positions for it and have printed out a once-a-day ephemeris from 1900 to 2000. Cheers!

Copyright © 1987 Los Angeles Community Church of Religious Science, Inc.

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