Some Asteroid Short Takes
Zip Dobyns
Asteroids are a daily part of my life, and yet I never get used to their amazing precision. Whether in personal horoscopes or in charts for organizations and events, their names give their meaning and they reinforce the basic messages in the horoscopes. The following are a few examples. Listed aspects to the new asteroids, all except the first four to be discovered and Chiron, are limited to one-degree orbs. We won’t include the charts, but the data is included, other than one from a personal source, in case readers want to calculate them for personal study. The letter N stands for natal chart positions, and P stands for secondary progressed positions.
The Libra 1999 ingress calculated for Washington, DC had the asteroid Flood exactly on the IC. Hurricane Floyd had hit the east coast some days earlier, so at the time of the ingress, much of eastern North Carolina was under water. When planets or asteroids are on an angle in a mundane chart, the condition they describe is often already present at the start of the period described by the chart. The MC axis of a chart is solely determined by its longitude, though the other angles are also influenced by latitude. Almost every city mentioned in the news as having been hit by the floods was within a degree of the Washington, DC longitude, so they also had Flood on their 4th house cusps in their ingress charts. The same ingress charts also had Irene, the name of the next hurricane which flooded most of the same areas within the same ingress period, on the MC.
Five people were electrocuted in two cities in Broward County, FL when they waded in water with downed power lines after hurricane Irene. Calculating the same ingress for Cooper City, FL, one of the cities where a death occurred, put Tesla exactly on the Descendant, opposite the Ascendant which signifies the life force. Tesla was the inventor of alternating current, our main form of electricity. The other city where the electrocutions occurred was Weston, FL, and I was unable to find it in my atlas so could not calculate the chart. Since it was in the same county, the chart was probably similar to Cooper City.
On November 18, 1999, in College Station, TX, logs being stacked for a huge bonfire came crashing down, killing 12 of the students who were working on the project and injuring another 27. The media’s reported times for the incident included 2, 2:30, and shortly before 3 A.M., but one witness gave a more precise time of 2:42 A.M. Asteroids named for death goddesses include Hel, Hela, Atropos, and Libitina. Hel was conjunct the Sun. Atropos squared the mean lunar nodes. Juno, an equivalent to Pluto, was on Gaea (earth) and octile Atropos on one side and the south lunar node on the other side. Libitina was in a grand cross with Saturn in Taurus, Vesta conjunct Siva in Scorpio, and Uranus in Aquarius. Hela in 28 Pisces was connected to the fixed-sign cross with an octile to Uranus. Karma opposed the midpoint of Sun/Moon.
I love to collect the charts of psychics, and always check to find the positions of Aletheia, the Greek goddess of truth, and Veritas, the Roman goddess of truth. A psychic named David Wilcock has his personal name asteroid on his Venus in Pisces opposite Veritas, which is in the natural house of Saturn. Aletheia is on the midpoint of Saturn/south lunar node. I consider Saturn, its sign and house, and its midpoints with the nodes to be keys to lessons the individual needs to learn. David’s birth data was published in the September 7, 1999 issue of an occult newspaper named The Spectrum, which had a lengthy interview with him. David believes that he is a reincarnation of Edgar Cayce, and the newspaper describes the similarities between the charts of the two men. David gave his birth data as March 8, 1973 at 23:16 EST in Schenectady, NY. David does not do health readings like Cayce, and his predictions of world events have had many errors. They included his forecast of a nuclear attack on New York, California inundated due to a major tectonic shift before the end of September 1998, and an economic collapse of the American financial community by or before August 30, 1998. As our readers know, I think that a lot of psychics are like sponges picking up astral scenarios, but they can’t differentiate the astral creations from the class schedule for the physical world. Astrology is a superb key to our class schedule, but it shows the psychological issues and the timing when we will have to deal with them, not the actual details, which depend on how we handle the challenges.
Authorities are still searching for the reason an Egyptian plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nantucket, MA on October 31, 1999. The time given in the media was 1:52 A.M. EST. The asteroid Wright, for the inventors of heavier-than-air craft, was on Arabia. Egypt shares the language and religion of Arabia, and the nationality of the plane’s pilots and many passengers were part of the Arab world. The north lunar node was on Libitina and Mithra, a near-Eastern god worshipped mostly by military men and pirates in a religion that competed with early Christianity. Hela in 23 Pisces was octile-trioctile the lunar nodes. Those who favor the theory of sabotage point out that the plane’s passengers included 33 Egyptian army officers. The MC had just passed a trioctile to Atropos, so the aspect would have been within the one-degree orb during the two minutes the plane was making its terrifying plunge into the ocean. Swissaire, the only asteroid named for an airline as far as I know, was on Pluto, square the East Point, an equivalent Ascendant, in the crash chart. In a chart calculated for Nantucket but for the time when the plane took off from New York at 1:19 A.M., the Ascendant was square Pluto, and Icarus was on the IC. Phaethon, who crashed like Icarus, was in 9 Taurus, quincunx Pluto. Hel in 15 Scorpio was quincunx America in 15 Gemini. Will we ever learn the truth about the cause of the crash? Aletheia was on Saturn trioctile Atropos and square Uranus.
The mysterious crash of the plane of Stewart, the famous golfer, occurred on October 25, 1999 at 13:20 P.M. EDT in Mina, SD. The news reports continued to give the time for Eastern Daylight while describing its flight across the country from its takeoff in FL. It continued to fly until it ran out of gas, controlled by automatic pilot for hours after the passengers had apparently died. The news provides us with so many charts of dramatic events, sometimes I just run them and only have time to glance at a few obvious features. Stewart’s plane crashed when the Moon reached Phaethon and was 2 minutes short of a one-degree conjunction with Saturn. Of course, we normally allow more than one-degree orbs for the traditional planets. Aletheia was closely conjunct Saturn. Karma, just under 20 Cancer, was quincunx the Ascendant, and Libitina in 6 Leo was trioctile it and quincunx Mars. The plane took off from Orlando, FL, at 9:09 A.M. EDT with Icarus conjunct the East Point. Of course, there are always aspects for the traditional planets. Juno was trioctile Jupiter, which was opposite Vesta, with the Sun just over a degree past Vesta and square Neptune. The plane is thought to have lost its air pressure, killing the passengers from asphyxiation, a Neptunian death.
There have been what seems like an unusual number of plane crashes in recent weeks. We will look briefly at one more which occurred in Newark, NJ on November 26, 1999 at 10:45 A.M. EST. The crash involved a small private plane. Almost immediately after its takeoff from Newark, it spun out of control, hit an empty factory, 3 cars, and a fast food restaurant, killing all 3 passengers and the pilot. Mars, Neptune, and the south lunar node were rising in Aquarius, with Mars octile the Part of Death in 16 Pisces. The Ascendant was octile Pluto, square Jupiter, and opposite Atlantis. Pluto was also within the one-degree orb of an octile to the north node of Mars, which was conjunct Phaethon, in 23 to 24 Aries. Jupiter was also quincunx the south node of Mars in 25 Scorpio. The Sun was quincunx Wright and octile Venus. Icarus was conjunct Juno and Aesculapia, and formed a grand cross with Ceres and the midpoints of Saturn and the lunar nodes. Libitina was conjunct Pallas and opposite the East Point and Uranus. Saturn opposed Atropos. Tyr opposed Mercury and Vesta and was octile Hela. The Antivertex squared Bellerophon and Hel. All listed aspects are within one degree. All four death goddesses and all three “overreach and crash” asteroids are involved, in addition to many more relevant asteroids.
With the flood of news from around the world, there is no end to the potential charts available to test the usefulness of the asteroids. Since the heavily conflicted eclipses in the summer of 1999, we have had major earthquakes in Turkey, Greece, Taiwan, Mexico and California. The last two were in less populated areas, so there was little or no loss of life. It is poorly constructed buildings, not the actual quakes, which kill people. We have had Kosovo’s horror, plus continuing civil strife in many areas. The eclipse conflict aspects were concentrated in fixed signs, and similar aspects come and go through 1998 to 2000, warning humans that we need to learn to share possessions, pleasures, and power for mutual good. Astrology shows life issues. Humans create life details by the way they handle the issues.
There is no time to deal with all the violent events featured daily in the media, from riots to train wrecks to murders. Another asphyxiation case involved a suicide by a brilliant, but troubled teenager. I will not give the birth data since he was not a public figure, and the data was from a private source. When he took his life by shutting off his air supply, P Atropos had returned to its natal position on his IC. N Dido, an asteroid of suicide, was on his N MC. N Hel was on his N 8th house cusp and P Hel squared Saturn in Scorpio. His P MC was on P Saturn square N Hel and the 8th cusp (Placidus). P Siva, P Sun, and P Neptune were all conjunct N Ceres in Sagittarius. P Bellerophon, another mythical figure who overreached and crashed, was on his P Mars and octile P Hela and P Icarus. P Moon had just left a conjunction with N Bellerophon, but P Hybris was still within a one-degree conjunction with the Moon and Bellerophon, and it squared P Phaethon. P Juno was on N Mars and N Hybris (hubris). P Ascendant was on P Erigone, another suicide asteroid. P Libitina was quincunx N Venus and N Mercury. Those of us who accept the continuity of life trust that he has learned something and will have a chance to cope more effectively next time.