Canada Day Cardinal Grand Cross Eclipse: Well, Golly Gee Whiz. Look Who's Fuelling the Global Nuclear Industry

The July 1 New Moon eclipse in Cancer amidst the Cardinal Grand Cross happens on Canada's birthday, and this nation is poised to take on new position and influence within the broader global agenda.

Uber Global Governor Stephen Harper is at the helm for the next four years with a brand, spanking new majority neo-conservative government (won with only 39% of the popular vote), and this global position is going to involve a whole lot of war activity. We see an aspect of this with the installation of Canadian General Charles Bouchard as head of the illegal NATO campaign against Libya. But that, friends, is just the tip of the depleted uranium-tipped iceberg.

Canada's benign, peacekeeper image, so strategically useful on the world stage, is in the process of being stripped bit-by-bit by a Pluto in Capricorn opposition to its Cancer Sun. Squared by transiting Uranus in Aries, the shocking extent of Canada's role within the global war machine emerges as the facade is stripped. The fundamental understanding of Canada's identity on the world stage - past, present and future - shifts rapidly and repeatedly over the next four years.

With World War I already on the docket, the British North America Act was drawn up by the "Fathers of Confederation" (no sign of the Mothers) and signed May 8, 1867 as the Sun crossed Pluto in Taurus with Mercury, Neptune and Venus in Aries.

The Act came into effect and Canada "officially" became a nation July 1, 1867. This is Canada Day, the date used as the nation's official birthday - like July 4 Independence Day in the United States.

On July 1, 1867, as the union came into effect, the Sun and Uranus were conjunct in Cancer.

The Moon was in Balsamic phase, and as Canada's day of birth unfolded, the moon went dark in Cancer before a Cancer New Moon exactly conjunct Uranus. So Canada's date of official confederation was set to occur on the Cancer New Moon - echoed this Canada Day with the Cancer New Moon eclipse. (The recent federal election May 2 also utilized Dark of the Moon/New Moon energy - this time in Taurus to re-elect Taurus Sun Conservative leader Stephen Harper.)

The dark and shadowy side of Cancer, which I wrote about last summer during the Cancer/Capricorn eclipses, is woven into the foundation of this country. From the beginning, it was built on native genocide and forced assimilation and the exploitation of poor immigrant settlers who came to do back-breaking, life-snuffing labour because they had nowhere else to go after being forced from their own homelands in one way or another.

Let's just say those enjoying the spoils are dancing on some very deep graves.

Currently transiting Pluto in Capricorn is opposite Canada's Sun-Uranus conjunction in Cancer, making its first exact opposition January/February 2012 and its final pass November 2013. Transiting Pluto is also conjunct Canada's Black Moon Lilith in Capricorn, pushing to the surface dark and twisted elements generally kept quiet, including the role Canada has played and continues to play in furthering inhumane agendas on the world stage.

The Capricorn Black Moon Lilith opposition to the Sun-Uranus in Cancer in Canada's confederation chart increases the tendency to hide things in the shadows and marginalize those who represent or speak things Canadians and Canadian society refuse to look at - including the fundamental flaws and injustices in its most basic foundational tenets.

The strong emotional and soul-level connections to the feminine - especially to the dark feminine - and the things they necessarily bring up are subverted. An example of this Capricorn BML opposite Cancer Sun-Uranus theme would be the widespread funding cuts by the Harper Conservatives of women's groups, including Sisters in Spirit, an initiative dedicated to researching and increasing public awareness of missing and murdered women in Canada, mostly Aboriginal.

In addition to the Pluto contacts, Canada is going through shattering Uranus transits. We saw this type of shocking Uranian shake-up in the recent federal election that produced a mind-boggling Conservative majority, a new Official Opposition (NDP) which ousted the Liberal establishment party, Liberal and Bloc Quebecois leaders not even winning their own seats, and for the first time ever, the election of a Green Party Member of Parliament.

Uranus in Aries is square Canada's natal Uranus-Sun in Cancer, making its first exact square June - August 2012 and its final exact pass November 2013 - January 2014.

The series of seven Uranus in Aries - Pluto in Capricorn squares between 2012 and 2015 forms an ongoing cardinal t-square with Canada's Cancer Sun-Uranus. There's a massive shake-up underway, to say the least. Things are coming apart at the seams. This nation will go through profound and shattering changes over the next years as it shifts into position within a new balance of power emerging globally.

With an increase in power from his majority government, Stephen Harper will be opening the floodgates to full-on globalism and corporate foreign ownership of this country's resources and assets. Canada's very identity as a sovereign nation, the understanding of what this country is, is at stake over the next four years, reflecting the same theme going on in countries around the world.

In traditional astrology, when a planet is conjunct the Sun, it is not considered to be in good position. A planet in this type of conjunction is referred to as "under the Sun's rays," and the power of the Sun is seen to overwhelm the expression of the planet that finds itself in close proximity to it - in this case Uranus.

Uranus is very much a part of the fundamental fabric of Canada's identity: the highly developed innovator with technological prowess that it shares throughout the world, the Aquarian/Uranian multi-cultural mosaic, as opposed to the melting pot down South, where people keep their cultural identities instead of assimilating, the friend and humanitarian helping hand for those in need across the planet.

But the darker elements of the Uranian (uranium) influence in Canada's fundamental national identity are obscured heavily under the intensity of the Sun's rays, overshadowed by the Sun's insistence that it is heroic global protector, diplomatic nice guy, soft place upon which those with hardships can land. The "everything is hunky dory in my own little bubble of family and friends" denial and inability to find the reality of its own broader context go to absolute extremes in this nation and in the Cancer Sun nation to the South.

The soul of this country remembers how it all went down. How it's still going down. But it's overpowered by the Sun in Cancer's portrayal.

Except that this July 1 Cancer eclipse within Cardinal Grand Cross formation, so locked in to the Canadian astrological chart, provides a window of opportunity to see in shocking technicolour detail what has been overshadowed by those Cancer Sun rays. We can see quite clearly - for a lightning flash Uranian second - what supports and sustains those protected Canadian Cancerian bubbles, and it might surprise you.

Uranus square Pluto. Uranium square plutonium.

Canada is the second largest producer of uranium in the world. It was the largest producer of uranium in the world up until 2009 when it was overtaken by Kazakhstan.

To be more specific, northern Saskatchewan - my home province - is the second largest producer of uranium in the world. This is where the uranium is mined - mainly from McArthur River, the largest uranium mine in the world.

We're doing what we can to get back to number one, too. Uranium production is supposed to increase greatly by 2013 as Pluto completes its opposition to the Canadian Sun-Uranus conjunction and a second Saskatchewan mine opens at Cigar Lake.

The world's largest publicly traded uranium corporation, Cameco, is headquartered in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. "Is your nuclear reactor running low on fuel? Cameco may be able to help." It was once a Canadian Crown Corporation, held by the Canadian people, but is now majority owned by parties from the United States. These parties from the U.S. more than likely lead back to Big Oil, which owns a fair percentage of the world's uranium production.

So guess where the uranium is coming from for the globe's nuclear reactors? And for depleted uranium munitions? That's right. From those benign peacekeepers to the North, eh?

And from the most below-the-radar province in the country (maybe tied with Prince Edward Island). Saskatchewan: flat as piss on a plate. It's the only province in the country where you can watch your dog running away for three days straight. Hayseed farm boys, wheat fields, pump jacks, sunsets, good fishing.

And the heart of the global nuclear industry.

The mining of uranium in Canada began in 1942 under direction from the military. (Straight to the Manhattan Project with ya!) By 1959, 23 mines and 19 treatment plants were in operation. Canada now has 18 nuclear reactors with plans (still?) to build nine more over the next ten years. Sixteen of the reactors are in Ontario with one in Quebec and one in New Brunswick. In 2008, 53% of Ontario's power came from nuclear energy.

Canada is a major exporter of nuclear reactor systems worldwide, called Candu (Canada deuterium uranium), and has sold systems to India, South Korea, Romania, Pakistan, Argentina and China. There's that good, old Saskatchewan "Can do!" spirit again.

I remember as a kid going on a school trip to this crappy converted motorhome-type thing that had been turned into a promotional "scientific" display for the Candu nuclear reactors. It was in a neighbouring town about 20 minutes away. Yes, when you grow up in Saskatchewan, this is the type of field trip you go on. One of the main displays was a group of everyday items, and the person leading the tours asked us which of the items gave off radiation. Kids would guess, and the leader would say, yes, that gives off radiation. And what else does? After a couple kids' guesses, I realized the pattern and cut the guessing game short: "They all do."

Ding ding ding! Yes, nine-year-old girl, it's true. All these common, everyday items give off radiation. Therefore, the uranium industry in your province is completely safe and should be supported by you and your peers throughout adulthood.

(Instead, it fuelled a suspicion of nuclear power that led to complete opposition of nuclear energy.)

The same schtick we got from the "Radioactivity Wagon" as schoolkids in the 1980s is now being applied to the nuclear crisis in Japan. So-called experts are telling people that the low levels of radiation being found in food and rainwater are perfectly safe. You get more radiation from an airplane ride! An X-Ray!

This is the same ideology behind the supposed innocuousness of depleted uranium being used in munitions and bombs. What we're told is it's safe because it's depleted uranium, see? The levels of radiation are not enough to harm a human being, they say.

What the supposed experts and depleted uranium detractors (some of whom e-mail me every time I mention d.u. in a post - must be on someone's payroll) are not telling us is that it's not exposure to the environmental radiation that causes the biggest problem. It's the ingestion of the radioactive dust (breathing it in, eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water) that causes the harm to human health.

During the production of enriched uranium, depleted uranium is produced as a waste product, which is then used in bombs and munitions.

According to Jim Harding, University of Regina professor and author of Canada's Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System, despite assurances from officials that Canada's uranium is used only for "peaceful" purposes (IE. in nuclear reactors, which I would argue are not peaceful at all), depleted uranium all ends up in the same stockpiles. There's no separation of Saskatchewan depleted uranium from the rest of it, so Saskatchewan's uranium is being used in depleted uranium munitions and bombs. Just as it was almost certainly used in Fat Man and Little Boy and in the nuclear testing before and after the dropping of those bombs.

Harding says the technology for depleted uranium came out of the Manhattan Project. There was so much public horror and uproar related to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that nuclear warfare had to go stealth - which it did with depleted uranium. This is slow radioactive poisoning rather than instantaneous annihilation, and it sneaks along beneath the public's radar. How many people realize that we've actually had a massive nuclear disaster going on on this planet for decades now?

Depleted uranium is used to coat munitions so they are hard enough to penetrate tanks and such. When the munitions penetrate the tanks, they get very hot and basically turn to dust. (Same story with the bombs.) The dust is radioactive and is left behind for people to ingest - and for the wind to blow around the world. Once the dust is in the system, the body cannot get rid of it. This is what is causing the horrifying epidemic of birth defects and deformities in babies in Iraq as well as the spike in cancers, predominantly leukemia. Depleted uranium has also been used in Kosovo and Afghanistan and there is suspicion it is being used in Libya.

It's the same scenario with the radioactivity coming from the Japanese nuclear reactor crises. The levels of radioactivity being reported might be considered relatively low (ha), but the breathing in and ingestion of radioactive particles through food and water creates an accumulation in the body, with the possibility of long-term damage.

With Mars in Virgo and the North Node conjunct Juno in Virgo, Canadians should be well aware of the health effects of the nuclear industry, and a lot of its population is. But we're also tied into global systems that claim nuclear energy is safe, clean and a wonderful alternative to fossil fuels - and enforce that. So this country keeps drawing water and hewing wood and producing the uranium that fuels global nuclear warfare and nuclear reactors. The great Virgoan supporter keeps plugging away, supporting the systems that will bring about its demise, unable to see the forest for the trees.

With Venus in Gemini (Venus Return June 22), you can see the dual role of this country in relation to other nations. The diplomatic, brave and honourable world peacekeeper...and the fueller of some of the most heinous crimes against humanity on this planet.

Canada is a beautiful and wonderful country in so many respects, so many good, decent people. But it's all for naught if we leave the really horrifying parts to continue.

I've written before about how creepy Canada Day seems to me, especially as it has involved aspects to Pluto in Capricorn for the past three years. All the families frolicking in the park waxing poetic about how wonderful it is to live in a "free country." And all the while, so many things simmering, simmering beneath the surface. All the things left unsaid, invisible, denied, unresolved. All the pitch black dark feminine going unheeded.

As the nuclear reactors in Japan continue to spew radioactivity into the northern hemisphere - probably containing Saskatchewan uranium - this Canada Day is going to be one for the creep-out record books.

During the New Moon partial solar eclipse July 1 (3:54 a.m. Central), the Sun-Moon conjunction happens conjunct Canada's Cancer Sun-Uranus.

The Dark of the Moon period prior to will echo Canada's own Moon in Balsamic phase.

The Moon in Cancer within Cardinal Grand Cross formation will square transiting (and stationing) Uranus in Aries, oppose Canada's Black Moon Lilith conjunct transiting Pluto in Capricorn, conjunct its Uranus and Sun in Cancer, and square Saturn, newly direct in Libra.

We'll be very lucky if complete insanity is not prevailing en masse at this time.

O, Canada.