Saturday, December 31, 2011

Sun Conjunct Pluto in Capricorn: The Awareness of How Deep it Really Goes Is Lit Up This NYE

The Pluto in Cap hammer coming down...

The Sun is conjunct Lord of the Underworld Pluto on this fateful New Year's Eve, just past exact, as we unfold out of the December 24 Capricorn New Moon. The awareness of how monstrously complex, complicated, and embedded our Pluto in Capricorn situation really is confronts us in our conscious current moment.

The global conditions pretty much speak for themselves, so long as you have the ability to peel away propaganda and rhetoric (not many do). How it filters into our personal lives requires a little more sociological imagination - but not much.

I've been at the ranch for the past little while, attempting to regain some equilibrium with the help of the sun and moon. And really, it's no surprise that my small source of (relative) sanity would now be steamrolled, Pluto in Capricorn-style. It's a miracle it's held out this long, really. This is oil drilling country, after all, and the oil industry is one of the most damaging and deadly Pluto in Capricorn forces on the planet at this time.

I'm a little in shock right now, though. When Pluto would like you to know just how much of a fait accompli it really is, how little chance you have of resisting, it wastes no time. It shows its hand. It plays the high Joker, and that trumps it all. No argument.

The day I arrived, I was bringing my suitcase into the house and stopped for some fresh air in the yard. Instead of the usual quiet of the country, I heard: thump, thump, thump, thump. The sound was alarming and disorienting, as it was the first time in my life I'd heard anything like it from the house steps.

It turns out an oil well was recently drilled about two kilometres from the ranch house, and the sound was coming from a generator at the pumpjack.

As is generally the case with Pluto, it took a while for me to understand fully what this meant. There was a little confusion, a little disbelief, a little putting it out of my head.

But yesterday, the Plutonic situation was fully illuminated for me. I went to the pasture where my Dad was shredding hay for the cows and realized that sometime after Christmas, as the Sun moved from New Moon position to its exact conjunction to Pluto, they had also erected an oil flare. There it was, blazing away, burning off whatever it is they need to burn off and emitting it into the air.


When Pluto in Capricorn lays the smack down, it doesn't mess around.

Oil flares are associated with benzene poisoning, a major cause of leukemia. Living in close proximity to oil flares is also associated with an increased incidence of cancers of the thyroid, bone, pancreas, and connective tissue. Oil flaring has been connected to autoimmune diseases like Multiple Sclerosis (Saskatchewan has a higher than average incidence), rheumatoid arthritis, and thyroid disease. They are also a cause of increased chemical sensitivity.

This isn't the only oil flare in the area. There are many. The most prominent one is a huge flare emitting a strong sulphur smell along the highway less than ten kilometres east.

All around that huge flare are farms and ranches and on those farms and ranches live people and animals - our neighbours.

All around that huge flare, in the sparsely-populated surrounding area, there has developed over the past years a cancer cluster as well as an increased incidence of autoimmune disorders.

As little girls, my sister and I played with another little girl who grew up on a neighbouring farm. We rode our bikes or walked down the gravel road to her place to play Barbies or to play with new kittens. She developed leukemia when she was 18 years old, received chemotherapy, and has been cancer-free for about ten years.

My Dad's childhood friend and his wife lived about ten kilometres from us. His friend's wife developed cancer and has battled it for more than a decade. His friend was diagnosed with cancer more recently, prior to them retiring and moving to town.

Another rancher and his wife live a few kilometres to the east, closer yet to the huge flare near the highway. His wife was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago and has had bouts of chemotherapy since. He suffered from a disorder that involved vertigo and, at times, had a difficult time doing his work.

My mother was diagnosed with fibromyalgia twenty years ago, an autoimmune disorder causing pain, chronic fatigue, and equilibrium problems, among others, and has suffered with it since. She is one of a number of people in and around this area with fibromyalgia or autoimmune disorders like it.

The medical establishment, the oil industry, and anyone benefiting from those things would argue there's no connection. That it's all just a bit of bad luck.

I know better. Even without one word of "scientific" evidence, I would know better.

This is not to say that the oil flare was the only factor. Or that this new flare is the only factor. With the heavily industrialized agriculture going on in this area - chemical herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, genetically modified crops - it's just the factor that pushes things over the edge, blanketing us in one too many toxic layers.

The speed with which the damage is done has increased exponentially during Pluto's transit of Capricorn. The mask is off, and there's not even an attempt to conceal it anymore. It's a race to see who can destroy more, faster.

It wasn't a tsunami, an earthquake, a flood, or a hurricane, but the place where I got my foundation in the natural world, where I learned the basic dynamics and the basic elements that made me an astrologer, the place that helped me maintain sanity, is effectively not here anymore.

My Dad casually remarked a few nights ago that he hasn't heard the coyotes howling lately. They used to serenade this house on an almost nightly basis, and I have to say, it was one of my favourite sounds. One of the last wild sounds. They're gone now. I doubt they'll return.

I can't really put into words how deep this goes. It goes to the root - but to a root that was never properly secured, to a root that always, inevitably, drew poison as it searched for stability.

This unsettled feeling won't be going away. The knowledge that we're in a real motherfucking mess is omnipresent. I'll know it every time I walk down that gravel road.


Photo: Willow

All this for $3,600 per year in surface rights paid to my Pluto in Cancer grandmother, eventually going to my Pluto in Leo father, and then, what? To my sister and me? How do the Pluto in Libras put this one right?

You see, it's the money. The almost worthless mass psychological delusion called money. It always is, right? Thirty-six hundred per year is the price put on the priceless. The Pluto in Cancer and Pluto in Leo involved think they got a hell of a deal.

Yeah, I'd say that's exactly what they got.

Really, all I can do is laugh. What else is there to do? Pluto in Capricorn satire playing out in real life. And it's been going on for decades now. "Absurdity is easy once accustomed to the horror." That's a line from a poem I wrote about 15 years ago. Still holds up. Our sense of pitch black humour is certainly being sharpened to a fine point as we enter this foul year of our Lord two thousand and twelve.

I held out some type of hope that I could one day try to reclaim the spirit of this land, reversing the depletion and degradation that has come about and making it a healing place. That probably won't be possible.

We're grieving as we go now. On the move. No time to stop. The last of fin de Pisces flakes off like layers of paint on an old wagon wheel fence.

And yet, another attempt to paint us into a corner, and all it does is renew my sense of freedom, somehow. My exhilarating sense that nothing that is done, no matter how wrong, poisonous, unjust, vile could really affect me, or us, as long as we don't turn away. The ones who know and who knew all along. The ones who see every dirty move and still can't be swayed. The ones they just can't get rid of, no matter how many of us are put to sickness or death.

Pluto in Capricorn square Uranus in Aries razes old dreams so that something more powerful, more relevant, can emerge. Every long-held dream that dies, every version of ourselves shed, every fall-back plan eliminated lightens the load and frees things up for something new. It positions us in the current, cutting edge moment and nowhere else.

Happy New Year 2012, my fair friends. This could be the most surreal 365 days we've experienced yet.

But honestly, I think we have this one in the bag.

25 comments:

Matt Savinar said...

dude I'm so sorry about this. Obviously not sorry personally, just sorry in general. damn.

Anonymous said...

My condolences Willow on the death of your dream..but like you say another one will grow in it's place. Sending you and your family lots of good energy, stay strong and true as always.

Happy New Year,
Love

Willow said...

Thanks, bro.


Well, it's not just the death of a dream. It's an inalterable change to a physical location that will have unknown ramifications on the health and well-being of everyone and everything in the area. The dream dying is one thing. I can handle that. The damage this does to the physical area and the living things in it is another matter.

This is a place that has helped keep me balanced and sane. I'm not sure how things go from here.

It's a pretty major one.

Anonymous said...

sister, thanks.

it is devastated this earth, we have devastated it. there is no going back, only fixing, attempting to reverse our own death if we can, and we cannot. we have not learned how to not kill.

reminds me of years ago i would visit women's land in WI. there was a military base at the property line a few miles away. we would sit around the fire or camp on- site as they tested their bombs. explosion after explosion shook our opposite world where love was the law, nonviolence, growing food.

i am wondering about the plutos in virgo. i'm told that those of us born in the sixties are having some rumblings.... would love to hear your take on it if you have one.

p.s. happy new year fucking love your blog.

freeforall said...

Happy New Year Willow! 2012 is going to be a wild ride. Definitely expect the unexpected!

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I just want all humanity to explode...
We are really the worst living creatures in this planet
So vain, so stupid, so unbearable giving value to things that doesn´t worth anything

I´m too, sorry.

Mary

the BCth said...

Dear Willow,

Here in Finland, I am also coming to some horrific awakenings in the matter of just how perverted and far gone things are, right in my own backyard. The PTB here are revealed to be just as corrupt and dastardly as anywhere else in the cabal-dominated West, and the major media just as complicit in their crimes.

Nuclear power, pushed by the major political parties as a "green" energy source for the future, is very much the opposite of what it's presented as. It is deadly, much deadlier than even I dared to suspect before I started to read the un-officially sanctioned truth about it. They are planning to build a new facility in PyhÀjoki, just 100 km from where I live. Upwind. Even worse, my family in Vancouver are positioned to receive the worst of the continuing fallout from Fukushima, on the subject of which all officialdom remains totally opposed to revealing the truth. We will see what comes of this down the road; the results for human and ecosystem health are predictable, criminal and tragic.

One lesson that this all drives home for me is that there is no shelter to be had, no safe haven in the physical realm. We will all suffer the effects to some degree, and many will die. But the fact remains (and this is the key point) that we are spiritual, eternal beings, and death is just like taking off one's clothes, or stepping outside. What matters is what we do with the time we are given. Whether we act from fear or love. I believe the destiny of Earth and humankind is in far more capable hands than any us of dare to imagine. The appearance of evil, to me, is evidence of the greatness of god: the perfect confidence of the ineffable in the ability of its own freewilled creation to evolve precisely according to the very best for all, in the final analysis.

I think 2012 will shake us all. Falsity will be shaken loose so that a purer, freer essence of who we are remains.

Thank you, Willow, for your excellent writings. Much love and best wishes for the newly begun year!

~William

Willow said...

I think it's a mistake to blame humanity as a whole for the corrupted decisions made and directions taken - at least, to blame humanity solely. There is individual responsibility that most people shirk horrifically, but I think we have to acknowledge the ways people have been led, manipulated, brainwashed, weakened, and beaten down to accept and further this.

The hands of the people have been tied in many cases because the alternatives to this course have been intentionally and violently snuffed out...or co-opted. They don't even understand that there ARE alternatives.

The foot soldiers reinforcing all this are vile, to be sure. But it's in the so-called leadership and the management of (stolen, squandered) resources where the problems lie, imo. In the power structures and in how they work to snap people into line. This type of leadership stokes and captializes on the worst traits of human beings rather than encouraging, developing, and working with the best. As long as that's the m.o., we're going to see people going along with this shit. Not only that but vehement in the view that it's the best way to go, the only way to go, and willing to fight to the death to continue it.

BCth, nuclear is an absolute travesty, an abomination. Fukushima rips the lid off the whole thing. It's one of those Pluto in Cap things that is monstrous in scope as far as the level of radioactive poisoning that has gone on and is going on. Beyond belief, really.

Matt Savinar said...

I don't mean to make light of this situation but for some reason this felt connected.

I was listening to coast to coast last night where they do their new years predictions. some guy called in and said small furry animals in the Canadian suburbs would be staging a large scale revolt. It would start with squirrels and other "cute" creatures just going buck ass mfin' crazy on people and then proceed through the rest of the animal kingdom through moose and bear and other bigger, scary animals.

How is this related to the oil pump on your family's property? I'm not sure to be honest but it seemed connected.

Willow said...

Oh, yeah, man.

Those coyotes are regrouping right now. They're coming back, and they WILL have their revenge.

I'm with the coyotes.

the BCth said...

Speaking of criminal oil extraction:

'The world's dirtiest oil': Satellite photos reveal the relentless expansion of Canada's controversial tar sands industry

Turning Athabasca into a Mordorian toxic nightmare wasteland, for no reason at all beyond sadism toward nature and lust for fake money.

Willow said...

Oh, yeah! The tar sands are sick, sick, sick. It's insane that they're even developing them. Shows the desperation of the oil industry right now. Immense amounts of energy expended and three barrels of fresh water used/polluted for every barrel of oil. Considering the looming shortage of fresh water (among other factors), it's lunacy to continue what they're doing.

Saskatchewan has its own tar sands, too, btw. So not only will uranium mining be going on, they'll eventually be tar sanding in the North, as well.

The native people living in Fort Chipewyan 300 km north of the tar sands started getting a very rare variety of cancer (bile duct). A local doctor John O'Connor raised the red flag about it. The medical establishment filed complaints against him including professional misconduct, so he moved away to Nova Scotia and shut up about it. It's the tailings ponds, et al. doing it.

The working culture up there is sick, too. I mean, how could it not be considering what they're doing? Drug abuse (like meth and really brutal stuff), alcoholism, prostitutes. Pure degradation and money to burn.

We have a real horror show on our hands, that's for sure. With millions of people willing to fight to the death to continue it.

Anonymous said...

When I spoke of the dream I meant what don Miguel Ruiz, a toltec healer, refers to in his book the 4 Agreements as "humo" or smoke which prevents us from seeing reality as it is. I understand and hurt for our planet but we came here with a plan and you Ms. Willow are certainly executing yours for the benefit of many. I sincerely thank you for that.

Willow said...

Anon 1:51:

Ah, yeah, MAYA! AKA Neptunian illusion/delusion in astrology speak.

I'm a huge fan of removing the maya, but to me, dreams and maya are not the same thing if the dream has a basis in achievable reality.

I get what you're saying, though! It's just semantics.

Anonymous said...

Willow, it's a similar story here in the NE Ohio/SW Pennsylvania area with Shale Oil and fracking. The Texas Oil Men with dollar signs for pupils are falling over themselves to permanently ruin our land and poison our water. They can't move fast enough to do so with their well drilling, toxic chemical injections, cancerous wastes and other environment-destroying practices. The criminal tool of a governor in Ohio, John Kasich, along with his equally thuggish counterpart in PA, Tom Corbett, are only too happy to oblige.

You may have read of the earthquake that just happened in Youngstown, Ohio, between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, one of several that have happened since this speculation and rush for black "fools gold". Mother Earth herself is revolting against the insatiable greed of the Oil Men that control US--and apparently Canada now as well. You'd think more people would catch a clue, but so many land owners are all too quick to fall for the latest profit making scheme in this "get-rich-quick" country.

Anonymous said...

EXCUSE ME...ain't none of my business but from the earth's point of view we all (black, red, orange, white, yellow and purple all fucked up. Big time! So mr. "we didn't know what hit us" do like the nice lady says and take it some where else.

Willow said...

I don't think the "fucking up" responsibility necessarily lies with humanity as a whole. There have always been a good number of people who fought what was going on and strove to change things. Most people sell out, but not all. And a lot of people would choose an alternative way if an alternative way existed and was not crushed at every turn. People have been caught up in certain ways in systems that have been imposed upon them.

But anyone who believes all white people are the dominant imperialist force doesn't understand class, sex, or spiritual inclination and the roles those things play in the power structures on this planet. It's a major oversimplification.

Anonymous said...

Willow:
My first thought is what others wrote AND I mean it: I am sorry.

The absurd poem is apt. I would like to see more of your poems, incidentally.

I was hit with an environmental illness which nearly killed me in 2003. It was an experience from Hades. My survival had very little to do with my courage: I owe my life to others who consoled me, informed me and shared their struggles and survival tips.

Sending my growing admiration for you, Willow,
Joni

Tigana said...

We don't need oil, gas, coal, or more uranium. http://ecatnow.com and http://peswiki.com

Kat Daffodil said...

Hi Willow,
I lurk here periodically. I think you are pretty brilliant, and some of your relationship analysis have been dead on the money.

I am an engineer. I am also an attractive woman. I am one of those helping to change society (a strong uranian component in my chart). It is my belief that a lot of problems have solutions, and a lot of people want to do the right thing. You might want to take a look at this website for Flex Energy, and you might want to invite them out to your farm. They look at using waste gases from Landfills and Venting. They are just getting started - but perhaps this would be a way to prevent some of the toxic chemicals from going into the atmosphere, while at the same time ensuring that it is useful. Just a thought - for what it is worth - wanted to be sure you were aware of them. If it was me - I would think about inviting them out to the farm so they can do a beta test there. Please keep up with the beautiful blogging. KK



http://www.flexenergy.com/

FlexEnergy Obtains $5 Million in Venture Debt
Posted in Waste to Energy on January 5th, 2012 by News Desk –

Irvine, Calif. – FlexEnergy, a developer of electric turbines that run off low-quality methane sources such as landfills, has raised $5 million in convertible debt, according to a new filing by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Founded in 2000, FlexEnergy offers turbines that can use as fuel sources methane from landfills, coal mines, digester plants, biogas processing, and oil processing facilities that otherwise flare or vent the methane gas into the atmosphere.

The company has received at least $7 million in government funding for its research and development since its founding. It has also raised venture capital from Sail Capital, RNS Capital, and other private sources.

Last month, FlexEnergy announced the first commercial order, from Gammel Engineering, for its new turbine model that removes the original combustor and fuel systems from standard gas turbines and integrates with individual external heat applications. The new FlexEnergy turbine model is ideal for biomass and concentrated solar power installations, according to the company.

Photo credit: FlexEnergy

FlexEnergy website

Willow said...

I think most people want to do the right thing if it's easy, socially acceptable, and profitable for them. If not, they generally go the status quo route.

This company is interesting. I do have my doubts that they would make the trip to Saskatchewan to look at a single oil flare. Goes back to the profitability thing. I can look into it, though.

Methane is only one of the gases released by these flares, and I'm thinking it's not the most toxic one. There are probably 10,000+ oil flares burning in the Canadian prairie provinces alone, and they've been burning for decades. So companies like these are a step in the right direction, but they're a drop in the bucket, really.

The solutions are here. They always have been. They just aren't being developed and implemented en masse. It's more of a fringe thing, and reforming and doing bits around the edges doesn't cut it at this point. It helps but not enough, and that's a Pluto lesson.

Thanks for the link.

Anonymous said...

I am from BC and the Tar Sands Pipeline Project as well as the Prosperity Mine are two big issues to many of us.

With a Premiere (Christy Clark) that seems hellbent on money now environmental consequences later, these two issues are very flammable.

Unfortunately, the provincial economy that has seen a big downturn in the last few years, makes believers of the a lot of working class people who want financial security now. They believe in the mindless shitball lie that has been cultivated with such finesse, that financial security will protect you from all the ills and evils of the world.

Bottom line, quoted by many wise people using different words is, you can't drink and eat money, once all the water and soil resources are dead by mismanagement,greed and psychotic depersonalization.

How can big money corporations, corrupt politicians and live for the moment worker bees lie to themselves so convincingly? Even if they can't and won't see how these decisions might effect their own lives, why is there never any thought on what they will be leaving for their own children and grandchildren. I won't even go into the animal kingdom which I equate with children, who have no say in what decisions being made now, will determine their future lack of well being and quality of life.

Maybe all this lying is contributing to the almost perpetual amnesia that seems to be a permanent state with so many people now. How many not actually living in the effected areas, remember the BP disaster or even think of Japan's nuclear plants now that the media isn't reminding them? Out of site out of mind. My mind has a long memory and my anger is becoming almost overwhelming. I do get comfort in reading the thoughts of people who are not amnesiacs.

Thank you Willow, for telling it like it is from your perspective. It does take a lot of courage to say what you really feel and know in this increasingly repressive society.

Daemoness

Willow said...

I agree, Daemoness.

One of the only things that keeps me sane is hearing the perspectives of people who know full well how much of a mess we're in and refuse to candy coat it.

A lot of people can't take it straight up like that, but it's the only way I can take it...and the only way I can give it. ha.

Willow said...

The margins, eh?

You know, I don't need to know anything more about Louis Riel. He was well-covered in the history I learned in school.

But did you learn about the Highland Clearances?

What about an English working class that worked 12 or 14-hour days as labour slaves and still could not afford proper food or heat? Who lived in damp, dank, vermin-infested housing that left them open to chronic ill health, infant mortality, early death, and epidemics? You understand "council-housed"? It isn't so much different from the reservations, really.

Most "white" cultures have a history of dislocation, oppression, atrocity, and ethnic cleansing brought down upon them by the ruling class. But your understanding of "white history" comes from the mouths and books and ideologies of that ruling class. Most people's does.

The atrocities that have been committed against your people are well-documented and well-known. I hear about them all the time. But don't believe that you are the only group that has been so treated or so affected.

I know your history. You don't know shit about mine. And you come on MY website and tell me I'm reaping what I've sown as a member of the white imperialists?

Don't bother telling me about the margins, sweet pea. I've lived there all my life.

Willow said...

And it was small pox, not chicken pox.