by Marilyn Muir, LPMAFA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Early in the morning hours of August 3rd, 2012, a disaster was in the making to which residents of a Louisiana rural neighborhood would shortly awaken. Soon 150 families would be forced to evacuate their homes. I follow the news quite diligently. Why had I never heard of it before? I am a devoted environmentalist. I know the damage being done on so many levels. Why are this specific horror story and many other environmental disasters not front-page news? One environmental disaster at a time… astrologically.
Bayou Corne is located in Assumption Parrish (30˚0’38.24” N, 91˚8’35.44” W) in the south/ central part of Louisiana. Residents awoke to a massive sinkhole, bubbling gas and the diesel smell of raw oil, where there had been open land. Residents were stunned to realize the sinkhole was swallowing clumps of trees, widening, thought to be creeping slowly towards their homes. State-ordered evacuation orders came quickly because of the potentials of an unknown but widening sinkhole and gas explosions, to say nothing of the pollution of underground water sources common to rural communities. My own home has a freshwater well and septic system. I know my own concern for non-contamination of my well water and the working capacity of my septic system…plus I detest being blown up and sucked into a massive sinkhole!
Towards the end of May, unexpected seismic activity began in the area (not a usual experience) and the first stated report was May 31, 2012. This physical shaking was accompanied by the smell of unprocessed oil. Bayou Corne sits atop a large field of salt domes actively being mined for their trace mineral contents. What is a salt dome? It is a massive cavern of hardened salt commonly sheathed by gas and oil, also the subject of mining. This particular dome is identified as the Napoleonville Dome or corporately as Oxy-3. More than fifty cavern/domes are owned by Occidental Petroleum. This particular three-mile wide dome and several others are or were operated by Texas Brine Company.
One method to extract oil, gas, etc. is called injection mining, also known as fracking, and consists of freshwater injection into the subject area with the objective of extracting valuable material. In this instance, injection of freshwater into the solid salt dome created a saltwater brine of valuable trace minerals, flushing the resulting brine (saltwater) back to the surface. There it is then trucked to refineries along the Mississippi River to render it into its chemical components for commercial use. To me, this represents the absurdity of using freshwater (a limited resource) to create brackish (unusable for human consumption) water that has to be treated (hopefully successfully) before being re-introduced into our fragile eco-system. The payoff is gas, oil, multiple trace minerals, chemicals… and lots of money. The drawbacks are natural disasters, loss of freshwater, questionable reclaimed water, which is put back into the natural eco-system without any possible problem…NOT!
I have been watching the results of injection mining or fracking all over our country; from actual reports, unusual seismic activity has come to be expected. Places that have never had seismic activity as a normal part of experience are having multiple and increasing earth shakes, foul smells, intrusion in freshwater wells, flames coming out of their water faucets, the list is endless. How can I as an environmentalist look at this objectively? Enter Astrology.
What should we be looking for? Rulerships can provide the clue. For starters, in my astrological world, salt is ruled by Saturn; underground caverns and sinkholes are ruled by Pluto; seismic activity and the unexpected are ruled by Uranus; oil, gas and bubbles in liquids are ruled by Neptune.
We do need to understand that while August 3rd times the event, it really is one step in an ongoing process. For an example, when a volcano explodes it has had a long process of building up to the eruption. The explosion is the event but there is also an aftermath or ongoing activity such as lava or pyroclastic flow. It takes a long time for the results to play out. It is a process. We will examine the process that produced the sinkhole, including the actual event, as we proceed.
We will start with the phrase “early morning.” I started with 5:00 AM CDT and just played with the charts. You know that nasty transiting Uranus square Pluto that has been plaguing the world for the last few years?
- The 5:00 AM chart showed midheaven 12 Aries 13 had just crossed Uranus 8 Aries 22R, T-square Pluto 7 Capricorn 27R. The actual conjunction had occurred at 4:45 AM.
- At 5:00 AM the ascendant 22 Cancer 54 squared Saturn 24 Libra 00.
So far, I have cardinal angles and cardinal planets and they are interacting. What else is showing?
- At 3:48 AM descendant 7 Capricorn 16 was conjunct Pluto 7 Capricorn 27R (see chart).
- At 4:34 AM ascendant 17 Cancer 20 was square Mars 17 Libra 27.
- At 5:05 AM ascendant 23 Cancer 58 was square Saturn 24 Libra 00 (partile).
- At 5:19 AM 4th cusp 17 Libra 21was conjunct Mars 17 Libra 28.
- At 5:22 AM descendant 27 Capricorn 34 was conjunct U.S. Virgo rising natal Pluto 27 Capricorn 33.
- At 5:43 AM 4th cusp 23 Libra 47 was conjunct Saturn 24 Libra 00.
The ascendant/descendant axis entered cardinal signs at 3:16 AM and exited at 5:34 AM.
The midheaven/4th cusp axis entered cardinal signs at 4:16 AM and exited at 6:06 AM.
So this specific very active window of opportunity opened at 3:16 AM and closed at 6:06 AM. Because the last planetary degree that the angles could trigger was 24, to me earlier is stronger.
- The effective range is 3:48 to 5:43 AM, but as a cascading series not a single event.
Also occurring was the Moon 27 Aquarius 03 applying to the conjunction of Neptune 2 Pisces 18R T-square the lunar nodes 2 Gemini/Sagittarius 32R. Using the 5:00 AM chart as a basis, the Moon would conjunct Neptune and trigger the nodes within 11 hours (formula: the Moon moves approximately 1˚ for every 2 hours on the clock). I would see the Moon as the public. The neighborhood awakened; they realized something was wrong. They reported it; they were told to evacuate and most did so. I did not follow the evacuation thread as that is the result process. I stayed with the causative process.
This event did not begin on August 3rd; but it culminated on the 3rd. What about the process leading up to the event? As mentioned, fracking has been stimulating seismic activity all over the country. I have read (and kept for my research) many articles. My best guess says it was seismic activity over a prolonged period that fractured the salt dome along its side and it was fracking that set the seismic activity in motion. I did not find an individual fracking history for this cavern. However, when expansion of its permit was requested, pressure tests were conducted and deemed unsatisfactory (2009), and mining activity was closed. The damage was already done. The U.S. Dept. of Natural Resources ordered the cavern to be abandoned. In June, 2001, Texas Brine complied with that order. All this mining was done with a butane-filled well a few hundred feet from the salt dome (distance varies with reports). As of the very end of July, 2012 Texas Brine officially denied the likelihood of a sinkhole just days before the sinkhole appeared.
Seismic activity accompanied by the smell of raw oil in the area seems to have begun late in May, 2012 with a report filed May 31st. I set a noonmark chart to see the activity for that date (see chart).
- The midheaven was 25 Taurus 46, the degree of Caput Algol, the most malefic fixed star. The midheaven was conjunct Jupiter 27 Taurus 27 (protection for that moment or expansion of the possibility).
- The descendant 28 Aquarius 31 was applying to the conjunction of Neptune 3 Pisces 09 within 4.5 degrees and was T-square lunar nodes 5 Sag/Gem 04 similar to the event T-square
- That descendant is close to the degree of the event Moon 27 Aquarius 05.
- Both the warning descendant 28 Aquarius 31 and event Moon 27 Aquarius 05 are square Caput Algol of the warning chart; activation.
- This Moon is conjunct event Mars, then moving 5˚ forward to conjunct both warning and sinkhole Saturns
- Pluto/Uranus have barely changed but are not in play to any other position at the moment of this warning.
We can see several indicators for the emergence of the sinkhole that early morning, a series of hard aspects that depict the ongoing process. This appears to me to be another example for an occurrence produced by what is called cascading events, a series of actions that if not interrupted or redirected can lead to disaster. My earlier Chernobyl disaster research and AFA article showed the results of cascading effects. We can also see the connections between the two charts, the precursor and the event. What else can we find to understand this process and its triggers?
On May 20th, 6:45 PM, local coordinates, just prior to the initial reports of seismic activity, there was a New Moon at 00 Gemini 20 conjunct the South Node and T-square Neptune. A promise?
On August 1st, 10:27 PM, local coordinates, a little over 24 hours to the sinkhole event, there was a Full Moon with transiting Uranus on the Ascendant (local focus). The trigger?
I also have the charts of the state of Louisiana, both the noonmark version (traditional) and the 11:52 AM acceptance of the union between the state and the U.S. government, very similar.
- Interestingly enough there is a Jupiter opposition Saturn in those statehood charts with the Louisiana Saturn 7 Capricorn 51R closely conjunct the event Pluto 7 Capricorn 27R.
- The statehood lunar nodes 5 Virgo/Pisces 39R are T-square Mars 6 Gemini 18 and connect by hard aspect to the event Neptune/nodal T-square.
- The statehood Mercury is 24 Taurus 07R conjunct that famous malefic fixed star of the first seismic activity report: Caput Algol.
There is so much more to be found in this charting but I do have a limit on words. For example:
- The sinkhole greatly expanded in size to 25 acres, but at this point seems to be holding.
- Multiple wells for venting and burning the dangerous gases were developed.
- Lawsuits by residents and the state were initiated and litigated.
These happenings are part of the resulting process from the event itself. I would appreciate any observations you may have so I can add to my understanding as well.
Published in AFA Today’s Astrologer Jan 2016 vol 78#1, republished with slight editing.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.