Key Points of Upheaval  2012-15

Jeanne Mozier   8/17/11

The planets Uranus and Pluto conjunct every 100-150 years.  The first time they conjuncted since Pluto was discovered in 1930 was 1965-66.  Both planets were in Virgo.  The upheaval represented by the conjunction of these two planets took place in the realm of daily life patterns.  It was aptly named in China – the Cultural Revolution.  It was, in fact, a true cultural revolution everywhere.  Daily life was never the same again.

Seven times in 2012-15, these two planets meet in a square.  This is a 90º hard aspect that is always a challenge to the trends set in motion at the conjunction.  The world will be facing its first challenge to the patterns emerging from the 65-66 Cultural Revolution.

The generic meaning of this square between Uranus and Pluto is a sudden, radical and often explosive change that sweeps away all the old and outworn structures.  It will create a total revolution in life.  Although these are historical forces, they will impact every individual life.  Specifics are determined by how and where this revolutionary force hits an individual pattern (or country or corporation or institution etc.)  However, since the signs involved are Aries and Capricorn, the actions will be explosive and deal primarily with established institutions of all sorts.  Although earth changes and natural disasters are part of this pattern, their prime purpose is to alter human structures.

The direct connection with the mid-60s is the most intriguing part of the pattern.  How do all those “new age” philosophies fit with a disaster-riddled world?  Will they be able to create functional and sustainable new institutions?

Much more can be postulated and pondered but the dates are key.

Each of these dates identify when the aspect is exact.  Each will have epicenter haloes of at least a week on either side not to mention, of course, the almost constant repercussions.  Each of these dates has a somewhat different profile depending on what other planets are doing.  I’ve made some very broad observations but this is complicated and generates far more detail than I will go into here; such analysis will be part of each year’s outline.

6/24/12 – extreme imbalance
9/19/12  — more intense structural/institutional destruction
5/20/13  — earth changes/water.  Also more psychic disruption
11/1/13
4/21/14
12/15/14 – covert manipulations
3/17/15  — clear purpose

I also want to address the “new humanity.”  My astrological interpretation is that this entry of “new” souls came with the Uranus/Neptune conjunctions of 1993.   I wrote a series of essays and did lectures about several topics at that time: the new education, the new art, etc. etc.

Always, the most significant effect of any major astrological aspect is the souls that enter incarnation bearing the mark of that aspect.  I postulate that ALL souls incarnated from 1993 on are “new humanity.”  In simple terms, these beings are the ones already having access to a much larger percentage of their brain/cognition.

Several implications of this postulate are most significant.
– Who teaches the “new human?”
– The cutting edge of these beings are the ones born in 1993 who actually carry the mark of the conjunction.  They are now entering college/life/jobs/adulthood.  They are the ones who will teach the new humanity because they are it.
– The old humans will “age out” within the century no matter what.

We, the baby boom generation (which is marked astrologically as being 1942-56) are John the Baptist to their Jesus, the Savior.

The question of critical mass is crucial here and the work of Nobel chemist Ilya Prigogene is illuminating.  His work concerning the leap of molecules to “the next level” when stimulated defines critical mass.  It is also essential to know that there is no guarantee critical mass will be achieved in time for humanity.

Identify the time by what buildings are present -- or not.

The opening chapter of “Images of Berkeley Springs” is called Overlooks.  Betty Lou and I had a great time marking the year of the photos by picking out which buildings were still there and which were gone.  We plan to offer that same fun to anyone who wants to partake.

On Wednesday, August 31 at 7pm and Saturday, September 3 at 11am and 2pm, we’re staging a free “overlook” event at the Ice House.  We’ll be projecting more than a dozen photographs to giant size on the walls of the Paradox Room, point out the various buildings and invite people to explore the historic streets of the town in detail. We are numbering the first 100 and will offer them for pre-publication sale at these events.

“Images of Berkeley Springs” is due out September 19.  We will be set up to sell them on the street in front of the Star Theatre on Saturday and Sunday, September 24 and 25 plus we’ll be set up at the Apple Butter Festival.  There will be plenty of chances to buy copies of this historic book in time for Christmas.

The price is $21.99 plus tax.

When we began the Images book project in February 2010, we selected a deadline for completion of our part — April 5, 2011.  It seemed plenty of time. At the end of 2010, I began looking at the time remaining and stepped up the pace.  As an astrologer, timing is essential so I was committed to getting the text and images and layout to the publisher before the energy began slowing down on March 30.

On March 30, the crucial pieces were in place.  The cover design was decided — an image Betty Lou and I had selected the minute we saw it.  A few additional lines to the text and it was submitted to production meeting both my deadline and a bonus one from Arcadia that earned us some free books.

General scheduling guidelines and next steps were outlined that, if held to, should produce a book for sale before the end of summer.

A little at loose ends, I force myself to drift for a moment or two.  What lies ahead is part two of the project: selling the book, making appearances, doing talks, working on our legend as a pair of history heroes.

Approved cover for Berkeley Springs

Last night — March 10, 2011 — nearly a year after we began, I finished the manuscript for the Images book.  Now Betty Lou reads it over.  A few tweaks happen and then it is off to Arcadia Press.  We should know a publication date soon!

Even to the last minute, there were stories being added.  The most fascinating, particularly given current events with union busting in Wisconsin, was the story of the strike that ended Berkeley Springs’ period as a company town.  I heard it first from Connie Perry.  I called her to get dates and background for a photo of the strike we were including in the book.  When I tolkd Connie’s amazing story to County Commissioner Stacy Dugan, whose father and husband both work/ed at the sand mine, she decided she wanted to hear more.  She assembled a group of about a dozen men, past and present sand company employees and we heard their stories too.

The time was 1967-70.  The situation was unionization of Pennsylvania Glass Sand workers by the Teamsters.  It resulted in the lock-out of 38 men and a three year ordeal eventually ended in the workers’ favor by a Federal trial in Berkeley Springs — with a female judge no less.  “She was realy tough,” remembered one man who also had words of praise for the National Labor Relations Board lawyer who persisted and won the case.  The men returned to their jobs.  The family -owned PGS was soon sold to mega-corporation ITT and the company town attitude — with both its many benefits, and its limitations — existed no longer.

Memories last long in situations like this even with many of the players no longer with us.  Some folks still shop at Pittman’s in Hancock because they supported the strikers.  Some remember hassles among the kids in school.  Whichever side one was on, the PGS strike was an important piece of local history and I was glad to hear it. 

As we near the finish line and I start actually writing the historic photos book, I am repeatedly grateful for my experience with doing the text for the two West Virginia contemporary photo books I wrote for Steve Shaluta’s photos.  I learned from that process that good text for photos is not text that literally describes what you are seeing — redundant — but adds value through back story information.  For “West Virginia Beauty,” with its 170 plus photos, I engaged in 170 plus mini research projects.  “Berkeley Springs Images” is being the same except for a larger number of photos — more than 200 — and a more demanding research task.  The history needs to be correct.

There’s another experience that has made the history part MUCH easier.   In fact, I cannot imagine being able to do the historic photo book without this previous experience.  About a decade ago, I took on the job of writing a Walking Tour of Berkeley Springs.  Being manic about having to be right, and discovering that local historians tend to reject the distinction between oral memory and original documents, I set out to find the ultimate information source.  I bought a microfilm reader, set it up in my living room, and spent every night from about 11pm to 2am reading the local newspaper from 1879 through 1939.  Fortunately I knew enough to keep good, date-based notes.  All those news notes, covering virtually the same period as our photos, have proven to be invaluable sources of both accurate and obscure pieces of information.

The point?  Experience pays off — and nothing you do is ever wasted.

Case in point — this Tomato Festival photo we had original rejected because it seemed too staged and what would we say?  Then, in reading news articles in 1939 about the festival, I discovered the photo, which was staged for the 1938 event, was picked up and used as the cover photo for the 1939 Stokes Seed Catalog — a national company.  Now we had a great story to go with a good photo.   We call them the Tomato Hoers.

Haven’t posted for a while but that doesn’t mean Betty Lou and I have not been working on the book.  We’ve sorted and sifted and collected a few more photos.  We sent batches to the publisher to make sure they were usable and had to rescan a few more.  But, we now have the final 208 photos that will make up the book.  They are sorted into 10 chapters by topics.

And what are those chapters:
OVERLOOKS — both of town and the rivers.
TAKING THE WATERS — the park, bathhouses and playing in the park.  One of these most probably will serve as the cover because what is more significant to Berkeley Springs than the springs.
FAIRFAX ST – always the prime street with shops, Courthouse and more.  Over the century of photos, it has changed …and has not changed.
INDUSTRY AND FARMING – from early tanneries to the sand mine to the farming that made up peoples daily life for most of the region’s history.
FIRES & FLOODS – drama.
FESTIVALS AND PARADES – the Tomato Festival is a biggie but there were others including a 1925 Veterans Day celebration that offered some exquisite images.
HOTELS – the reason the town was formed in 1776 was to encourage the development of lodging for the ailing who came to take the waters.
TOWN LIFE – fun in town
AROUND AND ABOUT – what folks did in the county
PEOPLE – because it’s always been about the people.

It was a challenge to decide what photos within each chapter should be together; which one should be on the title page and which the final page leading to the next chapter; and what the order within a chapter should be.  There are little “secrets” that Betty Lou and I wove into the arrangement of the photos that it will be interesting to see if anyone figures out. We had lots of chuckles about them.

Now the writing begins.  We have a deadline of mid-March so the work moves into high gear.  If we turn down requests for us to do something else in the next two months…you’ll know why.

It's harder than it looks to find the right photo for the right place.

There are no coincidences.  As a pattern unfolds it sets up force fields that draw into the pattern farflung or hidden pieces that need to be a part.  That’s what happened when we began looking at the Buzzerd family photos.  I had gone through the albums and loose photos that Linda and Warren Buzzerd uncovered.  I was brining them to show Betty Lou.  Independently, or not, she had a file folder of SS Buzzerd’s As I Recall columns written circa 1949-51.  We looked through the photos.  Betty Lou was able to identify a number of people including – Pearl Buck at lunch at the Park View Inn after a visit to the Berkeley Springs Library.

There were several photos of camping excursions along the Cacapon River.  A historians dream, they were labeled, dated and the people identified.  Usually a group of young men, in one, a collapsed hammock was visible.  Another series was a photo shoot at Buzzerd’s Morgan Messenger at about the time he was writing the columns.  They are wonderful photos, sharp and clear showing SS at the linotype, setting type, and at the typewriter.

SS still at work

I started reading through SS’s columns when I got home and was astonished to read a section dealing with a camping trip when he was a young man.  The date on the photo was 1900.   And the story…

Perhaps the first time I ever went on a week’s camping and fishing vacation was some 50 years ago.  The party was made up of brother Charley, cousin Henry Fisk, Johnny Casler, Irvin Dawson and myself.  We pitched camp at the Ziler springs where the pure, cold mountain water empties into Cacapon Creek just below where the Club House now stands.  We had no tent so for a shelter, we carried boards from what was at one time a sawmill nearby.  The hastily built shelter, being poorly constructed and with the weight of hammocks in which we tried to sleep, fell down on us early one morning.  Fortunately, no one was hurt; also fortunately it did not rain while we were there.

Most fortunately…they had a camera with them.

The makeshift shelter collapsed taking down the hammocks.

Week of Aug 8

I knew who John Moray was.  His famous 1889 panoramic lithograph of Berkeley Springs can be found on local walls, notecards and online.   The most recent limited edition was reprinted and sold by the Chamber of Commerce.  It may be Berkeley Springs’ most durable piece of art.

In my marathon newspaper reading ( “The News” – 1870 through 1939 on microfilm) I had discovered more about him and his work.  And then, in the search of historic photos that is Images,  I found a Moray worthy of turning into a Museum exhibit.

John Moray was an artist, sign painter and photographer who apparently wanted to do his part in spreading the word about Berkeley Springs.   He was a photographer when he arrived from Rome, Pennsylvania in 1885 and was first mentioned in The News where he advertised himself available for sign painting or picture enlarging.  He worked with glass negatives.

The News reported in September 1887 that Moray was busy taking pictures of prominent places in the town and county.  By April 1889, he had turned these images into the now legendary Moray Print.  In his later years, Moray became a devotee of James Rumsey and was instrumental in creating and placing the Rumsey millstone monument in the park.

Back to the present and the fascinating unearthing of both photos and stories.

The Mendenhalls were a prominent and wealthy family in Berkeley Springs with a homeplace in Sir Johns Run.  Their brick house on Wilkes St., built in 1884, has been restored and is on the National Register.

When I saw the roughly treated image of the older woman in a box of stuff at the Museum, I knew it was a painted photograph and immediately thought of Moray.  Then I turned it over and saw the writing: John Moray, 1887 of Mrs. Mendenhall.  I had my suspicions confirmed by a couple folks who agreed it was a photograph that had been painted.  Then, I found the tiny photo in a metal case common to the Victorian era.  It was the same woman.  The same pose.   Must have been one of the “enlargings” he mentioned in his ad.

NOTES ON THE ECONOMY – second half  2010 and beyond.

I was rebuked recently for not having presented an overview of economic shifts on my annual Oracles talk.  Not paying attention, eh? was my initial reaction but I just nodded my head and decided it was probably time to REMIND everyone of what I said in 2009 about 2010 and the economy.

Observations over the years, especially recently, convince me that Saturn and its movements are the major factor in timing and interpreting our economic reality.  The recession began (as predicted by at least this astrologer) in September 2007 when Saturn entered Virgo and the collective consciousness went into austerity, frugality and less is more mode.  This continued unabated until the end of October 2009.  This public attitude is what makes it impossible to consume our way out of this recession (thank the stars!)

The overall effect of the end of 14 years of speculation and gambling as the prime mode of economic activity (Pluto entered Capricorn in November 2008 ending that run of Sagittarian force) and the concurrence of Saturn in “down to essentials” Virgo is what we now face – a deflated economy and a population recently converted to spending less – way less.  Consuming as a purpose in life is over.

It is this concept of “being over,” that is crucial to rebuilding.  The economy is NOT going to bounce back.  It is NOT going to recover. Most of the lost jobs are GONE FOREVER!  The economy is morphing into something new and never before seen.  Unfortunately, NOT JUST YET.    It is this reality that must be factored into public policy decisions about how to keep people from drowning.

Pluto remains in Capricorn until 2025.  Economic life remains hard, reality-based and needing institutional restructuring through that period.  So…end all thoughts of hanging on until the end of the month or end of the year or end of the decade then things will be back the way they were.  WRONG.  They may be better, they will certainly be different, they will NEVER be back the way they were.  Ponder that as you review the value of your skills set.

What is happening? And what is happening now?

Saturn entered Libra on July 21, 2010 and remains until October 5, 2012.  Someday, historians will look back and identify this period as the shift to the new mode.  We are now in a period of reestablishing balance but at the low level that resulted from two years of stripping down to basics.  It is the period of the “new normal,” such a marvelously descriptive phrase.   FIND YOUR BALANCE.  Find your new normal and move from there.

Practically, this means there will be no more precipitous drops in the economy, in fact, probably few drops at all.  Things will just hover at least until next spring when the innovation and new institutional forms that are the ONLY hope of general prosperity returning begin appearing and taking root.  We had a taste of new stuff this summer but that phase ends on August 14, when Uranus returns to Pisces for about six months.

Once again – hovering, searching for equilibrium.  The new forms are gathering strength beneath the surface.  People want to rest, reassess and then gather their resources to explode into a new system in the spring.

YOU ONLY HAVE TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE WINTER.

The form of the new system remains shrouded in the future although there are some trends indicated by the planetary players of this time.  Institutions are transformed – banks, financial systems, currency, commerce….the list is endless and all have dramatic implications for life as we know it.  One thing is certain – if you don’t like change, constant change, find a new planet.  Find your place in the scheme of things even if it is space that never existed before.

So…specific trends from now until the end of December:
– new ideas continue to emerge strongly until mid-August and a few weeks beyond, a dribble here and there.
– then….equilibrium.  Statis.  Stagflation the rest of 2010.  The entire planet breathes a huge sigh of relief in mid-September and settles down for six months of drifting and gaining balance.  Expect no gains – or modest ones at best.
– those left standing this fall, have a good foundation for making it through the winter and onto the new stage next spring.

Morgan County is fortunate to have a hospital.  Today’s War Memorial communityhospital started out life in 1933 as The Pines or  Cripple Children’s Hospital.  We have a photo of FDR on his visit surrounded by children.  It was believed that bathing in the spring waters helped those stricken with polio.

In the late 1940s, local civic leaders banded together to save the closing facility and turn it into a community hospoital.  War Memorial still serves the community today in the same location although its owner, Valley Health, has broken ground on a new $30 million hospital just out the ridge from the current location overlooking the town.  The Pines will soon enter a new phase.

For our project, the hospital scrapbook was a good source.  I went up to the hospital on Thursday afternoon,  7/29, picked up the scrapbook from the custody of Lyn Goodwin and went back downtown to call Betty Lou and bring the scrapbook for her to see while I scanned it.  It turned out, she was at the hospital.  (Only overnight.  She’s OK.)  I returned to the hospital and her room and we looked at the scrapbook.

The bulk of the photos in the “historic” section were from a photo shoot in 1960 (we ater learned.)  As we looked at them, Betty Lou exclaimed: “I think that’s Mary Lou Trump.”  The young nurse in the photo certainly resembled Kirsten, Mary Lou’s daughter.  I sent the photo to Kirsten who confirmed and dated it.  “Mom remembers that shoot,” she said.