A Tortured Specter of Franken Flu & Other Mercury Tales

© Terry Lamb

May 8, 2009

Mercury is retrograde now, and there is a complex series of interwoven planetary events that is taking place. Without going into the details (these are in my May forecast), there are many interactions that may feel unpleasant or disconcerting but are good for us collectively and individually in the long run. (Connections are always good, because they help us figure things out. It’s better to have bad breath than no breath at all.)

Here’s a partial litany of the issues that are “up” right now for us collectively:

Swine Flu (Update)
Can we save ourselves? If this H1N1 outbreak follows the pattern of the one in 1918, the spring version of the influenza is mild. However, the following fall-winter, the outbreak was acute and deadly, and it killed the most healthy among the population. This was caused by a cytokine storm, where the immune system goes into hyper-drive and overwhelms the body so that it essentially drowns in its own immune response. There is evidence of heightened cytokinic activity with the current flu outbreak.

The wisdom gained from the 1918 Spanish Influenza allows us to anticipate that the virus could become pandemic in the fall and winter — and this gives biologists time to come up with a vaccine. The vaccine could become available no sooner than October, and a question remains as to how effective the vaccine will be because of the trial-and-error nature of the process.

In the fall, temporarily Saturn cuts its ties Uranus when it goes into Libra, connecting with Pluto at the end of the year. It then returns to Virgo to make two more connections to Uranus before leaving it behind. This is fodder for a more serious outbreak — and for humanity to get its public health act together.

I have no speculations on what will occur, but we have an open window now and many public health officials and biologists are aggressively pursuing avenues for our safety. There is a stepwise developmental process that will lead us to our experiences this fall, as well as many opportunities to ameliorate the situation.

Torture Memos
As Mercury first reached the heart of the pattern it triggers (the third week of April), torture memos and reports began peeling off like layers on an onion. As Mercury stations, the hits just keep on coming! I will watch this process with fascination and hope for justice.

A Specter of Vacillation
It takes some getting used to, but Arlen Specter is the latest ghost to haunt the Democratic Party. If he could only get used to it! He has responded to the Mercury retrograde in typical fashion — by misspeaking in stating that the Minnesota Supremes should do the right thing and declare Norm Coleman the winner of the never-ending senate race with Al Franken. “Now, what party was I in?”

Franken Sense
Mercury stations on Franken’s Sun-Mars conjunction — oh, my! But the only misstep has been Specter’s. The sole news item on Franken as this planetary moment passes is the heckler that got politely dissed by Franken at a Washington restaurant Tuesday night. So far, he’s clean!

The Return of Bush, Salazar-Style
Yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management released reports that Quaterra Alaska Inc. has been authorized to engage in uranium exploration near the Grand Canyon, in direct defiance of a congressional resolution prohibiting such mining for three years. Environmental groups, canyon-country lovers, and people that like to drink water in California are evaluating what to do about this. There is already a lawsuit in the courts against previous interior secretary Kempthorne. To take action on this situation, contact your senators and congressional representative, urging them to enforce the emergency resolution of the House Natural Resources Committee, and to pass the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2009. This bill has not yet been numbered by the House or Senate. Stay in touch with the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust for how you can take political action.

Here's to Your Health (and Good Luck With That)!
The chair of the Senate Finance Committee Max Baucus held his first hearing on health care reform yesterday, and he specifically and pointedly excluded anyone who was interested in or advocating a single-payer plan. Fully represented among the 15 participants were health insurers and big pharma. Eight people representing groups advocating for a single-payer system attended, but when they each, one by one, stood to comment on the exclusion, they were led from the room. At least 59% (AMA) and by some estimations more than 80% of physicians favor a single payer system. At least 60% of Americans do. Senator Baucus receives more campaign funding from insurers and big pharma than any other senator. We need Mercury retrograde (and Ed Schultz on MSNBC's Big Ed Show) to raise awareness and give us time to get it right.

Wounding, Healing, and Dreaming
The unifying theme of the coming six weeks (an over-arching theme of the year) is wounding, healing, and dreaming. We in America are busy healing the American Dream, removing the materialism that has tainted it in the last 30 or so years, and the anti-populism that has existed longer than that. We citizens are the key. We have to become involved in our government, or we will lose even more of what the founding fathers established for us.

Healing the dream means taking the lead in some areas of human evolution simply because we can, so we must step into that responsibility with wisdom and conscientiousness. Whether it is in public health policy, land management, restoring civil liberties, or letting the people’s will be done, we are discovering the wounds (painful) and have the opportunity to heal them (joyful) as Mercury makes its way backward for the next three weeks.

Swine Flu Pandemic or Soon-to-Be-Forgotten News Item? The Planetary Patterns Give Insight.

© Terry Lamb

April 28, 2009

Four days ago, the alarm was raised regarding a swine flu outbreak in Mexico City, where more than 100 people were reported dead. The WHO (World Health Organization) has said that this flu has “pandemic potential”. The first outbreak has recently been identified as probably in La Gloria, Veracruz, in eastern Mexico. This village is 12 miles from an American-owned industrial pig production facility, although they claim no involvement in the illness. However, the national health authority suspects that waste from the factory could be the source.

In 2005, I did some research on a subject that had long fascinated me, the 1918 “Spanish” Influenza. Based on that research, I wrote an article, “Planetary Miasms”, exploring the planetary patterns of the time. I also looked at other epidemics that were classified as pandemics and speculated about future possible times when such could occur again. In that article, I pinpointed one time when the patterns, the “miasms of planets”, were similar enough to those of 1918, and that was in 2009-10.

Anatomy of a Pandemic
Typically, at least one new mutation of the H2N3 flu type develops every year. However, from time to time a flu virus is born that is more virulent. These virus are of the H1N1 variety, a form of swine flu. The 1918 flu pandemic was an H1N1 strain. Its outbreak lasted from late 1917 through April 1919, or about 18 months. There were two outbreaks, the first mild and the second deadly.

Any virus can take several months to a year to catch hold in a human population. Large gatherings, cold weather, other factors reducing the resilience of the immune system such as stress — all play a role.

What Can We See in the Planets?
In 1918, the most notable patterns involved layered interactions between Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Jupiter and Pluto were also “near-missing” each other, but not interacting with the other three heavy planets.

In the other two epidemics that were labeled pandemics,(based on the number of cases) in 1957 and 1968, none had comparable numbers of cases or deaths. The planetary patterns were not as intense either.

So What About Now?
We have two patterns occurring right now, and both are powerful. Saturn and Uranus are opposing each other, the same mathematical contact they made in 1917-19. In fact, the entire outbreak was timed pretty exactly to the time that these two planets were interacting. Saturn and Uranus this time around have been interacting since Fall 2008 and will continue to face off until July 2010.

The other pattern occurring right now involves Jupiter, Chiron, and Neptune, which first started coming together in February and will be very strong in May, August, and November. These planets appear to be involved in timing the outbreaks, as the first one happened in February. However, the recent spread of the disease occurred when Saturn and Uranus were being contacted by Mars, which occurred between April 4 and 14.

If it is clear that these planetary patterns are implicated in the disease process, it is likely that the new H1N1 strain developed last fall at the first Saturn-Uranus contact, but that it took its usual underground route into the human population, emerging in February as these planets made their second connection. Following this timing, there is an increased chance of a virulent outbreak in the days and weeks around September 15, their next time to link up. They have two more connections after that, and if the outbreak has not been contained by then, we may see a resurgence around those times, April 26 and July 21, 2010.

Jupiter, Chiron, and Neptune do not appear at this time to be implicated in the timing and virulence of this swine flu outbreak, but they could be involved in exacerbating the circumstances under which the virus is spread. More likely, however, is that they indicate a human response, such as a curtailment in travel (Mercury retrograde square this expansive combination), as we head into a month where they are heavily featured.

For all these reasons, my conclusion is that the Mexican swine flu will be a problem but not as big a problem as the biggest of them all, the influenza of 1918. The world economy and social interaction will be affected by limitations placed on human movement, but the flu will be relatively contained.

Robert Blaschke has noted astutely that Mexico’s chart has a high level of Pluto activity in it, and that “viruses are ruled by Pluto”. (TMA Blog) I would not make so blunt a statement, as the many facets of disease processes involve many planetary energies. I relate viruses primarily to Neptune because of their fluid, unseen, and insidious nature; they do not always involve death or deep transformation, but where they are deadly Pluto is unquestionably a factor. Uranus gives us the energy of mutation, and Saturn the limitations placed on human populations, both in terms of population growth and population movement, as well as human failures.

Jupiter spreads whatever it touches — perhaps here it is spreading awareness of what happens in the world’s disadvantaged populations when one of the many possible health threats to them materializes. As it is tied to wounded healer Chiron and virus-associated Neptune, the potential for spreading through poor public health management is considerable. However, if this is a time that we respond as a species to the need for improved health care for all people, the planets are bringing a great human wound to the surface for humanity to work on together. (See my May forecast for more on the great human wound.) This situation underscores the fact that we all sink or swim together. When we support those in need around the world, we support ourselves.