 The World Trade Center
First Impact
 It took less than one hour for 200,000 tons of steel, 43,600 windows and over 600,000 square feet of glass to crumble to the ground when American Airlines Flight 11 smacked into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001.
As The World Trade Center embraced her First Saturn Return,¹ Al Qaida hijackers then slammed headlong into the South Tower at 9:02 a.m., and thus slayed America's 110 Floor "Twin" monuments to manifest destiny, wealth, and world power.
Back To The Future
The Astro-History
The 1993 truck bombing of the WTC was presaged by a December 9, 1992 Lunar Eclipse² where 14 degrees³ and 18 degrees are lethal. The eclipse Sun (Sagittarius) and Moon (18 Gemini) are in T-square formation the WTC Event Sun at 18 Virgo. The Midheaven of the eclipse chart is 29 Pisces conjoined to the fixed star Scheat associated with violent death, however, most noteably from poisoning and drowning. Eclipse Neptune, Scheat's dispositor, is at 17 Capricorn conjoined to Uranus. Saturn and Uranus are in mutual reception by sign, indicating an explosion (Uranus) to a solid structure (Saturn) with smoke (Neptune) polluting the air.
I also noted that the midpoint between the 1992 Eclipse Midheaven and the Equatorial Ascendant ("EQ") at 29 Gemini in this chart is 28 Taurus. At 9:38 a.m. on 9/11/01, the Pentagon was struck.(4) The Pentagon's natal Saturn is at 28 Taurus. It's Uranus is at 29 Taurus. Both are conjoined to the fixed star Alcyone, the star of great grief. As mentioned in Prelude: Now It Begins, Venus in the USA's Solar Return chart was at 29 Taurus. Thus, a great grief after a great caving in. (See Solar Return Chart).
The Lunar Nodes for the eclipse chart are North: 21 Sagittarius and South: 21 Gemini, or, the degree of our upcoming Solar Eclipse (sun-Moon) at 22 Sagittarius on December 14, 2001! Mars in the Lunar Eclipse chart is at 26 Cancer retrograde in wide opposition to Uranus -- a classic aspect associated with explosions. Mars retrograde simply means: "We will do it again." and they did. And they succeeded. Retrograde Mars in the 1992 Eclipse chart opposed the USA's Pluto at 27 Capricorn. This is even more sensitive as that same Mars conjoins George W. Bush's natal Saturn and is in close orb to a conjunction with the USA's Mercury -- the Messenger.
September 11, 2001
The WTC's natal Mars-Jupiter conjunction at 6 and 7 Aquarius, respectively, were conjoined by the planet of subterfuge, Neptune:
"Neptune: Subversion. Ideals of "the perfect society." Idealistic visions. The New Age. Socialism. Visions. Dreams and people who "sell" or "promote" dreams. Therefore Neptune can also rule what beguiles: glamour, films, dance, fashion crazes and also the attendant disillusionment that arises when none of these things succeeds in "fixing" society or the individual. Neptune rules oil, biochemical agents, scandals, confusion, deception and a society's "blind spot.�
Claudia D. Dikinis, Mundane Astrology and Astrological Law.
"A community which has succumbed to this grave spiritual malady is apt to resent its cultural debt to the civilization of which it itself is merely a fragment, and in this frame of mind it will devote a great part of its energies to creating a parochially national culture which can be declared free of foreign influence. In its social and political institutions, its aesthetic culture, and its religion, it will try to recapture the ostensible purity of an age of national independence prior to the one in which it finds itself incorporated into the larger society of a superanational civilization." Liz Greene, "The Astrological Neptune," quoting Arnold Toynbee's �A Study of History�, pgs. 293-294. [Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1996].
The two paragraphs cited above, in many ways, describe the idealogical split between the USA's expansive, liberal, widely flung culture and the fear of dissolution and "degeneration" experienced by (for example) the Taliban of Afghanistan and by the adherents who train with Osama bin Laden in his war camps. The Taliban's Neptune at 25 Capricorn conjoins the USA's money hungry Pluto in its second house. Neptune and Pluto have a certain "understanding." One dissolves, the other erodes and erases. (Transiting Neptune is on the USA's South Node at 6 Aquarius also located in its second house. As I said last December at the Capricorn Ingress: "Whoops. There goes the money."} But when Neptune "calls" on a second house Pluto (think of Bill Gates), the two will fight unto the death in order to prevail. Neptune is like a full torso apparition appearing then disappearing. Pluto puts on his helmet of invisibility and plots to get what he wants anyway.
The Taliban's Neptune opposes George W. Bush's natal Saturn (26 Cancer). In this case, the Taliban's authoritarian, yet "unseen" Neptune drives The President's structure-oriented Saturn to distraction. Saturn in Cancer is fearful of the loss of control and the demise of "civilization" in every sense of that word. The President's sudden personal and political "turnaround" after the tragedy was his own awakening (progressed USA Sun conjoined to its Aquarian Moon). After all, George W. Bush is an American citizen, too. For the first time since inauguration, the American people were given a "new vision" of Bush -- he is a person who feels equally at risk.
The administration cannot negotiate with the Neptunian/utopian ideology of the Taliban. Hence, the smokescreens. The Taliban asserts that OBL is not in Afghanistan. But then again he is in Afghanistan. But actually, he's under the Taliban's "control." They asked him to leave, but suddenly the Taliban says he's ba-a-a-a-ck. Like a poltergeist, OBL floats in and out of caves (Saturn-Pluto) dragging his wives and 15 children behind him. Ostensibly his caves are outfitted with our technology: generators, fax machines, cell phones, TV's and Internet wired PC's. It would stand to reason. The Taliban's chart has Pluto at 0 Sagittarius in sextile to Uranus at 0 Aquarius -- A Technological Jihad.
 Transiting Neptune and WTC's natal Mars and Jupiter squared the Impact chart's Vertex located at 6 Taurus.(5) The Vertex ruler, Venus at 18 Leo, opposed Uranus signaling a shattering of NYC's colossal relationship with international money. Virgo Sun in square to Saturn in Gemini reiterates a profound theme in the USA chart. America has a Cancerian Sun in square to a Libran Saturn. Sun in square to Saturn is an aspect associated with insecurity. The destruction of the towers, the shutdown of Wall Street and the subsequent dip in the Dow Jones the week after, all attest to the Sun square Saturn resonating with the USA's fear of loss. Factoring in the midpoint for Venus and the Vertex brings us to 27 Gemini. That midpoint is conjoined to 9/11/01's Moon! 27 Gemini is the degree of the North Node for December 14, 2001's Solar Eclipse. As noted previously, sensitive degrees and degrees aligned with the Lunar Nodes spell trouble. (See footnote 2).
 More to the point, and the most difficult part to write about, is the loss of 7,000 lives. The Vertex (using Koch Houses) is only 2 degrees 23 minutes from the cusp of the 8th house of death.
Venus in opposition to Uranus: impact by airplane. The grand air trine comprised of Ascendant and Mercury at 14 Libra; Saturn at 14 Gemini and Uranus at 21 Aquarius, reveals how "easy" it was for the hijackers. The country was asleep at the wheel.
The Sun-Mercury midpoint in the chart is 1 Libra -- the USA's Midheaven, which falls in the 12th house of the chart. America's "Rule of Law" (USA Saturn 14 Libra, conjoined to Event Mercury) was "buried" in the rubble of the WTC chart's 12th house of "self-undoing." That the USA's supreme value (rule of law) could never have imagined this 21st Century reality boggles the mind. It isn't that we didn't know such possibilities existed, but America had never psychologically prepared for such an eventuality. Hence, she was caught off guard.
Finally, the USA's Ascendant-Midheaven midpoint is 29 Scorpio, opposite the fixed Star Alcyone. The USA's Solar Return found Venus at 29 Taurus: outpouring of great grief. This midpoint axis lies along the 12th house/6th house axis of the USA's natal chart where the 6th house is reflective of the military, firefighters, rescue workers, civil servants, police and the National Guard. The heavy burden of their missions cannot be articulated.
June 21, 2031 at 5:33 a.m., marks the Saturn Return of the WTC disaster. We will be nine years past the USA's Saturn-Pluto conjunction and her Pluto return at 27 Capricorn. The next Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, in 2020, is at 0 Aquarius, the degree in which we find the Sun whenever a U.S. president is inaugurated. George W. Bush will be 86 years old -- two years past his Uranus Return. I will be at my Uranus Return. It's possible that he and I, and a great many of us who stood fast at the USA's turning point, will have passed on. If we who now witness Pluto's transit through the USA's first house are also called to rewrite her history, what will we leave in memoriam at the World Trade Center grave site? What will we take with us by way of remembrance? To whom will we give the gifts?
Starcats, October 2, 2001, Santa Monica, California.
Footnotes
¹ The WTC's natal Saturn at 15 Gemini was conjoined by Event Saturn at 14 Gemini on September 11, 2001.
² Sun 18 Sagittarius and Moon at 18 Gemini, the degree of the subsequent August 11, 1999 Fixed Grand Square Eclipse at 18 Leo. When eclipse cycles unfold, planets that contact those degrees in subsequent charts for world events are called "sensitive degrees." Planets revisiting eclipse degrees offload the potentials seen in eclipse charts.
³ 1992's Lunar Eclipse found Saturn at 14 Aquarius. It trines 9/11/01's Event Saturn at 14 Gemini and trines the WTC's Saturn Return at 15 Gemini.
(4) The Pentagon: April 29, 1942, 10:30 a.m., EWT +4:00, Washington, DC, 38N53:42, 077W02:12. Ascendant: 15 Cancer. Source: Lois Rodden at Astrodata Bank.
(5) The Vertex is considered as another "ascendant" in a chart -- a point many astrologers have witnessed operating as a "fated" or "destiny" indicator in a chart.
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