Dear Friend and Reader:
THIS WEEK in the Seattle area, the
subprime mortage crisis appears to have arrived at the top of the housing market. A development of model homes called The Street of Dreams, located in Snohomish County, Washington, was burned in an apparent arson. The homes, which were for sale for $1.6 to $1.9 million each, were constructed of non-toxic, extremely high-quality equipment and supplies -- almost the way a home should be built.
|
Street of Dreams home in flames Monday morning. Courtesy of CNN.
|
The subprime crisis involves greedy banks having lent money to lots and lots of people who could not actually afford a house or mortgage. Most of these were done on variable interest loans, such that after a while the interest rate, and thus the monthly payment, would take a jump. Then the housing market plunged, and people owed more on their mortgage than their house was worth. And they could not afford the payments. So what do you do? Try mailing the keys back to the bank and walk away.
Except for one thing: This has begun to affect the high-end of the market as well, with relatively stable, well-off people not being able to afford their homes, either. Such as, for instance, homes similar to the decked-out ones that burned near Seattle this week.
Just to give a few examples, the Street of Dreams homes were designed to be extremely energy efficient, with R-26 or better insulation formulated without formaldehyde, compact fluorescent lighting, tankless hot water heating and heat recovery ventilators. They were built from wood certified by something called the Forest Stewardship Council. Wood floors were made from small-diameter trees harvested from a forest thinning program in Montana. Carpeting was avoided, and when necessary, wool carpeting was used if possible. The projects utilized recycled materials, and during construction, a recycling program collected and conserved building materials.
The environmental impact of the building site was reduced, for example, by the use of pervious driveway and walkway materials. Drought-tolerant native grasses were used to give a lawn appearance without using commercial (and chemical-intensive) turf grass. A water-management system was used to allow groundwater recharge. And on and on. I did not see that solar was used; many other low-impact technologies were not used. They were large houses which used a lot of construction resources.
Whether you believe that these structures are really better for the environment or were the product of greenwashing, they are certainly better for someone living in the home -- and moreover, they were expensive to build. It seems like, within the stated design philosophy, no expense was spared in the construction of the homes, which were in the planning stages before housing prices started to tank last year -- and, notably, with the market in Snohomish Country booming.
Then early Monday morning, three of the five homes were burned to the ground and two others were damaged. At the scene, firefighters found a bed sheet allegedly signed by the Environmental Liberation Front, or ELF, supposedly claiming responsibility for the fires. ELF had been blamed for other Seattle-area fires, and a similar sign was found after a fire on Camano Island in the Puget Sound in 2006. Thankfully, nobody was killed or injured in Monday's fires. Yet before arson investigators had even left the scene, the ELF was being blamed for the fires and the cause was being linked to "domestic terrorism."
By midweek, the FBI was taking a more cautious approach to placing blame. "At the end of the day it's an arson, but why was it committed?" asked Fred Good, a special agent assigned to the investigation. "Was it to further some ideology? In which case it could be terrorism. Or are they just using that as a cover, and it was really something simpler, and criminal?"
I like the way Mr. Good has phrased this question -- it works for astrology. (He was also kind enough to call me back about six times, every time I needed a clarification.) So let's go to the chart. The
Seattle Times reported that the fires began about 4 am. There may have been a delay between when the fires started and the 911 call (what else is new), but charts in this range will all give Capricorn rising. Here is the chart:
When you start reading a chart, where do you begin? Most astrologers look at the ascendant and the Moon. These are two of the fastest moving factors, so they are most likely to give something distinct or specific to the situation. Here we have a chart with Capricorn rising. Capricorn is the sign that most resembles government or corporations. From the astrology on its face, it does not look like these fires were set by extremists. It looks like they were set by conservatives.
The next thing we see, just sniffing the chart, are a lot of planets clustered around the 2nd house -- money. Whenever you see an event chart and the 2nd house is stuffed, you probably have a chart that is really about money, even if the question is supposedly about a dancing pony. By 2nd house, I am referring to the contents of the actual 2nd house and also the 2nd sign from the ascendant -- Aquarius. The Helenistic astrologers (a crew of students of ancient Greek astrology who I know) have definitely brainwashed me into having respect for whole-sign houses; that is, you look at where the lines are on the chart (regular houses) and you also count houses from the ascendant, and count the whole sign as the house. Both methods can be used simultaneously and crosschecked.
In either case, you get a lot in the 2nd house. Get out your adding machine. We need to consider the financial motive. The 2nd can indicate real property. Fred Good, the FBI spokesman, said Wednesday that four of the five homes were still owned by the builders' banks, and that one was under contract for sale.
Let's look more closely at the chart, using horary astrology techniques. Apologies if this seems to exceed your technical astrology skills. I will do my best to take it one step at a time.
Let's start with the ascendant. I am going to take the ascendant as the victim of the crime, and the 7th house as the perpetrator. We can also look to the 12th house as the secret enemy, or hidden co-conspirator. When you study any house using this technique, you look at what is placed inside the house, and also where the planet that rules the sign associated with the house is placed.
For example, Capricorn is rising, and Saturn rules Capricorn, so Saturn would in some way represent the victim of the crime. It can also represent the question itself, and reveal something about the true nature of the question. Appropriately enough, we find Saturn in the 8th house, where phoenix-like changes happen. The 8th is also the house of banks and corporate profits. For a bunch of houses owned by banks that have just been turned to ashes, this is a suitable picture. Saturn is retrograde in Virgo -- tied up, delayed, indicating something blocked (such as profits). Saturn retrograde in Virgo also gives us a picture of pseudo-green construction. Virgo is one of the signs associated with environmentalism, but Saturn retrograde is not exactly progressive.
The 7th and its ruler are going to represent the open enemy or perpetrator. No major planets are placed in the 7th house, but Cancer (the sign of homes!) is on the cusp. That means we need to look for the Moon, who will represent the open enemy. The Moon is in the 1st house. The 1st house represents the victim -- the builder and/or the banks who owned the development. When the ruler of the 7th points you right back to the 1st, you are potentially looking at a picture of an inside job. Notably, the Moon is conjunct Jupiter in Capricorn -- the quintessential nice guy. Jupiter in Cap looks like Santa Claus -- the corporate entity with the friendly face. But Jupiter is also associated with the 12th house. So we have a chart that we could call "fair is foul, and foul is fair."
Let's check another house -- the 10th. The 10th house often represents corporate and government interests. It's the house of people with a good reputation, a track record, and an interest in the status quo. The 10th house is not the house that is associated with terrorists, extremists, groups, or activists. Rather, it's the "establishment." The 10th house of this chart is Scorpio (it's the dark line, tilted a little to the left, with the Scorpio symbol on top).
Scorpio has two rulers -- Mars, the ancient ruler; and Pluto, the modern ruler. When we look at these two planets, we see some interesting connections. First, they are opposing one another, with a violent feeling. If anything in the chart says "fire," it is this Mars-Pluto opposition. And both of these planets represent 10th house-type interests -- that is, big interests like companies and their investments.
Mars is dangling on the edge of Gemini -- the planet with the latest degree, that is, the planet with the highest number, a placement sometimes referred to as "void of course." (We usually hear about this referring to the Moon, but it can also apply to the Sun and planets as well, though different astrologers use different rules.) This gives it an unpredictable, volatile quality. Next, Pluto is lurking in the 12th house of secret enemies. It is in the sign Capricorn, the sign associated with corporations. We cannot seem to escape imagery pointing back to the banks and the owners.
Notably, none of the major factors covered so far points to, or even alludes to, a group of some kind, or extremists, activists or terrorists.
|
Building of the “green” homes on The Street of Dreams. Photo courtesy of The Herald/ Michael O’Leary.
|
Let's check back in with the money. As I mentioned, when the 2nd house is loaded, there are financial interests involved. Aquarius is the sign on the 2nd house cusp. Saturn is also the ruler of Aquarius -- and once again, we see the money itself tied up in the 8th house in Virgo, not going anywhere fast.
Imagine a situation where you invest a huge amount of money into a project, sparing no expense, planning for huge growth -- and then the market tanks. A realtor in Maltby, where the fire happened, told us that in just one year, homes normally going for $500,000 are now going for more like $460,000. So with the high-end housing market falling out, investors in these huge projects stand to lose a lot of money. And that is where fire insurance may come in.
Let's check one more money indicator -- the ruler of the 4th house. That would be the property itself. Taurus is on the 4th house cusp. Venus rules Taurus. We find Venus in the 2nd house (money) in a conjunction to Neptune, which feels like "washed up" and reminds us that a lie may be being told, as aspects to Neptune often suggest. And while we are on this topic of Venus-Neptune as the significator for the land itself, how perfect can you get as Venus, the land and values, conjunct Neptune, the planet of Illusion, all represents a project called "Street of Dreams"? We might well wonder where the dream ends and reality begins.
And What About Those Elves?
Anyone who has read much of J.R.R. Tolkien knows that elves are not always friendly, and also they sometimes burn things. The sign referring to McMansions, signed by ELF, was the only evidence of ELF involvement found at the scene of Monday's fire, which led to the domestic terrorism speculations that have been spread all over the media. A report in Wednesday's
Seattle Times said that Monday's fires bore some similarities to a 2006 fire on Camano Island in the Puget Sound region, where a sign purportedly signed by ELF was also found.
This sign has disappeared from existence, and nobody seems to have a picture of it (we called all over the region looking for someone who did). The best we could do was track down Kelly Ruhoff at the
Stanwood Camano News, who took a photo of the 2006 sign. Since it was not published, she deleted it. However, she told Planet Waves that the sign left at Monday's crime scene "looked real familiar."
Notably, an alleged ELF arsonist is currently on trial in the Settle area, for fires started between 1996 and 2001. The crime was solved by police in 2006, and it has finally gone to trial now. So despite the fact that these crimes can take years to solve, ELF would be a logical entity to blame Monday's fire on -- especially if they were not involved.
And what of the subprime crisis itself? Well -- every economist in the world is watching this one. The reason is because banks who lend people money sell those mortgages into the economic system as "mortgage backed securities." Like the gold that the Nazis took from their victims and sold into the global gold market, these securities have now found their way into every corner of the economy. We have yet to see the results. In a future edition, we will focus the lens of astrology and look at this issue closely, to see what it has to offer us.
Also, while I am not prepared to comment at this time, the synchronicity of another case of "domestic terrorism" with the Times Square military recruitment station bombing is difficult to miss, in light of what happened in Washington State. It is said that it takes three events to make a pattern, but it's funny how we notice when there are just two.
Yours & truly,
-- Additional reporting by MaryLaura Barkley-Mau and Ursula Fugger
Note To Readers: Schedule Change
Hello out there in Internet land!
Next week is my 44th birthday, and after another year of serving as your faithful astrologer, I am ready to slow down the movie.
So I will be reducing the publishing schedule for a week. I can promise you a weekly horoscope, at least -- the rest will be up to my staff, but I don't want them working too hard either; the more they do, the more I do.
Therefore, I am likely to eliminate next week's Tuesday edition entirely -- if I do, I will send a note Monday night.
For readers of It's "Not About Sex, It's About Self," Part Six is coming along. With a lot of help, and I do mean a lot, I am delving into the mysteries of Sigmund Freud's theories of Eros/Thanatos, and the corresponding biological mystery of programmed cell death existing as an evolutionary consequence of sexual reproduction. The 8th house has two very significant scientific roots in the 20th century, and I am not leaving those stones unturned.
Given the approaching [personal] holiday, I am being as efficient as I can. I can tell you this, if you are the thinking type and you have ever put questions to the universe about sex and its relationship to change, to death and to creativity, you don't want to miss this special series. It's still just $9.95
and you can sign up here, which gets you the full series.
Till next time,
Eric Francis
|
SpaceShipTwo and White Knight Two as simulated by Virigin's artists.
|
What's more extravagant than an Earth-lite dinner from your own private spacecraft? I don't know, isn't that extravagant enough?
If you want to try that someday, you might want to head for Washington DC, where faithful proponents of commercial space travel will be lobbying their congressional representatives to support their plans to open the space frontier -- not just for Captain Kirk. The organization sponsoring this is called ProSpace, and every year they organize "March Storm," their lobbying event. As many as 40 people take part in the effort.
In January, NASA issued a request for parties interested in human suborbital spaceflight services. Around the same time, airline mogul Sir Richard Branson unveiled the final designs of SpaceShipTwo and White Knight Two, prototypes of Virgin Galactic's planned commercial "spaceliner" and its corresponding carrier plane. So it's looking like this could be a possibility some time soon. These are spacecraft that take off and land like airplanes, which is actually a more efficient and practical way to get into space.
NASA scientists are eager to use commercial suborbital systems to carry out their own flight experiments. It's about time. Anyone who read
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolf knows that this type of spaceship was a close contender with the vertical-launch rocket method of getting off the planet.
By Kirsti Melto and Eric Francis | Lunations
