Pisces 24-30
Opening doors, closing doors
I'm not afraid, it's only change.
- chant from Harmonic Convergence, 1987
Welcome to the last week of the astrological year. I think this is one of the most mystical times in the roundel of the seasons, as the great cycle of the zodiac works its way through the final degrees of Pisces, the last sign. This is a time of endings and completions that is followed by the truly natural moment of renewal at the Vernal Equinox. We could not have one part of the cycle without the other. Time is round, and it cycles for what we think of as eternity.
One of the astrological tools that keyed me into the beauty of this time of year is the Sabian symbols. I use the ones interpreted by Dane Rudhyar, though there are others. The symbols were received by a medium named Elsie Wheeler in 1925 with the help of an astrologer and minister named Marc Edmund Jones. They were channelled at random, sitting in a San Diego park, and recorded onto shuffled cards with one of 360 degrees of the zodiac written on the back of each. Then they were put in order, and they tell a story.
Here are the last seven degrees of the cycle of the year -- the week we are in.
Pisces 24
(Friday) On a small island living in the vast expanse of the sea, people are seen living in close interaction.
Pisces 25
(Saturday) A religious institution succeeds in overcoming the corrupting influence of perverted practices and materialised ideals.
Pisces 26
(Sunday) Watching the very thin Moon crescent appearing at sunset, different people realise that the time has come to go ahead with their different projects.
Pisces 27
(Monday) The Harvest Moon illuminates a clear autumnal sky.
Pisces 28
(Tuesday) A fertile garden under the full Moon reveals a variety of full-grown vegetables.
Pisces 29
(Wednesday) Light breaking through many colours as it passes through a prism.
Pisces 30
(Thursday) A majestic rock formation resembling a face is idealised by a boy who takes it as ideal of greatness, and as he grows up, begins to look like it.
(Copyright (c) 1973 by Dane Rudhdyar)
The appearance of the Moon in three in seven symbols of the last week is a synchronicity and it speaks to the lunar nature of Pisces. the Tarot trump XVIII The Moon, is associated with Pisces in the Aleister Crowley system.
Now, as it works out, as we end the astrological year, we also end a lunar month. That is another way of saying that there's a New Moon exactly on the Vernal Equinox, which occurs March 20, 2004. That's one of those really mysterious synchronicities, and it suggests the size and scope of the times in which we're living. These are truly big times, but we usually lack the confidence to call them what they are.
I'm fortunate to be a writer. At least once a week, I have to stop and reflect on the nature of reality. It's worth a moment, and it's worth a moment of sharing with someone close to you.
State of Denial
NOTE -- This is my latest article in an ongoing series on the dioxin and PCB contaminated dormitories at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Consider New Paltz a case in point, in many ways unique, and in every way so much like so many other toxic sites around the world. The chances are, there is such a place within a few miles of where you live. Doing this article the past few weeks -- really getting into it for the first time since beginning my career as a professional astrologer nine years ago -- has been an interesting experience for the little kid in me, who always wonders why adults are such jerks. Well, most grownups. I would like to thank Jason Stern, Amara Projansky and Brian Mahoney at Chronogram magazine in New Paltz for their support and assistance the past few weeks as this rather controversial story developed (in a most bizarre fashion, right in the swirling midst of the gay marriage circus in New Paltz). - e.f.
WERE GAGE RESIDENCE HALL at SUNY New Paltz a chemical waste facility, PCB levels in its exhaust vents would exceed EPA safety standards by up to eight-fold. Federal law says 10 parts per million is the limit in a vent; a Gage Hall vent tested at 80 parts. This contamination exists not in a remote corner of the building, isolated from residents, but rather in dust above a stove in a student lounge. Vents connect every lounge, laundry room, bathroom and shower stall in the building. Imagine students breathing toxins with the steam from their morning shower.
More than a decade after a PCB cleanup ended in the dorm, gravel in the Gage Hall basement contains nearly three times the federal limit for outdoor soil -- at an industrial facility, mind you, not a residential one. There are no federal limits for homes because there are not supposed to be any noticeable concentrations of PCBs where people live. Three-hundred seventy students have lived inside the building since February 1992, when it was re-opened after a transformer explosion 35 days earlier.
There is contamination in a dusty radiator in the building's back entrance way. A ceiling tile in a student lounge, above a television set, is laced with PCBs. So is wallpaper in the same room; the room is open and unlocked, not sealed in plastic. There are no warning signs anywhere. Except for rumours, most students are clueless.
This building is certified clean, and was part of a $50 million cleanup effort. But Gage Hall and neighbouring Capen Residence Hall were opened long before most of that money was spent. The risks to student health, and the health of their unborn children, are stunning: exactly the same as Agent Orange exposure.
A few paces across the campus, in Capen Hall, a dusty, lint-filled vent in the laundry room has more than double the federal allowable PCB level for a factory or chemical waste facility -- nearly 23 parts per million. A radiator matted with dust, thick as carpet padding, has high levels of contamination, which raises the frightening prospect that every radiator in the building is contaminated. The last time this possibility surfaced was when Jennifer Folster, a Capen resident in 1993, died of leukaemia in 2000, and said that a thin film of dust-coated oil coated her heater in that same basement.
Electrical wires near a student room in Capen, wiped down with alcohol and a swath of cotton, showed high levels of contamination, raising the prospect that electrical outlets throughout the building are contaminated.
How do I know this? Early the morning of Feb. 12, 2004, I entered Capen and Gage halls with two student witnesses and collected the samples myself. This is called independent citizen sampling, and I did it because the official levels as stated by New York State seemed unusually low or non-existent, given that PCB transformers burned in both buildings. Later that same morning, I sent my seven sample jars to a first-rate laboratory in California, Sequoia Analytical, whose clients include private industry as well as municipal, state and federal agencies. My publishing company, Planet Waves, Inc., paid for analysis of the samples.
After investigating and writing about the botched PCB cleanups in these dormitories since 1992 (including many articles for Chronogram, New Paltz Times and Woodstock Times), I wanted to know the truth, and I did not want to hear it from someone else.
All seven samples showed the presence of PCBs, some at extremely high levels.
For years, in fact since the very days Capen and Gage halls opened a month after the infamous December 1991 transformer explosions, everyone has been told that these buildings are perfectly safe. Parents had their doubts on those freezing February mornings when the structures were first reopened before the test result books were available for examination, and when cleanup workers clad in Tyvec suits and respirators still roamed the campus.
But were those test result books, which you can still find in the library, at all meaningful? Capen and Gage were re-opened without any tests having been run on the ventilation systems. Heating systems in Capen, Gage and Scudder were also ignored, despite the fact that the Bliss Hall heating system was discovered to have been a path of contamination in 1992. But this is common sense; every building where PCBs are released shows contamination in the vents -- if you check. Now, it seems, we can see why no heat and vent tests were taken in Capen and Gage before the buildings were declared safe. These systems were not declared safe on the basis of scientific data, but rather on the lack of it. Thousands of tests were taken on the campus; these critical areas were ignored even when there were repeatedly discovered reasons to check.
It's a mean trick. Under the best circumstances, the state usually acknowledges that PCBs have been left behind at "acceptable" levels in the buildings. (In a recent interview with The Oracle student newspaper, Corinna Caracci, the campus housing director, even refused to acknowledge this much). My own tests show contamination is a lot more pervasive than the barely-detectable levels found in the most recent state tests. Even the EPA, not known for its stringency, acknowledges that any level of exposure to these chemicals can pose a significant threat to human health and the environment. More exposure is worse, and the dose builds up over a lifetime. These chemicals can cause multigenerational cancers, wreak hormone chaos, create birth defects and grind down the immune system. And where there are degraded and burned PCBs, there are also dioxins, which are far more concentrated supertoxins and were in fact found in Bliss, Gage and Scudder halls.
As recently as last month, the college administration was making blanket assurances of the safety of the dorms, in print, in The Oracle. "There is no reason for alarm on this campus, as we have been held to extremely high standards of safety from PCBs," Arnold Bernardini, a vice president of the college, wrote to students and staff in an op-ed piece.
You may be wondering what the State of New York had to say about my early-morning sampling expedition and the results I got from the laboratory. I met with two campus officials to go over the results face-to-face the afternoon of Wednesday, March 3. Everyone taped the meeting. The prior Friday, I had sent my test results to the college's new president, Steven Poskanzer. He, in turn, sent them to various state officials for their review.
I sat at the table with Bernardini, the vice president for facilities, and Eric Gullickson, a spokesman for the campus president. I carefully and methodically explained how and where I took my samples. Bernardini, who has been involved with the cleanup for a long time and is now apparently the local administrative heir to the mess, showed some curiosity, asking for details about my sampling process.
It was Gullickson who laid out the college's official position. I am quoting him exactly from my tape.
"Um, I'm just going to respond," he said. "You know, we're not here to, you know, refute the testing that you have but we are, we do stand by the testing that has been done otherwise up till now. And we um we also I mean we have that's our the students' health is our our utmost concern and that's our main concern. And um based on that I we mean and again we're not we're not here to you know debate your we we don't you you you're telling us that you found these results but we don't we don't recognise the process that you went through."
Thus spake the official spokesman for the campus, after searching for the right words: "We don't recognise the process that you went through."
I don't blame him for being nervous. I would be nervous too, if my job called for sickening and killing people I was supposed to be protecting. Now that these results are in the state's files, they are on notice that they have a previously unacknowledged PCB problem in their dormitories -- but it's one that they had a lot of reason to suspect was there, based on numerous other articles documenting the shortcomings of the cleanup. With that prior notice, a jury can find that they intentionally subjected the students to danger and harm; this is not a case of mere negligence.
Then there is the issue of worker safety. If the state uses so much as a tube of grease in its maintenance process, there must be kept on file a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), explaining the contents of the tube, the health risks and the emergency procedures. Now the state's facilities are leaking PCBs. Maintenance workers go in those areas regularly without proper protection or warning.
As for my "process?" Eric Gullickson said the state's policy on sampling and analysis was laid out to him by somebody named Ed Horn in the New York State Department of Health. Horn, who saw the results of my sampling, told the campus my scientific tests were irrelevant. "New York State requires that laboratories analyzing the samples from New York State must have appropriate certification by the New York State Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program," Gullickson said. "And that's his interpretation of the results and the process that you went through to gather the results."
In other words, the state's position is not that the PCBs I found in the dormitories are not there. Nobody has said that. Instead, the college and the health department are saying that based on a technicality, they don't count, like general education credits from another college. Thus, they think they can ignore my results. State officials are also saying I'm not certified to collect dust samples and put them in a jar.
I explained, in response, that 10 years ago, I went into the same Gage Hall lounge and found high levels of PCBs. I took the samples myself and got back high levels. After vehemently denying that my results were meaningful, the health department ordered testing of the entire ventilation system, and discovered that the problem spread throughout the entire building. Then, the vents were cleaned to the "arm's length," supposedly removing contamination from some of the horizontal portions, but leaving it in the vertical ones.
The newest results in the Gage vent are especially troubling because that's one of the vents that was cleaned to the arm's length -- right where I sampled. PCBs had returned to 80% of their original level in just 10 years. The chemicals came from somewhere: from ambient dust drawn into the vent, or by migrating down from deeper in the un-cleaned portion of the vent -- or both. But these PCBs don't count.
"It's denial, of course," says Dr David Carpenter, Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany, whose work on PCBs is known around the world. "That's standard operating procedure for places that have this kind of contamination. You either discredit the analysis or you discredit the sampling method. Or you just discredit individuals."
What about concern for human life?
"That's something that's sadly lacking in our society. We see that again and again. With something that's expensive to fix that's otherwise very dangerous, expense becomes the overriding consideration," he explained.
"And of course, it's easiest when the dangers are long term, not in the short term, you know, the cancers occur thirty years later. So that's something that certainly I've been banging up against in lots of these studies, because while people at least sometimes acknowledge that there are dangers, the fact that it's not an acute danger is something let's people ignore it."
As for the dangers today, "I think what you can say without any question is that [these latest tests are] a reflection of extremely high levels of PCBs in the air in the building sometime in the past," he said, "and it's at least suggestive that there's ongoing exposure" which can be verified with additional testing.
For many years, Carpenter was director of Wadsworth Laboratories for the New York State Health Department, and Dean of the School of Public Health at the University at Albany. At the end of our conversation, I asked him about the lab that I used. He said, "There's no problem whatsoever."
Where many people's health, and millions of dollars and vast liability are at stake, it's true that honest sampling is hard to come by. If the state's official tests keep coming up clean while my independent samples keep showing contamination, then we have a credibility problem that needs to be addressed. This has happened before. Sampling needs to be monitored by a committee of impartial community members, and the samples need to be taken where there are known problems. Then, the samples need to be sent to two labs unaware of one another's work, and delivered, with witnesses, right into the hands of the Federal Express driver.
Then maybe we can get a real idea of the bounds of the ongoing toxicology experiment on SUNY New Paltz students. ++
Additional research: Tracy Delaney, Chelsea Bottinelli
Late Pisces Birthdays
The theme of the year is POWER. Power is a troublesome subject on planet Earth, because it's so often subject to abuse by people who refuse to grow up and see beyond self-interest. Therefore, you will need to make sure that your maturity level is constantly keeping pace with your authority -- and the unusual sexual effect you are having on people.
At the essence of this story is a simple fact: you've grown tired of hiding your real identity, the self within who you presumed (based on good information) represented a threat to the world. You may still represent a threat to those who, unlike yourself, are not determined to express their vitality truly and fully, but one of the messages of your birthday chart is to not let the fears of other people dictate your choices or the course of your existence.
There is a close relationship between power and responsibility in this world, and most people in the end choose to be weak and lacking in influence because taking up the mantle of leadership is too much to carry, or so they think.
In your professional life, there are an unusual diversity of influences operating, most of them long term, and most of them pointing to the fact that one's profession must be an integrated part of life rather than a separate add-on or adjunct. If anything is likely to undermine your confidence, it is the fear that because of your family background, you possess a tendency toward certain dark motives. This is basically a farce. Yes, because of the people in your family you were put in touch with the fact that such motives can exist, in reality, this is about fear and nothing else. Fortunately, the fear is not inherently your own.
Then there is the issue of focus. This has not necessarily been easy for you, but suddenly it seems to be happening. It's as if you are returning to the past and retrieving pieces of yourself, early goals, unfinished projects and uncollected wisdom, and assembling them into patterns that suddenly make sense. My sense is that they will make more sense as the year progresses and certain relationships work themselves out. In this aspect of your life, as well, is the sense of assembling the pieces of a puzzle or the parts of a story.
Pay attention to the continuity of your relationships. There are likely to be those times when they all seem like one experience, but divided out among many people. Both qualities are true. While every relationship is a meeting with an individual, it is also a meeting with the Other. Taking such a philosophy will allow you several possibilities that can help take the pressure off your relationships. One is that no one person will need to be the main source or object of your affections. At the same time, you will have the option to place greater focus on certain people, or one certain person, than you have in a long time.
One thing the stars are reminding you of is that what all your relationships have in common is you. Therefore, if you track your own needs, and check in with whether each of them is met, you will find yourself feeling like you're a lot more whole, a lot more human, and truly integrated. These are all important elements when it comes to the responsible expression of power, particularly sexual power.
It is a fact that most people handle sex on an entirely unconscious level. Whether it's about not making fully aware choices, or about ignoring the fact that sex potentially leads to pregnancy and other biological consequences, quite often people just fog over. You have a different path this year, and it's part of a long-term process of gaining clarity, honesty, understanding and focus in your sexual experience on Earth. You need to be very careful to use your sexual power with a sense of compassion and justice, because for the first time perhaps in all your life, the tide has turned and you are clearly in the position to choose, to deny, and to bestow.
Fortunately, you're feeling rather discriminating, and are starting to figure out just how much is enough of a good thing. And that includes introspection. This is rightfully one of the more outgoing times in your life, and if the weather ever gets dark and stormy inside, you do have the opportunity to reach out, and then, watch the clouds clear.
Planet Waves Horoscope
for the week of 12 March 2004
Aries (March 20-April 19)
There is a moment of truth atmosphere in the air now, as if you are being given a last chance to get something right, or to make it right. There is a deeper truth involved; I trust you know this. The hidden aspect of this truth involves your knowledge of elements of who you are that exist beneath the surface of what you project to the world. The more overt one involves the sense that, somehow, you must stand alone if you are going to express your genuine identity. This is just about right: there are phases of life's process that require us to forsake the approval of others for the sake of something better.
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
Circumstances are calling upon you to be something of a master politician at the moment, and there's a purpose to the exercise. In essence, you need to pull yourself up a few rungs above your emotions and work the situation out with your head. Emotions are a form of data, and it would be best to deal with the data rather than get swamped in a sea of numbers. Emotions are not merely about feeling; they are about information, and at the moment your are being told something very specific. You had best know what it is, because this is for your protection.
Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Recent events ought to be showing you the world from a larger perspective. The trick will be keeping that sense of awareness that the world is a large place with many diverse viewpoints. Your next act will be remembering your own viewpoint even when presented with what may be overwhelming evidence of another angle on life. It's not that one is right or wrong, which are limiting and philosophically useless terms. You need to know how it is you came to believe what you believe, and you've just been given a major clue.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
You can be anyone you need to be. Give yourself credit for that, at least. For too long you've tried to over-emphasise one aspect of who you are; for anyone over 30 years old, it may have been going on nearly this long. I recognise that you've been working out something on a deep level that is at the roots of your difficulty changing, and that in itself represents a major change. You can trust that the underlying situation has shifted. You don't need to drag your house down the street because the whole world is moving.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
You need to go around this corner carefully. You're definitely at a distinct, even sharp, turn in the road, and such can have blind spots. You're guided by a long term vision, and that's going to get you quite far in the world; listen for inner messages about what is waiting for you off in the distances of space and time. But the more pressing matter is to watch in front of your feet and in your mirrors, and to feel what your gut is telling you from moment to moment. In most circumstances of life you are the one with the clearest awareness, and this is no exception.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
It's about time you started getting the sex you want. For that to happen, you probably need to start talking or writing about your desires. As someone who talks to a lot of people about sex, I am aware that this is basically taboo in Western culture. Desires, fantasies, and how we really feel about our experiences are things we're supposed to keep inside and not even reveal to ourselves. After all, to reveal them would mean to acknowledge a desire to break the rules, and possibly open up the door to such an escapade. Which is precisely the point.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
You are a sensuous person and this is a mental time in your life. I am also getting a sense that your daddy is in the picture, or at least his (perhaps long-ago) plans for you are. The net effect of all of this is to create a kind of emotionally tantalising situation that never seems to perk up its rewards. You need, however, to stop waiting and to get yourself as close to what you want as you can. To give one example, food is not a substitute for human contact, but massage is a good start. Follow that equation and you'll warm up a few good degrees.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Is it a sacrifice, or is it a devotion? This is an important question for you to consider this weekend, especially when considering what is going on within your four walls. Your personal space is your devotional space right now, and it would seem that you have a lot to consider at this juncture of your life. While the next few days may take the edge off the need to make a specific decision, the necessity for deciding is no less real. What you need to know is that this is not about choosing one road or the other; it's about choosing who you are.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)
Right now you're in an encounter with one of your worst weaknesses. I'm going to propose that it's a self-confidence issue. My take is that this issue was born of certain darker tendencies that you were exposed to from people in your early childhood; in any event, I am talking about a very old fear that you're capable of something you don't want to think about. But if you think about it, you can get a sense of when, where and who that fear came from. To be restored to your full level of self-confidence would suit you rather well, but ignorance is not going to get you there.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
The marriage issue is up. It's not that you're getting married, it's just that marriage, the concept, currently has the tendency to get kicked around your life like a soccer ball. But this is not a game and I don't suggest you take it as one. You really need to get a good sense of what is at stake. I would propose that it's more than you think. You are being led in a certain direction, and that may wind up having consequences far beyond what you can currently imagine. Please make sure you're not being inspired by a dumb fairy tale that makes you want to give up everything for nothing.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
You have thrown yourself open to the mighty forces of the heavens, or rather, if you sense within yourself you will feel that openness. The beauty of the moment is not just that you are truly willing to act in service of the greater good. My sense is that you really have an opportunity to do so. I hope that offers some confirmation. If you're at odds over the wisdom of your choices or of your calling, consider the purpose involved. Also, it's clear that you are being presented with an opportunity, and that it will pass soon enough. So -- take your choice, because you still have one.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
The wave of energy that's come into your life this year has, in a sense, pushed you past your need for tangible goals. But it has not transcended your need for clear ideas about what you are doing with your life. There is a difference. You have little choice but to trust the process you are in, given its power. Yet the most important part you can play is to watch for patterns that give you clues as to where you are going and what is important to you. Remember the three basic elements in the universe need to be present in every truly evolutionary situation: creation, destruction and preservation.
Planet Waves Weekly International Edition
12 March 2004, Version 1.0
Copyright (c) 2004, all rights reserved.
Published at Vashon Island, Washington
http://planetwaves.net/
(877) 453-8265 or (206) 463-7827
Customer Service: Chelsea Bottinelli
chelsea@planetwaves.net
Editing & Research by Tracy Delaney
tracy@planetwaves.net
Additional Assistance: Rachel Fagman
rachel@planetwaves.net
