Dear Friend and Client:

As one of the most important collective events in recent world history, the time and place of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks provides data for a chart that can serve as a guide to the events we experienced -- and continue to experience -- as a result of whatever went down that day. One of astrology's most important jobs is to help us find some meaning in what is otherwise terrible and bereft of any sense. And this chart is ominous. I think any astrologer would agree with that.

It's difficult to convey the feeling of an ominous chart to a non-astrologer without resorting to hype or oversimplification. Astrology is complicated, and it is especially so when you have to start from the very beginning. So, fans and followers of astrology tend to choose the interpreters they trust, and accept that they're getting an honest reading of a chart they usually can't understand.

Astrology, though, is interpretive. Everyone has their slant on life. That is the nature of perception. It is possible to see nearly anything in a chart, and too often what astrologers see is based less on astrology and more on our values, our level of education and, at times, wishful thinking. Yet there are also ancient rules that astrologers agree upon, or at least agree exist, and these we can hold one another to as a reference point. These ground rules provide the grounding and common ground that astrologers can stand on. The rules are stuffy and rigid, but they are our guard rail.

On to our topic. The data I'm working with is 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001 in Manhattan, the place and time Flight 11 was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. This was the defining moment. Though we could say the event was born when the first highjacking took place, Sept. 11 was not a done deal until the North Tower was hit. This was the point of no return. Here is the chart.

As an aside, my basic interpretation of this chart has not changed since I wrote my first article about it in September 2001, though much has come to light. That essay is called Mercury Also Rises.


Mercury Is Rising

It's a good habit to check the rising sign of any chart first, kind of like a nurse checks a patient's pulse and blood pressure. Libra is the sign rising. Mercury, a planet, is in Libra, thus it is said to be rising as well -- and it is rising exactly to the degree. Mercury rises once a day, just like the Sun. But it occupies the exact degree of the ascendant for about three to five minutes per day. So right away we have something unusual about this chart. The great roulette wheel came up exactly on Mercury. Put up your antennas and turn on your radio; there's something interesting on the air.

Mercury covers many topics of the Sept. 11 event. It's the ruler of the sign of the Twins, Gemini. There is an instant reference to the Twin Towers. It is about transportation and communication, and we certainly witnessed a media event involving travel. Mercury is the trickster, and something very tricky happened that day. Mercury is also a messenger, and we were all given a message, granted, one that many people missed, that others interpreted in their own distorted way and that many people exploited. In Libra, the sign of the Scales, which traditionally represents the law, we have an image not of someone attacking the law, but rather of being tricky with it. Those are a few images or impressions of the ascendant provided by a fairly objective reading of Mercury in Libra rising.

When we begin to apply the rules of traditional astrology, we make an interesting discovery. Mercury officially rules two signs: Gemini and Virgo. In this chart, Virgo is located on the cusp of the 12th house, so we can say that Mercury rules the 12th house. (Said another way, the line where the 12th house begins goes through Virgo, granting Mercury authority over the affairs of that house.) The 12th, among other themes, is the house of secret enemies. Its planetary ruler is the symbol of the secret enemy; that is Mercury; and the secret enemy is rising, exactly. We don't know who he or she is, since it's a secret. But our Identikit gives us a description of a trickster. Maybe even a trickster with a legal background who's well-spoken or a kind of persuader. And childish. Mercury is always a bit childish.

But there is also the feeling of a professional publicist involved. Mercury in Libra would make good television commercials.


Gemini Moon Void-of-Course

The next thing that most astrologers would look at would be the Moon (some astrologers go there first, depending on their training, or the day). In this chart, the Moon is in Gemini at 28 degrees and a few minutes (said to be occupying the 29th degree of that sign, toward the extreme end). This Moon is in a condition called void-of-course; it makes no new aspects to other planets before leaving Gemini. It's like a ball that's out of play.

That's interesting because what happens under the void Moon usually doesn't work very well. Or, it can work utterly exceptionally well (for example, the film Star Wars opened under a void Moon; it was supposed to flop, if you asked sci-fi junkies who saw the trailer that summer for their prediction). So with the void Moon, you have two main properties: you don't know how things are going to go, but they probably won't go so well. For example, the U.S. has maintained control over neither Iraq nor Afghanistan, wars which emerged as a direct result of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Gemini Moon has a duplicitous feeling to it, that is, Gemini is dualistic (two twins, two personalities) and so the Gemini Moon can have two very distinct characters.

What does this Moon represent? We look to the sign Cancer -- the sign the Moon rules -- which is the sign on the 10th house, that of government and high command. We would say the Moon rules the 10th, or represents the high command. Given that the Moon is void, that's really interesting. It's as if the captain of the ship is asleep at the wheel, not paying attention or lacks a concrete plan of action.

In charts of a public nature, the Moon is a significator for the public. And clearly, the public proved to be unsuspecting, trusting and rather void-of-course at the time of this incident and for many months after.


Mercury Rules the Moon

The Moon is in Gemini; Gemini's ruler is Mercury, which represents the secret enemy. The natural ruler of the sign a planet is in is also said to be the ruler of the planet in question. Mercury is the king of Gemini, no matter where we may find him in the chart. The Moon is in Gemini, so the Moon's king is Mercury. In this case, the secret enemy is in charge of the government and the people, both of whom are void-of-course.


Saturn Opposes Pluto

Pluto, ideologically obsessed and jihad wielding in Sagittarius, opposes Saturn. The era of Sept. 11, 2001 was defined by this aspect, called Saturn opposite Pluto, which occurs three times per century. This was an aspect that was exact from August 2001 through May 2002, the effects of which can spread out for years on either end. For one reason or another, a lot of people tend to get killed when Saturn, the immovable object, opposes Pluto, the unstoppable force. All in all, in comparison to history, we have done pretty well so far.


Saturn's Mutual Reception

Often certain people or issues in a chart will have what is called a "secondary significator," that is, a second representative in the form of a planet. In the case of the government, Saturn is a good candidate. Saturn represents things that are structured, based on rules and parental in nature. That includes corporations and official governments. Capricorn, one of Saturn's signs, is on the 4th house cusp -- the "ancient house of fathers," the home, the homeland, and issues of security.

Saturn, representing the government and the corporations which presently constitute it, is located in Gemini, in an exact, to-the-degree trine to Mercury, our secret enemy. (This is described as "Mercury trine Saturn.") A trine is an aspect that indicates flow of energy, cooperation and communication so much that Martha Wescott reminds us it can include the statement, "if you lie, I'll swear to it." There is communication and cooperation between who and whatever Saturn represents, and who and whatever Mercury represents.

Saturn in this chart does something else, something that's in the advanced astrology department. See if you can follow. Saturn is located in the sign Gemini. Gemini's ruler, Mercury, is in the sign Libra. Libra is the sign in which Saturn is exalted -- exaltation being a form of rulership. Said in plain English, Mercury is in one of Saturn's signs and Saturn is in one of Mercury's signs. They are mighty kings camped out in one another's kingdoms. This is called mutual reception. It's another way of saying that there is total cooperation, to the point of the two planets functionally being one and the same. This is especially emphasized because they are located in the same degree of their respective signs (they're in an exact trine, meaning in the exact degree). Mutual reception works by degree. When the two planets in reception switch signs, they keep the original degree they had in their other sign -- which in this case is the same degree, 14 degrees and some minutes.

Both Mercury and Saturn are rising.


The Implications

This chart suggests there is a very close and cooperative relationship between whoever represents the government and whoever represents the secret enemy. They are functioning together, as if they have one goal, and as if they are very familiar with one another. The timing of the chart represents an event where they actually cooperate: as accomplices, accessories or conveniently using one another.

This is becoming easier to see as time goes on. For example, we have wars against the enemy which appear only to make the situation worse, and were the stated enemy is neither captured or killed. For all the loud rhetoric about Osama and Saddam, they seem to have slipped away easily. Only one domestic arrest has been made in the entire Sept. 11 investigation, and that suspect is close to being set free by a federal judge.

Normally, a chart would be used to make a judgment on a situation or to predict its resolution. But the void-of-course Gemini Moon is warning against drawing final conclusions about the chart or the event it represents. There are certainly some vivid warnings, however. For example, it's pretty clear that we don't know who's in charge; there's quite a bit of confusion between the identities of friends and enemies, leaders and followers. This would appear to have implications that go well beyond the cozy relationship among the Bush family and the bin Landen family that goes back many years. Indeed, the implications would seem to be treasonous. But what outcome that portends is impossible to say and depends on many factors of free will rather than fate.

What we need to remember is that the event we are calling Sept. 11, 2001 was a kind of doorway to another time and place, but it was a one-way door. A crime was committed, but we're first seeing the scope of that crime, and glimpsing the mystery surrounding it. Even the perpetrators could not have predicted how the event would come out, or what its ultimate effects would be. And it was not the first crime of this magnitude. The theft of the presidency less than one year before, an event through which the public slept, fearing to challenge its abusive parents, cleared the way for Sept. 11.

Over the next eight or so weeks, the Sept. 11 chart and all that it represents are going through a deep transformation as transiting Pluto in Sagittarius makes a square to its Virgo Sun. And then Mars in Pisces opposes it. This happens as we approach the eclipse that's being called the Harmonic Concordance on Nov. 8. Quite literally, the identity of what we're calling Sept. 11 is changing. It is not what it was, and it's not going to be what it is today for long. Many people will see what they have been missing, and I assure you that most of them are not going to like it.

Many other charts, including the personal horoscopes of Bush and Cheney, the U.S. chart called Scorpionic America, and the chart for the first flight of an airplane (Dec. 17, 1903, 10:35 a.m., Kitty Hawk, NC) are under some rather awesome and not particularly friendly transits. Yet no matter how bad it looks for members of the administration as the 9/11 scandals emerge like a kind of magic snake, this is no time for back slapping. ++