Chiron and the Environment

To astrologers, astronomical discoveries are harbingers, the forerunners of history. On Nov. 1, 1977, a small planet outside the orbit of Saturn, later named Chiron, was noticed by astronomers for the first time. Many astrologers who have since worked with Chiron, named after the famed Centaur physician of Greek mythology, have observed how it is associated with a variety of holistic issues, including the process of growing whole through wounding and healing, and the similar process of empowerment through struggle and overcoming extreme or persistent difficulties. In her ground-breaking book, "Chiron: Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets", Barbara Hand Clow suggests the compelling idea that Chiron is directly associated with the environment, proposing that our environmental crisis is really a holistic wound that we all bear as individuals. Sighted in the Earth-sign Taurus, deeply associated with the Earth-sign Virgo, and ruling issues of holistic health, the connection is easy to make, especially if you happen to notice that the Earth's environment is the holism of all known life. With Chiron providing the bridge between what occurs to the collective (often the realm of the outer planets) and the individual (more in the realm of inner planets), Chiron is the meeting place, or the junction where the two intersect. In practical terms, the place where environmental health meets holistic issues might be an individual becoming sick as a result of pollution or a mass-contamination, and then taking control of his or her life and getting well by practicing holistic living. History often tells a big part of the story when we are investigating the meaning of new planets. Looking at the unprecedented events which immediately preceded the discovery of Chiron, it's clear that Chiron's appearance coincided with a birth of wide-scale awareness of actual environmental issues, rather than the abstract concepts of "ecology" and "loving the Earth" that were first popularized in the 1960s. The 1970s were a period of environmental emergency after emergency, in the truest sense of the word -- an "emergence" of events that had silently been in formation for many decades. And these things happened on a terrifying scale that was previously undreamed of by most people. Consider that: In July 1976, a pressurized industrial chemical- reactor exploded in Seveso, Italy, spreading several pounds of an extremely potent chemical waste substance called 2,3,7,8-tetrachloro-dibenzo-dioxin (now known simply as dioxin), over a large urban area, poisoning thousands of residents and inducing a documented outbreak of cancer. The Seveso reactor was part of the manufacturing process of a disinfectant called hexachlorophene, then the active ingredient in Dial soap and also a surgical skin detergent called pHisohex. Hexachlorophene was later banned in the U.S. because it contained dioxin contamination, which can induce cancer at the unthinkably small concentration of just five parts-per-trillion. On Oct. 11, 1976, Congress enacted the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which theoretically opened the way for government regulation of a broad range of man-made toxic industrial chemicals, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), an intentionally-manufactured cousin of dioxin. Despite a ban on PCB production, contamination continues to spread virtually unchecked, devastating wildlife, human health and the environment to the present day. On August 25, 1977, just weeks before Chiron's sighting, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it had found "deficiencies" in safety studies conducted by Industrial Bio-Test Labs of Northbrook, Illinois, a private lab which the agency said had done "several thousand studies for pesticide manufacturers on whether their products cause ill effects such as cancer, birth defects, nerve damage or metabolic problems." When the proportions of the IBT Labs "deficiencies" were finally known, the world was witnessing the largest scandal in scientific history unfold, as it came to light that IBT and numerous other private labs had forged or fudged the scientific safety data for almost every chemical product on the market, and had been paid handsomely by America's corporations to do the job. Three IBT Labs officials were finally convicted of fraud after the longest criminal trial in U.S. history, though many of the chemicals that were fraudulently approved are still served at the dinner table twenty years later. Then came Chiron on Nov. 1 1977. More incredible historical events, many involving dioxin contamination, unfolded in the months and years after Chiron's sighting, including the evacuation of the infamous Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY, the evacuation and demolition of the "entire town" of Times Beach, Missouri, and the Agent Orange class action lawsuits by thousands of Vietnam War veterans, whose dioxin exposure had caused severe diseases in them and many of their children. Indeed, the advent of Chiron came with the momentary awareness that environmentally, we are in big trouble. This was followed by a well-documented campaign of lies and distortions by the chemical manufacturers and the media which lulled the nation back to sleep for much of the next two decades, as government, the press and the manufacturers forged closer and closer alliances. Chiron's Chiron Opposition On Sept. 28 1997, just shy of twenty years after the sighting, Chiron reaches the exact opposition point to its own natal position. Called the "Chiron opposition," this transit always represents a critical turning point in individual human lives. It represents, for many people, a new birth of consciousness often induced by seemingly "outer" life events and experiences, but it is always a crisis of consciousness, a set of life circumstances which awareness is the most powerful key to dealing with. Like the initial sighting of Chiron, the event Sept. 28, 1997 is a collective occurrence, not an individual one, with implications for the entire culture. Chiron's Chiron opposition occurs in the sign Scorpio, the zodiac's dark mansion of secrets -- particularly the secrets of death and reproduction. Dioxin, PCBs and many related chemicals we eat and drink every day attack the reproductive system, causing hormonal imbalances, birth defects, multi-generational sexual cancers, and numerous other illnesses of the reproductive system. Many of these diseases are eventually fatal. With the close association of sexuality and death, we are deep in the heart of darkest Scorpio. Following this theme of secrecy, most of this century there has been a very effective campaign waged by the chemical polluters, aided by the mainstream "scientific" community and the mass media, to keep this information hidden (I will provide a bibliography of exposés to anyone who contacts me). And while it's true that most of the public is clueless, these Scorpionic secrets of sexuality and death are common knowledge among a handful of activists across the country who have researched, documented and preserved the information. Most of them are very Chironic people -- people unafraid to stand out, to face the facts and challenge powerful institutions. From my reporting relationships with them, I can tell you that they are all "mavericks", one of the first keywords ever ascribed to Chiron. And they have the obsessive Virgo qualities that it takes to amass and catalog thousands of corporate documents and newspaper clippings for 30 years. The question is, when is the mass public going to find out the truth? The Chiron opposition occurs in Scorpio near the cusp of the 10th and 11th houses, the most public angle of the horoscope. Chiron itself represents consciousness. So it would seem to follow that the opposition phase is a time of growing mass awareness of the carefully guarded secrets that environmental chemicals induce problems of a Scorpionic nature -- premature death and reproductive diseases. Certainly, the unforeseen advent of the Internet has helped with this, as environmental information is more readily available there than it is anywhere. Indeed, despite vehement efforts to conceal the truth by the mass-media and the corporations which hold liability for destroying the Earth's environment, it's slowly coming to light that dioxin, PCBs, pesticides and a wide variety of other chemicals are wreaking what you might call a quiet molecular holocaust, upsetting the body's, that is, the biosphere's, hormone system and hence its reproductive system. This information is available today, but you have to look for it. If you read journals like Sierra, subscribe to Rachel's Health and Environment Weekly on the Internet, or know about books like Our Stolen Future by Dr. Theo Colborn, you've no doubt heard of it. If you get your information from The New York Times, you're probably pretty confused about how serious the problem is. Many people will find out about this for the first time from reading this article here. Dioxin and PCBs are not the only chemicals that cause these reproductive problems. Others include toxins that leach from plastic food and water packaging, tin can liners, numerous drugs including the birth control pill, and a particular spermicide called nonoxynol-9 that's become very popular in recent history due to the immune disease called "AIDS" (ironically, dioxin and its relatives are all severely immune-suppressing). Stated simply, we are all awash in an ocean of artificial female hormones. These synthetic hormones feminize species -- they literally make both the males and the females more biologically feminine -- and as a result, mess up reproductive processes (for example, they are very likely behind the fact that sperm counts in men of today are half the level of our grandfathers'). We have all heard whisperings of this. And herein lies the crisis of consciousness that the culture is currently going through. Mass-awareness of the environmental crisis is hindered by the press, but it's also hindered by a rather pervasive denial, because the recognition that the world is contaminated is very painful. It requires us to change -- to stop smoking, change our diets, exercise more, move out of urban areas, or in the alternative, live with the idea that we are voluntarily poisoning ourselves. Either we learn more and are compelled to action, or we must raise the defense of denial to a higher and higher pitch. For many people who don't pay attention, and unfortunately, some that do, the Chironic consciousness often comes in the form of a physical healing crisis such as asthma, breast cancer, sterility, a deformed child or similar environmentally-induced problem that forces the recognition that "we are part of our environment". While present dioxin background levels are already known to cause serious problems, you may not be impressed by this if you feel healthy. (The "background level" is what you're exposed to if you don't do anything else in particular to get more, like live on a hazardous waste dump. Most of America lives within four miles of one, incidentally). But that may be a tolerable fact until barrels start popping up in your backyard, the men in moon suits arrive at your door to evacuate you for a few days, your two-year old child gets leukemia, or someone wants to install a PCB incinerator on the next block. You may not mind that a PCB incinerator exists in Kansas, but the fact that one is going in next door might wake you up to the reality of the problem. So that would create a healing crisis for you and your community -- either you fight, or you live with the poisons. As the second half of Chiron's cycle unfolds, it's clear that more and more people will be put in this position. Chemical companies make dioxin, but in this way they also make environmental activists. In my own life, the Chiron opposition represented a major personal triumph -- one felt by more than half a million people around the world -- after a long environmental and political struggle. Prior to my Saturn return in 1991, the hand of darkness struck my community as six PCB-filled electrical transformers exploded and burned up. Government agencies went into cover-up mode immediately. A local journalist, I did my job, followed my instincts and started investigating. At first, much of the community treated me like a political dissident. I spent my Saturn return fighting criminal charges that stemmed from my legitimate reporting activities, and litigating (as the plaintiff) a federal First Amendment lawsuit for the right to cover the story. Slowly, I grew up and grew strong. Within one week of my Chiron opposition, as Chiron (transiting through Virgo) crossed my Pluto-nadir conjunction and opposed my Mars-Chiron-midheaven conjunction, my investigative feature on the fifty-year history of the PCB and dioxin cover-up was published on the cover of Sierra magazine (send me a SASE if you want a copy). As an environmental harbinger, Chiron's Chiron opposition this fall reminds me of the most famous seven words of Winston Churchill: "Never give up. Never, ever give up."