In a move to align itself with the trend now sweeping the United States, Governor Robert Bentley ordered the removal of four Confederate flags from the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. I didn’t see the news if it was actually on TV, so I’ve used the time of the NBC news alert posted to my mail at 11:32:09 am today.
With the Libra Moon in the first house making a 54-minute partile conjunction to the North Node on the second house cusp, I have no doubt this was a highly emotional decision. However, Alabama’s Constitution apparently allotted for this provision that South Carolina is now attempting to address. According to NBC TV news, noted above, the Confederate flag was raised in South Carolina in 1961 (that is not a typo) as a “middle finger directed at the federal govt. It was flown there as a symbol of massive resistance to racial desegregation. Period.”
Confederate flag removed from Alabama state capitol – NBC TV alert
An Eastern 4th quadrant above-the-horizon dominance points to the need to do the right thing, which would seem to be what Governor Bentley has indeed done. A Sun-Mars conjunction still in Cancer–in square to the Moon on that second house of values (this is where we see the issue not only of income but of values in a spiritual and ethical sense of the word)–sits in the 10th house. According to a New York Times news alert I’ve linked later in this article, the governor’s press secretary Yasamie R. August said, “He does not want the flags to be a distraction from other state issues so he ordered them removed.” I wonder whether there were some in Alabama who resisted this action, or perhaps it will be coming sometime over the July 4 weekend.
The State of Mississippi appears to be following suit although the actual news hasn’t yet been announced. But Senator Roger Wicker was among several officials in Mississippi who said it was time for a redesign of their state flag and noted, “As the descendant of several brave Americans who fought for the Confederacy, I have not viewed Mississippi’s current state flag as offensive. However, it is clearer and clearer to me that many of my fellow citizens feel differently and that our state flag increasingly portrays a false impression of our state to others.”
With Jupiter in the 12th house, I’m reminded that this morning’s act will invariably be good for the overall picture. The Saturn retrograde still sits in the 29th degree of Scorpio in the 3rd house perhaps as reminder that doing what’s right needs to be foremost in everyone’s minds while Pluto sits on the 5th house as if to bring us into perspective again about the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four girls and left the nation in shock.
Astrodatabank (ADB) wrote, “Four African-American girls, Carol McNair, age 11, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14, died in a dressing room in the church basement when the bomb detonated. The bomb, apparently hidden under the church steps the night before, blew the face of Jesus out of a stained glass window. The bodies of the girls, dressed in white for an annual youth service, were found beneath the rubble. The Birmingham bombing holds a special place in civil rights history because of the randomness of its violence, the sacredness of its target and the innocence of its victims.”
Birmingham church bombing 1963 – 4 girls killed
Pluto-ruled Scorpio was on the Ascendant that day with a ninth house Moon in Leo conjunct the anaretic degree of the Leo Midheaven and a Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Virgo in the 10th, followed by the Sun and Venus still in Virgo forming an out-of-sign stellium to Mercury then retrograde while Chiron, intercepted in the 4th along with all of the Virgo planets in the 10th, made a 12-minute partile opposition to Pluto. This wasn’t about wounding to heal. This was about getting attention through active violence–and that doesn’t take astrology to determine. However, Chiron in this position still reflects “sizzle in performance” even when it’s not a positive dynamic force.
I’ve seen enough correlations here to have decided to do a comparative chart with the announcement of the flag’s removal this morning: Take note of the Moon’s conjunction to the bombing’s placement of Mercury at the end of that long run through the 10th house. I have no doubt the governor had made the decision sometime yesterday and perhaps called a press conference to make this a strong stand in the name of justice. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to have this seen as a means of being associated with the now backpedaling corporations removing Confederate merchandise from their stocks. Regardless of the reason, the action was made with obvious conviction today.
Bombing chart inside; Flag removed outside
The bombing chart also shows that Eastern 4th quadrant above-the-horizon dominance, and this too makes sense as you’ll see. The bombers–KKK member Robert Chambliss and other members of a splinter group known as the Cahaba Boys: Herman Cash, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry–all played a role in the bombing that day. It took nearly 37 years following the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing to bring all members of this group to justice. Sadly, Herman Cash didn’t survive long enough to be tried and convicted.
The timing of the 1963 bombing differs by 3 minutes in the linked page, which could bring the Midheaven out of Leo and into the sign of Virgo. But since this is not a validated time from the site I’ve accessed, I’m leaving the chart as ADB noted for the 10:19 am time.
On the other hand, the 1963 bombing site offers an amazing compendium of events related to the bombing and the slow wheels of justice as they turned through the next nearly four decades. One commentary from that period, from Birmingham World, called the date of the bombing “a Day of Sorrow and Shame in Birmingham, Alabama, the world’s chief city of unsolved racial bombings.” Saturn in the bombing chart falls in the third house in square to 12th house Neptune, bringing to mind once again the Peeling of Life’s Onion. Especially remarkable here, however, is Neptune’s Solstice Point at 16 Aquarius 24, tightly conjunct transiting Saturn at that period, offering a double whammy of the Peeling of Life’s Onion. There are always the first layers of tears from the community, and then the deeper, longer lasting recognition of things that still need to change.
Richard Farina’s 1964 Song “Birmingham Sunday”
Lyrics as reprinted in Guy and Candie Carawan, Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through its songs, Bethlehem, PA, 1990, pp. 122-123.
Come round by my side and I’ll sing you a song.
I’ll sing it so softly, it’ll do no one wrong.
On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun,
And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one.
At an old Baptist church there was no need to run.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The clouds they were grey and the autumn winds blew,
And Denise McNair brought the number to two.
The falcon of death was a creature they knew,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The church it was crowded, but no one could see
That Cynthia Wesley’s dark number was three.
Her prayers and her feelings would shame you and me.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
Young Carol Robertson entered the door
And the number her killers had given was four.
She asked for a blessing but asked for no more,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground.
And people all over the earth turned around.
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
The men in the forest they once asked of me,
How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea.
And I asked them right with a tear in my eye.
How many dark ships in the forest?
The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone.
And I can’t do much more than to sing you a song.
I’ll sing it so softly, it’ll do no one wrong.
And the choirs keep singing of Freedom.
Chiron at the time of the 1963 bombing returned to that point in May and August 2013 and in February 2014. Today, as the flag was lowered, Chiron was making a 33-minute partile opposition to the Sun at the time of the bombing.
As I considered the T-square formed by the current Mercury-Neptune square still in place against the angular houses of the Birmingham bombing chart–again with Neptune in Pisces intercepted, I realized this square forms a T-square to the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in the 10th house of the Birmingham bombing chart. Transiting Venus this morning was also still in a separating 3° orb to Neptune in the 12th house of the bombing chart.
I’ve thought about how all of these patterns fit together even more with the interactive dynamics between the 1963 bombing and this morning’s flag lowering, another news alert–this time from the New York Times–arrived, announcing that the US Department of Justice is “likely to file federal hate crime charges against” Dylann Storm Roof [Mass Murder in South Carolina] after the FBI determined that the manifesto he posted online was their belief “with a high degree of certainty” to be racist in thought and wording. The news itself had not been especially surprising since Roof had been assigned federal public defenders [In latest hint at more charges, Dylann Roof assigned federal public defenders on the 23rd of June.
Take note now of the Midheaven (MC) from the shootings chart conjunct the Ascendant of the hate crime charges chart. I’ve kept the state listed as South Carolina, but the announcement came from Washington, so I have maintained the integrity of the place of the announcement for the actual chart. Of course the outer planets won’t have changed in such a short time, but the placements of the terrestrial planets will be significant to a point, as will the charts from the 1963 Alabama bombing. Because of the lowering of the Confederate flag in Alabama this morning, of course this newest chart won’t reflect much more than has been noted already.
When I placed the Mass Murder in South Carolina shootings chart, however, against the Alabama bombing chart from 1963, the first thing I couldn’t help but notice was currently transiting Saturn’s presence in the first house of the 1963 chart in a 3-minute partile square to the MC! The other thing that stands out here is transiting Mercury in the 7th house of the 1963 chart in a 15-minute partile square to Uranus at the time of the bombing.
South Carolina shootings outside, Alabama bombing inside
The Sun-Mars conjunction in Gemini on June 17, 2015 at the time of the shootings in the Charleston church also needs to be addressed since the Sun was making a 6-minute partile square to Venus in the 1963 bombing chart while Neptune in the 2015 shootings made a 19-minute partile opposition to the midpoint of Uranus and Pluto in the 1963 chart.
What started as another article on the need to lower and store the Confederate flag where it belongs–in a museum–rather than flying it as a symbol of “heritage” has turned into another view of history, of the Civil Rights movement and of a need to do what is right. We’re moving into a new chapter, not only in the United States but in world expression related to all of us being a true family.
These words of the “family of man” have been uttered throughout time. In India, the words in Sanskrit are straight forward: Vasudhaiva kutumbakam – the whole world is a family. Regardless, however, of which language is used to express this same thought repeated in so many ways around the world and by so many people, in writing and in speeches, perhaps this latest move to do what’s right, to honor the true meaning of these words can finally come to pass. It’s time.
Namaste, I love you.
©2015 Michelle Young