Neptunian Fog and the Tragedy of Pluto

The Polish plane crash in Smolensk Russia

April 10, 2010

When a military plane loaded with Polish dignitaries attempted to land in a fog so dense last Saturday, the tops of the trees were rendered invisible in the haze.  The Moon was in foggy Pisces, conjuring its mystical miasma that blinded the pilot’s vision as well as his common sense.  The trickster, Mercury, has been doing his own dance, slowing down in preparation for his Retrograde station on the 18th.  On this fateful day, Mercury came head to head with impulsive and irrational Mars in arrogant Leo, and rational thinking was pushed aside in favor of urgency, impatience and schedules.  The pilot should have taken the advice to land elsewhere, but with a plane full of politicians and military leaders, who knows who was insisting, and ordering who, to foolishly venture a landing in such unfavorable conditions.  In 2008, a different pilot of Kaczynski’s plane, was pressured by the president when he refused to land in unsafe conditions.  Kaczynski later referred to the pilot as a coward.  Nevertheless that pilot had held his own, and was decorated by the defense minister for following correct procedures.  In this case, this sense of integrity was disallowed.  A wing on the plane hit a tree, and everyone on board was killed, including President Kaczynski, his wife, and numerous high ranking officials.

Hindsight is always the best foresight, but if we were to look at the Ingress chart for Poland this Spring, Cancer was at the Midheaven (leaders, government), and the Moon, the ruler of Cancer, was posited in the 8th House of death, square Neptune (ruler of fogs) in Aquarius (airplanes).  One might surmise that what we had here was a uniquely Neptunian event, yet there is so much more than fogs and accidents to this dreadful story.. 

The reason that so many of Poland’s dignitaries were on this plane, was that they were going to mourn and commemorate a previous massacre that occurred 70 years earlier in the Katyn Forest in Russia.  In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, and Western Europe watched from the wings,  Russia saw this as an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.  They launched their own invasion, gathering up hundreds of thousands of Polish policemen, soldiers, and nationalists.  Many were eventually released, but many were not.  And in 1940 Stalin orchestrated the assassination of about 25,000 prisoners and Polish soldiers with the intent of crippling and weakening Poland, so that they would be unable to be a threat to Soviet security.  Among those first executed were included an admiral, 2 generals, hundreds of other officers, a prince, physicians, professors, engineers, journalists, teachers and writers.  The first transport of  those murdered, occurred on April 4, 1940, just prior to a Solar Eclipse on the 7th, with the rest of the executions continuing throughout the month of April. 

Using the November 5, 1916 noon time chart for the Independence of Poland (this chart may be disputed.. but certainly it commenced the establishment of modern day Poland as we now know it), we see Saturn and Neptune closely allied in the sign of Leo.  Saturn represents the government, weak in the sign of Leo, and further weakened by its proximity to Neptune, Poland has been repeatedly occupied, and controlled by foreign invaders.  In April of 1940, Pluto the planet of ruthless power and control, was conjunct Saturn in this chart.  Rather than fight the Soviets, the Polish police and military (Saturn) were ordered not to resist, and the Soviets strolled right in and took over.  When Pluto comes to Saturn, one feels powerless to resist, and in resisting things only become that much more oppressive.  All that you know is being taken from you, and the changes that occur are inevitable and unavoidable.  More Polish people died in World War II than any other country, including the overwhelming majority of Polish jews. 

In the Aries Ingress chart for Poland, Mars came to this same degree where Pluto met Saturn those 70 years ago.  Mars, the planet of action, could be seen as something of a trigger for renewal, but Mars is also the planet of violence, accidents and injury... and as Mars then came to Neptune on the 10th of April, the planet of fogs, and illusion, and abandonment, a new Polish tragedy unfolded.  Pluto sits in the bottom of the Ingress chart, in the sign of Capricorn, representing the destruction and reformation of  governmental structures.  This area of the chart also represents the opposing party.  President Lech Kaczynski was not terribly popular with the people.  He was extremely conservative, and far right on the spectrum, aggravating allies as well as people within his own government with his extreme ideology.  His death was indeed a tragedy, along with other high level dignitaries including the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and other senior military officers and government officers.  But this event also represents, or contributes to a departure from the past, in a way.  This Pluto in the Ingress chart opposes the Polish Pluto in Cancer.   An old order is departing.  This is a time for the Polish people to allow the future to be reborn from the ashes, and the wounds of the past.  Out of death is an opportunity for rebirth.  Poland has historically redefined itself time and time again... and it would seem that it will do so yet one more time.