The Return of the Ring

Okay so this ain't no JRR Tolkien blog post, my precioussssssssss.

And it ain't no Mahler song. (Rhinelegendchen from Des Knaben Wunderhorn)

But it's still a story about a really cool married couple, a ring. And, well, eh, a toilet.

In case I messed up the link:

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/couple-finds-engagement-ring-missing-years/article_111a0fdf-1262-5554-bdd8-392853769679.html

Terry and Donna Claver have been married more than 38 years up in Billings, Montana. I don't have their birth dates and I don't have their wedding date but this particular story from their marriage sounds like a Nodal Cycly thing to me.

Terry proposed after the couple had gone on only 3 dates back in August, 1973. About a year and a half into the marriage, Donna was very very pregnant. While in the bathroom she took her engagement ring off to put some lotion on and watched as the ring fell into the toilet bowl. The couple did what they could to try to fish the thing out, but to no avail. A few years later they moved to a bigger house. This house was sold many times over and eventually bought by a group of hunters. This past Fall, the toilet froze up and broke so, by coincidence, just as the hunters were visiting their little one room cabin and removing the toilet, Terry the husband of our miracle story was across the street working on the neighbor's house. Terry asked for the toilet. The hunters handed it over. And when Terry got back to his shop he took a sledge hammer to the porcelain and released the engagement ring for once and for all. The story of how he used it to propose to Donna is really cute and is explained in the newspaper story linked to above.

Well, what do we expect from the Astrology? Rings go on the hand and fingers and hands are ruled by the sign of Gemini and its ruler Mercury. Marriage is ruled by Venus through her rulership of the sign of Libra. Venus also rules jewelry through the sign of Taurus. The ring was made of a pink sapphire. Sapphires are ruled by the sign of Virgo and Virgo's ruler, Mercury.

So, we see a lot of Mercury and Venus imagery. And here we go. This probably won't make sense.

Don't know the exact date that Terry reclaimed the engagement ring. But on Nov. 10 Mercury, ruler of fingers and rings, was in conjunction with Venus, ruler of marriage and Jewelry, at 10 Sagittarius. They were in conjunction with the North Node which was at 16 Sagittarius. I'm not sure what the significance of the sign of Sagittarius is except that Sagittarius is considered lucky and also a little clumsy. Sagittarius rules Hunters, so maybe that's the connection. I don't know what rules toilets freezing up and cracking. I think we'll just give chalk that one up to Global Warming weirdness, or maybe the weather in Billings, Montana. This transit of Mercury through Sagittarius is more significant than others because it is very long due to Mercury's Retrograde on Nov. 21. And also Merucry has had a very long conjunction transit with the North Node which rules the idea of events having to do with one's Destiny and Life Path.

Retrogrades are said to bring things back to you from the past. I've found that Uranus can as well because he rules circulatory systems and inexplicable events but don't know how other astrobuffs would feel about that.

Wish I had the exact dates. There might be a lot going on with these charts which explains this amazing event. It helps that Jupiter is passing through Taurus because Taurus, as said before, rules cash and possessions. It seems that Donna gave up on the ring but Terry continued to wish he could get it back. That's a Taurusy kind of thing.

It looks possibly like some interesting stuff through progressions in the charts. Again, I don't have the exact dates so this is very very fictitious.

In August, 1973, when the ring was bought, Mars was at 2 Taurus. This brings us back to Taurus thing. Taurus rules objects so a ring would be considered partly under its rulership. If the Aug. 15 is progressed forward from 1973 to 2011 to about 2 weeks before Thanksgiving (I used the date Nov. 10) then we notice that prog. Mars is now Retrograde. It stationed back in 2007-8. Transiting Jupiter is hanging over that point right now. Maybe that's when the Hunters bought the house. Jupiter represents luck, and also clumsiness and all kinds of accidents that occur like this.

Also interesting is that t. Neptune stationed Direct at 5 Sagittarius in August, 1975. (exact date: Aug. 17). I'm using what I'm assuming is the purchase date for the ring. Not the date that it went down the drain.

Prog. Neptune took roughly (very roughly) 2 years to come out of Rx by progression. The outer planets move extremely slowly by transit and almost not at by progression. The ring was lost during Donna's first pregnancy because she set it down on the toilet lid and it slid into the toilet where it jammed at the base.

So, the Mars and Neptune progressions probably don't have anything to do with anything. I just mentioned them because I'm always interested in seeing what planets do when changing direction whether by transit or by progression. It does seem that perhaps Neptune st r and Mars coming out of Rx by progression might be connected, but who knows.

During Aug, 1973 there was also a Venus-Pluto conjunction. The love vibes were very intense. Venus was either at the end of Virgo or beginning of Libra. Pluto was at 2 Libra. Venus rules marriage and Pluto partially rules plumbing as it rules anything that moves under ground. Venus also rules Love and Pluto rules Sexual attraction -- a minor part of this 38 year old marriage, I'm sure.

Pluto was at 3 Libra and Saturn was at 2 Cancer so they were in a close square. So, right off the bat we see that the marriage was due for a revamp during the past couple of years because these two planets were again squaring each other over other beginning Cardinal sign degrees.

Cancer is actually the other sign/planet which rule plumbing as it is a water sign and rules the home and anything that "drains" from the home.

Painkillers Kill More Americans Than Guns

Over-dosing and over-prescribing; more Americans are now dying from Prescription Pain Killers than from Guns.

from: http://wvgazette.com/New/Prescription+for_an_Epidemic/200711040016.

For the first time in modern American history, drug overdoses and other types of poisonings now kill more people than guns.

Such deaths more than doubled between 1994 and 2004, according to data obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics in a joint Sunday Gazette-Mail/West Virginia Public Broadcasting investigation.

The fastest-growing killers aren’t heroin and cocaine. They’re prescription painkillers.

Researchers were shocked when they saw the new numbers, said Lois Fingerhut, special assistant for injury epidemiology at NCHS.

“My God — Who would ever have thought that poisoning would have risen that quickly to surpass firearms?” she said.

West Virginians are more likely to die of drug overdoses than people from any other state. Poisonings — mostly overdoses — killed 20 times more West Virginians last year than they did in 1998 (see accompanying story).

Nationally, more than 30,000 people died from poisoning in 2004, the most recent year for which nationwide data is available.

When most people hear of poisoning, they don’t think of drug overdoses.

“What most people think of ... is a child getting into the Drano under the sink, but that’s the smallest part of poisoning deaths,” Fingerhut said.

“By far, the largest number of poisoning deaths are attributed to drugs. Nine out of 10 poisoning deaths in 2004 were drug-related.”

Prescription drugs are responsible for most of that increase in overdose deaths. Heroin deaths fell slightly between 1999 and 2004, while cocaine deaths rose 43 percent.

Drug Addiction is ruled by Neptune.

Rex Bills says that "Medicines" are ruled by Neptune, Saturn and Virgo.

"Pain" is ruled by Mars and Saturn. The opposite of Mars would be Venus. Perhaps this is a sign of a Peace Loving Nation? Mars has progressed into Libra which is ruled by Venus and it is Retrograde.

I looked up the Progressions for the Sibley Chart, July 4, 1776, 5:10pm, Philadelphia, PA. Wouldn't ya know? The U.S. Sun has progressed into Pisces, one of the signatures for Drugs and Addiction.

Progressed Sun is currently at 4 Pisces so it is still trying to get used to the Pisces vibe. P.Sun is also very significant in the Progressed Chart as it is in aspect to both of the planets that Bills gives to rulership of Pain. It is trining Saturn at 4 Scorpio and inconjunct to Mars 19 Libra Rx.

This is maybe telling us to take a look at the natal Mars-Saturn trine in the U.S. Chart. Progressed Mars is echoing the progressed Sun's aspect as it is moving back into a conjunction with n. Saturn and is trining n. Mars. I read this as meaning that we really don't know how to use Force right now and we are reexaminig what Strength really is (hopefully). That's why we're acting like Bam-Bam over in Iraq!

Confused? Bring in the CandyMan. Neptune, ruler of Drugs and Addiction is in Virgo, sign of Medicines. It has been Retrograde since about 1952. That timing seems to match up with the time in America when all the Household Moms starting turning to booze and tranquilizers. (Allopathic Medicine is so brilliant for treating Crises and Emergencies, but so bad at treating most chronic illnesses, ruled by 12th House & Neptune.)

Prog. Mercury is also Retrograde right now as well so our brains ain't working too good. Mercury is Retrograde in both the natal chart and the progressed Chart and they are in an inconjunct aspect right now. Inconjuncts are said to be related to health problems, so it makes sense that we are more mentally ill now than during most times. It's in Aquarius so this should give us extra opportunities to innovate new technologies to fix the world -- as long as we just keep attending the 12 step meetings, that is.

On a different note, it's interesting that in the Sibley Chart the Progressed Moon is so strong in the Progressed Chart. It is conjunct the Progressed Ascendant, both at 28 Leo. The natal Moon is at 28 Aquarius right on the Descendant. I suppose I would assume that Hillary Clinton would win the Presidency due to Moon's relationship with Women. Perhaps this isn't the correct chart after all.