AIDS pandemic's beginning

[Jim Eshelman]

40 years ago yesterday, on June 5, 1981, a routine CDC report mentioned that five gay men in Los Angeles had died from an unusual pulmonary infection. 32 million deaths later we have... the pandemic people forget is still ongoing.

It is hard to pin this down to an exact day and place, but this particular event and location seems to be as good as we have. The sicknesses and deaths began before this date, I think the deaths were all shortly before but in a concentrated burst. What were the mundane astrological markers for June 5, 1981, especially as concentrated on Los Angeles? And were there national markers as well?

Before getting to the ingresses, it was a strange time for outer planet sign transits. There is definitely a concentration on matters of sexuality and asexuality, with all five outer planets being in either Scorpio or Virgo; but it's hard to pin down exactly what they meant. Neptune was in the last degree of Scorpio, wrapping up 14 years (so, I suppose we could say the disease came into being and began to spread under Neptune in Scorpio). Uranus had just entered Scorpio, so this issue was about to erupt on the landscape. Pluto had spent over a dozen years in Virgo and was about to leave (in Libra it redefined some social structures on long-term partnerships), and Saturn and Jupiter had their conjunction in Virgo. Over the next two years, as news of this got taken seriously, sex communities (as well as sex therapy communities) started rewriting their worldview as a basis of survival. On the day this news was quietly filed and overlooked, Mars was in Taurus opposing Uranus and trine Jupiter-Saturn, and Saturn was exactly stationary.

The 1981 Capsolar had Moon square Mars 0°04', which seems quite fitting, though for Los Angeles it was dormant. However, the 1980 Cansolar had Uranus precisely on EP-a for LA - hard to tell what the startling news was going to be, but things were about to change - and, worldwide, Moon square a Venus-Neptune opposition (I suspect this was the confusion etc.).

But it was the Los Angeles Arisolar that started to seriously show the symbolism of what was occurring. Saturn was 1°46' above Dsc, Jupiter 0°11' below - more positive than negative - with an ecliptical Moon-Uranus square worldwide and a mundane Moon-Neptune for LA (and much of the West Coast). This Jupiter-more-than-Saturn doesn't look all that bad, but it's not the last angular Saturn we'll see.

As we turn to the May 23 Los Angeles Caplunar, I first notice something I should have caught earlier: Pluto is in very late Virgo meaning - just as we've seen over the last three years including our current crisis - Pluto was going to aspect Moon in essentially every lunar ingress of the year. For the May 23 LA Caplunar, not only is Moon square Pluto 2°32', but Pluto squares Ascendant 0°13' and Moon closely sets. It all came home in this chart - concentrating the Moon-Pluto on LA and spotlighting it - with Saturn 5° off IC.

The day the news broke, LA's new Canlunar showed it with Saturn stationary 0°16' above Descendant, Jupiter 1°58' below - they've traded places, Saturn now dominant - and even Mercury (mundanely square Saturn) 1°25' off IC for the paperwork. (Moon, of course, was again square Pluto. In LA it was mundanely square Uranus.)

[Jim Eshelman]

It took the nation a while to act like anything was wrong... but were the marks present that there really was something wrong?

The Washington DC Capsolar is a severe, tragic chart. I remember it best as the Capsolar under which President Reagan was shot - it's a classic! Sun is at MC partile square Pluto (10') with Moon rising partile square Mars (04'). It shows the incipient pandemic as much as anything else (although it really is a classic for a presidential shooting).

Of new interest: Eris was 3°20' below Asc in close mundane conjunction with the rising Moon (also tied into Sun and Pluto mundanely). I'm not sure what, if anything, that means, but I'm observing when it's active.

Washington's Capsolar was solid (as usual), but it's Arisolar had nothing to offer. The Capsolar set up the story.

Washington's Caplunar May 23 also looks right to me for the disclosure of something threatening: Mars is 1°04' from MC in Aries, Uranus 0°21' from Nadir. Moon, of course, squares Pluto (even closer mundo, 0°56').

So yes, from the Capsolar and Caplunar we see marks of significant threat coming at us out of the blue. There were, of course, uncertainties about it, as Jupiter and Saturn went back and forth across Washington's Cansolar MC during the spring and summer. For example, the day the news broke, here is how they were disposed (both were in orb):

6°05' Virgo - t Jupiter
6°33' Virgo - Cansolar MC
8°31' Virgo - t Saturn
9°00' Virgo - Cansolar Mars

A small hidden threat: That Cansolar occurred with probably Washington's latitude's deadliest stellar pair: Antares rising within 0°16' and Algol setting 0°05', something you can't see in longitude. Here are the RAMCs for these:

180°39' Antares rising
180°55' Cansolar RAMC
181°00' Algol setting
181°51' Alpheratz IC

That Washington Cansolar (which always has a certain relevance throughout its 12 months of existence) had Venus setting opposite Neptune rising square Mars on MC (all mundane aspects) - with Venus-Mars-Neptune being a frequently observed triplet for sexually transmitted diseases. Rising Neptune is squared by (barely foreground) Saturn.

[SteveS]

Jim wrote:

A small hidden threat: That Cansolar occurred with probably Washington's latitude's deadliest stellar pair: Antares rising within 0°16' and Algol setting 0°05', something you can't see in longitude. Here are the RAMCs for these:
180°39' Antares rising
180°55' Cansolar RAMC
181°00' Algol setting
181°51' Alpheratz IC
That Washington Cansolar (which always has a certain relevance throughout its 12 months of existence) had Venus setting opposite Neptune rising square Mars on MC (all mundane aspects) - with Venus-Mars-Neptune being a frequently observed triplet for sexually transmitted diseases. Rising Neptune is squared by (barely foreground) Saturn.

Bingo, unfortunately.

[mikestar13]

This date (and the charts) seem reasonable for the beginning of the AIDS pandemic. Of course the disease itself is far older: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS#History