This past
Sunday morning I had just finished a morning yoga practice when I heard the
disturbing news on CNN that a hostage/shooter situation was unfolding at a Sikh
temple in Wisconsin. Being from the Mid-west I immediately painted a caricature
of a white supremacist, back country redneck of the kind that would be likely
to gun down a temple of peaceful "oneness" worshipers, mistaking them
for terrorists or perhaps just being plain old ignorant and hateful. I felt no
shame or embarrassment at leaping to such a stereotypical conclusion, and by
Monday when the white supremacist, thrash metal and meaty redneck pictures of
Wade Page began surfacing I felt smugly satisfied. It wasn't until later in the
week that I realized something had been hauntingly "off" about my own
personal reaction to the shootings and the shooter. Let me try to explain.
My first clue was the total absence
of streaming facebook posts, pictures, memorializations, "why why why's?"
or "what is wrong with our world?" posts. Compared to the drove of
facebook posting I saw after the Batman theater shootings there was little to
nothing being said or posted about the Sikh temple shootings.
For the first time since I was in high school
I remembered the death of Mother Theresa. The memory appeared without any
pretension. Just the simple memory of sitting in my 10th grade civics class and
suddenly realizing that everybody was talking about Princess Diana's death but
nobody was talking about Mother Theresa's. It had been perhaps one of my first
daring astrological or metaphysical speculations. In class we had been having a
non-related discussion about some subject of Greek history and I raised my hand
and said, "I know this is random but I wonder if nobody is paying attention
to Mother Theresa because she was better than Princess Diana? What if bad people
only pay attention to bad things?"
I couldn't remember what my teacher had
said in response, but this precise memory came back to me in full force this
week while staring blankly at the deluge of non-Sikh related posts. I became
angry at first. Here people go posting about the Batman shootings for one
straight week, pontificating about the state of the modern soul, the need for
love, and random pictures of Elephant's cradling Hindu children in Sepia tones
with phrases like "we are one," but when a Sikh temple is shot up the
masses continue posting about whatever else is striking their fancy, "God
I can't wait for Mercury retrograde to be over," or "Michael Phelps
is so hot!"
My second self-undoing clue came
during a morning meditation. First I saw myself on Sunday afternoon thinking
about the shooter, and predicting what he looked like. Second I saw myself
thinking about the facebook posters and how "off" they were to not be
more vocal about the shootings. Third, I saw myself never once having stopped
to feel anything actually real about the event itself. Sure I had posted
something about praying for the Sikh's, but had I actually sat down and prayed
for the Sikh community? The answer, shamefully, was no. I hadn't. So then in my
meditation I tried to feel something for the victims, for the religion (which I
admittedly know very little about), or for the soul of the world. I even prayed
for the shooter. Nothing. No feelings. Just a blank sense of apathy (I would
later find that the shooter's hate thrash band was called Ending Apathy).
Later in the
day I sat down with one of my astrology students who asked if we could look at
the charts of the shooter, the town of Oak Creek Wisconsin, and the Temple at
the time of the shootings. Finally, after studying the charts, I felt something tangible rise up inside of
me. If I had to describe it in a few words I felt: amazed, perplexed, and
inspired. After organizing my astrology observations of the Sikh temple shooting
(and they are by no means comprehensive astrological conclusions–more like
jotted notes meant to stimulate conversation and reflection), I have decided
that it is not darkness or evil that we are facing in this epochal 2012 moment,
but rather the reality of mythological possession.
The ancient Greeks called
these forces "daemons," and there is a real distinction between these
forces and those evil demons of the Christian mindset. With a little
astrological research we can come to some pretty interesting conclusions about
how these Dameons work, or at the very least what they look like, in particular current events. This article will examine these
forces, as represented by the planetary energies of astrology and within the context
of the recent temple shootings.
The Birth Chart of the Shooter: Wade
Page
The story of
Wade Page is beginning to emerge in the media now, and several details seem
important when considering the configurations of his natal chart. One is that
Page identified himself as a white supremacist, attended so called
"hate" groups, had lost his mother at an early age, his parent's had
divorced prior to her death, he had both served and been discharged from the
military, was in a few "hate thrash" bands, and had also been
discharged from a trucking job. In contrast, his step mother spoke about him as
a quiet and loving boy who was into music and was highly creative as a teenager.
Taking into
consideration the fact that many readers will not be technical astrologers, I
will do my best to point out only the most general and relevant points of Wade
Page's birth chart. The first point worth mentioning is that Page was born on
Veteran's day, November 11th, 1971 (I've marked and rectified his chart in
Denver Colorado, where he was said to be born, and marked the birth time at 7:05 am).
On the very
day of Page's birth yet another orbiting asteroid was discovered (many were
being discovered in the late 60's and early 70's), called Sarmiento 1920. I will return to explore the significance of this asteroid
name and its position in the sky later (as astrologers generally discover more
about the archetypal energy of a planet by considering the way in which it was
named or discovered, its historical entry point, etc). Perhaps even more simple
than some kind of acrobatic archetypal interpretation of the asteroid
discovered on the day of Page's birth is the simple fact that the recent discovery
of thousands of asteroids with traceable orbits in our solar system heralds an
age of both archetypal obscurity and rampant archetypal individualism. Each one
of us are Gods, and more of us are coming into the world more literally
embodied as a particular and eccentrically (and hence obscurely?) orbiting God within
the classical mythical framework (of the known planets/gods of the psyche).
Page was most
likely born with a mutable grand cross configuration in the dynamic Cardinal
houses (this according to the chart rectification I performed using
solar-arcing techniques according to the major known events in Page's life).
Regardless of the house positions, Neptune in Sagittarius, the Moon in Virgo,
Mars in Pisces, and Saturn in Gemini complete the Mutable grand cross. Page was
born under a Scorpio Sun in the 12th house (a house particularly attuned to
unseen collective or ancestral karmic forces), and his Mars/Moon opposition in
the 10th and 4th house points toward an ancestral/family involvement in social religious
warfare and/or purification obsession (Mars in Pisces in the 4th and the Moon
in Virgo in the 10th).
Page's south
node in Leo is likely located in the 9th house of religious belief, squaring
his 12th house Scorpio Sun, suggesting (among many other things) past life
involvement in religious warfare (the same theme now repeating itself in a
different chart locale). Not long after Page's mother died, somewhere between
1984 and 1985, after his father had already married his step-mother (the
same step-mother who reports that Page was an innocent and sweet child), Page's
father and stepmother moved to Texas but Page stayed in Colorado to live with
his Grandmother and Aunt (according to the Denver Post).
At this time Saturn (a
planet known to bring serious karmic commitments, restrictions, challenges and
burdens) was eclipsing Page's natal Sun whilst Eclipses had been and would be
falling (as they are now, 19 years later) in the early degrees of Gemini and
Sagittarius (effectively lighting up the Mutable Grand Cross configuration).
From an astrological point of view, even the most conservative astrologers
would likely say this was a "trigger" or "tipping" point
for the entrance of Wade's past life karma, his adult challenges, or at the very
least it was a time of great psychic pressure and transformation for Wade.
Not
long after this period, around the age of 15, Wade's step-mother reported that
Wade began making music. My speculation is that perhaps it was also around this
time that Wade's introversion (Pisces Moon in the 4th) combined with his
obsessive need to present something pristine and perfect to the world (Moon in
Virgo in the 10th) was becoming simultaneously confused or dominated by
ancestral or past life religious/social conflict and ideology (the
Sagittarius/Gemini axis of planets completing the grand cross).
On August
5th, just months after the same eclipses fell into Wade's chart, while the Sun
and Mercury retrograde were within degrees of his south node, and while Neptune and Chiron eclipsed his natal mars in the 4th
house and opposed his natal moon (triggering the mutable grand cross), and
Jupiter in Gemini opposed his natal Jupiter in Sagittarius (yet another point
through which the mutable grand cross was being triggered), Wade entered the Sikh
temple and opened fire. He became, quite literally, consumed by his own
mythology and/or the transiting transpersonal planetary dameons.
One can only
speculate about all of this, and to a certain extent we can all be
rightly
frustrated with how vague and generally supportive of "whatever you want
to see" astrology can be. However I don't believe that is the case in
this instance. Further investigation of the Sikh history within
the life and history of Wade Page, however, leads us toward more helpful
mythological context, perhaps making the astrology somewhat less
obscure.
The Sikh History and the History of
Wade Page
The Sikh
Temple chart is an excellent place to begin looking at the story from the
victim's point of view. Set at October 1st, 1997, at Sunrise (when prayers
might have commenced for the day or an opening ceremony might have begun?) the
Sikh temple in Oak Creek chart demonstrated an interesting set of planetary
placements at the time of the shootings.
At the time of the shootings Pluto was hovering conjunct to the
IC/4th house cusp (the very base/home/roots of the temple). Uranus in the sign
of Aries (war/conflict) sat just at the cusp of the 7th house/western horizon
(the house of others, relating and open conflicts). The Sikh temple chart is
marked by a contrasting 8 degree Libra Sun on the ascendant. The Sun and Uranus
would have been exactly opposed and simultaneously squared by Pluto at the base
of the chart. The immediate read might be something like, "relational
karma" and/or "old ancestral conflicts resurfacing," and or
"the struggle between peaceful or martial ideology at the roots of the
religion."
Knowing very
little about Sikhism I was eager to learn more, and I discovered some
interesting correlations between the Sikh history and the overlapping moments
of Wade Page's life.
In 1971,
during the same time that Page was born, Sikh's were fighting in India's war
with Pakistan and the Time magazine cover that was published only weeks after
Page's birth was dedicated to the birth of independent nation of Bangladesh that
arose out of the conflict. The Neptune and Jupiter opposed Saturn aspects in
the signs of Gemini and Sagittarius in the early 70's were certainly indicative
of religious and social warfare taking place in the middle-east. The same
aspects between outer planets were also present (Saturn, Pluto, and Mars in
Sagittarius and Gemini) at the time of the 9-11 attacks in New York City in
2001.
In 1984 (or
thereabouts),
during the same year that Wade supposedly lost his mother to Lupus, still-governing female Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi ordered
operation Blue Star and the removal of Sikh separatists from the Golden Temple
in Amritsar. The Sikh separatists were accused of amassing weapons in their
temple and inciting an armed uprising amongst the Sikhs in India in general. In
response to the attacks on Sikh temples, Indira Ghandi was murdered on October
31st, 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards. There is to this day much controversy
around these events.
In October
of 1997, when the Sikh temple in Oak Creek Wisconsin was officially opened (and
hence its birth chart cast) Wade was charged with writing a worthless check
(this is thought to be his only criminal record as far as I could find online).
The following year in October Wade was discharged from the military where he
had been working in a psychological operations unit.
In the Fall
of 2001, as Uranus entered Page's 4th house in the sign of Aquarius, and as his
mutable grand cross was simultaneously reactivated at the time of the NYC 9-11 attacks
by the transiting of outer and inner planets through Sagittarius and Gemini (also
another mid-way point of the eclipse cycle that recently culminated at the time
of the recent temple attacks), Sikh's throughout America, mistaken for Muslims,
were attacked, and Page soon after was thought to have received shoulder tattoos
that "said a bunch of stuff" about the 9-11 attacks–undoubtedly from
a more hateful or white-supremacist position.
All of this
or none of this may be relevant toward an archetypal or astrological understanding
of the recent temple shootings. Without making reductionist statements about
karma or divine "fate" in the midst of such shocking brutality, it
seems safe to say a few things.
1. Major
turning points in the life of the shooter coincide, if not consciously then at
least through the collective unconscious, with the history of the Sikhs, and
not all of the Sikh history has been as peaceful or benign as
"oneness," "blessings," and "fellowship." Like
many eastern religions or many religions in general, there is an ancestral
involvement in warfare, religious persecution, assassinations, and the like. By
saying this we should not come to the conclusion that nobody is to blame or
that both parties are on equal karmic footing. Rather it should give us pause
to reflect upon the intimate way in which archetypes of the collective live
within us and play out through us regardless of our conscious or historical
awareness of them, and regardless of the suffering, death and violence they may
incur. Astrology seems to provide an appropriate, or at least stimulating,
container for reflection upon these collective forces as they present
themselves through the often unconscious puppetry of victims and aggressors
alike.
2. Although
the charge that the shooter mistook Sikhs for Muslims is true, it's worth
exploring that there is more in common between religions with blood stained
histories (white supremacists, temple weapon piling insurgent Sikhs, terrorist Muslims,
and white Christian American dictators or militarists) than there are
differences. In other words, although there is an element of truth to the fact
that Sikhs were unfairly targeted after 9-11 and were unfairly targeted in
this recent shooting, the archetypal forces in the collective during 1971 at
the time of the Indian-Pakistani war, during 1984 when Indira Ghandi was killed
and the Sikh temples raided, during the 9-11 world trade center attacks and the
post-9/11 Sikh attacks, during all of Wade Page's major life events, and during
the most recent temple attacks, were of a common and inter-penetrating
mythological nature.
3. The
common mythological image that emerges throughout all of these interwoven time
periods, astrologically, is that of deception, open-mindedness and political relativity
versus ideological dogmatism and the conquest of what is believed to be a
higher or more universal truth (Sagittarius/Gemini). Additionally the transits
speak to the need for education, the results of ignorance, the blessings and
curses of cultural and religious appropriations being made by multiple diverse
peoples throughout history, and of the continued presence of humanity's warring
of ideas and ideology.
The Issue of Self Defense
Many Sikhs
still carry traditional knives in light of the fact that long ago their
gurus
were beheaded by Muslim invaders. The knives, called Kirpans, were
initially worn
for self-defense and have since become a symbol for the holy defense of
the innocent (I won't speculate too much beyond this since I discovered
numerous articles debating the subject of
the Kirpan and its history). After the Colorado shootings at the movie
theater
one of the major issues was that of self-defense. Gun control laws and
the
issue of defense against foreign, or alien invasion (including our own
government) is a hot subject right now
in the media. After a nearly invasive "attack" in my own neighborhood
the week prior to the Colorado shootings I had considered purchasing a
hand
gun. The night of the Batman movie shootings, while visiting my family
in rural
Michigan, I fired my father's Grouse hunting rifle at a target. I
quickly came
to the conclusion that owning something so powerful and so violent would
only
attract the very same power and violence. Some would disagree, and I
think we
can sympathize with both sides of that argument.
In a larger
sense the mythological image invoked by the recent string of shootings is about
how to fight for peace, how to fight for love, or whether or not it makes any sense
to fight for such things in the first place. As the current planetary transits
engage the square to Pluto in Capricorn we are learning that many of what we
consider to be our "safest" and most "peaceful" or
traditional societal structures (temples, movie theaters, etc) were in fact
built on bloodshed. From a karmic point of view it might be time that we humans
recognize, as a collective, how much blood lies beneath our feet. Most every
one of our prized towers of civilization has been built on the backs of
ideological warfare and violence.
The Asteroid Consciousness: 1920
Sarmiento
The word
Sarmiento comes from the Latin language and it means "to trim the vine."
One can only assume that the Argentine astronomer who discovered the obscure
little asteroid on November 11, 1971 (the day of the shooter's birth) named the
asteroid after Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, who was an Argentine activist and
the seventh President of Argentina. Born just after the May Revolution in 1810, an event that would lead to the Argentine
War of Independence, Sarmiento would later comment that the trouble with
liberty and revolution was that it could easily lead into anarchy and civil war
(as the world had witnessed in the French and American revolutions). As a
result of this philosophy Sarmiento was thought to have perpetuated a greater
separation between church and state (despite being catholic), especially within
the public education systems of Argentina. Sarmiento's belief was that a nation
could not be truly democratic if it was not well educated.
The asteroid
Sarmiento was located at the early degrees of Virgo (western style ephemeris)
on the day of the shooting, which would have conjoined Page's natal Moon and,
once again, activated the mutable grand cross in his chart. I was stunned when
the first picture I searched of Page turned up with his head centered perfectly
inside of a cross (imaged at the bottom of this article). With mars in Pisces at the
bottom of his birth chart and with asteroid "Sarmiento" opposing from
the 10th while hovering over his moon (in addition to the plethora of other
planets activating the rand cross) I couldn't help but wonder if Wade Page
(whose first and last name collectively means to go forward and serve) was always looking for his sense of home
in the service of some larger or past life, ancestral or religious ideal.
At the time
of the 1984 Sikh temple raids and subsequent assassination of Indira Ghandi,
Sarmiento was, like the passage of Uranus in 2001 at the time of 9/11,
transiting through the revolutionary sign of Aquarius.
The year
1920, or the number 1920, bears no direct relation to Sarmiento as far
as I
could find. I looked briefly at Sikh history in the year 1920 and found
that
the year was significant in terms of the conflict and warfare between
the
British and Sikhs in India. The year 1920 also marked the beginning of
the two
year Non-Cooperation movement led by Mohandas Gandhi against the British occupation. The Sikh temple in Oak Creek Wisconsin, interestingly
enough,
happens to share the same birthday as Ghandi. Both were born under an
8th
degree Libran Sun (October 1st and 2nd). In addition to this, during the
summer of 1920, after leading his first mass politicaly rally, a young
Adolf Hitler chose the Swastika as the German Worker's Party symbol.
The themes presented
in the asteroid Sarmiento 1920 seem related enough to the events and the birth
of the shooter and his enmeshment within the collective Sikh story, although a
singular coherent mythic image is less clear. Studying minor asteroids is,
after all, an obscure and perhaps even risky thing to do considering the
popular skepticism of astrology. Yet I can't help but wonder if the presence of
so many asteroids represents both a deepening and obfuscation of the
mythological dimension itself. Perhaps with so many asteroids the gods, and the
mythological realm of astrology itself (perhaps our oldest social/religoius
organizing tool on the planet) are looking down on us and saying, "you're
the ones making this stuff up!"
Conclusion
Mythic
education is sorely lacking in our world. Without some consciousness
about the
gods of psyche and cosmos it is likely that our species will continue to
unconsciously
act out old traumas and old mythological dilemmas costumed as
present day ideological conflicts of epic, but ultimately anticlimatic
importance (hence we might meditate again on Page's frustrated, but
ultimately ironic band name Ending Apathy). Without consciousness and the daily work of
awakening ourselves to the co-creative dream-time we occupy we will continue to
act as the simple puppets of these planetary daemons.
Mythic education
is crucial. Not all myths are the same, just as not all beliefs are the same, and yet they are inseparable from one
another. Recently on face book I had been convinced that Kundalini yoga was the
same as Sikhism. I had read many posts sending out love to the "Sikhs and
Kundalini yogis around the world," as if they were one and the same group.
I was embarrassed but also thankful to learn about what intense debate and
resentment still rages among the Sikh community about the subject of Kundalini yoga
(which is outright rejected by many traditional Sikhs). Oh, and to be clear, not all Sikh's still carry daggers.
Adam Elenbaas is a
contributing editor for RealitySandwich.com and is the author of
"Fishers of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest." Elenbaas is
the founder and director of the Nightlight Astrology School located in
NYC and Washington D.C. To learn more about Nightlight Astrology or to
schedule a reading please visit www.nightlightastrology.com
