Updated Dateline: August 5, July 27, July 15, and July 12, 2014 and originally posted Sunday April 6, 2014…Sometime in January-February of this year – a year that began with an exceedingly rare Capricorn New Moon conjunct secretive, mysterious Pluto on New Year’s Day (the first time this has occurred in the last 247 years) – an outbreak of the deadly virus Ebola began occurring in southeastern Guinea, a country in West Africa. As of two days ago, the confirmed cases in Guinea (and neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone) has reached approximately 151, along with about 99 deaths, revealing a nearly 2/3 fatality rate.
Unless you are a member of Doctors without Borders (a group who has physicians in the affected regions) or are one of the far-too-few, local doctors attempting to halt the progress of this nightmarish virus that has no known cure, you have probably only become familiar with Ebola through the documentary-type book entitled Ebolaby surgeon William T. Close (born June 7, 1924 and the father of actress Glenn Close) or through watching the quasi-Ebola films Outbreak (1995 and starring Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey) and the more recent Contagion (2011 and starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne and Jude Law).
What is stunning to me – as someone who has been an avid world news reader and watcher for well over 50 years – is how the current multi-media, so advertising-marketing-money driven, prefers to feed the public enormous doses of the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370 (witness CNN’s virtually non-stop coverage of this aviation enigma that could claim 239 lives from many nations), but hardly touches the more African-based horror story of Ebola.
My goal in writing this feature is to provide you with a little background history of Ebola, a couple of charts, and the hope that someone will find a cure for this disease that is just one plane trip or boat ride away from spreading to North America (which, for the most part, has been spared the devastation so far inflicted on African nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Sudan, Gabon, South Africa, Uganda, and – now – Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone). [Note: There are five recognized strains of the Ebola virus. The disease comes from contact with an infected host – often a bat, ape or antelope. It is then passed along human-to-human via sweat, blood, saliva or sex. Symptoms include high fever, severe headache, vomiting, diarrhea, and profound bleeding.]
Through the use of Google, Wikipedia and other online resources, I was able to track down a key date in the appearance of Ebola back in 1976 – during the initial outbreak in Zaire. The main story surrounds a 22-year-old nurse Mayinga N’Seka who was helping to treat the afflicted in the fall of that year. Unfortunately, she became a victim and died on October 20, 1976. Chart one at the end of this article is for sunrise in Kinshasa, Zaire on that day. Major aspects in that death chart include the Sun contra-parallel Pluto (within 2 minutes of arc), Venus parallel Neptune (only 8 minutes apart), Mars parallel Uranus as well as conjunct Uranus in Scorpio, Venus at 30 degrees of Scorpio opposite Jupiter at 30 degrees of Taurus, Saturn at one of the four main power degrees of the zodiac (15+ Leo), Mercury at the same place, 14+ degrees of Libra, where it would be 25 years later at the World Trade Center disaster, Mercury conjunct Pluto within 2 degrees, and the Sun opposite Chiron within 3 degrees.
It is noteworthy that just three days after Nurse Mayinga’s passing, there was a Total Solar Eclipse at 30 degrees of Libra. When I saw this I realized that a strong connection to the current outbreak has to do with the transiting Lunar Nodes which have an 18+ year cycle* and just made a return to the 30-degree Libra-Aries part of the zodiac in February-March of this year. The Lunar Nodes are considered fate-oriented and since they refer to the Moon’s orbit, these retrograding astro-zodiacal interfaces have a lot to do with the public and widespread influences on the masses of humanity.
In addition, on a hunch, I decided to check out an asteroid-type chart for Nurse Mayinga’s death and that horoscope is the second one included at the end of this story. A near-earth asteroid – named Asclepius (for the Greek god of medicine) and discovered on March 31, 1989 after a near-miss of the Earth 9 days earlier – is conjunct the Libra Sun at Mayinga N’Seka’s death within 1 degree and if she actually died later than sunrise on October 20, 1976, the Sun union with Asclepius would be closing in toward exactitude. [On January 1, 2014, Asclepius was located at 18+ degrees of Scorpio in a conjunction with Saturn at 20+ degrees of Scorpio. Their 2-degree orb of separation could represent the approximate two months before widespread cases of Ebola starting appearing in Gueckedou and Macenta, two cities in southeastern Guinea plagued by the current outbreak. Eventually, in the past few weeks, at least several people have died of Ebola in the Guinea capital of Conakry, a port city of about 2 million people, and hundreds of miles from the more rural source of the outbreak. With fears rising in the capital during the last week – as this city has poor sanitation and sewage systems – a French medical team has arrived at the airport to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus to France as well as to other places around the globe. It is ironic and yet significant to point out that Asclepius just made a conjunction with Pluto at 14 degrees of Capricorn on April 1.]
The mythology concerning Asclepius is profound – in this regard – as he was a son of Apollo who was transferred to his upbringing by Chiron, the maverick, shamanic “wounded healer” of the ancient Greeks. Eventually, Asclepius would surpass his surrogate-parent/mentor in medical skills and become a father to six daughters and three sons, and many of the daughters are goddesses (asteroids, too) who are deeply connected to the themes of health and cures for illness.
There is a chart for the independence of Guinea from France (October 1, 1958) and this horoscope might prove significant if the number of deaths in Guinea keep climbing in the months ahead.
Considering that we are about to experience the fifth of seven, shocking and tumultuous Uranus-Pluto squares on April 21 (in a very rare cycle starting in June 2012 and concluding in March 2015), that Pluto will now be in opposition to the USA Sun five times in 2014 – 2015 (something that has never happened before in our history as a nation), and that the year 2014 began under a severe presence of the planetary ruler of the Underworld – Pluto – a disease like Ebola, with no known antidote, could become something that Americans need to understand and prevent from reaching our vulnerable shores via plane, ship or seemingly innocent border crossing by an unaware, infected host.
*P.S. It turns out that due to what is known as the Metonic Cycle (where New and Full Moons reappear at virtually the same place in the zodiac every 19 years), the Total Solar Eclipse of October 23, 1976 (that has much to do with the onset of the first Ebola outbreak) had a Metonic Return on October 23 – 24, 1995 (during another Total Solar Eclipse) and there will be another Metonic Return on October 23 of this year (during a Partial Solar Eclipse). The Metonic Return 19-year-cycle was discovered in the 5th century B.C. by Meton, an Athenian astronomer who realized that 19 tropical or solar years corresponded almost exactly to 235 solar-lunar phases or synodic months (also equivalent to approximately 6940 days). The bottom line is that New and Full Moons – along with their accompanying Eclipses – come back every 19 years, bringing the potential of history repeating itself in some capacity. It is probable that Babylonian-Chaldean astronomers had already known of this celestial phenomenon centuries earlier. Let us hope that the rekindling of the October 23, 1976 Total Solar Eclipse this October 2014 doesn’t bring with it a new upsurge in Ebola outbreaks in Africa or in other parts of the world. Instead, send your positive thoughts to medical researchers at places like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) that might be just one illumined experiment away from finding an antidote for the several strains of Ebola virus evading our scientific tests in the past 38 years.
Important: A Special Report from July 3, 2014 in the United Kingdom newspaper The Telegraph appears below. It is quoted in full due to its profound implications and the fact that our media in the USA -- except for Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN -- are avoiding airing the subject, undoubtedly due to its scary ramifications were Ebola to arrive in America.
Copyright 2014 by Mark Lerner and Great Bear Enterprises, Ltd. All rights reserved.
[From The Telegraph newspaper in the UK: A Special Report on Ebola]
Ebola 'out of control' in West Africa as health workers rush to trace 1,500 possible victims
Fear, mistrust of Western medicine and difficulties reaching remote areas mean hundreds of potentially infected people have not yet been found
By Mike Pflanz, West Africa Correspondent
9:18AM BST 03 Jul 2014
Hundreds of West Africans could be carrying the deadly Ebola virus and not know it, potentially infecting hundreds more, as cash-strapped governments and overwhelmed aid agencies struggle to contain the virus's spread.
At least 1,500 people have not yet been traced who are known to have come into contact with others confirmed or suspected to be infected with the haemorrhagic fever, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) told The Telegraph.
Many more could be moving freely in the three countries battling the virus, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, but fear of the illness and mistrust of Western medicine means they refuse to come forward to speak to doctors.
The current outbreak is the worst ever. So far 467 people have died and health staff have identified at least 292 other suspected or confirmed cases.
Ebola is transmitted by coming into contact with bodily fluids of an infected person. It has no cure and as many as 90 per cent of its victims die, often from uncontrollable internal and external bleeding.
Health authorities in Glasgow and organisers of the Commonwealth Games, which start in the city on July 23, said they were "monitoring the situation on a daily basis" because a team from Sierra Leone was coming to compete.
"Based on current advice from the World Health Organisation, we estimate the risk to the delegates from Sierra Leone is extremely low," the statement said.
The outbreak was now "out of control" in the three affected countries and could quickly spread across West Africa, according to MSF, which is leading efforts to deal with cases.
The virus's spread appeared to have been cut off in late April, when 74 people had died and Alpha Conde, Guinea's president, said the situation was "well in hand" and "touch wood there won't be any new cases."
But a rare mix of highly mobile populations, mistrust of outsiders, a fear of being diagnosed and treated, traditional burial practices, and a lack of funding all mean Ebola flared again.
The number of cases jumped by 129, or 38 per cent, in the week from June 25 to July 2, the WHO said.
Health staff have even been attacked. The Red Cross in Guinea said it had been forced to temporarily suspend some operations in the country's southeast after staff working on Ebola were threatened on Wednesday.
"Locals wielding knives surrounded a marked Red Cross vehicle," a Red Cross official said, asking not to be named. An MSF centre elsewhere in Guinea was attacked in April by youths saying the charity brought Ebola into their country.
"I have covered six previous Ebola outbreaks and this is unprecedented," said Michel Van Herp, an epidemiologist with MSF in Belgium, who spent two months in the region in March and April and is returning again shortly.
"It is unique in terms of the number of cases, where they are and how they are spread, the difficulty of putting enough treatment centres where they are needed, and the fact that these people move about so much."
MSF and other organisations including the British Red Cross are focused on treating those cases that come to their specialised isolation wards, but more needed to be done to reach out to the rest of the population, Mr Van Herp said.
West African health ministers on Wednesday began a two-day emergency summit in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, to improve co-ordination of their responses to Ebola.
Money was needed urgently for drugs, basic protective gear and staff pay, said Abubakarr Fofanah, Sierra Leone's deputy health minister.
"In Liberia, our biggest challenge is denial, fear and panic. Our people are very much afraid of the disease," Bernice Dahn, Liberia's deputy health minister, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Accra meeting.
"People are afraid but do not believe that the disease exists and because of that people get sick and the community members hide them and bury them, against all the norms we have put in place," she said.
The virus remains contagious even if the person it infected dies.
And the NY Times Online finally wakes up about the spreading Ebola Outbreak in a July 15, 2014 feature that barely made their front page. In the first three paragraphs, Rick Gladstone reports that just since last week, the probable, suspected and confirmed cases are at 964 and deaths are at 603, up 14% and 16%, respectively, from the previous week. These statistics come from the World Health Organization this past Saturday July 12 and most of the deaths have been in Guinea. Even the Ivory Coast is cracking down on its border relative to its residents trying to come back after being in the infected countries. This is now the worst outbreak of Ebola ever recorded.
Update: July 27, 2014...Our Western media is still way under-reporting this terrible outbreak of Ebola. Today reports via the AP that a senior doctor in Liberia, Samuel Brisbane, had died of Ebola. Dr. Kent Brantly, an American physician, is receiving "intensive medical treatment" after coming down with Ebola. He has also been treating those suffering with Ebola in Liberia. Sierra Leone's top physician working to stop the spread of Ebola became infected last week. And, perhaps most alarming, is that a "Liberian official died of Ebola after flying from Monrovia to Lagos...," the capital of Nigeria with over 20 million people.
Update: August 5, 2014...In what to me is a highly controversial move, Dr Kent Brantly was flown on August 2 to a special isolation unit at Emory University in Georgia -- where the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are also located. He -- as well as an American woman who contracted Ebola while treating the sick in West Africa -- are being given an experimental drug that "appears," so far, to be helping him to recover. Time will tell if this is the beginning for a vaccine regarding Ebola. However, the main question is the wisdom of flying anyone infected with Ebola to our homeland -- regardless of how tight the authorities in charge believe their safety and security may be. After all, planes have been crashing, in shocking ways, for many weeks now, and if somehow a medical plane, carrying an Ebola-infected American returning to U.S. soil, crashed here (perhaps in a rural area) and people who know nothing about how Ebola is transmitted came to the wreckage...well, you can see where I am going with this. At any rate, this is now happening: two Ebola-infected Americans are now back in our country and the rest of the story will be told in the future...ML
