Halifax marks the 263rd anniversary of its founding, or “birthday,” exactly at 12:29:41am A.D.T. on June 21, 2012---this Thursday. Should Halifax celebrate? Some anniversaries or birthdays represent milestones; others pose deadlines. The verdict?
Deadline, Haligonians.
The natal horoscope of Halifax, dated June 21, 1749; at 10:00am L.M.T., contains Saturn and Pluto, both in Retrograde Scorpio. Halifax experiences its next Saturn Return on November 7, 2013 at 12:09:28pm A.S.T. During the Saturn Return, Saturn, “the taskmaster,” demands correct execution of the one skill which Halifax regards as impossible---on command.
What impossible thing must Halifax now execute? That thing is “Scorpio.” Scorpio rules, amongst other things, sex, drugs (including alcohol), shared property, minorities, crime, law enforcement, physically dangerous challenges, the occult and communication with the dead.
Luckily, Halifax’s 2012 Solar Return, or “Birthday” chart, gives Halifax a secret weapon. Newly discovered centaur planet, 2002-VR130, will transit over, and then backwards towards, the Halifax Sun at 0 degrees Cancer, arguably the most powerful degree of the entire zodiac, for the next year. 2002-VR130 demands that Halifax establish and compete with its own “peer group “ within its own “league”---or other “leagues” will co-opt Halifax for its own purposes.
Both 2002-VR130 and the Halifax Sun reside in the Halifax’s 2012 Birthday chart in the fourth house of the physical home (literally, Halifax Harbour). These 2012 Birthday placements lie directly opposite Venus and the Sun in the Halifax natal horoscope in the 10th house of status and career.
This difference polarizes Haligonian consciousness. Naval prowess no longer brings world prestige as Halifax rivals the great North American international seaports of Montreal, Boston, New York, Charleston, New Orleans, Seattle, San Diego and Veracruz. Today, aptitude with marina technology and boating is simply intrinsic to Haligonian identity. Augmenting, not diminishing, ferry service connecting Halifax with Dartmouth and Woodside to showcase the downtown waterfront is a first necessary step to aligning Halifax amongst other prominent North American cities who have sought, some successfully, to bridge their former maritime glories into a more contemporary, secular prosperity.
Historical occurrences of 2002-VR130 around 0 Cancer offer different useful solutions---albeit military solutions---revealing clues to solving Halifax’s current secular plight. Royal Canadian Navy Rear Admiral Leonard Warren Murray, born in June 1896 with 2002-VR130 near his Cancer Sun, built a long successful naval career deploying large strategic convoys. In June 1779, as 2002-VR130 crossed 0 Cancer, British General Francis McLean, headquartered in Halifax, built a series of subsidiary forts to reinforce Fort George, which controlled access to the Majabigwaduce Peninsula in Maine’s Penobscot Bay during the Penobscot Expedition, the worst American naval defeat until Pearl Harbor.
What secular activity ruled by Cancer supported by Scorpio can mirror this military mastery of the deployment of convoys and forts to help Halifax compete commercially?
Microbreweries. The Brewers Association of America states that Vermont is America’s top state in capita per brewery--- “a brewery for every 29,797 people.” Applying these figures to Nova Scotia’s 921,727 citizens, Nova Scotia needs 31 breweries to compete with Vermont, or 28 more than we have.
Swimming clubs and events. Swimming is a Haligonian and Nova Scotian passion. Swim Nova Scotia’s website lists 18 winter club swim teams. Why doesn’t Halifax sponsor an international championship event where swimmers race from Spruce Island, under the Narrows, to McNab Island’s northwest shore?
Spiritism. Rogue’s Roost on Spring Garden Road states, in hand-scripted elegiac prose at its entrance, “It is said on a quiet night you can hear the ghosts of old rogues restlessly wandering along the shore, wary of the authorities.” Halifax’s natal Saturn and Pluto, both in Retrograde Scorpio, suggest that many of the dead in Halifax, whether pirate, privateer, rum runner or Halifax Explosion victim, do not rest easy. Provincial tourism itself could happily explode if Halifax found a way to empower “the dead” . . . to “speak.”
Finally, to shun overt affiliation with the cruel histories of other North American cities, Halifax historians and public relations officials must fully articulate in much broader historical context how and why Africville came to exist.
