A chemical fire at a hazardous waste management plant in a North Carolina suburb very close to where I live erupted late Thursday night in the shadow of the Full Moon, evacuating thousands of people and creating a health emergency. The fire produced a chemical fume of chlorine gas that spread across the area but fortunately a steady rain all day yesterday helped to clear the air. As of this morning the fire is “essentially out” but may still contain hotspots..

In March the company that owns this plant, with the Orwellian name of EQ Industrial Services (the EQ standing for Environmental Quality) , was fined $32,000 for safety violations. Last August a plant owned by the same company in Michigan caught fire in a similar fashion driving over 2,000 people from their homes.

I can’t help see the correlations between this fire and the chart for last night’s Full Moon. Remember Mars was conjunct the Sun and opposite the Moon in Aries, which is ruled by Mars, a double signature that the fiery nature of Mars would be significant in this lunation. Mars of course doesn’t always bring literal fire, but it does bring an aggressive energy into the mix. We are seeing this in the battle within the Republican party over the Mark Foley debacle; we are seeing this in North Korea’s aggressive stance on testing a nuclear weapon. Conflict between the Russian government and the independent state of Georgia (formerly of the Soviet Union) escalated late last week as we entered the shadow of the full moon.

And all of this is nestled within the opposition of Saturn to Neptune, which in this case created difficulty and challenge (Saturn) as the result of a chemical (Neptune) fire (Mars/Aries). A hallmark of the Saturn/Neptune opposition seems to be the question “What did they know and when did they know it,” as it is often associated with cover-ups (Neptune) that ultimately come to light (Saturn). just as we’re seeing with the Mark Foley scandal which is exposing the dirty laundry of the Republican party.