Lunar Eclipse: Baltimore Bridge Collapses
Image by BBC News
Under the darkness of the current lunar eclipse, the cargo ship Dali veered off course and collided with the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, USA at 01.28 EDT on 26 March 2024 [1].
During an eclipse, the lights go out and power is symbolically lost. This BBC News video clip (1 min) shows the lights on the ship literally going out and power being lost [2] only minutes before the ship struck the bridge and caused its collapse.
As a full on full Moon, a lunar eclipse is a dramatic ending to a lunar cycle. The bridge, a “cathedral of American infrastructure”[3] has met a spectacular end. In the collapse chart below, the elevated Moon signifies death. Time is definitely up for this structure.
The construction crew who fell into the water are shown by Venus. Her conjunction to grim Saturn flags the enduring perils of life on the water.
The ship is shown by the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter. The Dali is a huge vessel. Jupiter is in steady Taurus, the sign of tangible, moveable possessions. Taurus’ exalted ruler is the Moon, the planet of containment. This slow-moving container ship was carrying numerous containers en route to Columbo, Sri Lanka [4].
Jupiter is approaching shock-inducing Uranus. That’s the key astrological signature for the bridge dramatically falling down, as triggered by the lunar eclipse. The bridge giving way is affirmed by the Moon at the South Node. It’s a symbolic crossroads signalling downwards movement. Here, the bridge literally fell into the Patapsco River.
While the Moon-South Node conjunction symbolises descent, every other planet is under the horizon. The collapse chart clearly depicts the bridge as fully submerged underwater.
This event echoes the toppling of the statue of Francis Scott Key in San Francisco during demonstrations against racial injustice on 19 June 2020. Juneteenth, observed annually on 19 June, commemorates the end of slavery in America [5] and became a federal holiday in 2021 [6].
As the author of the US national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner”, Francis Scott Key’s lyrics include “land of the free”. As a slave-owning lawyer, he defended in court slaveholders' rights to own humans [7]. The pronounced Uranian theme highlights contradictory human nature.
With Pluto finally settling into Aquarius in 2024, and as the US Pluto return reverberates, the architecture upholding US society continues to be interrogated. This year’s eclipses bring that process into sharp focus once again, as did 2020’s seismic planetary activity the world over [8].
When the Francis Scott Key bridge first opened on 23 March 1977 [9], Mars at 2° of wishy-washy Pisces was the opening chart’s most prominent planet, as shown below. Mars’ return to this exact same spot at the time of the bridge’s collapse reveals its inherent wobbliness. This is restated by Mars’ rulership of a weak, sick house in the opening chart, coupled with an unstable Moon-Uranus opposition and unreliable Neptune descending.
In the collapse chart, Jupiter 16° Taurus meets the opening chart’s Moon 15° Taurus. This Moon shows abundant assets in the house of concealed, unscrupulous dealings. Questions might be raised as to the backstory of how the bridge was funded and built. Concerns as to what really caused the ship to collide with the bridge might also be prompted. Was it really just an accident?
The Moon was occluded when the bridge was built and then eclipsed when the bridge collapsed. The truth may never be fully revealed. The illuminating, eclipsing Sun is also hidden at the bottom of the collapse chart.
On a brighter note, the collapse Moon’s next and only aspect is an opposition to Mercury in loud, shouty Aries. Here, Mercury rules significant others with expertise. Maybe some people want to investigate and make a noise about this incident. With the collapse chart’s afflicted Mars activating the ‘tell all’ cusp, and a gossipy, elevated Moon, falsehoods are liable to spread.
Mercury is set to retrograde in Aries on 1 April and will return to its collapse chart spot of 24° Aries on 9 April. That’s only one day after 2024’s star total solar eclipse. This signals the yet to be fully disclosed significance of this tragedy and a revised take on the current perception of the situation. Direct Mercury then reaches 24° Aries for one more time on 10 May, which may further extend the public timeline of this story.
The collapse chart’s Uranus is at 20° Taurus. The cargo ship is called Dali. Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali was born with the Sun at 20° Taurus [10]. Maybe this whole episode is just a co-incidence after all. Uranus also acts as a reminder of the sheer randomness of life.
References
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-68667813
[4] https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/details/9697428
[5] https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-juneteenth
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth
[8] Several major planetary cycles renewed in 2020: Saturn joined Pluto at 24° Capricorn on 12 January; Mars joined Pluto at 24° Capricorn on 23 March; Jupiter joined Pluto at 24° Capricorn on 5 April 2020, and Jupiter joined Saturn at 0° Aquarius on 21 December.
[9] https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-baltimore-sun-key-bridge-opens-at-10/144152310/
[10] Born on 11 May 1904 at 8.45am in Figueras, Spain https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Dali,_Salvador