Solar Eclipse and the Goldman Environmental Prize

Battling the Hydra

The Goldman Environmental Prize is a prize awarded annually to grassroots environmental activists, one from each of the world's six geographic regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. The prize includes a no-strings-attached award of US$150,000 per recipient. Since the Goldman Environmental Prize was established in 1990, a total of $15.9 million has been awarded to 157 honorees from more than 79 countries, as of 2013.

The 2014 Environmental Prize winners marking the 25th anniversary, were awarded on April 28, 2014 during ceremonies held at the San Francisco Opera House.

Shown here is the chart for the New Moon Solar Eclipse on April 28, 2014 at San Francisco, California. Notice that the eclipse places the Grand Cross very prominently on the meridian axis with Mars conjunct the MC.

The eclipse [9ta] is conjunct the stars Hamal, alpha Aries – butting horn of the Ram  and Schedar, beta Cassiopeiae – the proud Queen, a symbol of good living that transgresses reasonable limits and tends towards corruption.  Also here is Azha, eta Eridanus, the river of time so that we have here a  great interest in the past, feeling for the native land and cultural heritage. With overlap of tropical Taurus, concerns of the earth draw these people so combining with Hamal, the Ram’s horn butting the corrupt Queen we have environmental activists standing up against selfish interests.

The stars on the MC are those of the Virgin and the Hydra about which Diana Rosenberg writes:

Few other skyscapes are so polarized between light and dark, clear air and suffocating darkness, with a tremendous conflict between the Virgin’s honest, upright will-to-do good and the Hydra’s dark lair of greed, sensuality and arrogant self-interest; there are both oppressions and struggles against them and transits to these stars often bring about major changes in laws, mores, governments and ways of thinking…

In this extract we can see the archetypal battle depicted in the image above as a battle between the heroes  (here the activists who are honored) and the Hydra (representing corrupt interests).

The same theme is contained in the Uranus-Pluto square of the Grand Cross: courageous/warrior-like actions of individuals on behalf of the people's liberties (Uranus in Aries) vs. the  power of institutional structures facing threats to their authority (Pluto in Capricorn).