Since the sun entered Aries this year, there have been a lot of fires.

There was a big fire at the Kimberly-Clark distribution center in California on April 7. On April 8, an Amazon warehouse in West Jefferson, Ohio caught fire. Then a week or so ago Columbus, Ohio news reported an uptick in fires across Central Ohio. Looking up Fuyao Glass America in Dayton, Ohio yesterday after seeing a documentary on the company, I read they had a fire on March 23 (early Aries).

What a coincidence!

I’m not one of those ‘spiracy people. I simply study patterns.

And the pattern is fire.

The Trouble with Patterns

There’s always a fire, or a flood, or a storm, or an illness, or a war going on. And everything else that can go on, goes on. And we get more information now – some useless to our survival. If a boy is bitten by an alligator, why would I care in Ohio?

Are there more alligator attacks now or am I just getting more alligator attack news because I clicked on a link?

While we’re taught that man is rational “animal,” I’m an astrologer because what I see is that we are patterns and motivations. I just caught myself repeating an old pattern I thought I’d ended years ago. And the motivation is the same. I caught this one in time.

Those that make up the rules believe they are rational so teach that man is rational. The reason is the same for doing something that can be rational or a rationalization. The reason is valid, but may not be the underlying motivation. Men are taught to be separated from their feelings so to me tend to rationalize – hide feelings behind “reasons” – more than women (although women who are proud to be “unemotional” tend to do this too).

These recent fires appear pattern-like because of the companies involved. These are very large organizations that must have more than one camera on the place, probably even have the most advanced technology for monitoring the sites for both foul play and environmental risks. In a surveillance culture, how can these foul-play fires occur?

Accidents happen, sure. But there is a movement occurring against the large data centers and warehouses used as makeshift prisons.

And warehouses are catching on fire.

Neptune’s Hazy Glow

Neptune idealizes what it touches. Idealization motivates us to be better humans. Yet if the reality is far from the idealization, we get into escapism and delusion.

Neptune is in Aries idealizing our sense of self determination, the Aries within us. Idealization of the self is positive – intrinsic self-worth; and negative, me first, me only.

Wars are associated with Aries, two or more parties in a struggle for self-determination. Wars have always existed. In recent times we like to create narratives, or long stories in the news for week or months, before attacking or invading a foreign nation.

Recently, a week or two of snippets of reasons – often with no cohesive narrative – before an attack that post facto folks seem to explain from past narratives. Ubiquitous digital information streams invite personal narratives – we don’t even need to agree as a country about an invasion (“war” is also a misleading term here).

It’s Aries at its worst, a self-centered honesty. Empathy is about other and that is the polarity of Aries-Libra. Polarity in science states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In spirituality, it’s karma of resultant challenges to learn from past experiences. In regular language, we say “what goes around comes around.”

The US invades a country under the premise that it has weapons that will destroy us. But are other countries creating weaponry to attack us or to defend themselves against us?

Smokey Bear

Smokey Bear campaign was created in 1944, appearing first on August 9. His “Only You can Prevent Forest Fires” was first rolled out in 1947. Public education on negligent causes of forest fires (cigarette, campfires, etc.) was the goal.

“Born” in August, Smokey is a fire sign, Leo, with a couple other planets in Leo and moon possibly in the final degrees of Aries. Astrological fire is energy, enthusiasm, and passion. Smokey is engaging and persuasive. He’s fatherly – I can imagine him at the head of the bear dinner table on Thanksgiving carving the turkey.

Should Smokey Bear expand his campaign for Neptune in Aries malicious fires? How about, “Only YOU can change the world without setting fire to it first”?

Fight Fire with Fire

“Fight fire with fire!” is another of life’s parables.

Neptune in Aries is starting in a quite fiery way. Will fire conquer fire? Or will we all become ashes?

It will be 15 years before Neptune moves into the earth sign Taurus where we will idealize stability and structure. In the ashes that are left from Neptune in Aries fires, the mythological phoenix may rise.

And the phoenix may embrace Taurus simple pleasures: a log cabin and a field of grass. And leaving others alone to life their lives.