A dead Northern Gannet on Grand Isle Beach, Louisiana. Photo by Sean Gardner for REUTERS.

I agree — it’s a no-brainer — but there is another planet involved here, and no one seems to be paying much attention to her.

I will admit that I have not routinely mentioned Ceres in all of my reports of the cardinal T-square, although I’ve at least acknowledged the conjunction of Ceres and Pluto and have made some initial guesses about how her inclusion in this extraordinary planetary configuration might play out.

In a post on April 24, I suggested that something would happen “to force governments to take responsibility for bad public policy, especially regarding the environment.” I wrote that post on April 14, a week before BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and blowing out a deep undersea well, which has been gushing anywhere from 5,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil a day into the gulf, depending on whom you believe.

A week earlier, in a post on the cardinal T-square of 2010, I noted that the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred during a cardinal build-up in 1989, and I predicted that similar environmental disasters would be likely this year.

According to classical mythology, Ceres dared to confront Jupiter and Pluto over the disappearance of her daughter, Proserpina (better known as the Greek Persephone), whom Pluto kidnapped and stole off to the underworld. Ceres appealed to Jupiter, who disclaimed knowledge of the incident. She later discovered that Jupiter not only knew about the kidnapping but gave Pluto his express permission to take Proserpina for his wife against her will.

In her anger and grief, Ceres cut off the food supply and threatened to kill the entire human race. She didn’t make idle threats or set a deadline. Jupiter was forced to send a message to Pluto to return Proserpina to her mother. However, before Pluto sent her home, he fed her pomegranate seeds. No one who eats in the underworld may return to the world of the living. We also may assume that he had his way with her, taking what he wanted much in the same way that energy companies pillage the earth.

Jupiter sent Mercury to negotiate a compromise in which Proserpina was to spend half the year with her mother and half the year as Pluto’s queen in the underworld. During the half year when she was away, plant life on earth died. This myth ostensibly is an “explanation” for winter, but we might also read into it a dire warning of what happens when the environment is so callously disregarded.

As astrologers and students of astrology, we might also want to consider what happens when we ignore Ceres.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union created a class of “dwarf planets,” in which they included Pluto and Ceres. Pluto was in effect demoted, while Ceres was given equal status to Pluto. Yet, Pluto got all of the attention, including indignant rants from astrologers everywhere about Pluto’s power. Even though Ceres was discovered 130 years before Pluto and is closer to the Earth, she is relegated to a minor role in astrology. Many astrologers consider her primary influence to be felt in mother-daughter relationships — in other words, “women’s issues” and not power politics. That’s still for the big boys.

In mundane astrology, Jupiter and Pluto represent government and corporate powers, which clearly must share the blame for what is fast becoming the worst environmental disaster in North American history. A report just came out about the cozy relationship between the oil industry and government regulators, who illegally accepted gifts from the people they were supposed to be monitoring and, by some accounts, were viewing Internet porn instead of doing their jobs.

And, just as Jupiter thought he could blow off Ceres with a lie, the powers that be don’t appear to be taking the implications very seriously. While the goo floating in the water and oozing up on the shore threatens an extensive ecosystem, government and industry officials are moving ahead with plans to continue offshore oil drilling, some of it in areas even more sensitive that the Gulf of Mexico.

To add insult to injury, the U.S. Department of the Interior has continued granting controversial environmental waivers, despite President Barack Obama’s announcement of a moratorium on drilling new wells in the gulf.

Ironically, BP is launching a procedure called “top kill” (how Plutonian is that?), possibly as early as Wednesday, in an attempt to shut down the gusher. BP officials caution that they have no idea whether it will work, because no one ever has attempted this procedure in a well this deep. The operation will take place just as Uranus is entering Aries, with Jupiter hot on his heels. The ingress chart set for Venice, La. (the nearest town to the BP oil rig), has Ceres exactly on the Ascendant at 2 degrees Capricorn.

Now that Ceres is part of the cardinal T-square, she’s solidly within the good ol’ boys club. Moreover, it’s likely to be the wisdom and maturity of Ceres that gets us out of this mess. In caring for the environment, we will have to make some compromises, and unfortunately they aren’t going to be a bed of roses. Although we can demand more oversight from our government, the energy industry thrives because we rely on their products in just about every aspect of our lives, from gasoline for our cars and food production, to the plastics used in our computers.

We still do not know the extent of the fallout from this disaster, and we may not know for several years. The consequences likely will be far greater than oiled birds and dead fisheries.

In the meantime, we can expect massive public protests and outrage against BP and the Obama administration. The demonstrations will be all the more vehement because starry eyed voters feel betrayed and need a target to vent their anger. Uranus in Aries will happily supply the fuel … a veritable uncontrolled gusher.

Then, these protests could pale compared to the political unrest that will occur when we’re forced to pay higher prices for gasoline, food, and other petroleum-based products. You can bet that our political leaders know this.

As I suggested in my previous post, the inclusion of Ceres in the T-square may have implications in our private lives, too.

“At the very least, we may need to reflect on how past decisions or behavior are affecting us in the present. It’s never too late to change!”

Our first responsibility in this crisis is to be informed citizens and search for real information, not what we’re being fed by BP, the U.S. government, and the corporate media.

Second, we have to confront the reality that our daily consumption habits contributed to this disaster. We pay lip service to environmentalism and point the finger at Big Bad Oil, and without missing a beat jump into our cars to run to the supermarket for a garden burger produced in a factory thousands of miles away. Healing ourselves and thus the planet requires that our words and our actions are in synch. Put another way, we must never quit striving to live with absolute integrity.

That, too, is a no-brainer.

I’ll have more on Uranus in Aries in this week’s Saturday Extra! post.

Pat