I believe that the announcement of this planet, coming under a retrograde, is significant to promote this resolution by understanding the transformational attributes of Pluto. The symbolism of the 10th planet's being discovered beyond Pluto is provocative and poignant and will the subject of astrological debate for years to come. My new workshop, Beyond Pluto will present my view of how we can finally give our thanks to Pluto and claim its god-like power - a great shift from the unconscious fears that we have been feeling for centuries.

Beyond Pluto will be held in Baltimore on Saturday, December 10th, 2005 from 10 AM to 6:00 PM in the conference room of the Chase Suites Hotel in Hunt Valley, MD. I chose that day because there is a Grand Cross in fixed signs with Mars in Taurus, Jupiter in Scorpio, Saturn in Leo and Neptune in Aquarius. The workshop will provide vital information to integrate this Grand Cross so necessary in the understanding of the Aquarian way of life. Through this integration a new awareness of Pluto will emerge as an opportunity not a curse so we are free to choose love not fear and continue to create a connection to our soul that brings us SERENITY and JOY.

In my letter announcing the Leo retreats I said that we have all been waiting for something BIG to occur. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the discovery of the 10th Planet, Beyond Pluto is another tangible symbol of what we have been waiting for? Could it be the beacon that awakens more of the heart light in all of us to continue to be part of the new Spiritual Renaissance - the Age of Aquarius?

Register by e-mailing by October 1, 2005. Space is limited to 30 people so respond quickly to reserve your space. Tuition for the workshop is $200. A down payment of $50.00 is due at registration. The remaining $150 needs to be paid at the workshop. Please refer this e-mail to anyone you feel would like to participate.

US astronomers have discovered a new world of rock and ice in the farthest reaches of the solar system that they say should be designated the tenth planet to orbit our sun. The discovery, announced in the early hours of yesterday morning, is of an object some 2700km across, which makes it larger than Pluto and the biggest object found in the solar system since Neptune, was discovered in 1846.

"Get out your pens and start rewriting the textbooks today," said Michael Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology and one of three Nasa-backed researchers to discover the object.

He labelled the body the tenth planet, but the astronomical world is already divided over whether Pluto really is a planet and similar doubts are likely to be raised over this latest discovery. The announcement is expected to reignite the debate of just what constitutes a planet, since no official definition exists.

What is not in doubt is that the body currently known as 2003 UB313 represents the most distant object ever detected orbiting the sun. It is located about 9.7 billion miles (14.5bn km) from the sun - or about 97 Earth/sun distances away - and could be up to one-and-a-half times the size of Pluto. The new planet, if planet it is, is so far away that an observer standing on its surface could cover the view of the sun with the head of a pin. Yet it is sufficiently bright for amateur astronomers to track it in the early morning sky.

It orbits the sun once every 560 years and is now at its farthest point from Earth, Brown said. In about 280 years, the planet will be as close as Neptune.

Brown and colleagues David Rabinowitz of Yale University and Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory, an international partnership of seven countries including the US and UK, first photographed the object in 2003, using a 48-inch telescope at the Palomar Observatory in southern California. However, it was not until the team studied the same area of space again in January that its motion was detected. It will take at least six months for astronomers to determine its exact size.

The team was due to have announced the discovery later this year, once their studies were completed, but hastily organised a briefing yesterday after Brown received word that a secure website containing details about the discovery had been broken into and that the hacker had threatened to release the information.

The scientists have submitted a name to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and say they are confident that their discovery will be designated a planet. They declined to reveal the proposed name yesterday, but there may be a clue in the address of Mike Brown's webpage, which refers to a Planet Lila.

The IAU designates names for stars and moons and tends to opt for classical names from Greek and Roman literature or creatures from Inuit, Celtic or Norse mythology. In its most recent round of name attribution last year, it called a satellite of Uranus "Trinculo", after the character in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

The procedure for approving a new planet is somewhat hazy, since there is no official definition of what a planet is, and no new bodies have received that designation since Pluto was discovered in 1930.

"We hope that it's fairly non-controversial among those who believe Pluto is a planet," Brown said.

Brown is more confident than in March last year, when the same team announced the discovery of a red planetary body, christened Sedna after the Inuit goddess of the ocean.

According to Brown, who offers a variety of criteria for the term planet, Sedna fails the test, since it is likely to be one member of a large "population" or group of planetary bodies rather than a solitary object.

In any case, it is smaller than Pluto - and size is apparently everything in planetary science, with some considering anything bigger than Pluto a planet.

"2003 UB313 is probably larger than Pluto," explanied Brown's colleague David Rabinowitz.

"It is fainter than Pluto, but three times farther away. Brought to the same distance from the sun as Pluto, it would be brighter."

The object sits in a highly-inclined 44° orbit, and the team thinks that at some point in its history it was flung into this orbit by Neptune.

Like Pluto, the object's surface is believed to be predominantly methane. It is thought to be part of the Kuiper Belt, a large ring of icy objects that orbit beyond Neptune and are believed to be remnants of the material that formed the solar system.

The discovery of a possible tenth planet crowns what has been a remarkable week for space-related developments. It comes just a day after a Spanish team of astronomers announced the discovery of another object about three-quarters the size of Pluto orbiting in the solar system's outer reaches.

The same day, pictures were released taken by the European Space Agency probe that is examining Mars, showing a giant patch of frozen water sitting inside a Martian crater.

The presence of ice on Mars raises the prospect that past or present life will be detected one day, and also increases the likelihood of a manned mission being launched to the red planet.

Last Tuesday, Nasa launched its first manned space mission in two-and-a-half years, when the space shuttle Discovery blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. And on Wednesday, astronomers announced that - using four telescopes spread out across South America - they had captured Pluto's mysterious moon Charon passing in front of a star for only the second time.

However, the announcement of yesterday's discovery appears to cap all of that.

Alan Stern of the South- western Research Institute in Colorado, said that 2003 UB313 appearing to be bigger than Pluto made it unique.

"Unless they've made a grave mistake, this is for real."

 

CLIENTS FOR DECEMBER 10 WORKSHOP

GENEVIEVE DAVISON $50 8/9
JUDY GOLDBERG
CAROL BURDETTE
NINA BAKER
JULIE MADIL
WENDY BARTA
GINI ROBERTS (make arrangements to pick her up)
LISA CONNELLY BAILEY ?
LYNN VAN GILDER
SHANNON VAN GILDER
KAREN FINA
PETER FINA
DARLENE ELKINS
JANEY LANDIS