Oppenheimer’s Trinity: Haumea and MakeMake’s Caveat

Have You seen Oppenheimer yet? I can’t wait, although possibly also because Cillian Murphy is one of my favourite actors! It relays the life of theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer who was instrumental in the Manhattan Project which led to the creation and detonation of the first nuclear weapon – Trinity.

Rather than explore Oppenheimer’s chart which is fascinating (but with DD birth data is questionable) I’m drawn instead to the intriguing chart of Trinity, and the prominence of dwarf planets Haumea and MakeMake.

These planets move away from the more familiar Greek & Roman gods as they are from indigenous Pacific cultures. Polynesian religion placed great emphasis on nature, particularly the ocean environment. It is believed that humans first migrated to Polynesia from Southeast Asia about 2,000 years ago in so becoming masters of navigation and other seafaring skills, therefore their religion and myths strongly reflected the importance of nature and the sea. Polynesians believed that all things in nature, including humans, contained a sacred and supernatural power called mana. Mana could be good or evil and individuals, animals, and objects contained varying amounts of it. So to can the gods be light and shadow, which we very much see in Haumea and MakeMake

But what is the difference between the Mediterranean and Polynesian gods? In my mind (and this is just my perspective) the Roman/Greek were more about personal and financial gain therefore quite happy to plunder whatever served their earthly existence. The Polynesian’s were more centered around being equal and part of the earth rather than apart or above, in other words less materialistic. Hence, Haumea and MakeMake are often prominent in charts of climate activists and the like.

So let’s look at the Trinity chart and introduce these fascinating Polynesian deities….

MakeMake

I had to mention MakeMake first as it rises conjunct Saturn in a Cancer stellium with the Sun and North Node. Here the Saturn MakeMake cycle (approx 32 yrs) is prominent and Trinity proved for the first time that a man-made creation had the potential for nuclear extinction, to destroy a way of life – land laid waste! Once the threat of a weapon of mass destruction was born into reality the collective zeitgeist would never be the same again. Indeed Oppenheimer’s famous quote from the Bhagavad Gita was “Now I am become death, The Destroyer of Worlds”.

In MakeMake’s mythology he is the Chief Creator God, worshipped by the Rapa Nui’s from Easter Island. Young men swam through dangerous waters to collect birds eggs from cliffs and the Tangata (man) Manu (bird) was the winner of this competition then gaining status by living in seclusion for a year – this was a rite of passage, a test of resilience.

But as we know, Easter Island became overpopulated and despite being accomplished farmers and stonemasons, the locals contributed to their decline by deforestation and tribal in fighting. This was compounded by Europeans who brought disease and rats.

Look at the Moai, the stone statues which have stood the test of time – such a Saturnian emblem!  They are said to contain spirits of the ancestors and as they stand on the barren island looking out to sea do they serve as a warning and example? Do they show the results of neglect, of not taking responsibility for the legacy of our ancestors, our land and very foundations? In so, does Trinity’s rising Saturn MakeMake conjunction show the potential for our world to become barren if such creative, yet destructive power is not handled wisely and responsibly?

The square to a Libra Moon (completing a T-square with the Capricorn South Node) demonstrates not only the fine balance which must be weighed up, but in a literal sense the power to destroy the air as well as the earth, to make it unbreathable and uninhabitable. The Cancer Saturn MakeMake conjunction here also describes shielding the emotions during Trinity, instead focusing on objectivity (Libra Moon) when weighing up the potential consequences.

Haumea

Hawaii’s most ancient deity is also prominent in a Leo stellium and as apex to an Air/Fire mini-grand-trine to Uranus and the Moon – a fiery, emotive explosion in the sky.

Haumea is Mother Goddess to the island, its other gods, and in particular, Pele, the volcano goddess. There is hardly a more spectacular sight than lava spewing forth from the Earth before cooling to form new land. Haumea is the midwife of nature and in her myth repeatedly transforms from an old woman to a young girl, bearing children from various parts of her body, thus ensuring further generations. This mythological imagery is also quite Plutonian. Haumea is a double-edged sword: the matriarch of destruction and creativity. A midwife of nature.

Some of us may already be familiar with Haumea in the charts of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Japan², but in both bombings, a Leo Sun-Haumea conjunction (with Pluto also close by in Leo) sit on Japan’s Saturn. Mars and Uranus are on Japan’s Gemini Haumea, describing not only the twin explosions, but that they were dropped and detonated from the air. Astrology has a way of painting incredibly powerful pictures, here one of fiery death and devastation born from what was once just a spark of creativity.

Haumea was discovered just after the 2004 Boxing Day Indonesian tsunami, a devastating event which killed nearly 300,000 people. Thus Haumea walks a fine line, a balancing act between creation and destruction.

A crucial consideration when something wonderfully innovative has the ability to destroy as many as it benefits, is the ethical and emotive perspective. As the matriarch of destruction, Haumea is also that of creativity, fertility and regeneration, which is demonstrated perfectly in the nativity of the first test tube baby, Louise Brown. Haumea sits in a clinical 6^th house (if the TOB is accurate) Virgo Stellium, conjunct chart ruler Venus. Mars, also present in the stellium, aptly describes sex in a test tube! MakeMake in the 5^th perhaps describes the inability of the mother to conceive naturally (in this case due to blocked fallopian tubes, information which is in the public domain). Many years ago this woman might have been labelled as “barren”.  

I have written at lengthy article about Haumea’s future potential in reproduction and genetic engineering, “ Haumea & Pluto: Fanning Evolutionary Flames at A Molecular Level”, which was published in the NCGR Journal, but will post more on this site at a later date.

In both MakeMake and Haumea we see clear examples of the need to take responsibility for our creative power – what can be born has the potential for greatness as well as great destruction, both personally and collectively. Perhaps they also hint at where we can burn ourselves out and the desolation that results….

Growing up in the 1980’s, my innate fear was of the nuclear bomb. I vividly remember watching TV series such as “Threads” which dramatized nuclear attack. My friends and I would talk about building a bunker in our back gardens and how long we’d remain in there before coming out to face the “fallout” and “wasteland”. Today, my 12 year old son has an equally valid fear, but now about climate change and the “wasteland” he might face growing up. Let’s hope his fears are unfounded and we can answer MakeMake’s call for responsibility over our climate, to ensure it is both resilient and sustainable.

I’m sure many of you will have noticed the Trinity chart Yod of a Capricorn South Node apex to a Venus Pluto sextile. This describes the value and power of Trinity’s creativity, but also the responsibly that comes with using it wisely vs the impractical, irresponsible potentials which I’m sure none of us want to imagine.

But just look at the nodal axis splitting the Yod! The Cancer North Node is about home, so just imagine Haumea’s potential being used as nuclear energy to heat homes rather than fossil fuels which cause so much damage to our atmosphere.….

And the Yod, in which we see the conflagration of three elements, earth, air and fire, leads me to question why the name “Trinity” was chosen. It would have been wonderful to see some trines in this chart (the circle divided by three) to make it obvious. However there is no clear explanation from Oppenheimer, except when asked if it was a name common to “rivers and peaks in the West….” he replied it was inspired by poet John Donne, in particular a quotation “As West and East / In all flatt Maps – and I am one – are one, / So death doth touch the Resurrection.”

I cannot but help see the Trinity Cancer Capricorn Ascendent/Descendant axis reflected in this quote…..

Copyright L.C. McCafferty 23/07/2023

References Trinity (nuclear test) – Wikipedia