EUGENE: DESTINED FOR UNITY?

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

Eugene's new slogan: A Place Where People Agree.

Believe it. Even the area's two hospitals are about to come to a meeting of the minds.

On the other hand, Eugene's eccentricity is likely to be showcased in 2005 - potentially to the detriment of its overall well-being.

Look for the University of Oregon to get some big research grants, for the Oregon Research Institute to receive funding for its proposed headquarters in the old Sears building downtown, and for some excitement in the city's arts world.

UO sports? This basketball season may be an exhilarating run - followed by a crushing disappointment. You'd be better off not to think ahead to football season.

And you can blame it all on the stars. Or more properly, the planets.

Eugene has its own astrological chart, based on the date and time of its birth - the city was incorporated Oct. 17, 1862, at 2:30 p.m.

We're a Libra.

"Which means we're all about relationships," Eugene astrologer Johanna Mitchell said Saturday. "It's a very social community, and that's why social issues are so contentious here."

OK, but that was then. This is now.

Mitchell and fellow astrologer Mark Lerner agreed in separate interviews Saturday that the most dominant prospect for 2005 in Eugene - because of the fact that the giant planet Jupiter is passing through Libra - is a newfound sense of cooperation and collaboration.

"The stars are sort of directing Eugene to become more of a kind of peaceful, harmonious blend," Lerner said. "It's a 'let's care about each other' kind of vibe."

A changing of the guard in the mayor's office has escaped neither of the local astrologers, who believe that Kitty Piercy's replacement of Jim Torrey may be a fulfillment of what's been preordained by planetary alignment.

And that the favorable astrology may create the perfect environment for Piercy to make good on her campaign promise to be "a mayor for all Eugene."

"It looks like our new mayor is actually going to do what she said she was going to do," Mitchell says. "She's going to get people to cooperate."

Mitchell speaks from a position of some authority on that subject. A year ago, with the election season still months off, she predicted that Eugene would choose itself a woman mayor in 2004. And that was before Torrey announced he would not seek a third term.

"The reason I could do that is I looked at the chart, and in the area of leadership it showed a planet that's a woman," Mitchell said.

That planet would be - you guessed it - Venus.

Anyway, astrologers base their predictions on the birth chart of the person or place whose future they're gazing into, and the influences on various portions of the chart that are caused by current positions of the planets.

Those readings allow astrologers to see what Mitchell called "a predilection to certain behavior and certain trends," which can be applied to current events to come up with some fairly specific prognostications.

For instance, Lerner pointed out that Saturn is affecting the sixth house of Eugene's chart, which is the area that indicates health or illness. "On a town level, to me that has to do with health care," he said.

Lerner considers the most obvious local health care issue to be the respective moves of Sacred Heart and McKenzie-Willamette medical centers, which he said have resulted in "a lot of negativity" in the past couple years.

`It (the Saturn/Jupiter combination) says to me, `This can't go on,' ' Lerner said. "That's what the Jupiter thing is trying to say. So that's another big message coming in for Eugene - these two hospitals have to get together."

Both astrologers also see the coming year as an optimum time for higher education and research, again due to Jupiter's position.

"That planet represents like an expansion of higher learning, and everything that has to do with education," Lerner said.

On the community level, Mitchell takes it a step further to suggest good fortune for "anything associated with the university that has to do with research."

There's also an astrological "house" that has to do with recreation, and she said it shows some great promise late in the spring. Backing up a bit, Mitchell said the outlook in March is intriguing but probably doesn't bode well for the UO basketball teams making a run deep into the men's or women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

"It's like you get to go to the ball, and then your date doesn't show up," she says. "And I gotta say - I don't want to say this - but it doesn't look great for the football team. It doesn't look dismal, it just doesn't look like those big, exciting years we had."

Hmm.

Well, we can take heart in the fact that this is, after all, still Eugene. Speaking of which, have we mentioned yet that Aquarius was the rising sign at the time our city was born?

"That's like the way we look at life; the town looks at itself through that window," Lerner said.

And that glass is like a fun house mirror - the planet Neptune plays a big role in the sign of Aquarius, and that's the planet that rules over confusion or delusion. "When people are idealistic or hopeful, other people might say they're wearing rose-colored glasses," Lerner said.

In Eugene's case, Mitchell has another word for it - eccentricity. "We're really interested in doing things in the most odd way possible," she says. "And that's never going to change."

THE ASTROLOGY OF EUGENE

Eugene's two most prominent astrologers share common views about what 2005 holds for their city.

Johanna Mitchell: Phone: [phone]. Will discuss Eugene's astrological future at 7 p.m. Jan. 12 at Tsunami Books, 2585 Willamette St., in a fund-raiser for FOOD for Lane County.

Mark Lerner: Does business as The Great Bear. Phone: [phone]. Web site: www.mcn.org/greatbear/

CAPTION(S):

Johanna Mitchell looks to the planets and sees a sense of cooperation and collaboration that will envelop Eugene in the coming year. She's also predicting progress on the health care front. Just don't bet on the University of Oregon basketball and football teams in 2005, Mitchell says.