Houston, we have a problem. It’s named Harvey.

Harvey became a named tropical storm on 17 August, then regressed to a tropical depression for a few days. With Mercury retrograde, it doesn’t surprise me that he regained sufficient energy to resume tropical storm status on 23 August, two days after a total solar eclipse slashed its way across the USA. A day later Harvey’s wind speeds reached hurricane range. He made landfall on the coast of Texas as a Category 4 hurricane with 130 mph winds at around 10:00 pm on 25 August 2017.

Harvey was no ordinary storm. His slow movement resulted in all-time record setting rainfall that inundated a zone covering 3,643 square miles (larger than the state of Delaware) with at least 40 inches of rain. This constituted over a trillion gallon of water for Harris County in the Houston metropolitan area, the resulting flood making news around the world.

I lived in the Houston area for over 21 years and saw a few hurricanes myself, but nothing like this. I’m beyond grateful that various family members, who are still in the area, were spared, their homes dry, even though their neighborhoods were virtual islands. Unfortunately, some of my friends from my NASA days weren’t so lucky.

In a previous blog back in April 2016 I discussed the astrology of another Houston flood. That one wasn’t even a named storm. Interestingly enough, it also followed an eclipse.

I explained Houston’s horoscope a.k.a. natal chart at that time, but will reiterate some of the basics again. These charts look daunting to the uninitiated, but reading one is just a matter of understanding all the symbolism involved.

Many folks are not aware that even as a person’s natal chart has a strong bearing on their personality, so it follows for a city. Neptune, ruler of all liquids, is prominent in Houston’s chart. This not only relates to rain, but also oil and being a port city. Neptune’s position in the 2nd house makes it an important driver for the area’s economy; the second house typically has a bearing on income, material possessions, needs, pleasures, and what is valued.  If you’re wondering what the “POS” represents in the 2nd house, that’s the asteroid, Poseidon. Having him as the same house as Neptune speaks for itself. Asteroids, like the planets, bring the same energy as their namesake’s mythological archetype.

However, there are other factors that make Neptune’s placement problematic. For one thing, he’s in Aquarius, an Air Sign, which brings to mind the fact that air and water are both major constituents of a hurricane or tropical storm. Of course that placement alone won’t do it–Neptune is also being slammed by negative energy from five other planets. Therein lies the problem.

The red triangle is an aspect pattern known as a T-square. Neptune is on one corner with Jupiter opposing him while Saturn squares the god of the deep. Jupiter tends to exaggerate anything he touches and Saturn is largely considered unfriendly, albeit the orchestrator of hard lessons and lord of karma. However, Saturn is also part of a more favorable aspect pattern known as a Grand Water Trine. With Saturn about building, structure, and discipline, this suggests how Houston continues to rebuild regardless of what catastrophes befall it.

The Grand Water Trine comprises three planets placed in Water signs (Mars in Cancer; Saturn in Scorpio; and Uranus in Pisces). This trio, however, comprises planets with a bad reputation. Mars is know for aggression and in emotionally driven Cancer often function like a temper tantrum. Uranus is full of surprises, disruptions, rebellion, explosions, disturbances, and the unexpected. Thus, in a nutshell, the combination can result in surprises of a violent nature that affects the status quo.

The city’s Sun connects with each of those planets as well, which makes their effects personal and further associated with the city itself. Since they’re all connected, when one of them is activated, they all resonate to create a large influx of energy. What activates them, you ask? That would be what astrologers call “transits”, which is the current location of the planets and how they connect with the ones in the natal chart.

As if that’s not enough, more aspect pattern on Houston’s chart has strong implications. It’s called a yod or finger of God. It looks like a blue arrow which is pointing toward Neptune. Yods tend to have a fated nature about them, indicating what might be important to the person or location with such an indicator on their horoscope.

Generally speaking, Houston’s natal chart is an accident waiting to happen. It has all the right (or perhaps wrong) characteristics to be very vulnerable.  This was further exacerbated by the August Lunar and Solar eclipses, which brought a blast of ominous, Plutonian energy to bear on Houston with implications that it was going to bring considerable public attention.

Next, let’s look at Harvey. The following chart represents when Harvey was declared a hurricane.

The sextile pattern, shown as a green triangle, shows a great deal of cooperation between violent Mars, Ominous Saturn, and Jupiter, increasing this malefic energy. The square between Jupiter and Pluto increases the death and destruction while the square between Uranus and Venus, where Uranus represents surprises and Venus material comforts, shows a definite conflict there. Neptune and the asteroid, Poseidon (POS on the chart) shows conflict between those two cosmic entities, perhaps in a battle to prove which is superior. The ascendant in Scorpio, the sign that rules death, implies the storm’s lethality, while Mercury, the Sun, and Mars in the 10th house, which represents reputation, status, and what you’ll be remembered for, indicate his energy, public recognition, and even hint as his slow movement and repeated landfalls, which numbered at least three.

The relationship between two people, or in this case a storm and a location, is shown by how their natal charts interact. The following chart is known as a biwheel and shows Houston’s chart in the middle and Harvey’s around the outside, indicating how the two would interact.

The first thing that jumped out at me with this chart was that Harvey became a hurricane on Houston’s “birthday”, indicated by the fact the Sun for both charts is in the same degree of the zodiac, i.e. the first degree of the sign Virgo.  The technical term for when the Sun returns to the position it was in when a person, thing, or city, was born is “solar return”, which is typically a prognosticator for the year ahead.  What this Sun – Sun conjunction energy blast effectively did was wake up that Grand Water Trine and all those other water-related aspects in Houston’s natal chart. The accident waiting to happen just did.

Transiting Pluto is trining the chart’s Midheaven, which represents its status, reputation, and public image, suggests a major transformation as well as death and material destruction. The square from Mercury retrograde to the chart’s ascendant hints at bad news. Mercury retrograde tends to slow things down, which certainly happened when the storm’s movement stalled. That is what facilitated the incredible quantity of rain. The semi-sextile from Mercury to Houston’s Jupiter in the 8th house of transformations and death, further exaggerated this effect. On the positive side, the sextile from the transiting Sun to Houston’s Saturn implies help and assistance from afar in rebuilding. This is further reinforced by Venus, transiting the 8th house.

These very basic aspects shown here are only a few and represent the more common ones. There are several others known as minor aspects or harmonics which seldom have a minor effect, especially those associated with intense energy and power. Others relate to physical and spiritual extremes.  There were at least nine of these aspects involved, which certainly did their part to make this a record breaking storm that left unprecedented devastation behind.

As I’ve said repeatedly, you can’t make this stuff up.

Hurricane Information Sources: The Weather Channel & NOAA National Hurricane Center Advisories

 

Was Houston Flood the Fault of the Stars?

Video of Houston Flood

If you’re a fan of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, you’re most likely aware that it contains weather predictions as well as advice regarding when to plant, harvest, and numerous other activities. Most likely anyone who’s drawn from its wisdom hasn’t questioned its source or wondered what it was. If that’s a burning question you’ve had for most your life, then I have good news for you because I’m about to tell you where that advice comes from.

Ready? Are you sitting down? Okay. It’s astrological.

Whether or not you believe in astrology makes no difference. It works and doesn’t much care whether people recognize it or not and neither do I.

As an example of how it works for weather, I couldn’t resist doing another extreme weather blog regarding the astrological influences in effect at the time, in this case, the massive flooding event in Houston, Texas. This blog, like numerous others involving astrology, is in the category best known as “You can’t make this stuff up” or “What are the odds?”

As a professional astrologer I tend to speak in astrologese, which of course makes no sense to anyone unfamiliar with its terminology. I will do my best here to explain things in lay terms which will of necessity include a few brief, albeit essential, astrology lessons.

First of all, what you see below is the “birth chart” of Houston, Texas. Since it is a major city, detailed information about it’s founding is available in the historical record. In reality, the worst part of this recent flood was centered slightly northwest of the city in a city called Katy, but an actual date much less time of its incorporation or naming (which occurred when they applied for a post office in 1896) were unavailable. Houston felt the effects too, so thus, we’ll look at Houston.

Planets, signs and houses (of which there are twelve as you can see from the numbers around the smaller inside circle) each represent a variety of things. Planets and signs have their own distinctive energies while houses indicate different categories relative to life.

If you look at the city’s horoscope, which represents the location of the Sun, Moon and planets at that moment in time, you can see a variety of different lines in the center. These indicate relationships known as aspects between the Sun, Moon and planets. In general, the red ones are stressful, the green ones favorable, and the blue ones somewhat unstable, except when two of them come together, like they do here, with a green line connecting them at the base.

This aspect pattern is known as a yod or “finger of god” and typically has a fated flavor to it. From time to time, as the actual location of the planets in our solar system form other aspects to these natal planets, events are triggered. Seriously. The yod is comprised of Houston’s Virgo Sun, Cancer Mars and Aquarius Neptune, which is represented by a glyph that looks a lot like Neptune’s famous trident. Neptune is in a position in the yod known as its eye, which is where the Sun’s energy (Sun being indicative of personality) and Mars’ energy (symbolic of activity) are directed.

If you know a little about mythology, you know that Neptune is the God of the Deep. In astrology, he rules anything related to liquids among other things. Houston’s nickname is “The Bayou City.” The Houston Ship Channel is a major influence on its economy. Oil, another biggie for Houston, is also ruled by Neptune. Being not too far from the Gulf of Mexico, Houston is often troubled by hurricanes, such as Ike in 2008.

So we have Neptune very prominently placed in Houston’s horoscope and it’s easy to see its influence has been a big one on this city as expressed by the yod, which basically states that the city’s personality and activity is going to relate a lot to Neptunian matters such as water and oil.

Get the idea?

Coincidence? Maybe. Let’s see what else is going on.

Neptune is also related by aspect to some other planets as well. Note the red triangle, an aspect pattern known as a T-square. These are stressful. The other planets involved are Saturn, which represents structures, responsibility and tradition, and Jupiter, which tends to exaggerate and inflate matters. Saturn is in the 11th house which includes groups and organizations and Jupiter is in the 8th house, which includes matters that are intense, transformational or involve shared resources. It also includes death and is usually involved for severe weather events. For Houston, this house is particularly sensitive to the Moon.

Thus, this T-square can easily be related to major storms and floods that damage structures of both a physical and societal variety with extreme impact on the infrastructure as well as the potential for loss of life.

The green lines that look like a big triangle is what is called a Grand Water Trine. I swear I’m not making this up. That is because the three planets involved are in Water Signs which include Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. The smaller green triangle on top of the big one, which makes the entire configuration look like a kite, ties the Sun into the Grand Trine. While this configuration is often favorable, all it really means is that the planets all communicate their energy well, so if that energy isn’t good, then the influence isn’t, either.

The glyph at the bottom of the Grand Trine, which looks like an old-style television antenna, represents Uranus. This is appropriate since Uranus is associated with technology. He is also related to surprises, unexpected events, upsets, rebellion, explosions, freedom and so forth. Uranus, in turn, is connected back to Neptune by an aspect that tends to denote friction. The implication is for numerous unexpected and disruptive events related to water. The main point here is that so many planets are connected such that when one is affected it will reverberate throughout making things a bigger deal than if they weren’t tied together.

If you’re wondering what the planet labeled “Pos” represents (probably not what you think), that’s the asteroid named Poseidon, also associated with water. We’ll get to him in a moment.

There are certain cosmic events that tend to have tremendous impact astrologically. One of those is eclipses, which are even recognized by stock market gurus as influential. Look it up some time. In March there were two eclipses, one a solar eclipse and the other lunar. The location of the Sun and Moon for the lunar eclipse was in a zodiacal degree that slammed Houston’s Neptune creating an astrological tsunami.

Neptune was aspected by the Moon and the Sun, both of which were in houses that typically indicate important events, which in this case include a lot of public attention and the property and residents of the city itself. Uranus, master of the unexpected and upsets, was involved as well. Part of the “You can’t make this stuff up” department, and why I love the asteroids in astrology, is that Poseidon’s current position is irritating Uranus PLUS opposite Houston’s Sun, kind of an “in your face” kind of aspect, to say the least.

Jupiter’s current location is at the top of the chart, which indicates major attention from the public, in this case worldwide.

You’ll note that the eclipse was March 23 while the flood didn’t occur until April 17, but eclipses set events in motion with their effects strong enough to last for months. The night the rain began that started this debacle, a few things had changed in the planetary configurations which were far from helpful.

This looks like a relatively quiet chart until you look a little closer. Out in space, Jupiter and the Moon were aligned and parked on Houston’s Mercury, which is all about news and movement. Neptune’s cosmic position was opposing them, making it a key player. The Moon is always important, but as noted earlier,it’s particularly influential for Houston’s ominous 8th house of death and such. So first there’s a lunar eclipse, now the Moon is stirring things up some more.

Holy guacamole! On top of all that, the asteroid, Poseidon, is in a different zodiacal sign but in the same degree as the natal chart, increasing his energy, plus he was cozied up to Neptune, so both mythological gods of the deep were in cahoots, too. Saturn, which relates to structure, as noted earlier, and Pluto, god of the underworld, were also combined in a malefic blast, though Venus did provide some intervention, enough to keep this from being a lot worse than it already was, such as the fact most of the rain came down overnight when less people were out, though Houston is definitely another city that never sleeps.

There are various other indicators in these charts that tie in even more of Neptune’s soggy influences as well as several others that I won’t go into, because I think I’ve made my point and there’s a good chance you didn’t even make it this far and if you did, your eyes have long since glazed over and you’ve set this aside for bedtime reading.

So be it. Once again, at least as far as I’m concerned, astrology has not failed me, if nowhere else in the domain of “What are the odds?” Poseidon, if nothing else, is the coup de grace, much as the asteroid, Marathon, was for the Boston Marathon bombing several years ago, where he was in a key location of the event chart.

You can’t make this stuff up.