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.
Marcha's Two-Cents Worth 