The late-season hurricane formed in the Caribbean in the last
full week of October. It skirted the Florida coast on Thursday night, with the
eye 200 miles out to sea. I live near the ocean and the wind was whipping,
shaking trees and rattling windows. Friday night, I headed for the beach and
gawked at the 10-20 foot waves. By now the hurricane was well to the north, but
still out to sea, and yet to make its leftward turn. The weekend
passed and the storm slowly chugged on as residents in the most populated
region of the country prepared to hunker down.
The eye hit landfall at about
8.00 pm on Monday October 28, at Atlantic City, NJ. Twenty hours later, the
damage has been incalculable. Currently, thirty-three people are dead, over
seven million are without power, and the estimated economic loss is $20
billion. With a wind span of over 1000
miles, the hurricane merged with two other cold weather systems, and has been called
the storm of the century.
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What was
happening astrologically? Even non-astrologers were fearful of the effect of
the full moon on the height of high tide. In New Jersey, the eye came ashore
two hours after the lunation, and one hour before high tide. Levees were
breached and the flooding was massive. Neptune, the planet symbolizing the
ocean and massive quantities of water, is retrograde at 0°24 Pisces, strong in its own sign. It
is in its degree of station, essentially standing still and exerting an
influence much stronger than usual. Mercury, the planet symbolizing wind, is
also about to station. At 0°37 Sagittarius, Mercury is in detriment and within minutes of
exact square to Neptune. More importantly, both planets are in hard aspect to
the solar eclipse of May 20, 2012 at 0°20 Gemini. Mercury is opposite the eclipse point, while
Neptune is square it. Eclipse degrees are sensitive and remain sensitized over
time; when they are aspected, large scale events happen.
In addition,
in declination, Mercury at 23S09 was on its way out-of-bounds. Planets outside
the defining limits of the ecliptic, are, according to Paul F. Newman, extreme,
wild and magnified. And there, out-of-bounds, Mercury would find Mars (23S46),
adding energy and fuel to an already potent mix. Also in declination, Pluto,
the planet of death and destruction was parallel the North Node, and the dark
planet manifest outwardly on the physical plane. At the time of the event (and
perhaps timing it), Jupiter, retrograde and in detriment, was on the event Ascendant
opposite Mars in Jupiter’s sign, on the Descendant, which expressed as extreme
vitality and energy that was without balance, temperance or moderation.
Having
lived through at least six major storms since living in Florida, I feel for
those with without electricity or water and with damaged houses and flooding. This
isn’t an anomaly though. As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, ‘We get the
storm of the century every two years.’ Climate change has brought extreme
weather. And yet, not one word during
this whole ugly presidential campaign about global warming, or an ocean that is
5-9° warmer than normal.