Part 2

TORNADOES ON PENNSYLVANIA/NEW YORK BORDER

Figure 4, the chart for 7:05 p.m. EDT on May 31st 1985, when tornadoes struck along the Pennsylvania/New York border, killing 85 people, presents the same basic pattern with only superficial differences.

Mercury is here in his own Sign of Gemini, where he should be constructive and happy, but we already know from the case where the editor’s own trees were blown down, when he was in Libra, that he doesn’t have to be in detriment to cause damage. The point here is that he is the finger or pointer of an exact Yod figure with Pluto and Neptune. Strangely enough he is in the VIIIth House again, Pluto’s natural House. He is in this House in five of the eight charts the editor sent me.

Figure 4:

Pluto is 5° below the Ascendant and within 1° of an exact square to the Midheaven. Once again I regard that last fact as the timing pointer, showing just when the tornado would strike.

Venus does not conjoin Mercury in this case but she is semi-quintile to him and she is also the chart ruler since Libra rises. Moreover she herself is only 2° below the Descendant and as long as she is within orbs of that point she is in a position to ‘tune’ things. She will have been well within orbs for the whole period of the tornado strike. Note she is in detriment in Aries so she will have been the disgruntled planet in this case.

The Sun is the MC ruler and he conjoins Mercury weakly in the VIIIth House in Gemini, and like him he is also opposing Uranus. In his case a parallel strengthens the opposition. He is also parallel Neptune, one of the prongs of Mercury’s Yod figure. Finally—and very important—the Midheaven is parallel Mercury. This might be taken as strengthening a sextile aspect between them but really the parallel is the stronger aspect (comparable to a conjunction), and the sextile thus becomes only a back up or confirmation of it for as long as it lasts. Mercury’s wind power flowed through this Midheaven during the crucial moments of the tornado strike. It will have triggered both Mercury’s own Yod figure and also the opposition of Uranus to both Mercury and the Sun, the MC ruler.

A few moments of explosive, whirling chaos and then it was all over.

Figure 5:

FOUR TORNADOES

I will try to summarize the next four charts as much as possible.

That for March 28th, 1984 at 5:15 p.m. EST (Fig. 5) is for the first of 24 tornadoes which devastated 300 miles of the Carolinas. The one for May 12th of the same year at 5:25 p.m. EDT (Fig. 6) is for a sport which came up out of the usual tropical and subtropical belt up to latitude 42°42’ North where it touched down at the Altamont, New York fairgrounds, injuring eleven people.

It is interesting that Gemini is on the Midheaven and Virgo rises in both cases, making Mercury the ruler of both, and that in both cases Mercury is on or very close to the VIIIth House cusp at the end of the Sign Aries, with a closely dissociate opposition to Pluto right at the beginning of Scorpio. He had gone retrograde during the interval between the two charts for three weeks, from April 12th to May 6th, and then returned to almost exactly his original position. Thus it looks very much as though this is a test case in which the determining signs for a tornado were present in toto on March 28th (producing 24 tornadoes!) — so much so that when most of them reformed on May 12th another one appropriately manifested.

Just what were the signs?

They were everything we should by now be expecting.

Pluto was in the foreground both by virtue of being opposition Mercury and also because of a parallel to the Ascendant. Moreover in the March 28th chart he is the ultimate dispositor of everything else in it! Mercury of course is enormously accented as a result of both the Ascendant and the MC and he is in the VIIIth House again, Pluto’s natural House. Venus is not conjoined with Mercury but 2½° below the Descendant as in the PA/NY border case of May 31st, 1985. There she was in detriment in Aries. Here she is exalted in Pisces, but she is afflicted because she is involved in an angular square to Uranus from the Descendant to the IC.

The Midheaven is less than 2° from being square Venus, opposition Uranus and parallel to Uranus, Neptune and Jupiter. (Here Jupiter seems to have put his oar in just to multiply everything by 24. Note, he is in his Fall.)

Mars is also in on the act because the Moon is very closely squaring him from the VIth House to the cusp of the IIIrd, both of them natural Mercury Houses.

Why did everything happen just when it did? It seems strange that most of the aspects I have listed had just passed exactness. The MC was 1¾° past the square to Venus and the Ascendant had passed the opposition to her by 2½°. Similarly the MC was well past opposing Uranus and also beyond being exactly parallel Uranus, Neptune and Jupiter. The Moon had passed being exactly square Mars two hours previously. Only Mercury had 5° to go to complete becoming exactly opposite Pluto, but he wouldn’t do that for another four days. What triggered everything at exactly 5:15 p.m. local standard time?

My own belief is that everything really happened approximately six minutes earlier than the stated time. The Ascendant was then at 18°55’ Scorpio and exactly parallel Pluto. And the MC was exactly square Venus (and a little closer to being parallel Uranus, Neptune and Jupiter) In other words, I suspect it all happened at 5:09 p.m., not 5:15 p.m. But of course I can’t prove this. I merely think that with Mercury ruling both the Ascendant and the MC it is extremely likely.

On May 12th at Altamont, New York nearly but not quite all of the features of the chart we have just discussed were present again.

Mercury opposite Pluto was even closer—only 2° from exactness—and Mercury was just 7’ from being exactly conjunct the equal-house VIIIth cusp. And of course he ruled the Ascendant and Midheaven as before. Interestingly he is involved in a Yod figure with Fortuna and the Ascendant, focused on the Ascendant.

Figure 6:

There were if anything even more indications of violence than in the March chart. Thus the Sun in Taurus in the VIIIth House was only 2° from being exactly opposite Mars in Scorpio in the IInd, and Venus, also in the VIIIth, was exactly opposite Saturn. The chart is actually of a seesaw shape and the three VIIIth House planets, Mercury, Venus and the Sun, are almost exactly opposed by the three IInd House ones: Pluto, Saturn and Mars. Pluto is not the ultimate dispositor of everything as he was in the March chart but he is extremely strong, disposing of everything but the Sun and Moon who are disposed of by Venus in Taurus.

That last fact is possibly the key to the whole chart, for there is one enormously important thing missing in it — Venus is neither conjunct Mercury nor conjoined with any angle. In this it differs from the March chart and indeed from every other chart we have examined so far as well as from the two next to follow. Was this simply a weak tornado or did Venus resonate through the Sun and Moon? She is weakly conjunct the Sun (just over 8° from being exact) and Mercury is similarly 8° from being opposite the Moon.

There is one other possible explanation or solution. I think the timing of this tornado was correct and exact. The Midheaven has just become exactly sextile Mercury and at the same time exactly semisquare Venus. This could have been one possible route by which Venus was able to ‘tune’ Mercury. Appropriately enough the tornado touched down just then at a fairground where people were enjoying themselves.

Note Uranus is in the picture as usual, though less strongly and crucially than in most other cases. He is the central planet in an exact fan of semi-sextiles, precisely at the midpoint of Jupiter sextile Saturn. He is also parallel to both Jupiter and Neptune, as in the March chart. But there the Midheaven was parallel to all three — here only to Jupiter. Thus we see that as far as definitive tornado signs were concerned this was a milder chart, describing a milder tornado. Nevertheless there were enough of them there to prove that it was a tornado.

Apart from the first chart concerning a wind that uprooted a tree, which then fell and crushed four children, the last two charts are the only ones out of the eight sent by the editor where Mercury is not in the VIIIth House. In the first of them he is, even so, closely square Neptune there. It is the chart for 1:30 p.m. UT on April 19th, 1986 when two tornadoes came together, cutting a half-mile wide path of destruction. See Fig. 7.

Figure 7:

Most of the signs we have learnt to expect are there. The Midheaven is within 1° of being exactly square Pluto and also parallel to the Moon and Venus who square each other, the Moon exactly on the equal-house IVth cusp and Venus 3° above the Ascendant (the complement to her frequent position a similar distance below the Descendant). The Sun, who rules the IC and also the equal-house IVth cusp, has a dissociate opposition to Pluto. Both he and Mercury are in Aries and Mars, ruling the Sign, is in the VIIIth House conjunct Neptune and parallel Uranus 2° below the cusp of the House.

Signs of sudden trouble and destruction are there in plenty, therefore, though possibly, if this were the first chart you were examining, you wouldn’t directly see the connection with Mercury. With the hindsight coming from having seen the previous six charts, however, it should be clearly discernible. The rule goes like this:

Accent the VIIIth House and/or Pluto as much as possible. Connect Mercury with it or him and ally him with Venus or place her on an angle (usually the horizon). Get Pluto solidly into the picture with hard aspects and/or parallels. Finally, trigger everything with the MC, both by zodiacal aspect and by parallel. Uranus will usually help, too.

Looked at like this everything slots neatly into place in this chart. The timing comes from the MC square Pluto. Uranus is there too.

The last chart (shown as Fig. 8) for 1:55 p.m. EST on October 3rd, 1979 at Windsor Locks, Connecticut is for a Flash Tornado. It killed two, injured 300 and caused $200-million worth of devastation.

Figure 8:

Every sign is there precisely.

Venus is really making Mercury sing. She is conjoined with him in her own Sign Libra and intensely strong because she is the ultimate dispositor of everything else in the chart through it. She is also less than 2° from being conjunct Pluto with Mercury also involved, though she lies between them. All three are squaring the Ascendant from the equal-house Xth cusp.

The MC is both conjoined with and parallel to Uranus, which planet, precisely at the midpoint of Neptune sextile Pluto, is the second member of an extended fan of semi-sextiles all situated within the square between Neptune and Saturn, the Ascendant ruler. Uranus rules the IInd House — hence the material damage. (The Moon is also there widely opposing Saturn and square Neptune, i.e. a mutable T-square.) The suddenness of everything also comes from Uranus, and note how he has jumped the gun again. This is a precisely timed chart and the MC still has just over 3° to go to reach him, but Uranus wasn’t going to wait for that. This is an affect to expect always when timing by Uranus. Appropriately, this tornado was called a Flash Tornado.

The only thing we don’t get here is an obvious accent on the VIIIth House. Saturn is technically in it but only by the last 8’ of a degree for he is really on the IXth cusp. The Sun rules it and he too is in the IXth, in a very, very wide conjunction with Pluto, the VIIIth House natural ruler. Jupiter is the only planet solidly in the VIIIth, in detriment in Virgo but unafflicted by aspect. But with Pluto accented as intensely as he is in this chart (he even rules the MC!) the VIIIth House isn’t really needed.

Let us now summarize what we have learnt. Mercury is the planet of wind in general, not just of tornadoes. But the business of wind is to circulate the air and that word itself implies a turning, revolving movement. The endless processions of depression cyclones we constantly read and hear about are always enormous slow circular air movements. Nowadays we can actually see satellite photos of them on our TV screens as they are made visible by the cloud formations carried within them.

Finally there is the subject of resonance. A wind doesn’t necessarily have to be overpoweringly strong to cause sensational effects as long as it is steady, continuous and rhythmical. Then it can resonate with the individual vibratory keynote of rigid objects and enclosed spaces and the result can be devastating. Venus is the key to the resonance effect, either generally by means of being conjunct Mercury or by being on an angle at the time a tornado or any other guilty wind strikes.

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