Cerberus and Charon, gatekeepers to the underworld and land of the dead, are the chosen names for the life-threatening heat waves blasting Europe and elsewhere. Man-fuelled climate change may be a partial cause but before melting into a frazzle of anxiety about the end being nigh it is instructive to look at wiki’s list of heat waves over the centuries. They are not exactly new events. 1913 saw the hottest record temperature ever in California’s Death Valley at 57C which the present spike is likely to equal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves
Astrology and weather forecasting are not well-aligned but looking back over notable heat waves and droughts in the past – for some there are astrological parallels.
1913 had Pluto square the North/South Node axis with tr Neptune trine/sextile.
This year tr Pluto is also square the North/South Node axis; and is trine Uranus, sextile Neptune.
Previous highlighted droughts:
1540: Neptune conjunct North Node trine/sextile Uranus opposition Pluto.
1743: Neptune trine Pluto conjunct the South Node.
1757: Neptune conjunct North Node trine Pluto and opposition Saturn with Pluto square Uranus.
1896: North Node opposition South Node square Uranus (Saturn) with Neptune trine the South Node.
Those are only a few. The Nodal connections seemed to be markers which means the Eclipse charts will be a guide. Pluto is in there for some adding a mega-factor. And Neptune in its hallucinatory, heat-haze, not watery guise, adds a layer of panic.
Any additional thoughts welcome.
There may be a climate science research astrological pattern too. It’s something to experiment with, I’ve just looked a a few things. Research from Imperial College says that “Scientists started to understand the greehouse gas effect from the 1820’s.”
1820 begins with a powerful mutable pattern: Saturn conjunct Pluto, 25 Pisces, square Uranus 25 Sagittarius, and Neptune 28 Sagittarius (Sagittarius – Jupiter – gas!). Nodes are in Aries.
John Tyndall, a climate scientist, did important work on CO2 and water vapour, announced in 1859. In January, Neptune was 22 Pisces. Uranus 29 Taurus in January, Pluto 5 Taurus would go on to square Saturn in Leo that June.
John Tyndall was born on 2 August 1820. He has the Uranus/Neptune square Pluto of the year. But also, he has Mars 26 Virgo, Jupiter 22 Pisces, and Nodes 23 Pisces.
By 1958, Dr Charles Keeling’s work showed that CO2 levels were rising. March 1958 has Saturn 24 Sagittarius. Pluto is 0 Virgo, and there’s Uranus in Leo square Neptune in Scorpio.
The first accurate computer model of Earth’s climate came in 1967. January has Saturn 24 Pisces, opposing Uranus 24 Virgo. Pluto 20 Virgo, Neptune 23 Scorpio. Chiron is 22 Pisces.
The later mutable degrees could be significant, starting with that intense pattern in January, 1820. But as I say, one for experiment and research. Climate change science, rather like the first electric vehicles, has been around since the 19th century……Neptune, Saturn and eventually the Nodes in Pisces may bring new, helpful developments.
Thank you Marjorie for your insights and allowing discussion on this issue. For decades poorer countries have been feeling the effects of extreme weather. Now that Western populations are being affected maybe there will be serious change. I read just recently how insurance companies are leaving Florida as they don’t want to have to pay up in the wake of severe hurricanes hitting that state so hard and much more regularly than in previous decades. Will extreme weather make us more inhumane. Texas troopers are claiming they were instructed during this heat wave to throw children into the Rio Grande and to refuse water to migrants. (Today’s Guardian)
The frequency and intensity of extreme weather is not only unmistakable, it has huge implications for the migration of people and other creatures and huge implications for plant life. The political, moral and ethical implications of this will not be solved with imprisoning refugees in barges off the coast of Britain or the rich moving to New Zealand. This has a direct bearing on the entire ecosystem from the ocean floor through the ozone. I hope Pluto in Aquarius can help us to respect our place in the scheme of life rather than continue to abuse it.
Astrology can explain timing but these patterns are clearly beyond the normal
fluctuations and have been noticeably so for at least 15-20 years that I’ve lived here in the Northeast US (which is thankfully not as hot as other parts of the country), in small and large ways: insects never seen before, increasingly regular flooding, the growing necessity for an A/C (never in the past), warmer winters.
Same with France, where I used to live and often returned to.
Down in Florida (a state I avoid) waters are now in the 90s F, and risk bleaching all the coral.
It’s gotten to the point where more people are forced to notice there is something wrong and the media actually covers it (tho still too little – far away changes in the Arctic and Antarctic are truly terrifying for the entire planet).
I can’t imagine what people who live in more extreme environments – in the far north, or in the heat of, say, New Delhi, are experiencing.
Maybe next year won’t be quite as warm, tho the average temperatures will continue to climb over time, whether for natural or astrological reasons.
But the hope is that people everywhere begin to realize what inaction, or doubling down on our current lifestyle, means in practical terms, here and now, not some theoretical future they can conveniently ignore. Isn’t that, after all, the best that astrology can offer – understanding and the possibility, maybe, of acting with wisdom
Yet the Romans planted vineyards in the midlands in the UK and Australia recently reported growth in the Great Barrier Reef. I have no doubt that the climate is changing, has changed and always will. My father was born in Calcutta in 1936 and moved to Bombay when he was 5. In the summer between noon and 5pm, he and his 4 siblings were not allowed outside as temperatures regularly exceeded 50 degrees Celsius.
There is no doubt about rising temperatures but for the U.K. where I live there is not really a lot of evidence that the weather has got more extreme in other ways. The incidence of summer thunderstorms caused by Spanish plumes has actually declined
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/15/losing-our-thunder-why-the-uk-is-seeing-fewer-thunderstorms
There is not much sign of increased wind speeds either so far according to the Met Office though rainfall amounts have increased slightly.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/2021/recent-trends-and-future-projections-of-uk-storm-activity
As far as flooding is concerned the main anthropogenic cause in Britain is developers building new housing on vulnerable flood plains rather than global warming.
Thanks Marjorie, a very fascinating post. I agree with Hugh, having now looked at a few heatwaves of the past and seen the Nodes involved for each of them. What I also noticed is Black Moon Lilith, or the Lunar Apogee appearing too. Currently it is in Leo, square Uranus.
July 1757 – BML 27 Cancer, trine Uranus 23 Pisces. Paris reaches 37.5C.
July 1808 – Nodes 20 Scorpio, Saturn 15 Scorpio, trine Jupiter 17 Pisces. BML 1 Taurus opposing Uranus 0 Scorpio. This UK heatwave had a big impact, and it reached 37C in Suffolk.
July 1858, heatwave summer of the Great Stink in London. BML 25 Sagittarius square Neptune 24 Pisces. The Nodes in Pisces were sextile Pluto in Taurus, square Jupiter in Gemini.
August 1911 – temperatures hit 36.7C in London. Jupiter was conjunct the S Node in Scorpio. BML 25 Sagittarius opposing Pluto in Gemini.
23 June 1976 – peak of a very hot heatwave summer and severe drought in the UK. Nodes 11 Scorpio, tucked in between Neptune 12 Sagittarius and Pluto 8 Libra. Quite symbolic is the Mars 21 Leo square Jupiter 20 Taurus for all that sun-baked earth. BML in 26 Aries moves to closely trine Mars 25 Leo by the end of June.
I wish the media would take in some history, and look more closely at how extreme weather events have increased in frequency, rather than behaving as if nobody has ever seen them before. People tend to just switch off in the face of all the hysteria.
I think it is very likely the other way round given the science and clear trends: astrological events maybe partially responsible but human interference is cleat.
Astrologically one of the clearest climate catastrophes impacting Europe was in the period 1310-1320 when the average temperature dropped 2C in a little more than a decade leading to a terrible famine in 1314-17. Ironically the preceding years from 1304-1306 had been marked by extreme heat and droughts which impacted not just Europe but the Middle East as well. In those years the north node transit was through Sagittarius into Scorpio where they first squared Pluto in late Aquarius before conjoining first Neptune and then Uranus in Scorpio. The shift to a wetter colder climate in the next decade coincided with Pluto moving into Pisces. In 1314 at the beginning of the years of famine the north node was in Gemini and opposed Uranus in Sagittarius. The north node then moved by transit to square Pluto in Pisces and then into Taurus to oppose Neptune in late Scorpio.
I think the Nodes are definitely markers for climatic events based on that 14th century evidence
Pluto in Aqaurius and the nodes in Aries\Libra could indicate potentially hot, windy condition then?
Hugh – wasn’t there a volcanic eruption early 1300’s?
There was a massive eruption at the Samalas volcano in Indonesia in 1257. It is now believed to be linked to medieval mass graves found in London which originally were wrongly thought to have been associated with the Black Death but were later dated to about 1258
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/aug/05/medieval-volcano-disaster-london-graves
The event is too early to be linked to 1315-17 famine
I know nothing of astrology, my thoughts are more earth-bound (good Virgo that I am)
The concern with heatwaves, cold waves, flooding etc is not that they have never been seen before, but that they are occuring with ever increasing frequency.
Headlines screaming “39 degrees” seem bizarre to me – it’s been 38-40 in the south of France and presumably elswhere routinely for the last 10+ years. Newspapers just need headlines.
But: Paris saw 42 degrees 4 years ago – unheard of, but will be heard of again; the UK had 40 recorded somewhere last year – again, unheard of, but will come again.
I fear the fear-mongering shrieks of the press right now does little to aid climate change awareness, and probably serves ultimately to undermine claims of scientists around the world.
And I do believe that unless governments around the world really start to take things seriously and act accordingly, many of us are probably doooooomed.