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Washington
state residents recently observed the twenty-year anniversary of the devastating
eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the most destructive volcanic eruption ever
recorded in the United States. In awesome astrological synchronicity,
the names “Washington” and “Helen” were literally written in the stars
when the volcano roared to life.
The
Mountain God Awakes
In
the early morning hours of Sunday, May 18, 1980, most people in the communities
immediately surrounding Washington's Mt. St. Helens had been evacuated.
Local earthquake activity had been increasing sharply in force and frequency
since March of that year, and seismologists predicted an imminent eruption.
Part of the Pacific Northwest's Cascade Mountain Range, the beautiful,
symmetrical "Little Fuji," named for its likeness to the famed Japanese
peak, had long been the pride and playground of local residents, vacationers,
campers, hikers and nature lovers. Deserted, the mountain trembled and
threatened, while a few loggers and brave onlookers calculated how best
to get away when the mountain finally went off.
 Suddenly,
at 8:32 am, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake opened a vent in Mt. St. Helens,
and the north face of the mountain began a massive landslide, the largest
in recorded history. In a 24 megaton lateral blast, searing gas, ash and
pulverized rock exploded out, vaporizing people, animals, roads and forest,
and devastating over 230 square miles of Washington’s
most beautiful country. The eruption continued for more than nine hours;
and when it finally stopped, rivers of mud and rock flowed through a wasteland
as stark and lifeless as an alien landscape. Lightning flashed in a sky
darkened by the resulting giant mushroom cloud. Outlying cities were covered
in flowing mud and a drift of gray ash, and very little was ever found
of anyone or anything near ground zero. Fifty-seven people lost their
lives.
Lord
of Destruction
Astrologers
cast charts for people, places and even corporations, but charts of events
can also be quite revealing. By looking at the relationships of certain
planets, and their placement in the chart (houses), we can get an idea
of the influences present at the time of any event. Earthquakes and volcanic
activity have long been associated with the planets Uranus (shocking,
sudden) and Mars (explosions, violence), and so one might expect to find
these two planets prominent—perhaps in the earth signs of Taurus, Virgo
or Capricorn—in a chart cast for the time and place of the Mt. St. Helens
eruption. What we actually find there is much more revealing of the true
nature of the event, and quite eerie.
Mars
in Virgo and Uranus in Scorpio are indeed heavily involved in the action,
each in a stressful angle to the Sun in Taurus on that day, suggesting
sudden violence involving transformational (Scorpio) matters relating
to the earth (Taurus, Virgo). Even more interesting, we find the planet
Pluto, lord of destruction and transformation and linked to atomic explosions
and massive violence, in the Fourth House of the chart, signifying finality
and an end to the matter. The First House of a chart, or Ascendant, is
one of the most telling and important areas in a horoscope, describing
the physical and material aspects of the person or event, and here we
find the Moon, often acting as a timer for events because of its swift
motion, in sharp conflict with Pluto.
What’s
in a Name?
These
observations are provocative enough by themselves, but in this case, there
is something more profound. Two asteroids, discovered and named long ago,
were located right next to the Moon and the Ascendant by sign and degree,
heavily involved in the conflict with Pluto. Their names? None other than
“Washingtonia” and “Helenos.”
Asteroids—floating
chunks of rock in our solar system—are named by the people who discover
them, usually astronomers. They are most often named after things like
loved ones or favorite places, and they have an uncanny way of showing
up decades and even centuries later in the astrological charts of important
people and events. Astrologer Jacob Schwartz provides astonishing examples
of this phenomenon at his web site, where he tells us of the asteroids
involved in events like the death of Princess Diana. In fact, this is
a common occurrence that is easily verified and seems to defy rational
explanation. Schwartz believes that the asteroids have their own vibrational
frequencies, and that the people who name them somehow tune into this.
This is suggestive of an incredible intelligence and synchronicity in
our universe that we are just beginning to comprehend; a sublime mystery
stunning in its possibilities.
Out
of the Ashes
Today,
twenty years later, the forest is beginning to regrow, the animals and
people have come back, and several new lakes created by the eruption are
being studied in an unprecedented opportunity to observe the growth of
new life out of total destruction. Mt. St. Helens looks different, but
it is just as majestic, beautiful and alive as it ever was. If Pluto represents
death and destruction, it also represents the miracle of rebirth and reminds
us that life is tenacious, and in keeping with natural cycles, it will
renew itself even in the face of annihilation.
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