Hurricane Katrina
The Fires of Earth are Stirring

Malvin Artley, astrologer and engineer, gives an esoteric picture of the devastation wrought on August 29, 2005, by Hurricane Katrina, in the light of Chinese astrology. The Gulf States of the USA have been smashed by a natural disaster of tremendous magnitude, for which the government – let alone the population – seems to have been totally unprepared. Malvin argues that this and other recent catastrophic events have been evidence that the planet is undergoing a great spiritual transformation.

Happy Father's Day, Everyone!

If the preceding greeting seems a bit odd or out-of-date, we celebrate Father's Day on the first Sunday in September in Australia. Like most of you, I have watched the unfolding events in New Orleans and the gulf states of the US due to the impact of Hurricane Katrina over the last week with a mixture of keen interest, profound disquiet and yet, a surreal sense of calmness.

Indeed, it is very unsettling to see the suffering (in fact, to have been feeling it for weeks in the lead-up to the event) and devastation splashed across the various media of the world. The mainstream media has done its usual bit to magnify the emotional components of the disaster and to pick on certain aspects of it to the exclusion of a balanced view. But, the most profound part of it for many has been the realization that the scenes depicted on the media are not from some third-world disaster the likes of which we see so often on the evening news. It is on our own/neighbor's soil. Those are our people. Those are also the same people who make New Orleans what it is in terms of culture and liveliness. They are a part of the soul of New Orleans. Yet, the situation is the same as we would find anywhere else in the world where a similar sort of thing could have happened, regardless of the fact that it has occurred in the richest, most powerful nation on Earth.

In the coming days there will be a great many truths made abundantly clear to the people of my country once the shock has worn off. This is another wake-up call, folks, and if we thought this was a one-off, we had better think again. This is not doom-saying. I simply feel obliged to report what I see in the heavens and sense within. The reasons I say all this will be explained in due course. In the coming days there will be many astrological interpretations of the disaster, and they will more than adequately explain what has happened in western terms. In this letter I will give the astrology from the Chinese perspective. Some of the symbolism is amazing, as we will see. But, to begin with it may be helpful if we take a wider view of the situation, especially from an understanding of the subtle energies involved.

The Fires of Earth are Stirring

How shall we state this?............. The Fires of the Earth are stirring. What does this mean to us, though? We equate a lot of what is happening with regard to the extreme weather patterns we have noticed in recent years to “global warming” – re: greenhouse gases and the like. But, there is a more powerful “engine” at work here, and it lies deep in the bowels of our planet itself. The greatest disasters to come will be caused not by humanity's folly, but by the internal heat of the planet as an entity as it seeks to balance itself and evolve. For those readers who have been following this sequence of articles for a while, it might be a good idea to read back through America After the 2004 Elections to keep the overview in mind of what is to be discussed with regard to the US. As was stated in that article, the US is set to undergo some major trials and testing in the coming years – if not in the coming months. The western chart of the US shows this rather clearly. It matters little which chart is used for the interpretation. They all show similar, if not the same, stressors. These trials will be of an initiatory nature and will eventually bring through the Soul of the nation, not that it is not there already. It will, however, be drawn forth in fullness – and soon. I had stated that the major trials for the country will be economic, and what we will see as the economic fallout from the New Orleans disaster will give an indication of how those financial difficulties will come. But, we are talking about Fires here.

I use the upper case “Fire” to indicate a spiritual force. That force will manifest physically as increased heat throughout the planet. It is the latent fire (planetary kundalini) at the base of the spine [base center or chakra, or its correspondence in a planetary sense] that is being stirred into activity as we watch all these world events unfold. There is a great, beneficent Being called the Manu who governs these sorts of activities. We have been told of earth changes to come from many quarters, and they will happen, though the timing and magnitude stated by those sources varies. We should keep in mind, though, that all of these things are cyclic, that they have been before and will come again, that humanity has survived them all and will do so this time, that they will change things for the better and that they all occur in accordance with great Laws of Nature of which we have little comprehension. All this is due, in the end, to a Divine impulse. Yes, God works in mysterious ways. But, we should also be mindful that anything that happens on a planetary scale also works at the individual scale as well. “As above, so below.” as the saying goes. We have all heard before that our evolution is being brought forward a notch. The “spiritual bar is being raised” and we have to move with it. It is not simply the stars, the change of the ages or the subjective cycles that are knocking us about. It is the spiritual force of the planet itself and thus of our own higher selves as well, for we are all cells in the body of the planetary Being.

The process we are beginning to go through now has been beautifully described as follows:

“When the kundalini fire at the lowest or root charka begins to ignite, the awakened serpent fire loosens the chakra tension in its atom-center point or hub. With right willing and dedication, the Muladhara [base chakra]....begins to move slowly into clockwise action, setting free the initiatory responses in the heart chakra. Many tears are shed in this time-until the emotional or desire nature is cleansed. Much feeling of mental inadequacy is experienced; one's sense of over-self-confidence is deflated. .........If [in this time] there be a single samskara seed of hatred, separateness, greed, envy or pride, this must be transposed through death to the little self [note that this does not necessarily-nor often-indicate a physical death], that the heart may freely reside within the resurrecting Will and Power of God.”

– Kundalini West by Ann Ree Colton pp 119-121

The actions of Mercury and Mars in the horoscope of an individual or nation, especially through solar arc or secondary progressions, will show the stirring of the kundalini Fire. The Sibly chart for the US shows this strongly in the solar arc progressions for the nation in the coming months.

In part two of this article, Malvin Artley notes that there has been speculation as to whether New Orleans is one of the major energy centers for the US. Is this the opening of the US chakra system, allowing the birth of a kundalini awakening? Read part two and find out!

Click to read part two of Hurricane Katrina