The eclipse occurs at 5:55 PM August 5th PDT, with the Moon and Earth conjunct at 13 AQ 43; technically, the eclipse itself starts a few minutes after exactitude, but I think it’s reasonable to look at the moment of first contact, so here we are. And what do we see? No contact, using our strict two degree orb rule, except for a puzzling semi-square to the Ascendant (a ‘So what?’ position), and a sesquiquadrate to the Part of Fortune. But, if we stretch our rule just a hair (and what are rules for, if not to stretch hairs over), we finda Fist of God, with sesquiquadrates to the Part of Fortune and Ceres (aka Mother Nature).  Ah! Now a picture is forming.

Am I reaching, using the Part of Fortune? Depends on how you feel about the use of the Arabic Parts in general, I guess, but for an ‘occasion’ (or an event, as I’m guessing this will be) it seems appropriate. Using it allows us to have some fun (or to frighten the bejezus out of ourselves, depending!)

So, the chart I’ve drawn is for Seattle, my current hometown, and eclipse time puts Pluto at 00 Cap–what’s built is destroyed, disruption to the status quo–just inside the 1st at a late Sagittarius Ascendant, which makes a tight quincunx to the South Node–what’s happened before will happen again? or is it what’s been destroyed before, etc?–with Part of Fortune exact on the Descendant. Hmmm. Add the Nodes in crisis at 29 degrees, the aforementioned Fist of God, with component Ceres spanking new in Libra–nature, balance, out of balance, at 00–and Ceres square to Pluto–stability lost, Mother Nature disrupted–are we looking at an earthquake chart?

Now, I don’t like to make predictions, because I believe that nothing, absolutely nothing, is set in stone, nor do I want to whip my readers into a frenzy, or earn the epithet ‘Crazy Julie’; but this is an intriguing pattern, worth noting–and if nothing happens, all the better, or the earthquakes are personal or symbolic–I’d be glad to be wrong.

I don’t want to expect a disaster, but with these measurements I might anticipate one, and my own research has matched contact to the angles with earthquake activity–but of course, there are zillions of contacts to the angles all day long–it just seems that when an earthquake does occur, there’s significant, precise contact–so stay safe, West Coasters! And no matter how flamingly wrong I am about this, the post will stay up–just so we can all laugh about it on the 6th. (Typically, I feel eclipse possibilities last through to the following set of eclipses–so perhaps we’ll just have more activity than usual, through New Year’s Eve/January 2010)
Also see Jude Cowell’s excellent take here http://2hrsyulnvrgetbck.blogspot.com/2009/08/mystic-rectangle-lunar-eclipse-in-aq.html

Earthquake activity http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.html