Mars turned retrograde on September 9. During its powerful station the day before, a wildfire devastated my Oregon hometown of Talent. I’m so fortunate my home survived.
The Almeda Fire raced from the highway into my town—down my very street. It came within 200 feet of my house! Thanks to the gods, the firefighters and the asphalt of Talent Avenue—the cross street one door down from me—they managed to turn the blaze away and steer it north, where tragically, it destroyed more than 600 homes. I have friends who lost everything.
Had the fire crossed to my side of Talent Avenue, it would have taken out the whole town. It’s such random luck to have bought my home on the west side—where now everything is just as it was the day before the fire—while on the east side, it’s nothing but ash and debris all the way to downtown.
Wildfires are an easy prediction for Mars retrogrades, especially when he’s in his home sign of fiery Aries. But is this actually useful to know? Mars goes retrograde every two years and most of the time, just like now, the majority of the world is fire-free.
I like to use astrology to read archetypes instead of making predictions. Archetypes are alive, like the deities the first astrologers worked with. Not just sky objects revolving on some mechanical wheel producing the same events again and again, they have agency. They’re creative. They write a slightly different script each time. Whatever occurs during significant transits is a message–an omen–a warning. It’s our job to read these signs–if we want to remain in a harmonious world.
To properly interpret mundane events, always look for confirmation of which god is speaking. If the Almeda fire is a Mars-driven omen, we should expect to see the people, qualities and things he rules involved in the story. Fire, heat, explosions are Mars; war zones, Mars; fire fighters, sheriff & police, air tanker pilots, emergency crews, all Mars; what’s wild and destructive, Mars; arsonists (so far at least one was arrested here), Mars.
Mars is a warrior. At his noblest, he’s destructive with purpose, serving the great organizer of civilization, the solar king. In Aries, Mars is also a trailblazer, a pathfinder. He takes point and identifies the smartest roads to our future.
The wind was crazy in my valley that night—the kind of wind that climate scientists have been predicting for years if we didn’t reverse our course. Wild weather is here. What’s the message? I think Mars is telling us that we’re running out of options. If we don’t work to save this planet like our lives depend on it—and of course they do—this is our destiny: a future of climate calamities around the world–wild floods, hurricanes, super storms, and of course, more fires.
How I spent evacuation night
My boxer Sophia and I sheltered in my car. Hotels were booked for 200 miles. I had to move four times as evacuation zones kept shifting. Earlier, in the late afternoon, I was heading to the post office when I saw the taillights of two long lines of cars, all going one way. I turned around. Down my street a police vehicle was broadcasting “All residents must evacuate!”
I grabbed my two computers and my iPad, some dog food, a jar of macadamia nuts, water, and my bathrobe. I’m neither daring nor adventurous (I have no Aries planets), but it just wasn’t in me to get stuck in what felt like a desperate, slow-moving herd. Instead I drove to the grocery store a mile away, closed because the power was out.
A quarter of the lot was full with others like myself. I decided I had enough time for Sophia and I to walk back home (they would have stopped my car), so I did that and got a few more things—3 books, a protective necklace, my phone charger, some vitamins, my yoga mat and props, something to sleep in, along with some underwear and socks. As I looked around the house, nothing else seemed important.
I became friends with the couple who live in the artsy house next to the grocery store. They let me use their bathroom. We watched as a mile away—near my street—thick black smoke started billowing in our direction. A cop drove by and said, “You’ll want to be leaving soon.” The wind kept blowing. There was a constant sound of pops and explosions; we figured, propane tanks and cars blowing up. There was a bright crackling sound too; likely, trees.
My new friends and I agreed we’d leave at the first sight of flames. A helicopter started making bucket drops on Talent Avenue. Air tankers began dropping their bright-pink flame retardant (that was a beautiful sight). Above one side of the road there was a line of raging black clouds—and above the other, my side, clear blue sky, not a wisp of smoke.
Then we saw the flames coming into the center of town. I headed out, met a cop who told me to go to the Expo in Central Point. The herd of slow-moving cars was long gone. I drove solo through the thick smoke. There were flames on either side of the highway. Familiar buildings were already in rubble; they looked like the burning ships on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.
Nearing the Expo I again saw the taillights of slow-moving cars. Astrologers typically advise to move more intuitively during retrogrades. That’s because the outer world is in chaos—logic can’t help you there. Intuition told me to park at the 24-hour truck stop; it had bathrooms, a grocery store, even a Subway sandwich shop. I felt like I was at the Ritz.
Later I learned the Expo had no facilities or services that night. It was just a parking lot which was soon filled to capacity and therefore closed, even as police kept sending people there. Apparently there were no other official emergency plans. Astrologers advise against launching important projects during Mars retrograde because action is often confused and ineffective. That night–and in the days following–there was a lot of that.
As grateful as our community is to the firefighters, the municipal teams (the local governments & agencies, sheriff & police departments) fell short in a thousand ways. Like–every month an Emergency Alert System interrupts my cable programming for a mandatory test; every 3 months or so, it tells me about a thunderstorm 50 miles away. But that night–and in the days following, when more fires and new evacuation zones were declared–not a peep.
I enjoyed the all-night truck stop–my Ritz–for a couple hours. Suddenly the manager locked down the pumps and closed the station. We were now in an evacuation zone. Even the once-lucky travelers with rooms in the fully booked hotel behind the truck stop had to leave. I had no choice but to join a long line of cars, going who knows where. I pulled off to spend a not entirely comfortable hour in another parking lot, where I figured out how to surreptitiously pee in a jar. After midnight, I had the intuition to get moving again.
The freeway going south was now open but deserted. I headed toward some familiar spaces in Medford when I saw the breathtaking sight of my neighboring town of Phoenix. It was completely dark as tall mountains of flames paraded from one end of town to the other.
I found a safe landing spot at a Medford Motel 6, in front of a beautifully lit pool and garden that looked like vintage 60’s. There was grass for Sophia to pee in. I was glad I brought my cozy robe. Out my window, even through the smoke, I watched such a sky show that night: first Jupiter, then the warrior himself, Mars; at the truck stop, a bright orange disseminating moon, rising, in the early morning, it was Venus. They were so comforting; it felt like the gang was watching over me.
I’ve never been good in emergencies. If it wasn’t for my meditation practice, I would have been a blithering idiot. I watched a documentary once about Allan Lokos, a meditation teacher who survived a plane crash in Myanmar. He recounted how, surrounded by smoke and ferocious flames, he and his wife never panicked. The calm inner mind you meet while sitting on a cushion–that mind took over. With unusual clarity they were able to chart a path through the flames and jump from the plane.
It was a little like that for me too. So calm. Not once did I worry and wonder if my house had burned down. I wasn’t making plans. Or thinking about what I’d have to replace. I was in the moment. It was a strangely spectacular night. That morning the Sanskrit word I randomly picked was marut: It means lightning and thunderbolts, roaring like lions; the flashing ones; storm gods; the children of heaven armed with golden weapons; wind, air, breath. * The force of Marut had swept into my valley with Mars.
In the morning my plan to pee at the nearby Walmart or Starbucks was foiled. Both were in a level 2 evacuation zone (I later learned, as this wasn’t posted anywhere), but it meant that nothing was open. I watched dozens of people sadly circle these stores and leave. My good spirits began to crumble. The day was going to be hot. I couldn’t drive around with Sophia forever. Intuition kept repeating the name of a friend in Medford–whose number I’d forgotten I had in my phone (me who prefers email and rarely calls or texts anyone). Generously MJ rescued me. As did so many others, all over the valley, who were opening their homes to fire refugees.
While the official people failed us at many turns, average citizens, through social media and other means became the heroes. They snuck into the fire zones and took videos of the streets, so that people could see whether or not their house survived (that’s how I learned my home was safe). They created go-fund-me pages, organized donation centers, and handed out food; neighbor helping neighbor. As heart-breaking as the loss and devastation are, the outpouring of support has been so heart-fueling. It’s an affirmation that love is real and people are basically good.
If only we can muster that same love to save our collective home, this blue jewel of a planet. May we find the marut inside to turn back climate change. Mars is rooting for us. “Wake up,” he says, “wake up!”
Coda: Marking how intuition speaks
The night before the fire, the Eastern winds were wilder than anything I’d ever known in 20 years in Southern Oregon. Thinking back to the Santa Ana winds of my California childhood, that morning at the dog park I told my friend Bill (without any sense of premonition), “It just feels dangerous today—like the kind of day when a fire could take down a whole neighborhood.” A week earlier, in the hall going to my bedroom, I had a brief sense of catastrophe—I saw emergency vehicles in the park behind my house. Maybe a future earthquake, I thought.
That’s how intuition speaks to me—not with clarity and precision, as in, “On Tuesday September 8 a wildfire will come up your street.” That would not be useful to me. What would I do with this info? Check my homeowners policy? Pack a go bag? Inform the authorities? We all know how things went for Cassandra.
As it is with many people, my intuition is softer and more mysterious, also more loving. I can see now that (along with the random Sanskrit word marut), she was gently conditioning my psyche, emotionally rehearsing me without alarming me, so that when it all went down—me being a mostly deer-in-the-headlights type–I could show up more quickly.
I often tell my clients to study the patterns of their own intuition. Like mine, yours reveals herself to you continually. She is a friend who is always near, if the crowded mind can just get silent (this is of course the primary benefit of meditation). Intuition affirms that we’re not alone in this life. There are always angels whispering in our ears if we but listen.
* From the wonderful Lorin Roche’s The Radiance Sutras, p. 182.
Dearest Dana, you have been on my mind continuously, and now I know why.
What an ordeal you are enduring! Yet despite the horror around you, you have demonstrated determination and trust in the Great Calm that exists in the center of every storm, and inside of ourselves.
Please know, I am offering my morning meditation practice to you, and to everyone affected by the wildfires. This practice has helped soothe my aching heart. To know that it will also send blessings to you and your friends & neighbors, makes it even more precious.
May you and Sofia continue to stay well and safe.
With love
So glad to hear you and Sophie are alright! And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom during the Mars retrograde. Your last post on going around our inner world was so inspiring. I was so looking forward to your recent one but in true retrograde fashion, didn’t see the fire story coming! Glad to hear your house made it out intact too. Sorry to hear about the town of Talent. Take good care
Oh Dana! How terrifying. I am so glad you are okay, and your little fur baby.
It is Beautiful that you were Blessed by the Gods and Goddesses present, That you had the ‘Sight’ of them. And followed the divine guidance within your own quiet Self/self.
I am hoping ~ as do you, as do so many of us , That within that Recognition and Love, within that Sacred Beauty ~ as you most eloquently expressed:
” As heart-breaking as the loss and devastation are, the outpouring of support has been so heart-fueling. It’s an affirmation that love is real and people are basically good. If only we can muster that same love to save our collective home, this blue jewel of a planet. May we find the marut inside to turn back climate change. Mars is rooting for us. “Wake up,” he says, “wake up!”so deeply for that .”
I Know This Can Be So. I am right there with you, The Healing Of This Holy Mother Earth ~ with these Gods/Goddeses who Dream This so, Who Are A Part Of Us, Who Know It.
Let It Be So. Blessings ~ to the many so in need. Blessings, to us all.
I just wish it did not need to be so hard, with so much suffering .
There Is So Much Love! it just ~ does not have to be this pathway of pain and despair.
stooooooopid
Thanks so much Dana for being able to share your harrowing journey in the moment and weave gifts of kindness, practicality, hope, heart’s guidance and intuition along the way….
Dear Dana,
Through the years of reading your articles, I have come to feel as if I actually know you.
I am so relieved to know that you and Sophia are okay and that your home survived.
Thank you for giving those of us on the East Coast such a breathtaking sense of the danger as well as the beauty of your experience.
May you and Sophia continue to be well and safe, my friend.
This has been my second wildfire.
2017 Sonoma County fire
2020 Southern Oregon
I lived through the same
experience…
4AM both times…running, smoke, tanks blowing up,
Lost a house…
October 9 2017
September 8,9,10….
It continues
My intuition saved me both times..
By myself with my dog…
Girls Rock Be Strong..
Wow Dana! Your journey/story is amazing and heart warming – so glad to hear you, your pup and home are safe!
Thank you for all your articles – especially this one – a great look at the living archetype of Mars.
WOW!! What a harrowing, amazing tale. I am so happy you and your home are safe. We here on the east coast have seen stories but nothing that compares with your eyewitness account. I have a friend here who is from Central Point and many of her family are still there. They are all safe too. I have been increasing aware of the failures of our so-called safety net and you confirm yet another another glitch. I think you are so right: we are being forced to rely on our intuition. Thanks for sharing your experience and your insights.
You are a courage woman and calm in the mists of a fire. I am happy for you. Doris
Your writing is reflects the inner focus you have and how well you trusted your intuition. This is a compelling story and helps me briefly share in your life and the difficulties you’ve experienced over the past few scary days. You are very brave and resilient. Much love from Maine- we are finally seeing haze in the skies here from the fires out West.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Being so far away from the fires it’s good to hear of a real live account and touching to hear that people are reaching out to help each other. I will keep spreading the word and encourage everyone to ‘wake up’ who’s ready to listen. Stay safe and so wonderful to hear your meditation practice has come into it’s fun glory. Blessings xxx
OMG – it sounds horrible. Reminding me on my childhood during the second world war in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. I was about 5 years old when I saw our house burnd down with my grandfather in it. Horrible memories.
Glad to read that you and your dog surviewed and that your home is still there.
I used to life in La Jolla long time ago, still have friends in Cal and Oregon and I feel with all of you during these fires every year. We all have to change our behaviors to keep this wonderful world alive.
Lydia
I’m so happy you’re safe Dana. Stay strong!
Thinking of you
Living through evacuations here in California, your writing of your experience touched a familiar chord. thank you for sharing your experience so generously, and may we all find a way to heal ourselves and the planet. Take care
Thank Goddess you are well and Sophie is well and your home. So much love from Michigan is being sent to you,
Beautifully written. Familiar circumstances here in Northern California
Best Wishes!
Oh my, Dana, I am grateful to see you here. I sent a private note, not expecting a reply but rather simply a message of care & concern. I concluded on my morning walk today, that you were indeed alive. Harried no doubt but alive and functioning. Thank you for telling your story. Thank you for being here among us!
Dana! I too am so glad you, Sophia, and your house are alright!! You have a very special point of view and insight that I take sustainence from. Thank you for sharing and doing all that you do.
I am so glad to read that you are all right and also glad to read about the gestures of kindness and support you received. Sometimes these horrific situations also bring out the very best in humans. I live in N Cal and have been watching the Woodward fire with trepidation. It’s an area I know very well as I’ve been volunteering there, at Point Reyes, for many years. Even now trees are still crashing and will probably continue to do so until we have rains and everything can be extinguished. More than 500 firefighters worked on it and due to their efforts there was no loss of human life or property. The landscape will recover in time as it always does. The western coast is taking a bashing. I wish you well in adjusting and recovering from your experience.
Awesome writing I’m so glad you’re safe indeed! It pays to have dialogue with the Gods. Thank you for sharing.
So glad you are safe Dana. And that others came to your rescue.
Dear Dana, It was somehow heart-warming and inspiring, despite the harrowing-nature of your experience, reading the description of your moments on 9/8 & 9. I am inspired by your grace in meeting the challenges and trust in the process, moving through moments that eventually lead to finding some semblance of safety and comfort with your friend. I am happy for you. I live in Ashland, OR and have been attracted to your writings and the “who” I interpret you to be from day one of discovering them. In gratitude for the truth I hear and feel in your words, Susanne
Blessed are you to still have your home. I woke up just before the flames hit my Paradise, Ca. house on Nov. 8, 2018, ran out with purse & PC. Awful experience.
Was in hotels for 3 months until I found a new home in Loveland, Co. We are all in this together.
Stand strong, as you always have been.
Bless you, Lelia … we’re in a strange club, aren’t we. I’m so sorry for what you went through.
I have a friend who lost everything in Paradise, only to move to Oregon and was close to having to evacuate. Luckily she didn’t but I know others who lost homes near Talent and in other parts.
Much of what you described, Dana, sounds like the Thomas Fire in Ventura. Some people had minutes to get out, no warnings. When the warning finally came, I was fortunate to be located in a place to have some time. I still ended up getting stuck in grid-locked traffic for 2 hours with 5 cats And nowhere to go.
Thankfully, the first responders were able to stop the fire before getting to my home and a friend in CT booked a hotel for me about 30 miles away.
We recently had a scare about a block away, I could hear the crackling you described before stepping foot out of my house.
I wasn’t very calm the first time and definitely was triggered this last time. Thank you for what you shared. If I ever have to face this again, I’ll work I’m staying in the moment.
I can relate, I can relate …
Glad you’re safe Dana, and you’ve got a place to go back to <3
Hi Dana..what breath taking account of an almost hell on earth, Dante’s Inferno event in your life If anyone knows about intuition and grace it is you. So relieved you made it out with Sophie to write this. Now I hope the state of California gets on board with following department of forestry guidelines for managing your glorious state. My heart breaks for the loss of habitat for wildlife too.
Thanks, Renell … it’s interesting, the states don’t actually manage the forests, the federal government does. Eighty percent of the forest in California is on federal property. I hope the feds get the message!
I’m so sorry but so glad you, and Sophia, are okay. And that you have the presence of mind, body and spirit to share your insights with us.
I’m so glad you’re alright, your house made it. I’m so sorry for Talent, though, your town, your community. I hope Pluto’s role in all this will rebuild something better. Mars burned so much down, but Pluto just might anoint all it touches with more than the current choking dust, but instead introduce a dust of sparkling change, the good kind. I wish for you the very, very best, Dana! (Pluto is doing some interesting stuff I notice in your chart…) God, I was so glad to hear you came out OK. I’d been watching your street all week and I saw the fire’s edge across from you, and I hoped, HOPED, the map was correct. Thanks for letting us know you’re OK – and the details, I loved!