Tuesday’s catastrophic earthquake that devastated Haiti, on the Island of Hispaniola occurred at a highly sensitive period of the year traditionally vulnerable to major disasters.

Around the turn of the year the Sun is aligned to the centre of our Galaxy and some believe the combined energy is enough to trigger enormous natural catastrophes.

Major disasters at this time of year are numerous. It will be remembered that the South East Asia Tsunami disaster occurred towards the end of 2004. This is widely believed to have killed at least 250,000 people. Only the year before the city of Bam in Iran was virtually obliterated with up to 30,000 fatalities. Better construction and organisation may well have limited loss of life, but there is an uncanny tendency for disasters to strike at this time of year. This is probably why towards the end of the year ancient societies abandoned their normal routine and instead resorted to unrestrained festivities, as a means of compensating for the disasters that may come their way.

It is also important to note that the Haiti earthquake came just days short of the New Moon. This in itself is a highly vulnerable period. For example at least eight of the strongest earthquakes of the last century have a definite New Moon connection. It illustrates, if ever it needed to be stressed how vulnerable we are to celestial conjunctions in a conjoined set of forces affecting Sky and Earth that are totally independent of human control.