Lisbon

After an intensive workshop in Spain, I got a free weekend which should be used properly. I came to Portugal to see Lisbon – mainly to add yet another item to my list of visited places. My opinion was rather stereotyped: Portugal sounded as provincial Europe, a bit outdated and not too wealthy. Only after landing, in the airport, the poster slogan reminded me: this country once ruled half the world.

Portuguese invented caravel and advanced naval techniques which allowed them to travel to Latin America, Africa, China, India, and Japan. Their influence is still there, from language in Brazil to music in Cabo Verde. Their architecture and crafts are amazing, just look at the photos - Jeronimos monastery:

with wonderful inner garden:

and amazing interior:

or Monastery de Sao Vincente de Fora with incredible oak and marble masterpieces:

and Portuguese tiles:

In a church, I counted six types of marble used for decoration:

And these are just few fragments of the great beauty which was destroyed in devastating earthquake, tsunami, and following fires on November 1, 1755, when 85% of the city buildings were crashed, and about 150,000 died.

The Lisbon chart of great conjunction in 1742 indicates the coming disaster:

with ruler of ascendent Mars in fall on IC.

Closer to the event, the Sun ingress to Libra in 1755, which shows seasonal events, has the same detrimented Mars, again ruling ascendent and placed in 8th house of death:

Finally, the chart of the new Moon preceding the earthquake has detrimented watery Mars in 4th house – this is the bottom of the chart, describing the ground, the shake and the water:

The earthquake started with detrimented Mars in 8th house (ruling 4th house):

Look what is happening to midheaven in this chart. It has a combination of Moon and Jupiter (afflicted by wide square with Mars) - Jupiter rules ascendent, and Moon rules 8th house of death. Still, the combination with angular benefic is benevolent enough to symbolise protective power. This is interesting, especially if we look at the ruler of midheaven which is detrimented Venus in 11th house. The ruler is weak, but there is another force which is capable to substitute it and to diminish the disaster. Who were they, the ruler and the substitution? The ruler was King Joseph I of Portugal who by chance was away from the city that day. The ruling power was Marquis of Pombal
who said “Bury the dead and feed the living”. Guess the sun sign of this pragmatic gentleman. Right, he was Taurus:

This outstanding politician not only restored the city in short time after the earthquake, but also implemented seismically-protected design of new buildings (world’s first earthquake protection, tested by marching troops). Despite the disaster, there were no following epidemics, and the order in the city was perfectly preserved. Marquis of Pombal also designed a survey sent to every parish of the country to ask about unusual behaviour of animals prior the earthquake, changes in wells waters, etc. In fact, this was a valued contribution to seismology.

It is rather late to predict the Lisbon earthquake, but one can clearly see it in the above charts.

Thinking about the dramatic event which certainly broke down the city, I was walking in the hilly streets, gazing at survived buildings and artefacts. Near the city castle I heard a nice song in open-air theatre. This was famous Teresa Salgueiro, whose singing helps to understand roots of art of another performer, Cesaria Evora.

In two days, I fell in love with Portugal, with language, with people who live there. What a great civilization...