If you were expecting some kind of sun sign nonsense, forget about it. This is real astrology for the real world, not some mystical mumbo-jumbo psycho-babble word salad. If it's real astrology for yourself that you want, you can get it by phone or in print. And if you need help deciphering the astrological glyphs in the graphics accompanying this article, see Astroglyphs: Astrological Symbols Guide. Please note: this forecast is expressed in terms of Universal Time (UT, aka GMT). Also please be aware that, while I never change a forecast once it's published, I do post errata to acknowledge typographical errors and the like.

PLEASE NOTE: This month’s forecast incorporates elements of (and refers to) my complete 2013 World Forecast Highlights (31 8-1/2 x 11” illustrated pages), focused, amplified and elaborated with details for the month as appropriate. If you’d like your own copy of the full 2013 World Forecast Highlights, it’s available in hard copy by mail ($75) or as a PDF document by email ($50). Orders may be phoned in (toll-free from anywhere in North America to 800-527-8761) and charged to any major credit card. PayPal orders may be placed direct from your own PayPal account page to rnolle@astropro.com – or by using the AstroPro PayPal order page.

I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.
-- Audrey Hepburn
 

The "acceleration in the flow of time and events starting this month" promised in my April forecast has already begun, clearly. From the outburst of danger and violence beginning within days of the April 18 Sun-Mars conjunction, a rash of the "fires, crashes, clashes and explosions" so typical of Red Planet alignments is obviously well underway. It continues into May, with Mars first opposing Saturn on May 1 and then partaking of the May 10 solar eclipse stellium in Scorpio – with Uranus and Pluto hovering less than a degree from their May 20 exact quadrature all the while.

If you’re looking for safe and dull, these Red Planet triggers guarantee that it’s still some distance away yet. Stay safe, get a grip; steer clear of conflict if you can. (And if you can’t, then get in a knock-out punch at the get-go.) Remember that strong Mars factors, particularly when amplified by eclipses as happens this month, don’t show up only in the headlines. They manifest in our own heads. Feeling irritable, frustrated and impatient – particularly if there are important fixed sign factors in your natal chart (most especially Taurus and Scorpio) - is the course of least resistance under the aegis of this month’s Mars factors. Be mindful of this, lest you get carried away by it and do things in haste you’ll regret later. Stubbornness, arguments, bellicosity and outright fights, road rage and worse: that’s what we’re facing if we don’t get a grip and stay focused – on and off all month, but most especially around the 1st, 10th and 25th. Watch the headlines, you’ll see plenty of evidence of this, in the form of criminal violence; also big fires and explosions - some due to carelessness, but others by design.

By far the biggest bang associated with this combination of Mars opposing Saturn, the solar eclipse and the Uranus-Pluto square will be collective in nature; that is, conflict rooted in ideological and socio-economic strife. People who have been dispossessed by upheaval in the financial system, and then get hit again with austerity programs that cut their meager safety line to shreds, refuse to go quietly.

From demonstrations and riots in the streets of major cities around the world, to Arab Spring-style outright revolt and civil war (such as we’ve seen in places like Egypt and Syria), this was all predicted in my forecasts over the past several years. Economic dislocation has been central to this trend, even in the Arab Spring uprisings – which began when national governments ended subsidies for food and fuel. In Europe and America, rage took to the streets to protest taxpayer bail-outs for wealthy, powerful corporations and people. These trends have been ongoing

Since the 2008-2010 oppositions from Saturn to Uranus and from Jupiter to Saturn, which heralded paroxysms in the global financial system, and political responses to that crisis, every major Mars alignment in the sky has been accompanied by more strident – and often quite violent – protestations by the 99%. With the onset of the 2012-2016 Uranus-Pluto square, there’s been an increasing radicalization of the masses; to the point that it borders on outright revolution – and spills over in many countries, e.g. throughout the Arab Spring countries, and most especially at present in Syria.

With Uranus and Pluto holding within a few degrees of their May 20 square all month (and well into June 2014), spasms in the global financial system will continue to be much in the news – and you’ll see strong reactions from Wall Street to the streets of major world cities, where the dispossessed angrily protest their lowered circumstances. This month, watch the period around May 1-16 in particular, as far as this goes: from the Mars-Saturn opposition on the 1st through the solar eclipse on the 10th (in effect through the 17th). Remember, the Cypriot bank closures and account confiscations are only one alternative manifestation of what’s been happening in all countries around the world since the Saturn-Uranus opposition of 2008. The citizenry of all nations have been pillaged in one form or another, through taxes or inflation or outright confiscation. It’s not over yet, but it really chafes under these Uranus-Pluto squares. Ask the folks in Cyprus. And again, remember: FDR did pretty much the same thing in the US back in the 1930s, under the aegis of another Uranus-Pluto square.

The above-mentioned Mars-Saturn and solar eclipse factors represent an intensification of the ongoing Uranus-Pluto square – the kind of intensification that’s likely to manifest as violent protests in the streets as well as panics in major equity markets. But in between these sharp outbursts, there’s still an ongoing, underlying process of stress and change in political and economic systems around the world. As I’ve written many times already in my forecasts, the worst isn’t even behind us until 2016, and the salad days won’t be here again until after the 2020 Great Chronocrator (Jupiter-Saturn conjunction).

Speaking of markets, there’s a lot of vulnerability to a sudden correction this month, especially around the eclipses on the 10th and 25th. I don’t see another sustained bull market getting underway until late this year (around the time the next Venus Max cycle begins in November). With apologies to my “gold bug” friends, the beautiful yellow metal is no answer. As I’ve been telling my clients all year, gold is dead money in 2013. It takes off again in late spring-early summer next year. Meanwhile, silver (and copper) should start looking attractive again late in the spring of this year.

May is shaping up to be the most geophysically active month of the year to date. We’re talking a thicker than usual run of strong storms with high winds and heavy precipitation (big flood potential), plus a rash of moderate-to-severe earthquakes (Magnitude 5 and up), as well as volcanic eruptions. Tidal extremes too: much higher than normal tides, especially around the 2th. Any new or full moon ups the ante for these kinds of disturbances, but May features a couple of special cases. One is the first solar eclipse of the year, the new moon on the 10th. The second is the first SuperMoon of the year, which also just happens to be a lunar eclipse; namely the full moon on the 2th.

Let’s face it, our home planet is a fairly active place. There are storms and earthquakes somewhere every day. But there are some celestial alignments that up the ante for such geophysical disturbances. For example, even a normal new or full moon is an alignment of Earth, Sun and Moon that regularly stirs higher than normal tides in the atmosphere, seas and crust of our home planet. Likewise the Moon’s monthly cycle includes other extremes that raise the storm and seismic risk; for example, the Moon’s perigee (closest approach to Earth, like the one on May 26), and lunar declination peaks and crossings (May 5, 12, 19 and 26). The most extreme alignments of all are eclipses and SuperMoons (new or full moons at or very near lunar perigee). The train of 2013 eclipses started with the partial lunar eclipse last month (on the 25th), and the SuperMoon train starts this month with the lunar eclipse on the 25th. Batten down the hatches: every one of these periods indicates an unusual level of severe storm activity (damaging winds and heavy precipitation), some extreme high tides and news-making seismic disturbances (volcanic eruptions and M5+ earthquakes).

The May 10 annular solar eclipse, corresponding to the new moon at 19° 31’ Taurus (conjunct Mars and Mercury) opens the first major geocosmic stress window of the month. Every eclipse is similar to a SuperMoon (though generally less potent) with regard to increasing the odds for damaging storms with high winds and heavy precipitation, as well as moderate to severe seismic activity (magnitude 5 and up) and volcanic eruptions. Solar eclipses have a shock window extending seven days before and after the exact alignment – sometimes longer, depending on any significant lunar factors (e.g. declination extremes, equatorial crossings) immediately before or after the boundaries of the seven day window. In the case of the May 10 eclipse, the shock window begins on the 3rd but extends into the 20th, in consequence of the Moon’s southward crossing of the celestial equator on the 19th. This is a long cycle, to be sure. The 5th, 10th, 12th , 19th – give or take a day or two in each case – look like the focal points for storm and seismic stress during this particular eclipse shock window.

The eclipse itself will be visible in full or in part ver parts of Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon and Gilbert Island; with Indonesia, Oceania and much of the central Pacific getting in on the action. These will surely be areas where storm and seismic action have an extra probability of making news during the eclipse shock window.

First up in the 2013 SuperMoon train comes the penumbral eclipse full moon on May 25, at 4° 8’ Sagittarius – the only SuperMoon this year that’s also an eclipse. This one gets the usual three days either way geocosmic shock window. That makes May 22-28 the time to watch for newsworthy storms, extreme tides, and moderate-to severe seismic activity (magnitude 5 and higher earthquakes and volcanic eruptions).

Since this window includes the Mercury-Venus conjunction on the 24th, it’s likely to include notable solar outbursts and high geomagnetic activity. This increases the likelihood of disruptions to electrical and electronic systems and devices, as well as stormy weather. These are factors that could play havoc with infrastructure, communications, networks (e.g. phone, satellite and computer), and travel. If you must be on the road, in the air etc., at least allow extra time in your itinerary for weather delays. You may be among the lucky ones who escape tangles in transit – but then again, you may not. And if your smart phone, computer, tablet or other high-tech devices get squirrelly – well, try not to act surprised. (The human nervous system is not immune to these effects.)

Of course, because this is an astronomical alignment, it’s planetary in scale; which is to say that the whole of Planet Earth is subject to the kind of disturbances I’m describing here. Obviously some areas carry more risk than others, with regard to particular classes of disaster. A tsunami in the Great Plains, the Outback or the Congo? Forget about it! The sky on the other hand is everywhere, and so it pays to keep a sharp eye on the weather during this SuperMoon shock window Apart from the normal geographic risk factors, a look at the astro-locality map for this SuperMoon suggests a few areas of heightened susceptibility. These include longitudinal (north-south) swatches through eastern and western South America, easternmost North America and western Greenland, plus east central Africa and eastern Europe; as well as Alaska, Hawaii, east Asia, Australia, Indonesia and the western Pacific (including Japan), These aren’t the only target zones in the map, as you can see from the lines there (e.g. the sweeping horizon curves); but they are the major ones, as far as I can tell. (The partial lunar eclipse is visible in whole or part from just about everywhere in the world but North America, so its “zone of influence” is widespread.)

Acknowledgments

All astrological charts as well as eclipse and astro-locality maps are calculated and produced using Esoteric Technologies’ Solar Fire Gold Version 7.0.8 Sky map images are screen captures from the Pocket Universe app for iPhone. Storm tracks are screen captures from The Weather Channel app for iPhone. Solar activity images are screen captures from the 3D SUN app for iPhone. And earthquake maps are screen captures from Quakes Pro Earthquake Alerts app for iPhone.

SPECIAL FEATURE: This month's birthdays of the famous and infamous (with astrological birth charts)

Richard Nolle, Certified Professional Astrologer consultations/orders (AmEx/Discover/MasterCard/Visa) 800-527-8761 data/fax 480-753-6261 - email rnolle@astropro.com Box 26599 - Tempe, AZ 85285-6599 - USA www.astropro.com