If you were expecting some kind of sun sign nonsense, forget it. This is real astrology. See the section above. Please note: this forecast is expressed in terms of Universal Time (UT). Current UT date and time appear at the top of this page. (To update display, use your browser's reload/refresh button.) 

March is historic. Saturn settles into Taurus for a 2+ year stay on the 1st to kick things off, and the last Blue Moon of the century brings down the curtain on the 31st. With a trio of planetary retrogrades getting underway in between, this will be a month of major economic developments – a watershed on the world financial scene. And with Mars and Saturn working Scorpio and Taurus as Uranus and Neptune hold forth in Aquarius – and Mars squaring the January lunar eclipse as well – we're still looking at danger, conflict and controversy surrounding world leaders and nations with significant fixed sign emphasis in their charts. You know the usual suspects: Japan and Israel, Clinton, Yeltsin and Blair, Saddam and Castro . . . and especially around the 1st, 6th, and 18th.

The Saturn-Neptune square that I long ago described as signifying a major bubble in the equities markets will be exact next month (April 6), but it's very much in effect for most of March – particularly around the middle and end of the month. Bubbles burst, and it's best to get out before they do. Otherwise you get trampled in the stampede for the exits. I expect the 1999 correction to be deeper and longer than the one I predicted for 1998. While the worst still looks like it will hold off 'til July-August, any chance to take profit ahead of that should be given serious consideration.

Saturn's Taurus ingress starts it all off on the 1st, followed in short order by the 20th Century's last AnteBlue Moon on the 2nd. (An AnteBlue Moon is the first in a pair of full moons to fall in the same calendar month – for more, see my 100-year table of these events.) The Ringed Planet's Taurus move is building toward an April 6th square to Neptune, so we're coming into the home stretch of a course that leads to a major currency devaluation or float of global economic impact. Russia and Brazil have already had their turn, so who could be next? Maybe China, with the Saturn-Neptune square in tight hard aspect to the Moon and ascendant in the People's Republic chart from late March to late April. Or maybe Beijing can hold it off until the late July to late August period, when Saturn and Uranus and a pair of eclipse gang up on a host of sensitive points in the Chinese chart. One way or the other, it now looks to be a few weeks to at most a few months away.

Saturn aside, that full moon on the 2nd ups the ante for strong storms, flooding and moderate to severe seismic activity (including Richter 5 or greater quakes and volcanic eruptions) between February 27 and March 5. None of this is in the same class as a SuperMoon or eclipse of course, but it's still a cosmic signal to keep a sharp weather eye out and plenty of candles and bottled water in the pantry. And if your plans include travel, figure on allowing extra time for weather-related delays. Mars squares the January 31 eclipse points on the 6th, so figure the danger zone stretches out an extra day on this one . . .

As always, these solunar storm and seismic risk windows apply worldwide, because they're planetary in scale. While no location is immune, there are a few apparent danger spots during the February 27-March 5 interval: the Pacific Northwest, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, western Greenland and central Brazil, Kamchatka, and along a north-south zone stretching from western Japan and east China down to western Australia.

The retrogrades kick in on the 10th, when Mercury reverses its apparent course as seen from Earth. This lasts until April 2 – see my 3000-year table of Mercury retrogrades for more - and is punctuated by Mercury's March 19 far-side conjunction with the Sun. For the duration, expect the usual slapstick Mercury retro comedy of errors: messages lost, misrouted or misplaced; communication breakdowns and full-Homer (d'oh!) lapses of attention and focus; transportation tie-ups that cause shipping and travel delays . . . you know, the whole nine yards. If it can go wrong, it will during Mercury retro. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a useless temporal wasteland appropriate for nothing short of hibernation. It is a good time for reflection; for being, not necessarily smart, but wise . . . a good time to back-track, figure out what went wrong, fix it, and then try to catch up. With any luck, everyone will get caught up no later than April 21, when Mercury once again reaches the point where its retrograde started.

Pluto's retrograde comes next, starting on March 13 and lasting all the way through to August 18. The smart money is probably taking some profits around this time, to let troubled waters settle before venturing in again. 'Holy wars' – there's an oxymoron for you, about as stupid as 'sun sign astrology' – are much in evidence just about all month, but particularly within a few days either side of the 13th. Oil spills, crimes against tourists and other travelers far from home . . . speaking of which, the Mars retrograde on the 18th is an especially uneasy time. It ups the ante for a tension-filled period give or take a few days of that date: terrorist atrocities and other vicious crimes, evil stuff cooked up in a home lab, accidents, explosions . . . all in all a good time to watch your back and steer clear of places where trouble is likely to strike, if you can. But if you're sitting there at your radar screen trying to spot the cruises and F-117s coming in, forget it.

The combination of Mercury, Pluto and Mars all making their retrograde stations from the 10th through the 18th suggests this will be a period of greater than usual risk for accidents and labor actions affecting the transportation and shipping industries. Heightened security precautions and weather-related delays can play havoc with air travelers, who would do well to arrive early to catch non-stop flights only -–because making connections will be even tougher than usual. Clear air turbulence incidents tend to come in bunches, and this period looks like a bunch of 'em: so stay buckled in.

The new moon at 27 Pisces on the 17th is another storm and seismic risk signal, all the more so because it's followed so closely by the lunar perigee on the 20th – more about the latter in a moment. Being so close to the Mars station as well, you can expect the March 14-20 new moon period to bring a bigger than usual batch of strong storms, floods, and seismic action (including volcanic outbursts and Richter 5 or greater quakes). This particular storm and seismic shock window gets stretched out another 30 hours or so by the March 20 lunar perigee, the same factor I used to pinpoint the weather and seismic upheavals in Europe and the Middle East last month. (For more on this lunar factor, see my Lunar Apogees & Perigees 1999 and check the February forecast results.) Venus being conjunct Saturn and square Neptune while the perigee takes place in the last degree of Aries, I expect this new batch of seismic and atmospheric shocks to be fairly costly in terms of damage to property and commodities – and perhaps equities as well. If people don't heed evacuation orders, storm warnings and such, the toll could be even worse. Alas, some won't – either because they didn't get the message, or didn't believe it.

As always, because solunar alignments and lunar perigees are planetary in scale, no place on Earth is beyond the reach of seismic and meteorological outbursts at times like this. What locational hints there are point to target zones along a north-south zone from Alaska across the Bering Strait to Siberia and southward to Hawaii; from the Middle East across to east central Europe, and from western Australia through Micronesia into Indochina.

The Blue Moon on the 31st at 11 Libra (opposing Jupiter) rounds out the month – and the century, it being the last of this millennium as noted previously. Though no SuperMoon or eclipse, this particular full moon still signals an up-tick in floods, strong storms and moderate to severe seismic action (volcanic eruptions and Richter 5 or greater quakes). It's in effect from the 27th through April 2nd, and comes as the Sun is within just over a degree of its April 1st alignment with Jupiter. Fires whipped up by high winds, ultimately extinguished in large part due to heavy rain . . .

Here again, there's no safe haven where geocosmic alignments are concerned, because they operate on a planetary scale. That said, east Africa, the Middle East and eastern Europe show some indications of being special target zones during this Blue Moon period; likewise, a north-south zone stretching from the Pacific Northwest to Alaska and down to Hawaii; and a band from eastern China southeast through central Australia.

Bear in mind that this Blue Moon is more than strong tides in the Earth's crust, atmosphere and oceans. It's also strong tides in human psychology – mass hysteria, crowd appeal, the herd mentality. And with the Saturn-Neptune square drawing so near, this is one of the two major market action periods this month . . .

  

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