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.) 

The April 30th full moon (conjunct Saturn in a T-Square configuration to Mars and Neptune) is still very much in effect as May gets underway. As mentioned in my April forecast, this is "a very strong storm and seismic risk signal." So be on the lookout for a bigger than usual batch of strong storms, floods, and seismic action (including volcanic outbursts and Richter 5 or greater quakes). We're not past this particular storm and seismic shock window until May 3. Mercury's conjunction with Jupiter in Aries on the 1st is part and parcel of this phase, and signals a special risk for electrical storms – possibly very high geomagnetic activity as well, particularly around the 2nd.

Neptune goes retrograde - see my 3,000-year tables of these events for the big picture - at 4 Aquarius on the 6th. (It's been within a degree of the retrograde station point since March 5, and remains so until July 11.) Delusions and deceptions tend to run rampant at times like this: irrational exuberance and mindless panic are two sides of this same coin. We've already seen huge run-ups and wild drops in the equity markets during and after the Saturn-Neptune square. (It was exact on April 6 and within a degree from the end of March through April 15.) I expect we'll see more this month, especially around the 5th, 11th and 13th - and particularly where the Internet stocks are concerned. As mentioned in last month's forecast, I still "look to the July-August time frame as being the start of the next big correction (20% or greater), if not the start of a strong bear market phase." But I expect May will see the kind of ups and downs that give investors vertigo. Please do start reviewing your investments with an eye toward taking profits on speculative issues where possible, and moving into solid, blue-chip issues. There are probably still as much as a few months of mostly positive market action to go yet, before the chill sets in. But don't wait too long, or you'll get left out in the cold.

There's more to this Neptune station than a sign of market uncertainties. Remembering that this thing has been within a degree of exact since early March, I see it as a celestial signal of the delusional propaganda associated with the Serbian 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosova – and the NATO response to same. How Orwellian can you get? Ethnic cleansing is nothing if not a sanitized euphemism for genocide. And the NATO response, officially termed an 'air campaign,' is outright war. Bombs are being dropped by warplanes, missile warheads launched from warships are blowing things up . . . what else is this, if not war? How Neptunian: no one is calling these things what they really are, and the euphemisms seem to be swallowed up readily by the public on all sides - hook, line and sinker. With this in mind, I expect to see the Orwellian delusions piled deeper and deeper in May as the station is exact. With Mercury opposing Mars (in a T-square with the Moon) as Neptune stations in square to Saturn, look for phony peace deals to be floated early this month. There is an immense temptation for NATO to declare victory without really changing what has happened in Kosova. Meanwhile the politicians publicly contradict what the generals have known all along: the only way to redress the wrong the Kosovars have suffered is to put troops in Kosova. Here's hoping against hope that a real peace can be worked out. But looking ahead to August, when Mars opposes Saturn once more, I suspect that lasting peace is yet far away for Yugoslavia. (Not to mention the other places - including Iraq, Israel, Japan, Korea and Russia, to name a few - where there are nations and leaders with charts that are strongly affected by the coming Mars-Saturn opposition and the eclipses of summer.)

Another side of this Neptune station square Mars is covert operations aimed at 'neutralizing' – another euphemism – key people who are at the root of an intractable situation. The Mars-Jupiter opposition that happens later this month (May 30) as the Moon is full is just over four degrees out of alignment with Mars in Slobodan Milosevic's birth chart (see my March forecast results), and within a degree of Jupiter in Bill Clinton's natal horoscope. (The natal charts of Benjamin Netanyahu, Tony Blair and Pope John Paul II are also closely aspected by the May 30 Mars-Jupiter opposition: controversy, maybe even danger may surround them.) Security details will have their hands full . . . the Sun opposes Pluto on the 31st.

There's another SuperMoon on the 15th, at 24 Taurus. (A SuperMoon is a new or full moon that occurs when the Moon is within 90% or greater of its closest approach to Earth. For more, see my 20th Century table of all these alignments.) Even more than an ordinary new or full moon, in fact at least on a par with an eclipse, a SuperMoon ups the ante for strong storms, flooding and moderate to severe seismic activity (including Richter 5 or greater quakes and volcanic eruptions) within three days before and after the fact. This one shapes up as very potent, because the new moon occurs within less than ten hours of the Moon's closest approach to Earth. (See my online table of 1999 lunar apogees and perigees for more on this.) So keep a weather eye on the period from the 12th through the 18th. And if your plans include travel, figure on allowing extra time for weather-related delays while you're at it.

Being planetary in scale, SuperMoons are planetary in scope. No place on Earth is safe from the potential for wild weather and seismic upheaval during the May 12-18 SuperMoon window. Still, there may be some hints as to regions of special vulnerability. The Astro*Carto*Graphy map for this particular SuperMoon suggests a number of possible target zones, as I wrote in my 1999 Highlights: "Alaska (a strong focus there), western Canada, the Great Plains states and western Texas; down through Mexico and the southern tip of South America and from there across Southeast Asia and into China. A secondary region of risk is along a north-south line through western Africa into western Europe and up through the eastern British Isles. And finally there's a rather ominous-looking Mars line running northward from the eastern coast of Australia up through Papua New Guinea."

Uranus goes retrograde on the 21st, at 16 Aquarius. Scientific and technological breakthroughs – especially in electronics generally and communication in particular – are bound to be a major theme all month, but you'll see developments of this sort come very thick and fast within a week either way of the 21st – and again in August, when the solar eclipse opposes the Uranus station. (For more on Uranus retrogrades, see my online 3,000-year tables.) Watch the 25th in particular – give or take a day - for big news in communications and technology, as Mercury aligns with the Sun in Gemini.

May winds down with the full moon at 8 Sagittarius (conjunct Pluto) on the 30th, within hours of the Mars-Jupiter opposition and just over 18 hours before the Sun-Pluto opposition. While not in the same class as a SuperMoon or eclipse, any full moon is a strong storm and seismic risk signal. With the Pluto involvement and the Mars-Jupiter opposition thrown in for good measure, this one looks more potent than most. So expect 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 remains in effect from three days before to three days after the full moon; i.e. from May 27 to June 2. High winds and powerful thunderstorms appear to be a specialty of this alignment, and the potential for notable volcanic activity appears quite strong.

  

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