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.) 

Last month's Jupiter-Saturn conjunction (the "Great Chronocrator") was exact on May 28, but remains within five degrees of alignment throughout June as seen from Earth - all the way to July 15, in fact. From a different perspective (namely heliocentric, i.e. as seen from the Sun), the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction becomes exact this month: on June 22nd, to be precise. Looked at this way, the alignment doesn't fade away until late September. Add it all up, and what you get is a picture of a Great Chronocrator that refuses to die, but hangs on for months and remains especially strong in June. It's as if the alignment has two peaks: the geocentric one in late May just passed, and the heliocentric one on the 22nd of this month.

With the Great Chronocrator hanging on, you can expect more of the same kind of watershed political and economic events that were the hallmark of last month - and indeed, the calling card of the year 2000 as a whole. Years from now, we'll look back on 2000 as the turning point in a cycle of economic development: an old cycle sputtering out in exhaustion, a new one emerging from the debris of the old. The clash between the so-called old and new economies reveals that there's only one economy. It has gone through cycles of boom and bust down through the ages - and the contrast between these tends to be most pronounced at times when new technology is radically transforming the economic environment. With these two great generational aspects at work this month, just about everything else more or less fades in comparison.

Always, at such times, there's a cry to protect old industries and power centers, combined with a rush to invest in the new. Buggy whip manufacturers want government guarantees, while investors pour money into dozens of auto companies that won't be around a few short years later. Meanwhile the pundits proclaim that the new order has ushered in an end to the old business cycle. Then, all of a sudden, old industries are gone and the new ones are winnowed out so that a few strong survivors remain and many competitors disappear - either acquired by the strong, or driven bankrupt by them. And once the dust clears, the realization is reborn that practicalities like supply and demand trump fashionable "new realities" every time.

We've been in just such a shake-out period off and on all year, but it really took off in April as Jupiter drew closer to Saturn and Saturn in turn moved in on its square to Uranus. Both celestial patterns became exact in May, as seen from the geocentric (Earth-centered) perspective. Now this month the heliocentric (Sun-centered) Jupiter-Saturn conjunction aligns to perfection, and from here on out the Great Chronocrator begins its slow fade from presence to memory.

As I mentioned last month, you can't look for the new paradigm signified by this last in the earth sign Chronocator series to spring full grown in an instant, like Athena from the brow of Zeus. It's an ongoing process that will take the better part of a generation to manifest and be recognized. But the shake-outs that amount to the birth pangs of the new paradigm will continue this month with much the same intensity we witnessed in May: death clears the way for renewal, the techno-media darlings which once had the world on a string are now hanging by a thread - until even that at last wears through. But at least the dust settles in June, and that's an essential precursor to any kind of clarity going forward.

Of course there's more to June than the heliocentric Jupiter-Saturn conjunction. There's also a Mercury retrograde in effect from June 23 to July 17. You can count on that whole period being a comedy of errors in many respects. Forecasts and targets get missed, messages get lost, things get misplaced and waylaid . . . it's basically one of those Murphy's Law episodes, when just about everything that can go wrong does. You might notice the snafus rearing their ugly heads as early as June 7, as far as that goes. (That's the day Mercury reaches the point to which it will return at the end of the retrograde in July.) In any case, the smart move is to plan flexibly so as to accommodate delays, misunderstandings, interruptions and the like. Go the extra mile to make sure your plans are well thought-out, your message understood. Assume nothing, take nothing for granted! Strikes and shortages and travel delays are part and parcel of the Mercury retrograde experience, so be ready for them. On a more positive note, Mercury's retrograde is an ideal time to double-check things, to fix up schemes that went astray, to find what's lost or missing.

There's something fitting - or at least suspicious - about Mercury going retrograde just a matter of hours after the heliocentric Jupiter-Saturn conjunction. Houses made of cards tend to come tumbling down, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul gets caught up in a cash flow crunch . . . such are the scenarios that shape events around the 23rd. (Workers and producers demanding their fair share can destabilize markets stretched too thin.)

June also features some risk windows for severe storms, flooding and moderate to severe seismic action (Richter 5 or greater quakes as well as volcanic eruptions). First and foremost among such indicators is the June 2 SuperMoon alignment, a new moon at 12 Gemini. A SuperMoon, in case you didn't know, is a new or full moon that occurs with Luna within 90% of its perigee (i.e. closest approach to Earth). This is the first SuperMoon since January this year, and it's tight: happening within just over 13 hours of the Moon's perigee on the 3rd. In effect from May 30 to June 5, and opposing Pluto, this particular SuperMoon portends an explosive character to the seismic and meteorological extremes that will accompany it. More show than substance, these are likely to cause property damage and transport delays without causing a lot of human casualties. "It could have been so much worse," will be the common refrain. Usually the havoc associated with an alignment of this sort seems to taper off the nearer one gets to the end of the risk window. That won't be the case this time around, because of the Moon reaching maximum declination north of the equator on the 4th.

Being planetary in scale, a SuperMoon is global in reach: the storm and seismic potential it signifies can manifest far and wide 'round Planet Earth. Still, glancing at an astro-locality map shows that there are some particular areas which could be target zones during the May 30 to June 5 risk window. As noted in my Year 2000 Forecast Highlights, these include a north-south zone that stretches from Great Britain across the Channel to western Europe, southward down through west Africa. Another risk zone curves in a northwesterly direction from the southern tip of South America, up to Mexico and through the western US, and then out across the Bering Strait. The eastern end of this zone stretches northeastward from the Indian Ocean across Indochina and China, joining up with its western counterpart in the Bering Strait. The juncture of these two zones is itself crossed by a north-south risk zone that runs from New Zealand up to Kamchatka.

Other lunar equatorial extremes that signify brief periods of special storm and seismic risk this month are centered within plus or minus thirty hours of the 10th (Moon crosses the celestial equator from north to south), the 18th (Moon hits maximum south declination), and the 25th (Luna crosses the celestial equator from south to north).

Another SuperMoon rears its head at month's end - an Anteblue New Moon solar eclipse SuperMoon with the Moon at maximum northern declination, in fact. While it won't actually become exact until July 1, this one will start making its presence felt on June 28 and becomes increasingly strong as the month winds down. Especially dangerous storms and seismic events are in store during this SuperMoon risk period: batten down the hatches. Again, it's impossible to specify each and every place that likes under the gun when a SuperMoon forms in the heavens, precisely because such an event is planetary in scale. But a look at an astro-locality map for the event shows that the India-Pakistan border lies along a north-south risk zone during this period - a zone mirrored half a world away along the Pacific coast of Mexico and northward into the western US and Canada. Also in the bulls eye this time around is a sweeping arc that runs across northwestern Africa into Europe, sweeping from there across northern Russia and then out through the Korean Peninsula and Japan down to New Zealand. Southern Argentina and Chile, where the eclipse is visible, may also be at risk of seismic and meteorological events during the June 28 - July 4 period. Because Mars is central to this eclipse, I figure the stormy skies and shaking ground we'll see around this time won't all be entirely natural in origin: some of it will be due to human conflict.

Sandwiched between these two SuperMoons is the June 16 full moon. As a harbinger of strong storms and seismic extremes, it pales in comparison to its SuperMoon neighbors. Still, you can figure on a higher than normal risk of severe storms and moderate to severe earthquakes (Richter 5 or greater) as well as a potential for noteworthy volcanic eruptions.

  

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