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 looks a lot like February, in terms of astrological emphasis. Oh, the weather and seismic extremes may be just a bit more hospitable than February, thanks to a lack of SuperMoons and the like. But in view of the strong Mars-Pluto emphasis this month - not unlike the major Mars alignments of February - I figure we'll see crimes of profit and passion grabbing the headlines off and on throughout March. In particular, the period around the 17th (Pluto's retrograde station) and 18th (Mars aligns with Pluto) looks especially vulnerable to criminal misdeeds, crimes of twisted passion, terrorist atrocities and even military threats or outright confrontations. Schoolyard scares and workplace incidents are part of this pattern, as is domestic violence. Keep your alarm system set, stay alert, watch your back and watch out for your neighbor.
Speaking of Pluto, the distant mini-planet remains within a degree of its 15 Sagittarius retrograde station on the 17th throughout March. That's one indication that March is another critical month for major markets around the world. Add to this the Venus retrograde station on the 9th, and it starts looking a lot like the equity markets in search of a bottom - while commodities start to show strength. Meanwhile financials, while not great, are looking better than they did in the last quarter of last year. They may be some of the smart money's best buys this month, along with food and agricultural stocks and (longer term) selected commodities. This bear market atmosphere looks like it has legs at least into late April, when Venus stations again and Saturn finally leaves Taurus.
The Pluto station's tie to criminality (through Mars) and economic developments (through Venus) help set the stage for March, but they're far from the whole picture. The early part of the month has lots of geophysical trigger indicators, the kind that usually signal an increased level of severe storms (marked by high winds and flooding) and moderate to severe seismic activity (Richter 5 or greater quakes, as well as volcanic eruptions). Leading off a train of these is the Moon reaching maximum northern declination on March 5. In the past, this has been a storm and seismic signal for the period stretching from 30 hours before to 30 hours after the exact maximum. So watch for an up-tick in geophysical action starting March 3rd. Expect it to continue without interruption through March 12, thanks to the full moon on the 9th (just a day past Luna's perigee for the month). Effective from three days before to three days after the exact alignment, this full moon extends the upsurge in storm and seismic potential from the 6th through the 12th - with an extra kick at the end thanks to Luna's southward crossing of the equator on the 11th. The storm and seismic risks during this period do not operate in a vacuum: watch for weather delays and damage in the power, transportation and communication infrastructure that underlies our technological society.
A full moon is by definition planetary in scale, and therefore its geophysical signature is potentially planet-wide in scope: no place is absolutely safe, in other words. Still, a look at an astro-locality map for the March 9 full moon suggests that some potential targets are just a bit more vulnerable than others during the March 6-12 risk window. The US Atlantic coast, Hispañola and the Pacific coast of South America are in the cross-hairs, along with the eastern Great Lakes area; central China, Mongolia, the Indochina peninsula and western Indonesia also look vulnerable; as does Western Europe and much of the coastline of Southwest Africa.
After a few days of relative clear and calm on the storm and seismic front, the Moon reaches maximum declination south of the equator on the 18th and things get dicey again. From the 16th through the 19th, severe storms (with damage from strong winds and heavy precipitation as well as flooding) once more make headlines. At the same time, there's an increased risk of moderate to severe earthquakes (Richter 5+) and volcanic activity. Mars is conjunct Pluto as all this takes place: transportation tie-ups, rail crashes, aircraft mishaps, disease outbreaks and breakdowns in long-distance infrastructure are bound to be in the picture during this brief but chaotic cycle. After the 19th, meteorological and seismic activity should decline to normal levels for a few days.
This relatively peaceful interlude lasts until the 22nd, when the March 25 new moon risk window takes over and carries us through until the 28th. Once again, the risk of strong storms (with heavy precipitation, flooding, high winds etc.) is enhanced; along with the prospects for an increase in moderate to severe seismic activity. Power shortages and outages due to weather are bound to be a big part of this particular storm cycle, along with transportation delays and public health crises.
As always, geocosmic alignments on a planetary scale like this can manifest anywhere at all on Planet Earth. So the best advice is to be prepared, if you live in or plan to be in an area subject to storm or seismic damage during the March 22-28 risk window. Still, the astro-locality map of this particular alignment seems to suggest a few particular risk zones. These include the Pacific Northwest coast, the South Atlantic coast of South America, Iceland, westernmost equatorial Africa, the Middle East (Saudia Arabia and Iran in particular) northward into Russia; and finally along a southeasterly arc from Japan and Korea through New Guinea and northeastern Australia down to New Zealand.
SPECIAL FEATURE: This month's birthdays of the famous and infamous (with astrological birth charts)
