If you were expecting some kind of sun sign nonsense, forget about it. This is real astrology for the real world. 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).
Create your future from your future, not your past.
-- Werner Erhard
 

The triple conjunction of Mercury, Mars and Jupiter promises that December will be a dramatic, even explosive month - especially the first fortnight. This bespeaks arguments, conflict and confrontation; a tense time from the individual to the collective levels of human experience. High-stakes gamblers and other adventurers and thrill-seekers (including athletes) push their luck too far at times like this - perhaps to the point of ruin. Accidents, fires, crashes, explosions, assaults and the like always make headlines in this "if it bleeds, it leads" media culture. There will be plenty of material for such headlines this month, particularly around the 5th and 20th. Not to be too alarmed: no Armageddon, no nuclear meltdown, just garden variety mayhem and murder, only thicker and faster than usual. Bite your tongue, watch your back, don't go borrowing trouble. (There's an awkward image.)

Saturn's retrograde station at 25° Leo on the 6th, in trine aspect (120° arc) to Pluto all month, (and to the Venus-Pluto conjunction that forms on the 8th) has to be a market top, if there's to be one this month - and there should be, and it should be the start of a significant downward slide that's way overdue. The precious metals have done well, per my forecast; but the equities are maintaining an anti-gravity trend that defies all logic. It's almost as if the Fed were pumping money into the US markets . . . not so much to prop them up as to do something with all the dollars.

As for the Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune T-square, don't expect it to fade away. The US election results bore out my forecast from last month of "a crisis of confidence, a loss of faith in authority and tradition." I wrote that "if the US mid-term elections turn out badly for the GOP, it will be all too clear that the T-square and the world are in synch." The GOP lost its majority in both houses, so it's on with the crisis of confidence, the loss of faith. And it extends out into next year, what with Saturn opposing Neptune twice in 2007. The Jupiter leg of the tripod has moved on, but enters a new and challenging configuration with Uranus, which in turn is near an opposition with Saturn later in the year - paralleling the unfolding of the 536 Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune T-square. We've only just glimpsed this historic watershed so far.

But that's for the longer term, a topic for next year's forecast. For this month, all that remains is to point out the geophysical stress windows, when there's a higher than normal risk for strong storms with high winds and heavy precipitation, as well as moderate-to-severe seismic activity (including volcanic eruptions and Richter 5 and greater earthquakes). The 1st through the 8th, from late on the 11th through early on the 15th, the 17th through the 23rd and from late on the 26th into the 29th are the broader risk sectors, with peak vulnerabilities on or about the 2nd (lunar perigee), 5th (the full moon), 6th (lunar north declination extreme), 13th (lunar equatorial southward crossing), 20th (the new moon with the Moon at maximum south declination), the 27th (the Moon's northward equatorial crossing), and the 28th (the month's second lunar perigee). Watch the news and the skies during these periods, be ready for inclement weather anywhere; and in seismically active areas, have your pantry properly stocked.

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