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). Also please be aware that, while I never change a forecast once it's published, I do post errata to acknowledge typographical errors and the like.
Everything flows onward
all things are brought into being with a changing nature
the ages themselves glide by in constant movement.
-- Ovid
 

We’re coming into the thick of the defining celestial alignments of 2010 this month: every passing day in June takes us deeper and deeper into a confluence of history. We’ve had plenty of drama and tragedy all year, what with the Mars Max phase that just came to an end last month. But the military clashes and murders and crashes and explosions and terrorist attacks that are par for the course under Mars Max – and there have been plenty of those "if it bleeds it leads" headlines during this Mars cycle – have diverted the public’s attention from the real story of 2010. As I’ve been writing in my annual forecasts for several years now, that story is, in a word, the transformation of our civilization.

We’re right in the middle of some of those transfiguring signals in the sky now. Among these are the Jupiter-Saturn opposition (exact on May 23, lingering on-and-off into spring 2011), the Saturn-Uranus opposition (most recently exact on April 26 and repeating on July 26, in effect on-and-off since fall 2008), the waning Saturn-Pluto square (270° arc, exact again on August 21, but lingering on-and-off since the fall of 2009). There’s a lot more than just these three configurations out there in space, but as I’ve already spent some time enumerating and describing these things in my annual forecasts for 2008, 2009 and 2010, I’ll not repeat myself here. Suffice it to say that June is more of the same, caught up in the middle of these grand cosmic alignments. Not a single great big bang in sight . . . but a whole bunch of little whimpers.

What happens this month is a continuation of the major themes I described for 2010 as a whole: "panic in the markets, panic in the streets, people in need of rescue, just a whiff of revolution in the air" (the Saturn-Uranus opposition) and "a major credit event . . . that takes down industries, banks and maybe even a country . . . for a time, this will likely strengthen the dollar and depress US equity markets, as investors seek a safe haven" (the Saturn-Pluto square). I described the likely trigger for the next shock to the financial system in my January forecast as a credit default: "a big bank, maybe even the central bank of an entire country, is certainly a possibility. Also large government agencies and corporations, local and regional governments, a sovereign wealth fund perhaps . . . you get the picture." If you read my 2010 forecast, you had plenty of warning to get out of the equity markets before the worst May in generations. This is probably still a good time to be on the sidelines, aiming at return of capital rather than return on capital. Meanwhile, look for any slip in precious metals prices as a major buying opportunity. (There’s probably still some play left in shorting the euro, but bear in mind that what happens to the euro now comes to the dollar eventually. That’s not a shift you want to get caught in.)

This month is smack in the middle of a turbulent passage stretching from late May (the first Jupiter-Saturn opposition) into summer (particularly July and August, as the Jupiter-Pluto-Saturn T-Square forms up). The outlines of the next political and financial crises will already be clear by the end of the month, under the aegis of the June 26 lunar eclipse that turns the year’s signature T-Square (Jupiter-Uranus to Saturn and Pluto) into a Grand Cross. (It’s the T-Square that really matters: the eclipse is only a timing trigger.) This is a scare, a geopolitical event suggesting panic attacks more than actual apocalypse . . . terrorist attacks, military and paramilitary skirmishes, threats to international commerce and financial stability fit the pattern, which stops short of actual Armageddon.

It’s hardly worth bothering to pick out the likeliest trigger dates for a month that never really gets off the precipice. All of the events mentioned just above are already in process. We might see that they come into special prominence around the time of the lunar eclipse on the 26th, the solar quadratures to the T-Square points (almost daily from the 19th through the 25th); but the Moon’s alignment with Mars and Saturn (on the 17th and 19th respectively) look no less suspicious. Speaking of Mars, the alignment of Mars and Neptune at opposite ends of the sky on the 4th is already in effect at the outset of the month, being within a few degrees of exact from May 29 through June 10. Israel’s attack on the Gaza relief convoy on May 31 fits clearly within this pattern, as does some kind of follow-up action over the Korean naval conflict.

I hear and read so many dire apocalyptic prophecies and forecasts for this time period that I feel compelled to reiterate that I’m not looking for Mad Max and the Road Warriors to come and take over the whole wide world this month or next. Yes, this is "the end of the world as we know it," as R.E.M. sang it back in the 1980s. In truth, the world as we know it ends every day - but the world goes on. Trying to hold onto the world as we know it is a sure way to get crushed under the wheel of time. Know what’s coming and have your defenses and contingencies in place as best you can, and then hope for the best; recognizing that it’s impossible to fully anticipate and prepare for the worst case scenario anyway. No one can live day-to-day with an eye always on the sword of Damocles. Remember the last line of the R.E.M. chorus: "It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." The Chicken Littles and Cassandras of this world don’t understand that "every generation thinks it’s the last, thinks it’s the end of the world," as Wilco sang it last year. I’m not saying the world won’t end, I’m only saying that it won’t happen this year or next – or 2012 for that matter, wacky Mayan fans notwithstanding. When it does happen, humans won’t be here to see it anyway. So don’t sweat it. And for heaven’s sake, quit looking for a great cataclysmic event that knocks the world off its axis, so to speak. Eliot had it right: "This is how the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." (Which is why I’ve said not to look for a great collapse, but rather a succession of settlings of the soufflé.)

Speaking of the soufflé settling, a look back at history supports the idea that a sudden collapse happens to civilizations over a period of time, rather than all at once. Take the late 18th Century eruptions of Iceland’s Laki volcano, for example. (An earlier astrologer – Benjamin Franklin, author of Poor Richard’s Almanack – ascribed the peculiarly cold and cloudy summer of 1783 to the eruption of an Icelandic volcano.) The Laki eruption occurred under the aegis of a quintuple Saturn-Uranus opposition – just like the current eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano. The 1783-1784 Laki eruption gave rise to climatic changes that caused crop failures in parts of Europe and Asia, which are estimated to have killed over two million people around the world. Those European crop failures have been attributed by historians as a contributing factor to the French Revolution some years later. I have for years now been describing the current Saturn-Uranus opposition as signifying "a whiff of revolution in the air." We’ll see.

The long Mars Max cycle ended last month, but the aftermath lingers. As I’ve said, the lion doesn’t lay down with the lamb the day Mars Max ends – far from it. For one thing, the threats initiated under the Mars Max do not immediately dissipate when it ends. Consequences from the naval clashes between North and South Korea that began under Mars Max live on, as do the consequences of the Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion. Besides which, there’s a Mars-Saturn conjunction coming up this summer, when the major alignments of the year all happen at once. And June gets its fair share at the beginning of the month (the Mars-Neptune opposition I mentioned earlier) as well as just past mid-June (the aforementioned Moon-Mars conjunction on the 17th).

Mars activations of this sort apply to all of us, but most especially to those born with significant natal placements in Leo and Virgo. I’ve already mentioned President Obama as a case in point, and suggested in my April forecast that his "security detail might want to be extra vigilant around late April into early May, what with the Mars Max transit across the Sun in his natal chart then." Indeed, during the Obamas’ late April trip to Asheville NC, an armed man who "wanted to see the President" was arrested at the airport where Air Force One was taxiing on the runway. As described in my Facebook note a few months ago, similar ominous Mars transits to the President’s natal chart occur from "late May into early June, plus around June 20 and July 17." I think there’s something instructive for all of us in this: the Presidential risk periods to date have come and gone with threats only, rather than real harm. May we all be so fortunate!

We humans are so full of ourselves that we easily think of personal, social, political and economic issues as the most important things in the world. Mother Nature has a way of putting things into perspective. Long before NOAA predicted an active 2010 hurricane season, long before the great earthquakes and volcanic eruptions of 2010, my forecast for the year declared that "I’m not expecting a Katrina or Sumatra class year of hurricanes or seismic activity in 2010, but I do anticipate a more than usual level of major storms, quakes and volcanic eruptions." June won’t be the worst of the year in this respect – not by any means – but it will have its moments.

The storm and seismic shock window of late May (the 24th through the 30th) should give way to an interlude of relative calm in early June. That starts to change around the 4th, as the Moon makes its northward crossing of the celestial equator on June 5. Through the 6th, there’s likely to be an up-tick in newsworthy storms (with high winds and heavy precipitation) as well as moderate-to-severe seismic activity (including magnitude 5+ earthquakes and volcanic eruptions). Nothing likely to be monstrous, mind you; but look what a line of thunderstorms did to Nashville last month.

The 9th through the 19th is the next geocosmic risk window, in association with the June 12 new moon and lunar north declination extreme, the lunar perigee (close approach to Earth) on the 15th, and the Moon’s southward crossing of the celestial equator on the 18th. This one looks more substantial than the early June turbulence. Expect strong storms (high winds, heavy precipitation and the resultant damage including flooding), plus moderate-to-severe earthquakes (magnitude 5+) and volcanic eruptions to make the news, and be ready just in case. As always, the configuration is planetary in scale, and planet-wide in scope. That said, astro-locality suggests one zone of special risk lying along a longitudinal arc from Scandinavia down through Central Europe and west Central Africa (centered along the longitude of Rome), crossing the poles to pass through the middle of the Pacific Ocean along the longitude of the Bering Strait. The Jupiter-Uranus opposition to Saturn sketches out another longitudinal arc of special vulnerability, running northward from the tip of South American to pass through the west part of that continent, up through western Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela, across the Caribbean and through Hispaniola, the northeastern US and eastern Canada to cross the pole and then come down through Russia, Mongolia, China and the Indochina peninsula, and from there down through Borneo and Indonesia and along the west coast of Australia. Also worth watching during the days surrounding the June 12 new moon is a horizon arc that runs northwesterly through South and Central America, across the Yucatan Peninsula to cross North America from Texas through Alberta and Alaska; crossing the Bering Strait to turn southwesterly through Siberia northern Japan, Eastern China (very near Beijing, the Korean Peninsula and Hong Kong, and then across the Indochina Peninsula to Indonesia.

The June 26 partial lunar eclipse signals what may be the most dramatic period of the whole year. It falls in the midst of the Great T-Square of 2010, and turns it into a Grand Cross: the full moon conjunct Pluto squaring the Jupiter-Saturn opposition and Jupiter conjunct Uranus. This may be the cosmic trigger for the turning point represented by the Great T-Square. Business as usual is the last thing anyone will be thinking about at a time like this. Lunar Saros Cycle 120, to which the June 26 eclipse belongs, began with the penumbral eclipse on October 16, 1000. It was a time that marked the zenith of Islamic civilization, and great wealth in China – which introduced the world’s first known paper currency around this time, perhaps foreshadowing the rise of the yuan as an international currency in the wake of this year’s Great T-Square. (Don’t hold your breath, this won’t happen overnight. And in any event there will be a commodity backing for whatever new international reserve currency that does emerge, when all the smoke has cleared.)

Visible over eastern Asia and the western part of the Americas, and particularly over the South Pacific (including Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand), the June 26 eclipse is potent from the 23rd through the 29th. The eclipse occurs just over 24 hours after the Moon reaches maximum declination south of the celestial equator, making this an extreme full moon, with enhanced potential to raise unusual tides in Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and crust – particularly in the zone of visibility, where headlines are likely to be made by seismic events and powerful storms. Central Europe and the western part of Central Africa are under one of the astro-locality longitudinal stress lines for the June 26 eclipse. Another longitudinal risk zone runs through Chicago in the western hemisphere, over the poles and through Calcutta in the east. There’s also a hazardous looking horizon arc sweeping southeasterly from Alaska down through the Yucatan Peninsula and western South America (crossing Santiago) and through the Falkland Islands before turning northeasterly to sweep across Indonesia, the Indochina Peninsula, eastern China and the east coast of Siberia.

It’s not all about risk this month. The first of the 2010-2011 Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions takes place at 0° 17’ Aries on June 8, and is within a few degrees of exact from late May all through June. It points to scientific and technological breakthroughs that will be important in shaping the new industries of the air sign Chronocrator century that starts in earnest in 2020 – although we’ve been living in its transitional phase since 1980. Don’t expect a shelf-ready next generation technology to emerge this month! What I see coming forward now are precursors, not full-blown commercial developments – much like the telephone or light bulb in the 1870s, or the transistor in the 1940s. On a more practical note, engineering breakthroughs and milestone gadgetry are possible in June, under the auspices of this aspect. Think must-have new product introductions, robotic feats, space and aerospace wonders, signals from (and transmissions to) afar, discoveries that will change everything in the fullness of time. A good time to be in genetics and physics . . . and engineering. Speaking of which, those guys from Halliburton that tree-huggers everywhere love to hate are the ones you’d better pray to, to fix that mess in the Gulf. They’re Indiana Jones with robots and C-4, and if they don’t shut that well down, it won’t get shut down. And no, they didn’t create that disaster: the corporate high muckety-mucks who told the engineers to cut corners are the ones who caused it.

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