If you were expecting some kind of sun sign nonsense, forget about it. This is real astrology for the real world, not some mystical mumbo-jumbo psycho-babble word salad. 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, aka GMT). 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.

PLEASE NOTE: This month’s forecast incorporates elements of (and refers to) my complete 2013 World Forecast Highlights (31 8-1/2 x 11” illustrated pages), focused, amplified and elaborated with details for the month as appropriate. If you’d like your own copy of the full 2013 World Forecast Highlights, it’s available in hard copy by mail ($75) or as a PDF document by email ($50). Orders may be phoned in (toll-free from anywhere in North America to 800-527-8761) and charged to any major credit card. PayPal orders may be placed direct from your own PayPal account page to rnolle@astropro.com – or by using the AstroPro PayPal order page.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
-- Ecclesiastes 1:9
 

Opening up with the start of a new Venus Max cycle and under the shadow of a solar eclipse, and an ongoing Mercury Max as well . . . ending with Comet ISON slowly waxing into its most brilliant apparition, and punctuated here and there with solar outbursts and notable planetary alignments (Venus with Pluto and Mercury with Saturn, and of course that over-arching Uranus-Pluto square), November promises some pretty high drama – and, in fairness, some dramatic pretty as well (associated with the Venus Max). So be ready for anything: gird your loins (with a quick release fastener), stock the pantry with bottled water, maybe some vodka, maybe some champagne in the cellar . . .

HYBRID SOLAR ECLIPSE

Some of November’s opening gambit is in fact a holdover from late October, when the geophysical shock window of the November 3 solar eclipse first opened up. As described in the full version of my 2013 World Forecast Highlights (published last year), the geophysical shock window associated with the November 3 hybrid (part total and part annular) solar eclipse opened up on October 27: "It’s a combination that speaks of a surge in moderate-to-severe seismic activity of course (Magnitude 5+ quakes and volcanic eruptions; but also of storms both literal and figurative – including storms in the financial markets, the sort that can be traced to excesses of HFT (High Frequency Trading), and/or disruptions to infrastructure and networks (likely weather-related)." This eclipse, after all, is conjunct both Saturn and a retrograde Mercury Max.

This particular eclipse, as noted in the forecast, "is visible from equatorial Africa out into the North Atlantic Ocean." These will surely be among the targets for eclipse storms and seismic disturbances. Other vulnerable zones may be deduced from the astro-locality map for the eclipse: these include West Africa and the North Atlantic as mentioned (including Iceland, the UK and the Iberian Peninsula), as well as west Asia, Mexico, the US Midwest and eastern Canada; also a longitudinal line from Kamchatka southward through the South Pacific and over New Zealand.

As described in the 2013 forecast, the eclipse shock window in this case "runs from October 27 into November 13, and is most potent on or about October 30, November 3 and 6, and November 12. Be on the alert; keep an eye to the sky and the news: you’ll see it working, as usual." The hurricane that tore into Europe at the end of October was the opening salvo in this storm surge: there’s more to come, and these storms aren’t just meteorological. Watch the news, watch the skies, and be prepared.

And remember: the storm and seismic risks are not the only ones connected so this solar eclipse: market reversals and infrastructure breakdowns are on tap as well. And again, dodn’t forget that these alignments are astronomical in scale, and planet-wide in scope. Not being in one of the elevated risk zones mapped out and described here is no guarantee that nothing untoward won’t materialize somewhere in your vicinity. Be prepared!

VENUS MAX BEGINS

The 2013-2014 Venus Max begins this month, as Venus reaches maximum elongation east of the Sun on the 1st. I’ve already described the Venus Max cycle as a whole and in detail in my article on this subject, so I’ll refer you to it for a fuller exposition. For now, there are two things you need to know about it.

First and foremost, realize that there’s a historical connection between the Venus Max cycle and periods of economic expansion – all else being equal, which of course it never is. Still, even in depressions (like the current one), economic conditions are relatively better with Venus Max. (See my article for more on this.)

The second point to grasp is that Venus Max is a roughly five month-long cycle in the orbital interaction of Earth, Venus and the Sun, marking a time when Venus catches up with the Earth in its orbit and passes between Earth and Sun, making its close approach to our home planet – and appearing as bright and brilliant as it ever gets in our skies. It comes around every 18 months or so, and when it does it raises Venus’ profile for our home planet. That’s generally a very good thing, because Venus has from time immemorial been associated with all things bright and beautiful. Love, attraction, pleasure and plenty are just some of the qualities in the canon of Venus. All else being equal, Venus Max ushers in a time of relative ease and prosperity.

The 2013-2014 Venus Max should be no exception. Look for economic expansion rather than contraction, rising rather than declining consumer confidence and spending; improving equity markets generally, an expansion of liquidity (e.g. what’s called Quantitative Easing here in the States), etc.

URANUS-PLUTO RETURNS

The start of Venus Max isn’t some kind of cosmic light switch that suddenly turns on the good times. There are plenty enough contra-indications at work this month to suggest that the typical Venus Max good times won’t set in right away. There’s that solar eclipse conjunct Saturn and a retrograde Mercury Max, as well as the Uranus-Pluto square, pointing to setbacks and miscues that keep the good times from getting rolling smoothly. Equity markets are good at climbing a wall of worry, but there are bound to be plenty of worries that pop up unexpectedly this month. The over-all trend will be positive, if mildly and fitfully at first.

One reason for the tentative nature of this particular Venus Max is the waxing square (90° arc) from Uranus to Pluto. It’s the biggest thing going in the skies of Planet Earth since 2011, when these two planets first drew within a few degrees of an exact quadrature. It’s coming into even sharper focus this month, as the next exact quadrature occurs on November 1 – and remains within a couple degrees of exact well into December.

Don’t bother looking for it in the night sky: like Comet ISON (for now), neither Uranus nor Pluto is a naked eye object, after all. But, as the fox said to the Little Prince in Saint-Exupéry’s book of the same name, "what is essential is invisible to the eye."

You don’t need to see these two orbs in order to recognize the quadrature in action. As I wrote in my 2011 World Forecast Highlights, this configuration is a sign of "more debt crises, government support cutbacks and tax hikes: tightening the screws coming and going. Issues of nuclear proliferation raise geopolitical tensions. There’s growing fear of sneak attacks and terror atrocities using WMD - the fear is certain, the actuality far less so." It is, as described in my 2012 World Forecast Highlights, the very same Uranus-Pluto square "that heralded the nearly worldwide economic dislocation and labor strife of the 1930s (including US troops firing on the Bonus Army Marchers," and it’s in effect from 2011 into 2016.

Dire economic straits give rise to riots, uprisings, revolutions and civil war: e.g. Arab Spring uprisings (now focused in Syria and Egypt), the strikes and protests in Brazil, Greece, Bahrain, Iran, Sri Lanka, the Philippines etc. There’s an historical association between such things and the Uranus-Pluto square. Such tensions are easily recognized at the collective level. But they also leave a mark on the individuals who make up the collective. The stress of dire straits helps push some people over the edge. Often, they don’t go alone and quietly. Suicides are up, yes; but also murder-suicides, suicide by cop, mass suicides and mass murder (school and workplace shootings, etc.). With a comet-Mars connection in place now, and a Mars Max beginning in December, we’re probably getting deeper into this dark shadow this month, and well into next year.

But there’s more to this configuration and these times than just that, as I wrote in my 2012 forecast: "Every coin has two sides, and there’s more to look for in the time and tide of this particular celestial configuration than revolution and barricading the streets. Political programs aimed at redressing social and economic ills are also part of the picture, like the US WPA and CCC or the German Autobahn of the 1930s . . . Likewise, breakthroughs in science and technology that will transform and transmute our lives, our minds, our understanding of the world within us and around us. The two extremes of the material scale - from particle physics to astrophysics - are where the breakthroughs are coming; along with the peculiar middle ground occupied by medicine and biotechnology."

Can anyone argue that we haven’t already seen a focus on the trends described above in the last couple of years, under the aegis of the Uranus-Pluto square? From the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement on the social/political front, to the cascading discovery of exoplanets on the macro end and elementary particles at the micro end, the whole of Planet Earth has been in a particle accelerator since 2011.

Look for more - much more – not just this month but in the coming years: this thing has a long run ahead, remaining within a few degrees of exact into 2016. More to the point, expect these trends to accelerate all month, under the aegis of the November 1 partile quadrature of Uranus and Pluto. Riots and revolution, barricades in the streets and snipers on the rooftops, yes. But also breakthroughs to come in astronomy, cosmology and exobiology (exotechnology, even) at the macro end of the scale, and quantum physics at the nano end . . . in between come the medical breakthroughs, the genetic discoveries. And yes, I did most specifically and deliberately say exotechnology. Think about it. It’s the next step beyond exobiology. (Voyager 1, having just left the solar system, is an example of outgoing exotechnology. It’s a two-way street.)

Of course, it’s those blood in the streets stories that will make the biggest headlines, and will do the most to undercut this month’s Venus Max potential for economic growth. So keep the faith, but be patient.

COMET ISON LOOMS LARGER & BRIGHTER

Comet ISON, although too faint to be seen with the naked eye now, will be looming larger in the skies and in the human psyche as we go deeper into November. It was spotted by amateur astronomers in September, and should brighten dramatically as it plunges toward its close encounter with Sol later this month. At its November 28 perihelion (closest approach to the Sun), less than a million miles from our local star, it may actually be as bright as the full moon. But it will be so close to the solar disc at that point that it will be lost in the glare. Later, by December - assuming ISON survives its game of chicken with the Sun - the comet should be visible to the naked eye the world over - likely as bright as Venus, with a tail spanning perhaps a quarter of the sky.

Although still invisible to the eye, ISON has been tracking close to Mars in the pre-dawn skies here on Earth. Mars: the Red Planet, significator of fires, crashes, clashes and explosions. Sound familiar - like maybe a mainstay in the headlines lately? Sure, there’s plenty of other Mars activation going on lately, and a tense background anyway as Uranus squares Pluto. But such an explosion of violence, as Mars aligns with Comet ISON!

These Mars connections are universal, in the sense that they apply to everyone anywhere on Earth during the indicated period. But they may be especially focused on those of us who were born under significant planets in the late Leo to early Virgo region. This would include, for example, everyone born between mid-August to just past mid-September. In addition, it also includes people like US President Barack Obama, who was born with two angular planets (Uranus and Pluto) plus the north lunar node in the Mars-ISON zone. Check your chart! I’m not saying you’re wearing a bulls-eye if these parameters fit . . . but you might be, so choose your battles with care and be sure someone has your back if at all possible.

Between the on and off Uranus-Pluto square that started in 2011 and continues into 2016, and the Mars Max that starts in December this year and continues into August 2014, I figure we’re well into an historical period of social strife and conflict unheralded since the 1930s (when Uranus last squared Pluto), which would have been reaching a crescendo starting in December even without a “comet of the century” hanging out with Mars in the sky at the moment, and all month long.

DON'T FORGET MERCURY MAX

And then there’s the Mercury Max cycle that began last month, and continues through November 18. Mercury Max tends to coincide with an outburst of solar activity – solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). These in turn amplify geomagnetic energy here on Earth. The most dramatic and obvious manifestation of this is auroral activity, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a greater risk of disruption to electrical and electronic infrastructure (including phone and computer networks and satellite systems) as solar activity increases. People are electrical systems too, and many report feeling fritzy or nervous under solar barrages.

Be aware that this is part of Mercury Max, and we’ve already seen it in the form of a rash of X-class solar flares around the time of Mercury’s October 21 retrograde station. This is just one of the key solar trigger points in the Mercury Max cycle; this time around, emphasized around October 9 (when Mercury Max began) and 21 (Mercury’s retrograde station), as well as November 1 (Mercury’s inferior conjunction with the Sun), 10 (Mercury’s direct station) and 18 (the end of Mercury Max). For more on the meaning and dynamics of the Mercury Max cycle, including the truth about Mercury’s retrograde as well as the so-called “shadow” and “storm” periods, see my detailed article on this subject.

This particular Mercury Max presages more than the usual infrastructure snafus. Since it includes a couple of eclipses and a melding of Mars and ISON with Uranus and Pluto, we can expect an intensification of the political and economic turmoil that’s been so evident since 2011. Remember, turmoil in the financial system underlies a lot of the individual as well as collective turmoil that has been so thematic of this year. Per my forecasts since May, we’re still in a good time to be looking for equity market sell-offs as buying opportunities. We’ve seen plenty already, per the forecast, but they’re not over yet. But it’s not a total market crash: the Venus Max getting underway in November says that what goes down now will rise higher than before when all’s said and done. Not everything will, mind you, so be selective.

Don’t forget that market psychology is key to this. You want to buy when everybody else is running for the exits. The solar cycle being near a peak during its magnetic polarity reversal, I figure there will be a lot of scrambled nerves and brains during this period - a recipe for panic. Especially around those key Mercury Max dates as well as the October 18 lunar eclipse (give or take a few days), you can expect an Earth-directed solar outburst, scrambling electrical circuits in our infrastructure, making for disturbances in the human nervous system as well. Be ready, get a grip, watch for auroras as a sign that it’s here. And remember that these erratic and unstable impulses operate across the spectrum of human behavior. They’re not limited to mass psychology and the markets. Many people feel them personally: nervousness, tension, stress, migraines and other erratic manifestations.

The bigger themes aside, the solar eclipse storm and seismic signal isn’t the only one in November, although it shapes up to be the most notable. Other dates when severe storms with high winds and heavy precipitation are most likely to be newsmakers, along with notable seismic activity (magnitude 5 and up earthquakes, plus volcanic eruptions), include the shock window centering on the full moon on the 17th, in effect from the 10th through the 20th. For more, see my table of lunar declination extremes and equatorial crossings for November 2013, and figure plus or minus 30 hours from the exact dates as the extent of these shock windows. (Notice that the new and full moons of 2013 are configured with the lunar declination points in such a fashion as to stretch the geocosmic shock windows wider than usual. The intensity is less because they don’t pile up all at once; but the duration is longer.

In closing, I mentioned at the outset a couple of planetary configurations worth noting this month; namely the Venus-Pluto conjunction on the 15th and the Mercury-Saturn conjunction on the 26th. These are times to safeguard whatever you hold precious, to the extent that you can. Fear and greed are afoot – and fleet. (Allow several days either side of these exact dates, just to be on the safe side.)

Acknowledgments

All astrological charts as well as eclipse and astro-locality maps are calculated and produced using Esoteric Technologies’ Solar Fire Gold Version 7.0.8 Sky map images are screen captures from the Pocket Universe app for iPhone, or produced by Starry Night for Windows. Storm tracks are screen captures from The Weather Channel app for iPhone. Solar activity images are screen captures from the 3D SUN app for iPhone. And earthquake maps are screen captures from Quakes Pro Earthquake Alerts app for iPhone.

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

Richard Nolle, Certified Professional Astrologer consultations/orders (AmEx/Discover/MasterCard/Visa) 800-527-8761 data/fax 480-753-6261 - email rnolle@astropro.com Box 26599 - Tempe, AZ 85285-6599 - USA www.astropro.com