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). Location for all mundante charts is set for the Great Pyramid at Giza; the choice being strictly arbitrary in any case. 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 2016 World Forecast Highlights (38 8-1/2 x 11” illustrated pages); focused, amplified and elaborated with details for the month as appropriate. The full version of my 2016 World Forecast Highlights is 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. Orders may also be placed direct from your own PayPal account page to rnolle@astropro.com – or by using the AstroPro PayPal order page.

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."
-- Mother Teresa
 

The Skinny

The skinny is all I have time for this month, due to an even heavier than usual workload here – including a new magazine article assignment. Seriously, I have been reduced to advising inquirers that I can take no more new client consultations (and no more report orders whether from new clients or old), until June 1 – because that’s as soon as I can foresee being current again. (I’m still wo0rking in all my regular client calls, but that’s it for now.) As a double Capricorn, I consider an overload of work a good problem to have. But it does cut this month’s forecast to the bone. For more in-depth coverage, see the full version of my 2016 World Forecast Highlights.

2016's Last Stealth SuperMoon

May shapes up to be at least every bit as turbulent – geophysically, geopolitically and biopsychically – as April. Like April, May has a Stealth (new moon) SuperMoon, the last of three consecutive such alignments this year. This one’s at 16° 416 Taurus on the 6th. If you have important natal chart factors at or near the middle of the fixed signs – Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius (particularly Taurus and Scorpio) – then this is likely to be an especially important time of the month for you. (Check your chart!) At the personal (biopsychic) level, this speaks for a time of emotional depth and intensity. Sometimes it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie – and this is probably one of those times. Wait until the May 3-9 SuperMoon shock windows passes before trying to deal rationally with the irrational. Accompanied as it is by the Mars-Saturn T-Square to the Jupiter-Neptune opposition, this is a sign of ideological extremism, the kind that puts rigid beliefs above compassion and compromise. A sign of high emotional tides, the kind that demagogues can whip into a frenzy. Look for a financial scandal, a moral outrage that shocks the conscience, and stirs up dangerous levels of rage – the kind that can spur individual as well as collective violence.

The geophysical dimensions of this alignment will still be there, of course: notable tidal, storm and seismic action as usual. Practically speaking, the vast majority of us will come no closer to this kind of uproar than seeing or hearing it in the news of the day. While the potential is widespread due to the astronomical scale of the alignment, the Earth is after all roomy enough that more of us will be missed than hit by these disturbances of the earth, seas and skies. Still, even those of us who don’t live in zones of seismic or tidal risk dwell under the sky, and storms can pop up anywhere. So be prepared, just in case . . . and maybe especially if you live in one of the astro-locality target zones for the May 6 SuperMoon.

These zones of special vulnerability include a longitudinal (north-south) swath through western North America, from Canada through the western US and Mexico, and another one through the Middle East and western Asia. Horizon arcs kiss the easternmost tip of Brazil and cross the Atlantic to sweep over west Africa and western Europe, coming down through east Asia, Japan, Indonesia, eastern Australia and New Zealand.

Mars & Mercury in a May Double Max

The biopsychic and geopolitical atmosphere remains disturbed all month long, with both Mercury Max and Mars Max continuing throughout May – and reaching a couple of peak points in both cases. Mars Max hits a peak around May 22 (give or take a week), the date when the Red Planet glows big and bright in the night sky as it reaches perigee (close approach to Earth), on the occasion of the Sun-Mars opposition. Likewise, all things martial and bellicose flare up in the human psyche, individually as well as collectively. The "fires, crashes, clashes and explosionse " so typical of this alignment are still surging all month long, but watch for them to reach a break-out point around the 22nd.

Mercury Max too continues in force throughout May (all the way to June 5, in fact). But this cycle also reaches a couple of peak points this month: within plus or minus three days of the 9th (the Sun-Mercury inferior conjunction and Mercury’s transit across the solar disc) and the 22nd (the day Mercury’s apparent retrograde ends).

The whole Mercury Max cycle is a high tide of stronger than usual solar activity: M and X-class flares, Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and the corresponding geomagnetic storms here on Earth (Kp 5 and higher). Watch of a general fritziness of electrical and electronic systems, from individual components to whole networks – including that most marvelous network, the human nervous system. Dumping Gigawatts of extra solar energy into the atmosphere and magnetosphere of Planet Earth also stirs up a surfeit of storms and seismic activity (including volcanic eruptions and M5 and up earthquakes).

Please note that the Mercury Max and Mars Max peak dates fall on or about the dates of the May 6 Stealth SuperMoon and the May 21 full moon. It’s this confluence that points to more than usually intense storm and seismic activity around these dates: be on the lookout, have your emergency kit ready just in case.

Acknowledgments

All mundane astrological charts as well as eclipse and astro-locality maps are set for the Universal Time (UT) of the event, and calculated and produced using Esoteric Technologies’ Solar Fire Gold Version 7.0.8. Charts are set for the location of the Great Pyramid - a purely arbitrary choice, since location is irrelevant to these charts. Unless sotherwise noted, 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; and earthquake maps are screen captures from the Earthquake Alerts ör QuakeWatch 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