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 mundane 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) the complete version of my 2019 World Forecast Highlights (34 8-1/2 x 11" illustrated pages); focused, amplified and elaborated with details for the month as appropriate. The full version of my 2019 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 anywhere in North America to 800-527-8761, and charged to any major credit or debit 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.

"It is the business of the future to be dangerous . . ."
-- Alfred North Whitehead
 

The Skinny

Saturn’s proximity to Pluto in celestial longitude remains important in May, but it’s beginning to fade ever since the Ringed Planet made its retrograde station at the end of April. These two were just 2-1/2° apart back then, but they stretch out to just over 3° apart by the end of May. The bottom line is that we’ll see decaying, collapsing structures still much in the headlines . . . but less so as the month wears on - until early December, when they’re both direct again and pull to within 3° separation once more. We’ll feel the shift in late September-early October, when first Saturn and then Pluto resume direct apparent motion in quadrature to the Sun – and Mars pulls into a T-Square with Jupiter and Neptune.

The retreat of Saturn and Pluto sets up one notable marker in July, however; within a few days either side of the lunar eclipse on the 16th at 24° Capricorn, with Saturn just a half-degree away from the south lunar node. Start stockpiling some cash and staples now if you can, just to be on the safe side. While for most of us this will just be a story in the news, it’s better to be over-prepared than vulnerable.

The July 13-19 lunar eclipse shock window points to a rise in the frequency and intensity of storm and seismic events, of course. But it operates in the geopolitical sphere as well as the geophysical. Political, socio-cultural (including religious), corporate and economic institutions are rocked and shocked in this period as well; particularly those with significant emphasis on the area of 24° in Capricorn as well as the rest of the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer and Libra).

Check Your Chart!

Which brings us back to May, where that same 24° Capricorn zone lies within a degree of where Pluto spends the entire month. Again, check your chart: if you have significant placements around 24° in the cardinal signs (viz. Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn), then facing the prospect of loss will in some way be an important issue this month.

Take President Trump, for example, whose birth chart features a Venus-Saturn conjunction at 24-25° Cancer – in direct opposition to Pluto in the heavens since March, when the Mueller report was first made public.

As described on page 10 in the full version of my 2018 World Forecast Highlights (published in December 2017), "President Nixon’s resignation occurred on August 9, 1974 – some two years and two months after the break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. (And that was with the Democrats controlling Congress.) . . . Realpolitik suggests a couple of alternative outcomes. The quicker one is that the GOP power structure turns on the President, and turns him out via the 25th Amendment. The slower hinges on the Democratic Party regaining a majority in the House of Representatives in the 2018 mid-term election – which would put us on a timeline not unlike the Nixon-Watergate scenario."

By way of follow-up, on pages 9-10 of my 2019 World Forecast Highlights, I wrote "By that reckoning, a Trump ouster would be due not before mid-March 2019. Notice that the Jupiter-Neptune square in January (14° 22’) in the mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces) makes a T-Square tying into the President’s natal tenth house Sun-Uranus and its opposition to his fourth house (lunar eclipse) Moon This is also in effect for the June and September appearances of the Jupiter-Neptune square."

"Apart from the Jupiter-Neptune square to his natal full moon eclipse – suggesting the public and the GOP lose confidence in him, there’s also the Saturn-Pluto conjunction opposing his natal Saturn: authority comes down hard fits this transit very well, particularly during the close approaches of April-June and December 2019. An external event such as a political removal from office is only one of the possibilities, of course. Internal factors such as health cannot be ruled out: he is obviously not a robust physical specimen."

"All things considered, I suspect that Mr. Trump ends up leaving office by some means other than impeachment in the House followed by conviction in the Senate. If ill health isn’t the cause of his exit, then he’s likely to follow a Nixonian path – resigning as part of a deal to avoid certain impeachment and conviction, in return for a pardon for himself and his adult children."

This whole scenario may have seemed implausible when I published it in 2017 and 2018. Then came November 2018, when the Democrats captured the House of Representatives; and March 2019, when the Mueller report was completed; and April, when it was published (in redacted form). The hands of the clock are sweeping forward right on time . . .

What’s Decaying, What’s Collapsing?

In a word, it’s the old order: the structures and institutions which have been a foundation for culture and civilization over the last several centuries, at least. (The last Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn occurred in 1518.) For the historical context of what’s happening now, see the full version of my 2019 World Forecast Highlights (pp. 1-7).

World orders don’t disintegrate right before our eyes, in a single transformative collapse. It happens over many generations. The little bits and pieces we see this month are like the individual bricks that make up a house. Examples include environment collapse, and the dissolution of social cohesion of the type that gave rise to nationalist developments like Brexit and the Trump administration. And then there’s the disintegration of national infrastructure, financial systems and international treaties. They all fit the pattern, but they won’t spring fully developed before our eyes over the next several weeks. The last conflux of celestial cycles anything like the current one, it should be remembered, heralded the onset of the Dark Ages – and that took awhile to be recognized for what it was.

Here are the themes that distinguish the markers of this trend. One is decay and corruption: the weakness and rot that is revealed in the heart of respected, vaunted, powerful institutions. Nations, international organizations, religious orders and the like: their failings have been much in evidence for years now, particularly since Justinian’s T-Square lined up in 2006 for the first time in 1500 years.

Since then, the years 2008-2010 (Saturn opposing Uranus), 2012-2015 (Uranus waxing square to Pluto), late 2018 (Pluto’s southward crossing of the ecliptic plane) are all intermediary to the climactic 2020 Saturn-Pluto conjunction and Air Trigonalis Great Chronocrator (Jupiter-Saturn conjunction). In that context, the travails of the Trump regime are small potatoes: they’re signs of a larger collapse.

Geophysical Markers

Narrowing the focus to the next few weeks and the sublunar world, as Ptolemy called it . . . May 1-7 (bracketing the new moon at 14° Taurus on the 4th) and 15-21 (centered on the Buddha full moon at 28° Scorpio on the 18th) are the two major geocosmic storm windows for May. Watch for an increase in the number and frequency of strong tidal surges, powerful storms with heavy precipitation (and attendant flooding), and moderate to severe seismic activity (including M5+ earthquakes and notable volcanic eruptions). Of the two, I suspect that the full moon will be the more turbulent geophysical shock window, occurring as it does with Lilith and Neptune within two degrees of alignment at the time.

In closing, keep an eye on Llith this month. There’s been a strong Lilith-Neptune conjunction on and off all year, very much in focus again in May – especially around the full moon on the 18th. Watch for women’s issues to reach a flash point: it’s been true all year, and it’s still very strong over the weeks to come. Rebellious, strong, angry women revolting against and attacking the patriarchal order . . . women driven mad by subjugation . . . LGBTQ issues. I’m reminded of a bumper sticker I saw on a pickup truck 20 years ago: "I’m Out of Estrogen – and I’ve Got a Gun." Remember: the Lilith of myth was a wild woman, refusing to be dominated, raging against anyone who attempted to keep her down in any way. She’s loose now – like Rhiannon, who like Lilith was associated with a night bird in flight.

Over the last year or two, I’ve been paying special attention to the lunar apogee point (LAP); i.e. the point at which the Moon reaches apogee, the spot in the lunar orbit that is farthest from Earth. The opposite point, perigee, is an essential part of the SuperMoon concept, which I defined in 1979 as a new or full moon (syzygy) occurring at or very year the Moon’s perigee (closest approach to Earth).

I wrote about the lunar apogee point in my article "The Dark Goddess: Black Moon Lilith" (pp 43-50 in the May/June 2018 issue of Dell Horoscope, "the world’s leading astrology magazine"). Like perigee syzygy, the technical term lunar apogee point is a mouthful; which is why I came up with the term SuperMoon. Likewise, astrologers have christened the LAP variously as the Black Moon, Lilith and the Black Moon Lilith. It’s abbreviated BML in today’s standard astrological software, Solar Fire – which supports accurate calculation of the lunar apogee point.

Astrology has for millennia paid attention to the lunar nodes, which like BML are points of spatial relationship rather than physical bodies. Lilith warrants closer attention too, in my experience. The Moon is fundamental to astrology, and I am convinced that it cannot be adequately understood apart from the nodes and BML. I certainly see that in my client consultations – especially lately, now that Lilith is making some important alignments with Neptune in Pisces.

In a recent Facebook post, I posited the following analogy: "Lilith is to Eve as id is to ego." There’s a lot more to Lilith than this, but it’s a good place to start. Lilith is yin rather than yang, female rather than male. And unbound. Lilith is NOT negative per se – but independent, rebellious and narcissistic. We all need (and have) a certain Lilith quotient. But behavior that is charming in the very young is at best exasperating in the more mature. Lilith needs context and perspective, lest it descend into a destructive sociopathic (or even psychopathic) spiral. These are especially important considerations in 2019.

Aligning with Neptune starting in March this year (and on into 2020), Lilith signifies an intensified onslaught of manipulative charm, lies, deception, brainwashing and propaganda. It’s a trend that began in January 2017, as Lilith aligned with Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn. But now it’s different: it’s pathological rather than political; the lies and deception are by default, rather than for purposes of specific manipulation. The deceivers just can’t help themselves anymore.

We’re all experiencing this. But a special focus falls on those of us born under significant factors around 15-18° in the mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces – especially Pisces, where the alignments with Neptune occur). Put another way, anyone getting hard aspect transits from Neptune this year, is getting a particularly strong dose – thanks to the Lilith factor amplifying it. Check your chart.

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 or Star Rover apps 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 QuakeFeed or QuakeWatch apps for iPhone. Any market images are screen captures from the default iPhone Stocks app, unless otherwise noted. Weather images and storm tracks are screen captures from the Weather Channel 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/message 480-753-6261 - email rnolle@astropro.com Box 26599 - Tempe, AZ 85285-6599 - USA www.astropro.com