SPRING: Venus travels with Mercury through Pisces for the entire month of March (it actually begins on Feb 22). Picture it like this: the beautiful maiden travels with the town crier (or Newspaper Man) and together have deep philosophical discussions. The beauty (Venus) influences the columists perspective on money, values, beauty and art, softening him and bringing greater grace and more flourishes to his words. The writer (Mercury) influences her to speak and write and share ideas with the world.

Together they bring forth deep, penetrating and mesmerising works of art and language. This is particularly powerful for Taurus, Gemini, Libra and Virgo folks. And it could be a life-changing month for Pisceans. Another side effect of this chatty pairing is an incredible infatuation with all things PRETTY. Romance, grace, beauty and pure beauty are captivating, intoxicating, mesmerizing now. Not to mention love, oh dear, I can see more than a few of them falling and falling hard under this unbelievably romantic celestial pattern. The gossip magazines should be filled with stories of starlets in love and getting pregnant.

Late March/Early April Mars makes his final arm wrestling attack on Pluto bringing back all the conflict and fights from Oct 2007 and around New Years of 2008 (can you say writers strike, among other fights to the death). In APRIL Mercury teams up with the Sun from the 13th-19 to create a powerful grand trine with Pluto and Saturn. This period of time has the hallmarks for successful communications, sales, writing and speaking projects, the downside is that there is something obsessive about the energy involved. Jupiter Retrogrades on May 9th at 22′ Capricorn, Chiron turns around on May 25th at 21′ Aquarius, then Neptune Retrogrades the next day on May 26th at 24′ Aquarius; signaling a period of major change regarding long-term holdings, financial dealings, property and agriculture. Both individuals and corporations will have to change their long-term strategies in these areas for the rest of the year. These retrogrades happen in trine with Mecury (in Retrograde) and Ceres, giving a huge lift to written and spoken projects and ideas as well as marketing plans - although they may take the rest of the year to get completed, rewritten and perfected.

From May 29 - June 20 Venus (the maiden) joins the CEO (Sun), bringing delights, charm, beauty and sensuality with her. Together in Gemini this creates a huge amount of attention to leaders, royalty, politicians, writers and other communicators in leadership posiitions. She (Venus) softens him (the Sun) up, while he floods her with attention and affection, leaving them both in a prosperous, generous and warm-hearted mood. In short; there couldn’t be a better year for artistic and creative expression that leads to money, especially for Taurus, Leo, Gemini and Libra.

To add to this stunning alignment, Mercury will Retrograde back to meet up with Venus and the Sun on JUNE 6th. All three planets sit exactly at 17′ Gemini. This makes an exact trine to the Feb. 7 Solar Eclipse degree - meaning that someone stands to prosper amazingly from events triggered by that Eclpsee. Anyone with sensitive degrees aspected by this will have major happy events, like celebrations and victories at this time. Even though everything looks sunny and rosy on the surface, the unseen level (in the Sun chart) shows a lot of tension at the same time in the negotiation signs of Gemini, Virgo, Pisces and Sag. This means that agreements are uneasy, and can’t be fully trusted, so enjoy, but tread carefully. Then on June 27th Uranus turns Retrograde at 23′ Aquarius effecting utilities and other public services for the rest of 2008. As part of a small pattern including the Moon, Neptune and Chiron, we are going to see emerging community and female leadership at this time.

The BIG CHALLENGE is posed when Venus opposes Pluto June 16-19 re-igniting fights, war, conflict and trouble that was going on in Oct 2007 and around New Years of 2008. This time, the fight is about money, power and who controls what. At the same time Mars opposes Neptune causing even greater problems in the housing market with forclosures, credit problems and even a weakening US dollar (I expect the dollar to lose a good amount of value in 2008 - about 20%). I will be posting a separate article forcasting transits to the US chart. Fortunately the Mars aspect is short lived, but will be revisited later in Late July and mid August when Venus and then the Sun make the same opposition to Neptune. Read this as a good time to finish things, get out of financial burdens and obligations and just plain cut ties with the past.