Astrologically, this is a huge week, with three important conjunctions, Mercury turning direct just before a lunar eclipse in Mercury-ruled Gemini, and everything connected.

We’re already seeing the effects of the planetary configuration in the eclipse chart, which is complex and exceedingly rare. The Mars-Uranus square peaked on Friday, and right on cue, there was a huge explosion in Springfield, Mass., followed by a tragic fire on Saturday at a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

I predicted in last week’s forecast that the Mars-Uranus square might be mitigated by the conjunction of Venus and Saturn, favorably angled to Mars and Pluto. In the case of the Springfield explosion, this seemed to be the case. How likely is it that a blast that size in a major city like Springfield would result in no fatalities? According to a story by The Associated Press, officials marveled how the “blast occurred when a day care center next door was closed. The center’s building was heavily damaged.” In the chart timed for the explosion, Venus and Saturn were in the fifth house, which rules children. Vesta, an asteroid named for the Roman goddess who protected the community, was on the Ascendant.

And yet, the chart for the Dhaka fire has almost the same Ascendant, with Venus and Saturn in the fifth house as well, and as we know from news reports, at least 124 people died, most of them women. The only apparent difference in the charts is the position of the Moon, which in the Dhaka chart is at a near-exact inconjunct with chart-ruler Mercury, stationed (stopped) in preparation for returning direct tomorrow. According to news reports, emergency exits were blocked, and the workers were trapped.

This is a good reminder that astrology can’t tell you “what’s going to happen to you.” Our actions do count, and we can affect the outcome of situations. According to news reports, the Dhaka factory was tagged more than a year ago for unsafe conditions – by, of all ironies, Wal-Mart, one of the factory’s leading buyers and a corporation not known for great working conditions. We can choose not to heed warnings, and sometimes we even get away with it. Then, when astrological conditions change, we pay.

What’s so tragic here is that the people who paid with their lives had no voice. That, in a nutshell, is what the Uranus-Pluto square is all about. The more people rise up and protest, the more forceful the backlash from the authorities becomes.

The closer we get to Wednesday’s Full Moon eclipse, the closer the planets will align, with the Sun right at the midpoint between Mars and Pluto on one side and Saturn and Venus on the other. I can’t get over how extraordinary this alignment is, and I expect that the manifestations of it will be equally as remarkable. I see the possibility that it is a small window, a narrow gateway, to accomplishing the impossible and finding resolution to the greatest conflicts facing humanity. I was thinking “war and peace,” when a link popped onto my screen for indie films about war and peace. I just love synchronicities.

In that context, my “big news” is relatively minor. Nevertheless, it was a major accomplishment for me to complete my first video for RealAstrologers. It’s a week later than I planned, with several problems I wasn’t able to resolve, despite several all-nighters. I definitely was tempting fate trying to do work requiring exacting detail during Mercury retrograde, but there was no way around it. With better planning, I’d have had the video done by the first of November, but I’ve also had a backlog of reports. Some of the things that went wrong in the video-making process would have been laughable for an astrologer, if not for the time and frustration – we know that this is exactly what happens with Mercury in “reverse.” I was seriously not amused that my program kept crashing when I was nearly done. Right up until the 11th hour, problems made mountains out of small, routine tasks. But I did have some fun, too, and I learned a ton – a major function of Mercury.

For sure, I’m not the only one who’s been tearing my hair out. On Wednesday, I got the following e-mail from a client:

Normally I heed well your warnings on Mercury retrograde. A week and a half ago I decided to purchase a new fridge, to replace the 30-year-old one in the house … After many problems it was delivered last Saturday and has yet to freeze an ice cube. I have had to toss much food, lose a day’s pay to a repairman, who said he can get a part in December, and lose my mind to the point of getting sick. As it stands right now I will be getting the useless one hauled out and new one in tonight. I will never blatantly disregard your warnings again!

The good news is that we have only one more day of this, and then we’ve got the green light … and how!

Most of this week’s aspects appear in the chart for the eclipse, starting with Monday’s Sun-Uranus trine. This is where I see the biggest potential for good surprises. We’ve had enough bad ones lately – then, nothing really surprises us much anymore … OK, maybe I shouldn’t have written that. As we found out with Hurricane Katrina, trines can be “good” for something other than humans. Nature is neutral and couldn’t care less how weather affects us. Likewise, the Universe is neutral. Our limited notion of “benefit” is just that – limited.

Also on Monday, Mercury returns direct. This is critically important, given that Mercury is the ruler of Wednesday’s eclipse. Mercury went retrograde in Sagittarius but returns direct in Scorpio, the sign of backroom deals, spies, and corporate secrets. It’s hard to imagine what kind of shocking information will come out in the next two weeks. Will any election results be overturned? The United Nations has declared Washington and Colorado in violation of international treaties for voting to legalize pot. This is just too bizarre for words. And what about Petraeus and Benghazi? I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop – namely, confirmation that the U.S. “consulate” in Benghazi was a CIA outpost, that this was not a secret in upper echelons, and that the Republicans’ faux outrage is a diversionary tactic. As for the impending “fiscal cliff” – well, who knows what surprises lie in store?

Later on Monday, Venus conjoins Saturn, immediately followed on Tuesday by the conjunction of Mars and Pluto. There is some deep symbolic significance here in that Venus and Mars are the quintessential male and female, that each is aligned with a “superpower,” and that those superpowers are virtually indistinguishable, due to their mutual reception. How much difference, really, is there between the one political party and another, one country or another? The polarities anymore are not between political parties or countries, but between social classes – those with political and economic power, and those without it. Protest movements around the world seem to identify more with one another than they do with their own national identities, with fast global communications as a means of connecting. This is the wave of the future.

Venus formally aligns with Pluto on Wednesday and with Mars on Thursday. The one factor that may make an immediate difference in U.S. national affairs is the number of women in Congress. In general (note emphasis), our values are different, with relationships being more important than dominance. I know that there are countries ahead of us in this regard – Iceland, for example. The vanguard is followed by the mainstream.

The one planet I didn’t discuss in my video was Jupiter, who is not far from the Moon in the eclipse chart. The conjunction is a bit wide to have much impact, and Jupiter is retrograde and in the sign of his fall. But there’s a little extra “luck” here nonetheless, plus some amplification of the power of the energies of the eclipse in general. So, even though it’s only a penumbral eclipse and you may not even see it, there’s a better chance that you’ll feel it in some area of your life.

I’m really excited about this week, and I’m especially looking forward to getting my work back on track. One of my first tasks (after taking care of client e-mail and some backlogged reports) will be to create the template for the StarGuide Winter 2013 Forecast. I just love it that some of you have pre-ordered before I even announced it. I’ll have an update in next week’s forecast.

In the meantime, much love and courage to all,
Pat