2003 - The Year of the Martian Invasion! Click here to return to the Intro page �The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," they say... But then what do they know? It turns out that the chances are much higher than that. 73,000 to one to be exact. And guess what 2003 just so happens to be? The 73,000th year! Due to a peculiar quirk in a complicated orbit, Mars is about to come closer to the earth than at any point in the last 73,000 years. We therefore, need to prepare ourselves for a Martian invasion! By this, I don�t mean we should be on the look-out for flying saucers or little green men. But we might do well to look out for flying missiles and green-eyed monsters. In astrology, Mars rules them both. It is the infamous planet of combat and competition, fury and feud, anger and envy. It is the red planet. And since time immemorial, it has been associated with blood. Blood shed in bitter battle. Blood boiling with unassuagable rage. Blood vessels engorged with pulsing passion. It is my sorry duty to predict that blood will indeed be spilled in 2003. Needlessly. Pointlessly. Stupidly. To this, I must reluctantly add that hackles will rise, agreements will collapse, tempers will be lost and crazed ideas will be fanatically pursued. But hey! What�s the difference? Doesn�t something like that happen every year? And hasn�t it been much the same story throughout history? This is a hairy, scary world. We discovered that long ago - and by now, we are used to it. We take injustice in our stride. We shrug our shoulders daily at the sight of gross inequality. We hear horror stories on the news every night and, though we always feel sympathy for victims of a violent crime, we never feel surprised to hear that such a thing has taken place. We are hardened. We are toughened. We are seasoned sufferers of insensitivity. We know how to handle ourselves. So, when we are told that the notorious blood planet is soon due to start shining more brightly in the sky than ever before in history, we do not quake in our boots. We merely raise a weary eyebrow and say; �Oh yes? Well, how bad IS it going to get then?� If you want to know, keep reading. I�ll tell you HOW bad. And if you really don�t want to know, keep reading all the more. For you sorely NEED this information. You also sorely need to know what ELSE is going on in the sky at the moment. In case you hadn�t noticed, we are all going through a bit of a tough time. Ever since Saturn and Pluto began opposing one another, back in 2001, we have been feeling ever more exposed, insecure and anxious. With good reason. The ever-present threat of terrorism is demonstrably real. The future has never seemed less certain. The possiblity of an imminent, terrible war has rarely seemed more likely. Saturn and Pluto are no longer so tightly opposed. The influence of this disruptive alignment, which happens once every thirty years or so, will diminish even further this year, as Saturn eventually moves into a new sign. Uranus too is getting ready to move into a new sector of the sky for the first time since 1996. That ought to be good news for us all. It is... but its impact is reduced by the influence of another opposition - that is due to dominate the celestial stage in 2003. This one takes place between Jupiter and Neptune. Neptune, I should now inform you, is the planet of wild fantasy while Jupiter is the planet of excess. All kinds of molehills get made into mountains when these two planets align like this. Astrologers who specialise in finance watch the Jupiter/Neptune cycle very carefully. They feel that it implies a period of great inflation. That�s interesting, especially if you look at the way that all the �great pundits� now seem to be talking about recession. They were talking about this at the beginning of 2002 - and it never really happened. I told them it wouldn�t - and so did several of my colleagues! This year, once again, the experts are saying �bust� and we astrologers are saying �boom�. We astrologers have the benefit of experience here. To us, an alignment like this is unequivocal in its meaning. We can only read ONE thing into it... just as a market analyst could only read that same one thing into a rise in the interest rate. We KNOW that Jupiter and Neptune will raise the prices of many commodities including oil! But er.. I have to be honest and say that we don�t know exactly what this year�s biggest, most important cosmic event is going to bring. For it is one that none of us have ever come across before. We cannot draw on the wisdom of our predecessors - for even the learned Ptolemy in ancient Alexandria would have had no real idea about how to read a planetary phenomenon like this one. The last time Mars came so close to the Earth, an ice age was just beginning - and our cave-dwelling ancestors were learning how to sharpen pieces of mammoth bone for better hunting. Keep that in mind please. It could give us an important clue about what to expect, once Mars starts shining quite so brightly in the sky again. Mars, after all, has always been seen (in pretty much every culture - and every form of astrology throughout history) as a planet of conflict and contention. And it has long symbolised weaponry of every conceivable kind. So er... what particular bone might we now be learning to sharpen? A nuclear bone? A biological bone? A terrorist bone? A �war in the name of peace� kind of a bone? There are some who feel that the planet is now one big dry powder keg. A single spark - in the wrong place - at the wrong time could set off the apocalypse we have all been dreading. The end, they claim, is now so nigh that it is probably too late even to repent. But then, doom-mongers have always lived amongst us. And despite all that�s now so unnerving in Korea, Iraq, Israel and the furtive world of international terrorism, we have no particular reason to be more worried this year than we were last year... or than we will be next year! Indeed, there�s a very different (and much more inspiring) interpretation that can be placed on this year�s close encounter with the war-planet. �Anger, hatred and heartlessness� say the optimists, �Are sorry facts of life. We have a truly horrible history to prove this. Think back,� they say, �Over all that you know about the past. What has it been full of?� And then, they go on to ask a further question. Given all the evil, the ugliness and the cruelty of yesteryear, how can things possibly get any worse? How, for example, do you �surpass� the obscenity of the Holocaust? How on earth (or in heaven) can Mars possibly make the people of our world any more bloodthirsty and brutal than they already are? Perhaps then, it is here to do the very opposite. Perhaps it has come to help us recognise our own silliness - and to start finding other, better ways to resolve oujr conflicts. If so, it is going to have its work cut out for it. For we are very fond of our greed and our aggression. By now, I hope, you are starting to question something. �What does he mean by �we�? I already know that war is a bad thing. So too does the government of my country. I am proud of the civilised society that I live in. I know that it would only ever attack another nation unless it perceived a very serious threat - or was experiencing extreme provocation.� And that, of course, sounds wonderful until you remember that it is precisely what the other side always say too! Only at the movies do the �baddies� wear sharp suits and twirl waxed moustaches. Out here in the real world, the bad guys believe, with all their heart, that they are good guys. Indeed, they usually feel that they are doing the work of god! It�s always the other guys, following the �false god� who are �evil�. So, now, if you really want to get a handle on what�s due to happen in 2003, please read the following paragraph very carefully. �If the good guys think of themselves as good guys and the bad guys think of themselves as good guys too, how can we ever be sure what WE are? Unless maybe, just maybe, it�s this whole good guy/bad guy thing which is bad. The whole idea of right versus wrong. Good versus evil. Holy versus heathen. Maybe THAT�S what causes all the trouble. And maybe that�s what Mars has now come closer to Earth in order to show us. If so, we can expect our lesson to be a dramatic one. We can expect to be taken right to the very brink of dreadful disaster before being pulled mercifully back from it. We can expect to be shown precisely what our intolerance of one another really leads to. And we can expect our collective pulses to race many times over the course of the coming year. For Mars, as well as being the planet of agression and anger is the planet of adrenaline. It is about to give us all a mighty big shot of the stuff - right in our collective posterior! But it is not, repeat not, going to bring down the final curtain on planet earth�s ongoing drama. Throughout this week, I shall explain more about why this apparent year of fear will yet become a time triumph for those who favour non-violence and peaceful reconciliation. I shall also talk about how much good it may do our governments - and our populations to be �shaken up� to the point where they can no longer continue in the old, complacent and often heartless ways. PLUS, in your personal zodiac forecast for 2003, I shall begin to explain why Mars, in your personal life, is due to awaken courage on a scale you have never experienced - or displayed before. And I shall show you how this can yet help you conquer an inhibition that has held you back your whole life long.

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