To see what I mean, please suspend your disbelief and join me in a leap of imagination. Try thinking of the entire planet earth as just one living entity. A sort of giant tree with many branches. If our planet is actually just one living, breathing, thinking thing, then every piece of land is a part of the same big rock. Every drop of water part of the same big ocean. And, er... every human being? Well, what if it turned out that you and I weren't just related to some distant ancestor but were linked in a series of other, much more immediate ways? What if we actually were, to some extent at least, a PART of each other? Hold that thought please. Or put it down if you prefer. It's quite a tricky notion to hang on to, I find. We'll return to it shortly.

Meanwhile, let's return to space. If the earth is ultimately just one living entity, perhaps the entire solar system is also part of that same giant being? In which case, when we discover a new planet at the very edge of our world, it is as if we are discovering a new possiblity at the very edge of our own personality! You think that's far-fetched? Read on. I strongly predict that Sedna's arrival is about to unleash upon our world, a series of ideas that makes all the ones above seem dull and ordinary. Get ready, very soon, to start wrapping your mind around the mechanics of time travel and the practicalities of Star Trek-style teleportation. Scientists are about to confirm to us all that both are possible. Sooner than we think. Meanwhile, even more weirdly, we are all going to start edging ever so slowly towards a future in which human beings respect each other more, resent each other less and are generally willing to let their differences be forgotten. Still not convinced? Then, let me tell you a rather lovely, if slightly gory story that has been handed down by word of mouth for countless generations by the Inuit people.

Once upon a time, a beautiful maiden married a suitor who turned out to be raven in disguise. Her father set out to rescue her but as they were crossing the sea going home, a flock of birdpeople created a huge storm. Her father believed that the only way to calm the waves was to make them a sacrifice. In a fit of mad and despicable panic, he threw his daughter into the ocean. As she clung to their boat, he chopped off her fingers till she fell to the bottom of the sea. Her fingers became the whales, seals and all the other sea mammals. The Sun and Moon, though, gave her new life as the eternal goddess of the ocean. She forgave her father. And he went to live with her at the bottom of the sea where they still exist today. The maiden's name was Sedna. She's who the new planet has been named after. We'll discuss the meaning of that many times in my column over the next few months. For now, though, just consider this. Despite all that he did, she forgave her father. They went on to exist in peace and wisdom. So whatever else this story is, it's a tale of redemption, of forgiveness and of the ability of humans to rise above all the dreadful things they do to each other out of fear and ignorance. I find it deeply inspiring that Sedna has now chosen this time to emerge from the shadows and to become part of our solar system. She's a part of our culture now. And maybe too, she's about to become a part of us all!

Weaknesses in other areas of investment will make property seem a more attractive proposition. The dollar will take a few more months to recover from its current weakness. A nasty late-March dip in the value of the US stock market won't help it... though it won't prove catastrophic either. Oil will come down in price. Gold will edge up and down like a yo-yo, proving attractive to investors with nerves made of a somewhat tougher metal. Employment prospects will continue to improve, especially in the run-up to the UK election, just before Tony Blair's birthday in May. If he leaves it later than that - or goes much earlier, the celebrations will be most appropriatley held by Sagittarian Charles Kennedy. Tenacious Taurean Tony will still win. But not by as much as he wants to.

For more about the ambitions that can be fulfilled and the powers that can be gained and attained, join me later in Part Four for the next in our series of predictions. Today though, we're looking mainly at money and, in particular at the impact of the newly-discovered planet Sedna, on all things fiscal. Sedna is not, of course, a 'financial planet' in the strictest sense. She's much more a symbol of spirit than of wealth. Her recent discovery though, cannot help but have an influence on the hearts and minds of people, all over the planet. Insofar as this is due to be, primarily, an uplifting one, we can at least rest assured that her arrival won't trigger a recession. About the only thing that will start to recede, now that Sedna has shown herself to us from a hiding place at the far extreme of the solar system, is some of the callous, careless, heartless cynicism that has held far too much of the world in its grip during the last century. As I explained yesterday, new planets only ever arrive at times when the world is about to go through changes so vast that there simply aren't enough words to describe this in the existing astrological 'vocabulary'.

The last such arrival was Pluto, in 1930. That planet, named after a mythical 'Lord of The Underworld' certainly lived up to its name. Dark dreams enveloped the planet from the very moment of its arrival. From the great depression to the holocaust, from the atomic bomb to the advent of global warming, humanity finally got to see just what a terrifying place it was capable of turning the world into. The common theme in all these horrible events was an insistence on principle before compassion. In some cases the principles were political, in others mercenary. In all cases, they were ugly. And widespread. Sedna belongs to a different mythology. She's not a greek figure but a goddess of the ancient Inuit people who once, we called Eskimos. Her main influence, it is already clear, will be to help all people of the world forge a new respect for each other... and for the planet. She's not without her dark side either, as I shall explain in Part Four. But compared to Pluto, she's a shining star of bright new hope.

You don't believe it? Then follow me, please, back to 1781.

That's when the first of these 'new' outer planets turned up and the world first changed forever, for everyone. The technology of that time was not exactly primitive. People understood a lot about how the world worked and had long been using telescopes to study the sky. Through these, they could see that Jupiter had moons and Saturn had rings. They laughed at the old idea of the earth going round the Sun. They would have laughed even louder though, if you had tried to tell them there were more than seven permanent 'moving bodies' in the sky. That fact, they believed, was observable and indisputable. You could no more question it than you could assume that humans were capable of, er... flying.

In March 1781, while William Herschel was peering through a home-made telescope and becoming the first person ever to see the eighth planet, French engineers were starting to experiment with the world's first hot air balloon. Very shortly after the name Uranus was officially given to the new discovery, human beings really COULD fly and the world was never going to be the same again. Suddenly, the minds of the great were all thinking alike, 'If we can do THAT, what else might be possible?'

A thousand further discoveries followed. Revolutions in politics, science, art, fashion and agriculture soon swept the globe. It's largely because of what changed, when Uranus was first found, that astrologers believe that a 'new' planet only starts to have a big influence once it has been identified. Think, if you like, of the planets as a performing troupe. Between them, this team of actors can play most roles, express most ideas, communicate most messages. Sometimes though, a new and truly mind-blowing idea will come along. It simply can't be conveyed by the members of the existing cast. At such a point, a new actor steps in and it turns out that he (or she) has been patiently waiting in the wings since the play began.

We are, of course, interested to know what the new arrival has been doing for all that time... but we are much more concerned about what will happen next. Because the cosmic cast are so versatile, such additions are rarely required. Uranus, the magician, though, was needed not just to provide an astrological symbol for 'flight' but for steam engines, electrical impulses and innovative technologies of all kinds. It also became a metaphor for 'spontaneous discovery with life-changing consequences'. Uranus 'did nicely' as the planet of the new, until about 1840 when once again, humanity made a breakthrough so big that there just weren't words, in the existing language, to describe it. Suddenly we realised that we might be descended from the apes, that the human mind had mechanisms which could be understood and adjusted, that moving images could be captured, that people's voices could be recorded, that messages could be instantly telegraphed thousands of miles... and that if you wanted to find a new planet you could work out its position by a series of algebraic equations. An age of intellect had begun and Neptune, the planet discovered by formula, had become its chief symbol.

By now, I hope, you are starting to get the picture. New planets turn up only when humanity is just about to take a truly historic step forward. They don't just symbolise new technology, they symbolise new thought processes, new social orders, new expectations and new possibilities for everyone. I'll show you more during the rest of this week when I tell you about the influence that Pluto's discovery had on the world, back in 1931. I'll also start to tell you more about how I think Sedna, the newly discovered tenth planet, could be about to catapult us into a world of time travel and telepathy, and, perhaps more importantly, how it could be about to herald a step for the whole human race towards a far deeper level of emotional maturity. I shall also explain how she is set to open up so many exciting new possibilities for you.