Thursday, March 30 | The Swarm Passes WITH ANY LUCK we have all survived the combination of an Aries Point eclipse and mercury stationing direct more or less unscathed. Events of the past week wrap up a seemingly endless swarm of relentless planetary changes. Most notably, we have lived through an enormous spell of inner planet retrogrades that go back to last summer when (of course, in the middle of a Mercury retrograde) Mars entered Taurus and started warming up its retrograde in that sign, which it finally left behind for this cycle in February; in the midst of which it covered about half the sign in reverse before stationing direct at the end of last year. Mars is not retrograde very often, and it's not an energy we grow accustomed to as a result. Mars is retrograde (not counting shadow phases) 9.4% of the time. Two weeks later, in late December, Venus turned retrograde while making an exact conjunction to Chiron. Venus is retrograde even less than Mars, just 7.2% of the time. The Venus retrograde, which spanned Aquarius back to mid Capricorn, stretched until early March by my reckoning (when it began covering new territory in Aquarius). During that fairly long time, we experienced several Mercury retrogrades, with the most recent one ending March 25. Personal planets really are personal. They are tangible and palpable and you know they are up to something. And this nonstop run of inner planets throttling into reverse one after the next, sometimes two at a time, has been pretty darned special. In addition, last summer, Saturn entered the sign Leo. This is a big deal in part because Saturn changing signs always is -- and because Saturn in Leo is particularly heavy duty. In Astrology Secrets Revealed, I published information about the phenomenon of levees breaking and, soon enough, "Hurricane Katrina" became something new under the Sun, followed by "Hurricane Rita." But the obvious metaphor for physical levees breaking is stuck areas in our lives giving way to something different. In addition, over the past few months a variety of Centaur planets -- the earlier ones, which we're more familiar with, including Chiron, Pholus and Nessus -- all took up residency in new signs (much about this in the archives from both 2004, 05 and 06). Like bookends around this phase were the eclipses of late summer 2005 (annular solar eclipse of Sept. 3) and the total solar eclipse yesterday. True, a lot of this stuff was in motion by September, but that was the acceleration point. And it's sure been interesting -- take a moment and recount both personal history and world history during this phase from September till now. It seems like yesterday but so much has happened. I would dare say that despite the turbulence and chaos, and certain people doing their best to take advantage of it, it's been a productive time. Yesterday the energy shifted with a decisive thrust forward: a total eclipse on the Aries Point. We are out of this retrograde phase of personal history and the resounding message is that the future has arrived. Retrogrades emphasize the past, and what is internalized. Aries emphasizes the present, and what is expressed. The thing about eclipses like this is that once they start expressing themselves, they don't often stop. And the thing with activity on the Aries Point is that (in my experience) it's predictable that something is brewing -- but we're never quite sure what that is. These examples include the Sept. 11 incident, the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, where there was plenty of activity on the Aries Point in the weeks leading into that event. Just remember, one man's mystery is another man's conspiracy. Speaking of -- I thought this was entertaining. http://www.nymag.com/news/features/16464/index.html