By Radko Vacek, M.A.     

       May has been the month when people celebrated the fertility of Nature. Just as our ancestors did, we continue to welcome May as the time to anticipate the renewal of the green earth, and the birth of many living things.  Freed from the icy and the snowy restrictions on traveling, we are filled with a wanderlust to roam freely over this wide earth! A philosophy of freedom is so inviting at this time! It follows naturally from the liveliness of this month, which makes it hard to accept a fatalism about the lives we lead. Our biological batteries feel charged by the renewed power of the sun, and we feel like conquering the world, or shaping the world around us, rather than being shaped by forces beyond our control. An attitude of, "Darn! I didn't win the jackpot of brains, character, looks, whatever, in the lottery of nature, and have to do the best with what I got", just is not appealing on waking up on a May morning.    

       May is a month when many artists go out into the wide world to capture the spirit of Spring, in whatever medium they work with. Especially in May, the artist in me takes an attitude of liberation towards myself: whatever limitations I have are part of the medium I had chosen to work with when I chose to incarnate my artistic spirit into this body. My limitations don't make my life easier, but if my life were easy, living would not be the art I want it to be! I bet there is an artist in you wanting to express yourself, so why not take the same accepting attitude to your own self, with whatever limitations it may have?    

       That is where my view of astrology comes in. A sculptor might want to wear safety glasses, to prevent chips from flying into the eyes. You, as the artist creating your life, might want to take safety precautions. Astrology can help you do so. The stars do not tell you that you are fated to have an accident on a certain day. They can give you forecasts, however, to help you take extra precautions on certain days. With May being such a lively month, and with us feeling so energized, we want to go out to do more, which is great, but we also run a greater risk of hurting ourselves. That's how an astrological forecast can help you.    

       Much more rigorously scientific research needs to done investigating astrology in general. As for astrological factors in accident-proneness, you can read an abstract of well done dissertation work by Sara Klein Ridgley, Ph.D., at www.safire.net/sara. Her tentative findings were that accidents more likely happen to you either around your birthday, or three months before or after, or six months away from it, all minus or plus about fifteen days. The risk appears to peak about minus or plus five days from these exact dates. Noteworthy correlations also were found between hard aspects involving Saturn and the asteroid Vesta and accidents. Accidents also seem to occur more frequently when the sun is transiting in hard aspect to either Jupiter, Vesta, or Saturn, within a five degree orb. 

       These findings interest me because they are at least to some extent in accord with astrological traditions, and with my own experience regarding an apparent correspondence between hard aspects between transiting planets and the natal chart. Experience has taught me that certain transits of Mars and Uranus seem to reflect times when we are more accident-prone. In astrological tradition, when Uranus is forming one of the stressful aspects (conjunction, square, opposition) to our natal sun, we tend to feel very energetic. If this transit is happening to your natal sun in May, all that energy coinciding with the high energy of this month will give you a double dose of spring! How great! None of us can ever get enough of May. But it also has the drawback of more potential for accidents. I have found that this potential drawback is highlighted when, at the same time, Mars is transiting in a stressful aspect as well, with your natal Saturn. Mars in tense aspect with the natal Saturn appears to trigger the accident-potential, the closer the aspect the greater the risk.    

       May the artist in every one of you awaken to the beauties surrounding you, and may you paint the canvass of your life with rainbow colors! Merry May!