On March 20, the Sun entered Aries, bringing the Vernal Equinox and beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. At the moment of the Equinox, the Sun was in an exact conjunction to the asteroid Amor.

One might think that a glorified rock floating in space might lack influence, but both Alfred Kinsey and Casanova were born with Sun conjunct Amor—so look out.

The Equinox was in other respects a busy day for Aries. Mercury stationed retrograde in the middle of this rather important sign, and Mars, the sign ruler, reached the very end of Capricorn and entered Aquarius. Aquarius is good for Mars; Mars is the original "me" planet, and if we can turn that first letter of the word upside down, we have an even more useful word, "we," which is a property offered by Aquarius like nowhere else. An exact opposition (or 180 degree aspect) between the Moon and Mars just as Mars changed signs offered the image of a passionate, emotionally edgy season where nothing is quite certain and where we just know that, for some good reason or another, it cannot be.

There is a sense of rapid transit to early spring, accelerated by the presence of two eclipses in the immediate future. The first of these occurs in Aries, on April 8. It is an annular solar eclipse, meaning that it would be a total eclipse except that the Moon is a bit too far from the Sun to cover the disk of the Sun exactly. As the eons progress, we will have more and more annular eclipses. The Moon is slowly spiraling away from the Earth, making it appear astronomically smaller with each cycle. Eventually, there will be no more total eclipses; the entire phenomenon of a total eclipse is transient. And what they will be replaced by is annular eclipses. So these are, in a sense, the eclipses of the future. And this one is a powerful image of the rebirth of the Sun.

Following the theme of the season, this is an amorous eclipse, occurring in an exact conjunction to Venus. But it's a kind of amorous that is somewhat self-centered: Venus in Aries has a particular quality that really benefits from spending a lot of time listening to what other people go through in life. At the same time, when it comes to the self-love that really could be quite natural, we tend to fall way short of the necessary quotient to hold up our end of the emotional bargain. Love is an economy, and that economy is supported by self-esteem.

Once again, the eclipse week is a busy time for all things Aries. Mars is about to make a conjunction with Neptune, in Aquarius. Mars-Neptune was once described by a really smart astrologer, whose name is buried in the Akashic records, as the kamikaze. Other astrologers have described it as poetic, creative, visual, cinematic, passionate—or alternately as weak-willed, lacking energy and strength, and prone to sickness. This is, in any case, a rich and daring aspect, and it occurs in a sign that deals with the collective, with shared resources and responsibilities, and which has a good way of diffusing selfishness if given half a chance.

At the same time, Mercury is getting ready to end its three-week retrograde, four days later. This eclipse occurs in the midst of what some astrologers call the "Mercury storm," those turbulent days that surround the exact station, when it's not a good idea to buy a big (or even small) hunk of technology, or back up your disk drive.

With this particular station direct, Mercury is doing something particularly interesting: it has gone in reverse just about all the way back to the beginning of the zodiac—called the Aries Point. The station takes place in the second degree of the tropical horoscope, in a deeply sensitive region of space. For some reason, when there are astrological events either on, or in aspect to, the first degree of Aries (and this counts for sure), there are often important collective events.

At times, there are revelations; at others, weird stuff goes down. And in some way the world learns to raise its awareness and get together. The war in Iraq began in 2003 with the Sun in a close conjunction to this degree. And within hours of the Cancer Full Moon on December 26, which was making a close square aspect to the Aries Point (coming, as it did, a few days after the Winter Solstice), the world experienced the worst natural disaster of our lifetimes—the Asian tsunami.

The Aries point has a few interesting qualities. For one thing, it can involve a lot of people. This seems to run counter to the highly individualized nature of Aries, but the Aries Point itself is almost always some kind of invitation to the mass of humanity to think of itself as one. In a distinct way, this Mercury retrograde and the associated Aries eclipse amplify the message, "We're all in this together." And a second: "How you feel about you has everything to do with how you feel about everyone else." Remember that, please.