The author of this article, Ed Tamplin, is a Sydney-based astrologer with a unique understanding of the spiritual message behind the planets and signs. He is currently Vice-President of the Astrology Association of NSW and the Sydney Astrological Research Society.
Ed has written extensively for leading publications such as Astrolog, Your Destiny and Astrological Monthly Review. Between consultations, he combines a busy media schedule with public lectures and teaching at the Sirius School of Astrology.

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The Ides Of March & The Commonwealth Games

The Commonwealth Games is a major sporting festivity for athletes from countries that are members of the British Commonwealth of nations. Australian astrologer and media personality, Ed Tamplin discusses the astrological and other features of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia.

Read more about the Commonwealth Games 2006

Beginning on the Ides of March and concluding on the 26th, Melbourne Australia will host the 2006 Commonwealth Games. This premier sporting event will fuse 4,500 athletes from around the globe in what is the greatest multi-sports event outside the Olympics. It will unite 71 nations from India, Pakistan, and Canada, to most of the African and Asia/Pacific countries as well as the Caribbean. As the coloured flags of the Commonwealth flutter around the stadium, on the 15th with a lunar eclipse squaring Pluto, the red planet Mars will hover directly overhead at opening time. It's a fitting appearance in more ways than one, and the astrological symbolism for this event can hardly be denied.

The Mars Effect

Between 1949 and 1958 Michel Gauquelin undertook the mountainous task of compiling birth data of 16,336 eminent professionals and 24,961 ordinary professionals. The exhaustive astrological research project was most famous for uncovering the renowned 'Mars' effect. That is that sports champions, and soldiers tended to have Mars near the angles of their horoscope at a chance factor of five million to one against. The study backed what astrological lore had said since Sumerian days. Mars was the stellar warrior, the hard line competitor. Gauquelin later refined his work to the more aggressive of the athletes and found the effect increased even more.

Australia's Mars Activated

Quoting the Games official website, “sites operating for the Opening Ceremony will be open from approximately 6:30pm” across Melbourne. At that time the Royal Star Regulus appears on the eastern horizon, (the games will be officially declared open by the Queen later that evening) and Mars simultaneously reaches the highest point of the ecliptic, remaining the most elevated planet until well after 8 pm. As it does it will continue in testing square to Uranus, a planet of often unanticipated and revolutionary spirit. And as might be expected at this time, Mars will also be squaring the natal Mars of the Australian Federation horoscope (January 1 1901 @ 1.36 pm). Mars is natally positioned in Australia's fifth house of sports and recreation. As a relatively small country by population they have produced a greater amount of world sporting champions per capita than any other nation.

Mars' Dark Reflection

There is a shadow side to the Mars/Uranus effect. With such pageantry and the collage of world leaders including Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip, British PM Tony Blair and many other Commonwealth leaders, violence is one Mars aspect that nobody wants. Of the $350 million that the Australian Federal Government is spending on staging the games, over one quarter, or $85 million will be channelled toward security. Fighter planes and helicopters will enforce a 75 kilometre no fly zone surrounding the city. Over a thousand army troops will join counter terrorism experts from around the globe, with five thousand security guards and thousands of state police officers deployed on the ground. The security costs amount to a ratio of 70 per cent of the funding that Australian athletes received to prepare for the event. It's all a reflection of national, and world thinking, post September 11 2001.

Annus Horribilus 2006?

Many of the world leaders will be acutely aware of the uniquely martial experience. The Queen, the official Australian head of state, will be experiencing a progressed Solar Eclipse exactly square her progressed Mars. Her last progressed eclipse was the lunar one of 1992, the year she famously dubbed her 'annus horribilis' following the break up of two royal marriages and a destructive fire at Windsor Castle. Difficult aspects to Prince Phillip's chart, including the March 15 lunar eclipse, may be related to this.

Australian PM John Howard has his progressed Mars opposite his birth Sun and Pluto. Tony Blair experiences the Mars/Uranus square in difficult aspect to his own Midheaven. It's fitting the astrological allegory that each are officiating at a premier sporting event amongst the world's elite athletes, but also sensitive to the potential danger of staging such extravaganzas, and totally surrounded by armed (Mars) security.

Second Time Around

Australia is no stranger to security operations. They successfully staged the Sydney Olympics in 2000, a bigger and potentially more dangerous environment. And with both Jupiter and Pluto affecting Mars at the time, everything went off without a hitch. And let's face it if the planets dictated our fate entirely, then we'd still be stuck to the earth's surface a victim of gravity, rather than its master. Instead we've walked on the Moon!

But with Mars so active in the skies, it will be fingers crossed that the Commonwealth games also goes off without incident, and that the forceful energy of the planet is solely played out on the playing fields, pools and gymnasiums of Melbourne. Michel Gauqelin's extensive research also included 3,438 army personnel, whose incidence of a strong Mars rated above chance level at odds of one million to one. How true it is, for beginning March 15 there'll will be far more security in town than there are athletes.

Local Heroes

Despite the withdrawal of the legendary figures of Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett from the national swim team there are still enough champions to fly the flag in the pools for Australia. Named female swimmer of the year in 2005 by Swimming World magazine, and Australian Athlete of the Year for the same, Leisel Jones broke another world breastroke record qualifying for the Games.

Jade Edmistone proved that you can succeed with Neptune opposing your Sun (providing you're a swimmer) by breaking a world record this January with just that occurring. Jodi Henri, Libby Lenton and Jessicah Schipper are others that come to mind among the girls. Swimmer Ashley Callus, who cruelly suffered a viral infection around the Athens Olympics, necessitating a year off, is another with the planets on his side this time around, and making up for lost time. Michael Klim, once a glamour boy of the pool, is also approaching his Saturn return but it's his Mars return during the Games that may see him exceed expectations.

On the drier playing fields walker Nathan Deakes, also approaching his Saturn return could find this a high spot of his competitive career. Distance runner Craig Mottram will find that competition brings out the best in one. Middle distance miler Sarah Jamieson may finally fulfill the potential she has shown since the 2000 Olympics trials. And the same could be said of controversial hurdler Jana Pitman. Jana's a Scorpio and with Jupiter in that sign she will hardly have a better chance to pull of a victory and personal best. Suzy Walsham, not a big public name, who is now coaching herself, has the aspects to do well.

In summing up champion athletes battle all conditions, including planetary ones, to step upon the victory dais. You've either got that X factor, or you haven't. But it can help to have a bit of cosmic help. So here's to the champions, both new and old for 2006. May the force be with you!