There's bad news and there's good news about today's transit of Venus across the face of the sun. The bad news is that it could seriously damage your eyesight, if you look at it directly. The good news is that it could improve your love life, at least according to astrologers, writes Frank McNally.
Transits of Venus are very rare (the last was in 1882) and, astrologers claim, very powerful. Women are from Venus, as everyone knows. So when the planet aligns with the sun, according to the website astrologycom.com, "the principle life force is united with love, female energy, harmony, and the goddess principle".
A transit promises everything from romantic breakthroughs to "great shifts in human consciousness". The one in 1519, for example, was followed by the spread of the reformation, circumnavigation of the globe, and the age of female rulers in Europe, including Mary Queen of Scots, Mary I, Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici.
The implications for this week's European elections are therefore worrying for candidates from Mars. A pattern of recent polls has been the surge of female contenders such as Ivana Bacik, Kathy Sinnott, Marian Harkin and Maireád McGuinness. And the female energy released by Ms McGuinness and Avril Doyle in their joint transit of Ireland East threatens to land two seats there for Fine Gael.
On the other hand, horoscopes are applied indiscriminately to both sexes, and this week's have mixed news. Top English astrologer Jonathan Cainer warns Arians (e.g. Avril Doyle) that they must "either fight back or risk being swamped", while Taurean Proinsias De Rossa, now under pressure from Bacik, can console himself that the sky is currently "as favourable towards Taureans as anyone could wish".
Like the sign for Taurus, however, astrology could be all bull. If you're interested in today's transit as a scientific phenomenon, or you just want to watch it safely, Astronomy Ireland will have viewing sites from 6.20 a.m. in Boyle, Carlow, Castlebar, Clonmel, Dundalk, Downpatrick, Letterkenny, Waterford, and Dublin's Phoenix Park.
If you only learn about about it after 12.24 p.m., you've already missed it. There will be another in 2012, but you'll have to go to eastern Europe or Asia to see it. The next one visible over Ireland will be in 2247.