The March eclipses have come and gone, leaving considerable havoc in their wake. The Lunar Eclipse of March 14 fell at 24 Virgo, and the succeeding Solar Eclipse of March 29 fell at 8 Aries. Among the afflicted were Slobodan Milosevic, former Serbian president on trial at the Hague for war crimes; Katherine Harris, former Florida Secretary of State, current Congresswoman and wannabe Senator; Andrew Card, newly resigned White House Chief of Staff; Charles Taylor, former Liberian president and war criminal; Cynthia McKinney, US Representative from Georgia; Brian Doyle, Deputy Press Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security; Jack Abramoff, former Capitol Hill lobbyist; and Tom DeLay, former House Majority Leader and about to be ex-Congressman.

What these individuals have in common is a high profile event which the Fates elicited during the period surrounding the eclipses, at least one of which fell prominently in each of these persons’ charts. This month we’ll take a brief stroll down Eclipse Memory Lane, and determine just what was up for these folks during the time in question, mid-March through early April, 2006.

Possibly the highest profile incident concerned former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who died in his cell on 11 March 2006 as his two-year war crimes trial was drawing to a close. Born 20 August 1941, Milosevic was leader of Serbia during its infamous “ethnic cleansing” period, when it furthered religious and ethnic tensions in neighboring Bosnia and Kosovo, in part triggering UN and US intervention in Bosnia in 1998. The Lunar Eclipse a few days later at 24 Virgo fell on his North Node at 22 Virgo, which conjoins Neptune at 26 Virgo and Venus at 29. Although his health had deteriorated, his death was sudden and unexpected, and there were early allegations of poisoning, perhaps inevitable with Neptune in the mix. Two autopsies confirmed death from natural causes, although there are still suggestions that his end may have been hastened by the substitution of a placebo for his heart medication.

Katherine Harris (born 5 April 1957) may have witnessed a death of a different sort during the same time period, namely, the death of her political career. Harris, who was simultaneously Florida’s Secretary of State and co-chair of the Bush/Cheney campaign in Florida in 2000, was instrumental in establishing the neocon coup by first “scrubbing” Florida’s voter lists, and then consistently ruling against Gore’s petitions for redress. By removing almost 50,000 mostly African American, Democratic-leaning, names from the rolls before the election with a flawed felons list, Harris set up the Gore ticket for defeat and set a precedent for dirty tricks and outright electoral fraud which the GOP would use in selected races in 2002 (to gain control of the Senate) and nationwide in 2004 (to return the Bush cabal to power). Harris’ reward came swiftly, when she was given the nod by the GOP for a seat in the US House of Representatives in 2002.

Now a two-term congresswoman, Harris is making a move to challenge Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson for his Senate seat in the fall. At first, Harris’ support was solid, but early in the new year, allegations of illegal campaign contributions emerged, and Harris began to slide in the polls, her campaign appearances reduced to churches and gun shows.

March 2006 was the critical month, with Harris losing virtually all of her campaign staff (including the person who handed out campaign stickers and buttons). Party stalwarts urged her to retire, citing fears her unpopularity could bring down the entire GOP ticket, and her withdrawal seemed imminent when she appeared on FOX News’ Hannity and Colmes show to make an announcement on March 15, the day after the 24 Virgo Lunar Eclipse, which fell precisely on her natal Jupiter. But the expected withdrawal did not materialize; instead, Harris declared she would spend $10 million of her own money to prop up her flagging campaign. In financial astrology, Venus rules the thousands, Jupiter the millions, and Pluto the billions; this eclipse hit to Jupiter was perhaps appropriate to that game plan (the subsequent Solar Eclipse at 8 Aries also fell within orb of her natal Venus at 13 Aries).

Harris’ announcement was greeted by a spate of fresh defections from her campaign, and the latest statewide polls show her with a 30 point deficit among voters, who favor Nelson’s candidacy by 57% to 27%. But she may be wise to remain in the race—she knows, none better, how corrupt Florida’s voting system is; after all, she helped to corrupt it. If she can somehow stay on the ballot until November, she’ll have Diebold e-voter systems as her running mate, and that will be a combination hard to beat.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (born 8 April 1947) was back in the headlines on April 3 when he announced his resignation from his seat, effective sometime this summer. Both eclipses hit DeLay strongly—the Lunar at 24 Virgo opposed his natal Mars at 27 Pisces, and at first DeLay came out swinging, with a primary victory on March 7 for the November election. DeLay took 62% of the GOP vote in a four-way race, outspending his nearest competitor by a ratio of 20-1, but it was still his softest showing in any primary. The subsequent Solar Eclipse at 8 Aries fell on March 29, opposed his natal Neptune at 9 Libra. It seems Neptune’s rose-colored glasses were doffed temporarily, injecting a dose of reality into the proceedings, for on April 3 DeLay announced that he would not, after all, run for the seat whose nomination he had locked up less than a month before. It didn’t take him long to reclaim Neptune’s mantle by casting himself as a victim of anti-Christian forces determined to ruin his political career because of his effectiveness in driving and enforcing the GOP agenda on Capitol Hill.

DeLay crony Jack Abramoff (born 28 February 1958) took a brief bow during the eclipse period as well. The former lobbyist turned state’s evidence received a six-year sentence on the very day of the Solar Eclipse for his involvement with the fraudulent take-over of murdered businessman Gus Boulis’ Florida SunCruz gambling operations, only one of his many indictments. The earlier Lunar Eclipse at 24 Virgo was exactly square his natal Saturn at 24 Sagittarius, and the Solar at 8 Aries was semisextile his 9 Pisces Sun and trine his 8 Leo Uranus.

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor (born 28 January 1948) joins the parade of those taken down by eclipses interacting with natal Neptune. Following a civil war he helped to foment, Taylor had been elected president of Liberia in 1997, a position he held until a counter insurgency forced his resignation in 2003, whereupon Taylor fled to Nigeria. Wanted for war crimes like Serbian counterpart Milosevic, his return to Liberia was granted on March 25, 2006, but before he could be turned over to authorities, Taylor disappeared on March 28. The following day, the day of the Solar Eclipse, Taylor was arrested trying to cross the border into Cameroon, carrying sacks of cash. That eclipse fell opposed his natal Neptune at 12 Libra.

Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney had her fair share of eclipse attention as well. The controversial congresswoman, who was one of those opposing Bush’s installation in 2000 over the wishes of the electorate, and who has called for further investigation into the government’s role in the tragedy of 9/11, had an altercation with a Capitol Hill security officer on March 29. McKinney, who was not wearing her congressional pin which identifies her as a legislator, was asked to stop as she evaded a checkpoint, but did not. The officer attempted to physically detain her, whereupon she poked him in the chest with her cell phone. The incident mushroomed into a full-blown controversy, with McKinney, who is black, claiming racial profiling, and opponents charging her with arrogance and evasion of the law. At one point, U.S. Capitol Police sought an arrest warrant, but after a formal apology was issued by McKinney, the matter was closed. McKinney’s (born 17 March 1955) Sun at 26 Pisces was tightly opposed by the Lunar Eclipse, and the day of the incident was the Solar Eclipse.

A less satisfactory outcome awaited Brian Doyle (born 7 April 1950), a Deputy Press Secretary for Homeland Security accused of attempting to seduce a minor. On March 12, two days before the Lunar Eclipse, Doyle entered into an internet conversation with an undercover Polk County Sheriff’s Computer Crimes detective, posing as a 14-year old girl. Doyle identified himself, sent the ‘girl’ his phone number and a number of hard-core pornographic movie clips, and engaged in a sexually explicit conversation via an AOL instant messaging service. He followed this up over the next few weeks with live sex chats on his office phone and cell phone, detailing the acts he wished his new friend to perform. On March 28 arrest warrants were issued for Doyle, on 7 counts of Use of a Computer to Seduce a Child and 16 counts of Transmission of Harmful Material to a Minor. The Solar Eclipse of the following day at 8 Aries fell close on his North Node at 7 Aries, in square to his Uranus at 1 Cancer and broadly opposed his Neptune at 15 Libra; the Lunar Eclipse of 14 March at 24 Virgo had conjoined his Mars at 26 Virgo retrograde, bringing out the square to Chiron at 21 Sagittarius and the Galactic Center at 26 Sagittarius. We can see quite clearly the emergence of notoriety or increased visibility (Galactic Center) via a sexual (Mars) incident, a wounding (Chiron) of the native caused by attempting to enact his fantasies (Neptune), with his karma (Nodal Axis) catching up with him.

Taken all for all, an especially active eclipse season, with a cast of characters worthy of note.