By Jimmy Magahern

The summer of 2010 will bring back the Orange Alert, with Bush-era-style terrorism tension unseating the H1N1 flu and Adam Lambert performances as the most fearful daily obtrusion in our nation’s collective psyche. There’ll be a rush to sell off our gold jewelry in March. Floods, storms and radical weather changes will occur around the world. John McCain may get a job heading up TARP.

Oh, and glee clubs will make a comeback.

These are but a few of the predictions for the coming 12 months from noted Arizona astrologer Weiss Kelly, author of The Times’ monthly horoscope column and a board member of the Tempe-based American Federation of Astrologers. Since taking up the study in the ‘70s, Kelly has done astrological charts for everyone from David Carradine, Don Johnson and Dan Quayle to the rock band Styx, the City of Scottsdale (for its 50th anniversary) and Lulu, the Wisteria Lane collie on Desperate Housewives.

She’s not always right, as Kelly herself is first to admit. She didn’t see Carradine’s death in 2009 coming — although she did see troubling signs surrounding the two words “sex” and “money.” But she was the one who advised Lulu’s owner, Carradine’s fourth wife Marina Anderson, to get her Lassie-lineated collie into TV, where she wound up nosing up to Eva Longoria Parker.

“I can’t tell people what will happen,” Kelly says, taking a seat behind the big wooden desk in her home office. “I give them insight, based on the study of the planetary positions that people have been practicing for 5,000 years. Astrology’s not a belief; it’s an additional tool to make you more aware of your own role in your life’s experiences.”

Some of Kelly’s predictions bear a certain “well, duh!” quality. “Things are going to slow down after the holidays,” she says, noting we’ll be hearing a lot of things like “the check’s in the mail” somewhere around the middle of January. (No kidding, Nostradamus!) And anyone who’s seen Fox TV’s Glee could just as easily guess that within a season, real-life high-school football teams will be choreographing direct snaps to the tunes of Beyoncé.

But Kelly’s prognostications are based on irrefutable patterns of recurring scientific data, not obvious trends. That slow-down in mid-January will be due not to the usual post-holiday sluggishness, she says, but to a realigning of Mars.

“Mars will go retrograde after January 15th,” she says, referring to the peculiar speed-based illusion where a planet temporarily appears to go backwards, stopping and reversing its motion relative to the stars. That’s celestial calendar information that any astronomy teacher could relay. But the astrologer’s gift is in noting how society reacts to such subtle and sometimes barely observable celestial shifts, and predicting how those reactions, in turn, will create their own ripple effects.

“Ever notice how President Obama will step back from the podium sometimes?” Kelly asks. “He’ll go ahead and say something bold but then catch himself, and physically move back just a little?” That’s more than just a sign of great oratory skills, she says. That’s Mars at work.

Disturbingly, she sees darkness ahead — both figuratively and literally. “There will be four eclipses this year,” she says, “and the eclipses in June and July will rock our world. Our country’s going to be under tension during June, July and August. Big time.”

While she admits “that could mean anything,” she later notes that she’s seen similar celestial patterns at the times of assassinations or attempted assaults on important political leaders. “Abraham Lincoln, the Kennedys, Ronald Reagan,” she says — then silently mouths the name “Obama.”

While she’s not soliciting his business, Kelly suggests it might be a good idea for the president to seriously consult an astrologer before making any big plans for the summer.

“Not that it will happen,” she quickly steps back, Mars-like. “But you can take steps to avoid things.”

Change We Can Chart

Pluto may have been dropped from our kids’ science textbooks when astronomers downgraded it in 2006 to a dwarf planet. But astrologers still consider our solar system’s tenth-largest body a powerful force — and one that may have even set the stage for Barack Obama’s election when its orbit entered the sign of Capricorn on the 2008 natal astrology chart, says Kelly, who predicted the former Illinois senator’s win.

“Pluto in Capricorn rules the presidency,” she says, noting that the next occurrence of this particular placement — which also occurred on the United States’ birth date on July 4th, 1776 — will be in 2012. “It signifies change. That’s what the U.S. wanted in 2008, and then along came Pluto!”

While Kelly sticks to a bipartisan viewpoint in discussing political matters, she lauds Obama as precisely the agent of change the entire galaxy was looking for.

“It’s been said that a nation gets the leader it deserves at that particular point in time. And Obama is going to play a major role in the cultural changes that are taking place in the world. For good or bad, Obama was the catalyst for all the change that’s coming.”

Some of that change can already be felt, in positive ways. Kelly says she sees more compassion being exhibited for the underdogs — “the unemployed, the homeless” — even in her privileged north Scottsdale zip code. We’ve all taken a kick in the behind this past year, but astrologers say this boost in empathy corresponds with the cycle of Uranus. “For the next seven-and-a-half years, we’ll be more compassionate, more spiritual,” Kelly says. “We have to be.”

Kelly is also encouraged by what she sees as a “return to creativity” in the way we’re working, spending and prioritizing our values. “Less is more, that’s the theme. And the color is green,” she says, momentarily freestyling like a New Age rapper.

But she cautions that all the coming changes may not be such feel-good hits. “The changes that are being made, in all areas of our lives, will be irrevocable,” Kelly says. “Health care, technology, banking, the way we work — it’s all changing, and our lives will never be the same.”

While Kelly acknowledges there’s some astronomical support behind the apocalyptic forecasts for the year 2012 — most notably laid out in the recent disaster movie named for the year — she predicts it’ll be an additional 12 years before the real transformative events take hold.

“The ‘end of time’ mentality based on the Mayan and Aztec calendar may be true in a sense,” she says. “But the end here is really pointing to a new beginning, an evolution of mankind. By 2024, everything will have changed. By that point, we will all be living in a different world than what we know now. Absolutely.”

Good Timing

If nothing else, clearly this is an exciting time to be an astrologer.

“Oh, wow! How much more exciting can it be?” Kelly enthuses. “People are looking for an understanding of what’s happening in the world. What caused our current situation? Do we play a part in it? And that’s what astrology’s all about.”

The former Mary Lou Weiss (she adopted her maiden name as her forename for its uniqueness) was attending college as an art major when she took an interest in an astrology course. Her instructor — a woman so scary-accurate she could predict a change in the weather to the precise minute, Kelly says — immediately detected the gift in her new student.

“She did a chart for everyone in the class, but I was the only one she didn’t return a paper to. Instead, she put my chart up on the chalkboard and said, ‘This person is going to be a world-famous astrologer.’”

She achieved some of that fame while living in Florida, doing astrological forecasts on PM Magazine, one of the first syndicated TV newsmagazine programs. Upon moving to Arizona about ten years ago, Kelly began specializing in business astrology, advising restaurant owners, executives and event planners on the best time to ink that big contract or open that new location.

“I’m another source of information for them, like their lawyer, financial advisor or minister,” she says. “I just give them additional insight.”

Though the field has gained some respectability since the Age of Aquarius and the “What’s your sign?” Kelly says she still has clients who prefer the public doesn’t know they use her services.

“I have a client who says, ‘I don’t understand all the mumbo-jumbo. But it gives you an edge.’ That’s a fairly typical attitude.” At the other extreme, she’s had clients who fear making any decisions without first consulting her.

“You get those calls in the middle of the night,” she says, with a weary laugh. “Not good. You don’t want them to become co-dependent.”

Her best success stories come when she happens to nail that changing day in a client’s life down to the precise date. “They’ll call, all excited, saying, ‘Weiss! You said it would happen, and it did! I got that promotion!’ Hey, I lucked out,” she shrugs.

“I’m not a psychic, I’m a consultant. I can tell you when something has the most potential to happen. But you have to act on it, and respond. You have to say, ‘I’m going to focus on this. And if I focus on it hard enough, I will subconsciously do something that will allow it to happen.’ That’s something I swear by. Thought takes form. It becomes magnetic.”

As an example of the importance of focus, Kelly offers up Tiger Woods. “He focused from the time he was five on becoming the world’s greatest golfer, and that’s exactly what happened. Then he focused on something else,” she adds, with a wink. “And look where that got him!”

Kelly says the entire decade ahead will require some concentrated focusing from all of us, echoing the pronouncements Obama has been making since Pluto pushed him to that crucial win.

“Right now, we’re all playing a role in the conditions for our happiness in the United States — each and every one of us,” she says. “But we’d better be aware of the roles that we’re playing. This is big time now.”

Advice from Weiss

What lies in the stars for the next 12 months? Here are 9 predictions from

The Times’ astrologer Weiss Kelly:

Slo-mo diplomacy

“Mars will appear to be going backward in mid-January, causing us all to take a step back. We’ll no longer be able to shoot from the hip, as we did for the last eight years. The next two and a half years will require diplomacy. Our president’s oratory talents will come in handy.”

War wages on

“Obama’s timetable for withdrawal is 18 months, but I think it’ll take longer. We won’t feel a real sense of stability in the Middle East until 2018.”

McCain gets a new gig

“Our own senator will play an important role in our federal infrastructure program. John McCain is right on in saying we should be working first before spending. TARP may find an important position for him.”

Back in black

“The economy is going to rebound by 2012. Absolutely.”

Arizona energy

“Energy from natural resources will continue to be emphasized, and a lot of technological innovations will happen right here in our state. A manufacturer of solar panels in China is looking at our area to build a factory.”

Cruel summer

“Greater tests and threats will confront our president. Crucial months will be from July to August. Eclipses in June and July will rock our world.”

Not-so-perfect storms

“Mother Nature will continue to make her presence known, and she will not be ignored. Expect more flooding, storms and weather changes this year throughout the world.”

All that glitters isn’t gold

“The gold market is heading for a downturn. Around the 10th or 11th of March, its value will start to drop. Around the second week of June, it’ll hit a low.”

Glee is here — get used to it

“Glee clubs will be in again. That happened in the Roosevelt era, too, during the last depression. People will be getting more into arts and music. Crafts will make a comeback, too.”

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