Mars Retrograde: Background, and Deep Background

Dear Friend and Reader:

As you know, Mars will be retrograde for most of the summer, for two months beginning on June 26. Mars retrogrades happen every other year, and each is distinctive. It's not just the sign where it happens that defines the unique property of the retrograde, but primarily what is happening with the outer planets that describe the invisible background layer of existence.

Wifi signals as they would look if we could see them, on the national mall. Most of us live with 24-hour wifi, plus many other bandwidths of radio signals -- microwave, bluetooth, smart meters, ordinary radio and TV, etc., cascading over us all the time -- part of why it's so difficult to sleep.

Mars retrograde in Aquarius, as discussed last week, is about the social patterns of society. Given the connection of Aquarius to the internet, we will have a study, conscious or not, in what impact the internet has had on consciousness and social patterns.

We got an example of this with the Mars retrograde two years ago, when we all wondered how exactly the Donald Trump candidacy had any buoyancy at all, when during prior election cycles he would have sunk like a block of concrete. The answer is what the internet has done to consciousness and intellect.

Part of what is happening is that the structured nature of a literacy-based culture is degrading back to the tribal, oral and rumor/mythology based society that long predates it. Much of the insanity we are seeing in the world right now is associated with the inability to distinguish truth from hearsay or opinion, and further, the opinion that there is no truth. This is a form of nihilism.

Mars retrogrades are not evenly distributed through the signs. Far to the contrary. Of note, the forthcoming Mars retrograde in Aquarius will only be the second in living memory. Mars was retrograde briefly in Aquarius in 1924 and 1939; and it was retrograde entirely in Aquarius in 1971. Interestingly, during the only Mars retrograde that people might actually remember, Chiron had recently arrived in Aries.

The Deep Background: Uranus conjunct Eris

Even in a small rural city, these are the wifi networks available, toasting us 24/7.

Reaching for my world record of using the same quote in as many articles as possible, the late Prof. Eric McLuhan (1941-2018) summed it up when he said, "The body is everywhere assaulted by all of our new media, a state which has resulted in deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture throughout the world. In the age of disembodied communication, the meaning and significance and experience of the body is utterly transformed and distorted."

Imagine you suddenly discover you can scratch your toes while you're standing up straight. Imagine you discover that you can eat through your armpit. Imagine you reach into your pocket and pull out identification under five different names. That is the kind of distortion he's talking about, only worse: it's the experience of not having a body, or the body not mattering, or of floating outside of your body.

This can have odd permutations, such as the notion that if someone desires you sexually that is the equivalent of sexual assault. The conflation (that is, mixing up or confusion) of healthy erotic desire and transgressive or aggressive behavior is a direct result of what McLuhan described as "the significance and experience of the body being utterly transformed and distorted."

This is described by our deep-background astrology, the Uranus-Eris conjunction in Aries (2016-2017), which at different times has come with such developments as the printing press, radio, the transistor, and the development of television.

Even Morse code -- part of the first system for conveying electrical/digital information -- was developed under the influence of a Uranus-Eris conjunction in the mid-1830s. (I just randomly checked the horoscope for the patent, and Uranus and Eris are within 10 degrees of one another.) Uranus-Eris would seem to be a cycle with a deep connection to radical developments in communication, all of which come with some form of social reorganization.

The Current Background

The context for the current Mars retrograde is many simultaneous sign changes of outer planets, and an aspect we have not yet discussed -- Asbolus square Neptune. When outer planets change signs, there are changes happening within the invisible environments. Sometimes these astrological developments lead to the discovery that attitudes and values have already changed.

Let's go over these briefly. I will do my best to link to prior articles about the placement I'm describing in case you want to go deeper. Our archive elves are digging up those articles as I write.

1. Chiron in Aries. Covered in this new video, Chiron in Aries arrives with a deep identity crisis, often precipitated by fear, and fearsome developments in society. This transit, which will last nine years, is a follow-up to the Uranus-Eris conjunction in Aries, which has flipped the world on its head. It seems to be arriving with the discovery in many young people that they have no idea who they are. In that case, the way to make the discovery is to initiate conflict of some kind, whether individual, political or both. Read more here.

2. Salacia in Aries. A newly discovered outer planet called Salacia (a Kuiper object, slightly further from the Sun than Pluto) is in early Aries and will be there well beyond Chiron's transit. Salacia seems to be about the development and maturity of sexual awareness. Currently most of society is on a level that makes Playboy magazine seem sophisticated.

Most people have little context for sex outside of scandal. Even if they might have some other context, the salacious nature of scandal is often experienced as irresistible. Invariably, the impact of any scandal is to associate sex with shame. This reflects the limited frame within which sex is considered a legit activity.

The conjunction of Chiron and Salacia, within two degrees now, will be exact in 2019-2020. At the moment, some people are questioning the notion of what consent means, as if it's difficult to understand the difference between yes and no. What is more difficult to understand is the difference between wanting and not wanting. Learn more here.

3. Uranus in Taurus. This will call attention to the body -- you know, the physical one, rather than the astral body -- and to the pain body, which so many seem to inhabit almost exclusively. Uranus in Taurus also describes the impact of electrical and electronic media on the physical body. One example is the struggle so many people are having with sleep. Nearly everyone I ask is struggling to get a decent night's sleep. Being up all night is a routine thing for many people, and this is mentally and physically debilitating. Read more here.

4. Asbolus square Neptune. I have not mentioned this aspect yet, currently in full force; and I've only briefly mentioned Asbolus, a centaur, which is now in Gemini. Neptune is in Pisces, making the psychic fields permeable, and emphasizing the astral and etheric levels of awareness -- two of the most slippery and therefore dangerous.

On the astral level, everything gets radically polarized and there are no nuances. On the etheric level, the distinctions between right and wrong can be blurred for convenience.

Now add Asbolus, which brings the intensity and potential drama of a centaur, and which provokes a survival instinct. The square aspect is pushing consciousness into a false sense of life-and-death circumstances, while leading people to ignore actual problems and potential dangers. This is a reactionary aspect that feels like, "I feel threatened; who cares if it's real? If I believe it, it's real, I can do whatever I want." Here, we are in the heart of the territory where belief trumps truth. Read more about Asbolus here.

5. Pholus and Quaoar in Capricorn. Pholus is a centaur; Quaoar is a Kuiper object, slightly further from the Sun than Pluto. This is a setup similar to what we have in Aries, and the two conjunctions are in a square aspect to one another (stated, Chiron and Salacia in Aries, square Pholus and Quaoar in Capricorn). Read more here.

Students researching Rembrandt's Night Watch on their phones. Photo by Gijsbert van der Wal. This photo caused quite a huge fuss -- if you recall.

We can take Pholus and Quaoar together because their themes are similar, even if they differ in their modes of action. Both are associated with family material and family constellation.

Pholus is the more radical of the two, with a sensation of material gushing out of somewhere, to no end. The seeming lack of an ending is really the lack of understanding, and the lack of willingness to address the past.

Quaoar is more gentle and philosophical in its action, though it describes the "creation story" on many different levels, including the family/collective mythology (we all came from Sicily; God created Adam and Eve; and so on) to the individual level (I am an elemental; I am really from the Pleiades; I was Joan of Arc in my past life; etc.).

However, the family story needs to be brought down to the documented, tangible, physical and environmental levels, or it's basically another form of distraction. You can be from the Pleiades all you like, though that does not tell you much about how you reacted and were shaped by your early childhood environment.

Mars Rx in Aquarius, in Context

Mars retrograde in Aquarius seems to describe a rearrangement of society. Remember that Mars represents identity, desire and violence -- and the process of "finding" oneself through all three experiences. Then put Mars retrograde, going against the current of society; add planets on the Aries Point and magnify by a few hundred million. It's gonna be interesting. Again referencing the McLuhans, most people have no other way to find themselves than through aggression and conflict. Hence there is so much of it, in times when so many people are clueless who they are.

Of the transits above, it's most closely related to what has been happening in Aries, since Mars rules Aries and what happens to one essentially happens to the other. Yet all of the transits I've described above relate to the overall conditions in the invisible environment (a McLuhan concept).

Mars retrograde in Aquarius will be in the foreground, the actor standing on the stage; all the other planets I've mentioned, as outer planets, describe what we cannot typically see without special forms of consciousness raising.

If we focus on Mars in Aquarius, we will be tuning in only to the figure, when the truly interesting and relevant action is coming from the background. Of all the skills in media training, this is perhaps the most useful: the ability to peer into what, to others, seems invisible and/or irrelevant.

It's easy to tune out; the figure dancing around on the stage (Donald Trump, for example) seems more relevant but is really a distraction from the actual developments that are affecting us.

Awareness is optional.

with love,

Uranus and Mars, and The Sacred Space of Self

Dear Friend and Reader:

Uranus has now made its first entrance into Taurus. With this move comes a shift in tone to one of the planets that has most defined our current era.

Uranus is in close contact with Mars, which also recently changed sign. Mars entering Aquarius not only strikes up a provocative aspect to Uranus; it also prepares Mars for its upcoming retrograde.

Against the backdrop of this potentially disruptive activity, Chiron in Aries (there for the first time since 1977) is offering its lessons of awareness, integration and identity on a profound level. This is about the quest for individuality in the most deeply personal way: the cultivation and growth of your soul. There are challenges associated with doing this, which Eric plans to address eloquently and in a way that you will find reassuring and helpful in your 2018 Spring Reading: The Sacred Space of Self.

The Sacred Space of Self will come in the form of 12 video presentations, each approximately half an hour in length. These readings will apply to Sun sign, Moon sign and rising sign. They are offered as a package, and will interlink with and support one another. You can read more about Eric's plans for the video readings here.

Planet Waves products are introduced at the lowest price, and then we increase gradually. For members only, all 12 signs of The Sacred Space of Self are currently $66, which is $5.50 per sign. Soon after, we will increase to $77, then $88, and then, right before publication, $99. Once we publish, the final price will be $111. If you want the best bargain, please purchase early!

You may pre-order The Sacred Space of Self here.

Yours & truly,

Amanda Painter A New Road or a Secret Gate*
By Amanda Painter

As the Moon grows toward Tuesday's Sagittarius Full Moon (opposite the Gemini Sun), are you feeling an urge to roam far and wide? Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter, is often a major factor in the charts of people who love to travel. But even if you like to discover the way as you go on a moonlit night, a good map can come in handy. Why not one that's been custom-drawn?

The artist behind Middle Earth's Maps can help you out (though he curiously has not included his name on his website). He converts real-world maps into J.R.R. Tolkien-style artworks. So far he's rendered all of the UK's national parks, a few US national parks, some UK counties, Australia and New Zealand, and even Tolkien's Middle Earth itself. And if you want him to add a Hobbit Hole to your commissioned bespoke map art, just let him know where you'd like it to be.

* "Still round the corner there may wait / A new road or a secret gate"
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, LOTR: The Return of the King

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Listen to Vision Quest on Live Stream

Planet Waves has an in-house music ensemble, called Vision Quest. We have a 38-hour loop of our music, which you can listen to any time. Included are finished pieces, rehearsals, live concerts, drum grooves, and spoken word recordings. I consider it a kind of musical divination. Click in randomly at different times of day and see what you discover.

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Four Winds Almanac Now Includes Daily Horoscope

Planet Waves publishes a nifty daily astrology newsletter called the Four Winds Report. Designed as a fast read arriving early in the morning, we're now trying an experiment -- we're including the daily horoscope for everyone.

Were it not for horoscopes, I wouldn't be an astrologer. It was the Patric Walker daily that convinced me there was actually something to astrology, and I got my basic education studying his column each day in the New York Post.

I pack a lot of energy into each sign's 50-word write-up. Part of the value of astrology is the timing, and daily allows for precision, as well as chronicling a narrative day by day.

Your almanac also includes information about Mayan astrology (long count and short count dates), several formats of the current date (including Hebrew and Islamic), a daily birthday reading, and special discounts on products and services.

Best of all, we take no outside advertising.

Sign up free here. Monthly Horoscopes and Publishing Schedule Notes

Your extended monthly horoscopes for June are published below in this issue. We published your extended monthly horoscopes for May on Thursday, April 26.  Please note: we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Thursday after the Sun has entered a new sign. Aries (March 20-April 19) -- If you have ever suspected that you are different from others in some significant way, this will be the summer when you test your theory. First, your ruling planet Mars will be retrograde in Aquarius, the sign of groups. This presents a picture of you doing your thing your way, and seeing how others respond. Your purpose here is not to shock anyone or to stir the pot; your purpose is to be yourself. This will teach you how to handle yourself in public situations, and build your confidence. You will learn how to extinguish gossip. Go through this consciously and you will emerge in a position of social leadership. You are empowered by Chiron, newly in your sign: the planet of healing and also of individuality. Chiron will teach you to be a maverick: a person who does what you know is right, no matter what the current trend may dictate. Mars retrograde is what you might call a short-term experiment. Chiron is a long-term visitor to your sign, and you will be using the results of the Mars retrograde experiment for the decade or so that Chiron is in your life. Prepare by paying especially close attention to social situations. Listen to what people are saying, though never repeat it. If you must, go directly to the source, or seek to debunk rumors promptly. The truth is all that matters. Taurus (April 19-May 20) -- Questions of where your private affairs mingle with your professional and community life may rise to the surface over the next couple of months, though these matters are, in their entirety, your private business. You do not owe anything to public scrutiny; your business is yours alone. The fact that we may live in the age of the internet and everyone expects everyone's life to be inside-out is irrelevant. Still, you will need to conduct yourself impeccably, and make sure you understand every rule before you break it. Know where and with whom power is vested, and ensure you work with that information. You will need to lead by example, in both your intimate life and your public life -- and the place where the two meet, which is your family (where that odd mix of public and private seems to originate for everyone). Handle matters of partnership directly with anyone who may be involved, never with third parties. Go direct to the source, and be willing to hold yourself accountable for your own actions; which would be suitable enough, because you most certainly are. If you recognize that your whole life and all that happens are an experiment in getting to know yourself, you will have your priorities in order and be able to state your position much more clearly.

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Gemini (May 20-June 21) -- The matter of belief is one of the most pressing issues of our day. We live in a time when to believe something is to think that makes it true. I am not sure where the subtle elements of proof, substantiation and credibility went, though you will want to claim them back. David Bowie in one of his earlier songs admonished his fans, "Don't deceive with belief," suggesting that to believe something is a form of a lie. Be careful what you accept into your mind, especially if you notice that others are taking a trendy idea as some kind of mandatory doctrine. You may want to stand up to this, if you need to, or if it feels right. But you can do yourself a service by not allowing belief to be a standard for anything. Stick to the available facts, and dig for the ones that are less available. Understand that people are usually motivated to take spiritual or religious positions most often because they are avoiding the two bottom lines of life -- sex and death. You don't need to guide other people to that level of the discussion, though you would profit immensely from doing so yourself. Take that chance. Examine these bottom-line values, and the way in which they drive your personal quest for reality: the more boldly the better. Cancer (June 21-July 22) -- This phase of your life is about clearing debris out of the way. You're chief of the karma squad, and your mission is to wrap up old business so that you have the freedom to live the life you want. This can be intense work, though it is satisfying, and it gets results. The more integrity you have, the better you will feel, so this is a process of building your strength and learning how to feel good. One issue you will want to track closely involves the way that you allow others to set the terms of your most intimate relationships. It's as if you feel you must live up to some community standard about what is supposedly right and wrong regarding how you relate to others. However, once you have established mutual consent with your partners, nobody else needs to be involved with your commitments or process of making decisions. And to the extent that you are, the discussion would rightly include how you feel; all matters related to sex; and having a grounded understanding of your financial situation. It's OK if one person contributes more than the other, as long as everyone is cool with that. And, in all matters where intimate partners are concerned, strive to be transparent. The book Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton (the original, not any derivatives) will serve you well. Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) -- In both family and professional matters, you will be in a position of leadership this summer. That, in part, means you are going to help defuse controversy and disentangle conflict. Yet be careful not to apply too much force in doing so; rather, gently coax people into seeing reality for what it is. Work on the level of values. Start by getting people to agree on what is important. Therefore, let others state their priorities, and collect that information. Meanwhile, you must know your priorities and understand your own motives, and begin to look for points where the various themes align. This will not happen overnight. It could take a couple of months of patient listening and discussion before you start to get to a point of resolution. Notice the ways that peer pressure is playing a role. The whole world seems to have degraded to a 4th-grade level akin to South Park, though not usually as funny. You need to be the adult in the room. Not the parent! That is a whole different comportment. An adult recognizes the power and the energy of children; a parent cops an attitude. The goal of an adult is to bring the whole discussion to a mature and thoughtful place. The goal of a parent is to get control, which inevitably fails. Thankfully, you have options. Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) -- Your sign is most often associated with being effective at work, rather than creativity. You're the organized one, the problem solver and the workhorse. However, at the center of your taskmaster is a hot, molten core of creativity. It's this core that you will be searching for as you rearrange your work patterns this summer. Don't expect much to be the same from day to day; use your skill as one who can adapt and evolve your methods. Yet always remember what drives your efforts and what inspires you to excel. It's not merely the desire to get things done; it's the desire to create a better world. And that is a work of art if anything is, fraught with all the perils attending the creative process. For years now, you have been getting the message to honor what is at once your passion, your originality, and your quest for meaningful work. Now you're about to be drawn in that direction like you're being carried by a riptide. While you're keeping your mind on the algorithms and the procedures, and the social politics and what the boss wants, stay busy inventing the best way to do things. See the world as you know it can be, rather than what it seems to be today. If something is really a problem, there is a solution, and the solution is an opportunity. Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) -- You have resources: important ones, which can get you through anything. For years now, you've been drilling down into the ground, establishing your independence and your stability. It's time for you to put this all together and step into the challenges you are the most eager to engage. This will mean letting go of old goals and coming up with new ones -- or acknowledging the desire you've been toting around for years on end. Take them out of your bag and put them on the table. Open your secret box of ideas you want to develop. Get out your bucket list and pick three items, and do them soon. This may all feel risky, like you have to acknowledge something deep and urgent in order to take the step and bring yourself to a new place. You may feel like you have to violate every rule you think you have to live by. You may need to go against the grain of what your friends think is right, particularly those who are engaged in some kind of creative profession. Often they are more bound by convention than they let on, and that is precisely what you are ready to challenge. Set out to do the thing you want to do the most, especially if you think it's impossible. Then you'll feel a lot better. Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) -- Of all the subjects we must address here in the Western world, family seems to be the most vexing for the majority of people. This tends to get more intense the more independence that you want, whether it's the freedom to move about the planet, or the freedom to think and feel as you do. They amount to the same thing. Family patterns spread into every facet of life: such as anyplace there is a group present. When you experience a group, you may notice that people fall into familiar roles -- someone is like your mother, someone is like your father, others may resemble siblings. You can start by seeing these roles for what they are. Identify people not just by who they remind you of, but also how you feel when you're engaging with them. Do you feel small or insecure? Do you feel confident and happy? Do you lose your appetite or need to open a window? Do you feel welcome in their presence, and taken care of? Notice these things with everyone you encounter, and wherever you may go. Part of shifting these patterns is seeing them, and part of it is about establishing new modes of communication and interrelation. This is much more on the feeling level: not the words you say, but how you feel saying them; not the words you hear, but how you feel when you are listening. Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) -- One of the most serious problems the world is facing is the deterioration of literacy. This has effects on every level; because literacy is about our ability to reason, to record the past, to express new ideas and, most significantly, to have a sense of right and wrong. Once words and syntax lose their meaning, it's not long before we're losing our minds, and our collective grip on reality. That, if you look closely at the world, is exactly what's happening. You depend on literacy, in its widest sense, to keep your bearings. The structure of ideas matters to you. Logical flow matters to you. What things mean in the context of one another matters to you. We are all experiencing the impact of "new media," an environment where a tweet might be thought to replace a book and, therefore, a flimsy idea might be thought to replace a solid and tangible one. You will be doing some adapting of your thought process to this new environment, though don't get too swept up in the tides of change or alleged progress. Remember that, at heart, you are a traditionalist. Progress is all well and good, as long as there is some solid core of respect for the nuances of thought, for ideas that matter, and for the human condition. Said another way, progress is no excuse for disrespect. Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) -- You'll be doing some financial rearrangement this summer, or finishing such a task that you may have begun in early 2017. Yet finances are a reflection of one's priorities. The record of the money you spend is a mind-map of what you think matters. Rather than trying to change your mind, study the map. Observe how you think, and where you notice your thinking has lapsed. Pause when you run into perplexing questions. For example, you might wonder why you made a certain decision, or why you have a pattern of similar decisions. Pluto has been in your sign for a decade, and Saturn has been with you since last December. These are two influences that are likely to come with some significant changes in the trajectory of your life. Yet these may have come so frequently for a while that you thought you were just following the contours of the landscape. However, when you consider these shifts in direction, what do you notice? If you had to plot your course on a map of the landscape, how would that look? How you handle money, and your twists and turns of fortune, and how you think about your role in the business community, are all part of this. In total, what you're looking for is evidence of your maturing process. Take that question right into the present moment. Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) -- This summer, Mars will be retrograde in Aquarius: significant news for anyone with a major placement there, be it Sun, Moon, rising sign or cluster of planets. One challenge you may face is how to use your energy appropriately. You need to know where to apply your will, your time and your money, and where to back off. You need to decide when to fight and when to walk away. Most of all, you must decide what you want. This is the real question wherever Mars is prominent. Though our society seems to be all about fulfilling desire, that's not really true, so far as I have observed. It's true in the context of what we think we're allowed to want, within narrow parameters. It's true in the context of what we think is not going to 'offend' others who are not actually involved or affected. So one project for you is to notice yourself experiencing desire, and then notice how you respond to peer pressure, both from outside yourself and in terms of what you think others might think. Observe when you find yourself playing to rules and, worse, going against your own values in order to please someone else, in theory or in reality. Should you feel like this is potentially dangerous territory, you have some protection. The Moon's South Node will be hanging around Mars all summer long. Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) -- Amidst all the tossing and turning that is life on the planet in its current state, you are being called to consider your long-range vision for yourself. As a Pisces, you're already blessed with the wide view, the long view, and the cosmic perspective. So it's likely that you've been considering your next direction for a while now. Based on a study of your ruling planets, Jupiter and Neptune, this is likely to take three forms. One is your notion of your sexuality, which is intimately mingled with your cosmology. Second is where you want to travel. Have you gone anyplace for a while? Jupiter in Scorpio is encouraging you to take a trip sometime soon, and also to dust off your list of places you absolutely must visit. Third is where you're heading professionally. When Jupiter enters Sagittarius later in the year, it will enter your 10th house of reputation and success. You may not exactly feel like your star is rising at the moment, though a lot will unfold over the next six months, and you will be in a position to actualize some of your dearest aspirations. You must know what they are in order for that to happen. They're the ones that might seem too good to be true, or the ones your parents said were impossible. That's the place to begin -- and soon.

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