After yesterday’s Taurus Full Moon square Nessus (and Venus in the Uanus-Pluto square), what issues of a sexual nature have surfaced for you? We’re in the last few days of the Sun in Scorpio now. As we begin the week, Sunday’s Full Moon themes (including our true desire, and how we’ve reacted to or taken on others’ sexual wounds) are being developed by several planetary players.
First up is Mars (planet of desire and drive) in Virgo square minor planet Ixion and centaur planet Pholus in Sagittarius. A Virgo Mars has a tendency to get hung up on details or get obsessed with ‘getting it right’.
This will only get you so far in matters of sex, relationships and intimacy. Curiosity and honesty tend to be more productive guiding principles and goals in that department
When you obsess over ‘getting it right’, you take yourself out of the moment and out of your body, and sacrifice the fun of exploration and experimentation on the altar of perfectionism.
With the additions of Ixion and Pholus to the equation, the drive for integrity possessed by Mars in Virgo can come at the expense of whomever you’re trying to be intimate with — including yourself.
Healing journeys are messy. And while integrity is important, you don’t need to ‘crucify’ yourself on the baggage of your past failures. All that does is keep you stuck in something with a surface resemblance to integrity, but which is really just self-flagellation.
At the same time as Mars-Ixion-Pholus, Mars is also sextile retrograde Jupiter in Cancer. Jupiter in Cancer offers a way out of the tension being generated by the Mars square — look for the option that feels good. There’s a catch here, though: life is full of behavioral options and indulgences that feel good somehow in the moment, but which are not actually nourishing in the long run.
Beyond immediate physical/material/emotional gratification, consider what feels good on a deeper ‘spiritual’ level (Jupiter rules Sagittarius). In other words, what is actually nourishing? Practically speaking, that which feels good but does not involve a hangover (or the equivalent) is nourishing.
Does beating yourself up for messing up second chances, or for familial patterns, or for your own karma and past excesses actually feel good or nourish you? Of course not. Let your actions (Mars) serve (Virgo) something far more beneficial and practical.
That ‘something’ gets facilitated as we approach the trine between Mercury in Scorpio and Chiron in Pisces on Wednesday. This is an opportunity to organize your thoughts about what is healing, and to orient your thinking in that direction. This naturally means going deeper — deeper than perfectionism, and deeper than superficial ‘feel good’ fixes that leave a nasty aftertaste, or that keep you in patterns of craving and withdrawal.
Just as the Sun leaves Scorpio and enters Sagittarius Thursday, Mercury will be making a sextile to Pluto in Capricorn: the extent to which you can make deep changes in your thoughts about healing is great. But you have to be willing to go there, to do the legwork, and to face any lingering denial about what you’re doing with some logic.
While the Sun is in Scorpio the veil between the realm of the living and that of the dead is said to be thin. Between now and Thursday, consider testing the veils you’ve thrown over your own sexuality and your sense of what truly nourishes you (your potential for real healing). We deserve to make choices for ourselves that set us free instead of keeping us enslaved.
Thank you, Amanda, for one of your best blogs ever (and practical advice that comes at a very good time for me)
Phew ! Wow! I have my moon in Virgo (2nd house) with my Sun in Aries (8th house). I know all about the Mars/Virgo perfectionism edge. Its is in high gear these days!
I have been on a sexual health healing journey since last late March 2012 of my own. Just last Sunday, I made a final amends with an ex who is four months sober. He recently got out of rehab and I am slowly reengaging contact after nearly 20 months without contact. We had a good conversations, but its hard to focus on the positive sober/healing present while the tinge and patterns of old habits of push/pull, high/lows, hot/cold, short term excitement/long hangovers are easier to trust and fall back on just because its familiar. The lingering question of reality looms: can this relationships forgive the past and sustain itself for long term nourishment, sexual/drug/financial recovery and positive progression?? I dont know, Im taking it day by day. Stay tuned, change is inevitable.
Thanks Amanda! Killin it lately !!
Thank you so much, Amanda,
This post explains how Mars in Virgo manifests in our lives, er… perfectly! And the comments by Vince, Diva and Sally just articulate what has been going on in my life.
I feel I’m going to burst with the desire and passion I have boiling inside of me, and opportunity to express and share it is everywhere! Yet, I’m holding back, because I don’t want that hangover any more. I want to break the patterns of “craving and withdrawal” I’d created for myself so long ago. It’s time for the real nurturing and healing to begin, and some new healthy patterns to be formed.
Cheers everyone!
The Sun is in conjunction Sappho poet of the 7th century BC in Mytilene, on Lesbos island and was famous for these poems on love in Scorpio this will stir up the flame of passion a fault was being ending up under the duvet…
Thanks Amanda 🙂
http://lunesoleil23.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/lasteroide-sappho-dans-le-signe-de-balance-et-sur-laxe-de-la-pleine-lune/
My first article on Sappho, copied the link and pasted into the translator on the blog, thanks
Perfect for me, Amanda – thank you.
I have a foot on one side of the door – my past/my mother – and a foot on the other – where I am/where I want to be fully. It is the doorway itself that has the ability to be a self-flagellation zone. I’m going to be mindful not to bash my head on the frame any more than needed to wake me up 🙂
Things are still moving slowly on the outer levels, but no worries. I’m finally getting past the impatience I used to have and trusting the process of unfolding. So many things have come together since my progressed Venus turned direct last December: starting to sing with my iPod before starting to play the guitar I had in my tent for months but hardly played which led to my now having at least 2 hours of music I can play live with half of it original. Then I broke that guitar on a tree limb while riding my bike and 3 days later a friend gave me a better guitar than the one I broke. Then I started playing open mics and playing guitar and singing at a community jam where I only played drums and bass before.
During this eclipse season a few cats from the jam have begun to meet to work out songs to take on the road. Another aspect of my patience and playing it by ear, making it up as I go along is that a few months ago my friend was pacing back and forth in front of the venue wondering what to do since her lead actor didn’t show up for the play. I walked in, she asked if I wanted to be in a play, handed me a script and I was in. Now the play is being reworked and because of my initial involvement I didn’t have to do anything to get a part but wiggle my eyebrows.
Things are still in a highly local and barely visible from outside my immediate tribe, but this is higher visibility and community involvement than I’ve really ever had as a musician. I’ve had prog Venus in Capricorn now for about 13 years, but now that she’s direct the impatience going along with my Aquarian natal Venus has learned to trust the process, like a tree growing instead of like an art project in a 10 week school term. To make medicine music and not just scratch my itches, to make healing sounds instead of merely using art to trap my demons instead of integrating them on the inside takes a higher level of maturity than I’ve ever had before now. I couldn’t play the songs I’m now playing until now. I guess I’ve been paying attention long enough now to trust the process and not push so hard.
Same goes with sex. I’m still solo, but feeling love sprout in unexpected places. Taking it one day at a time and not pushing the river.
This was just what I needed to read today – thanks, Amanda!
whew — good to hear this post is resonating. i was feeling curious that the full moon did not seem to manifest in ways i thought it might. but i was immersed in a two-day contact improv workshop, as was my partner. and i think this sentence by sally kind of sums things up:
“I’m working with a particularly feisty knot of integrity/perfectionism/image/nourishment/hangover.”
i haven’t quite put my finger on the “hangover” piece of it for me, but i think it might be something along the lines of allowing “feel-good emotional merger” with a partner to take me to that place where i get drawn into old habits of trying to caretake rather than let him have his emotions and work through them in his own way. and then i feel a little overstretched and get easily defensive.
hmmm… ok, maybe that’s *exactly* it…
(((HUGS))) Carla! I know that slicing open thing. I try to take comfort (usually after the fact) in the knowledge that I’d been creating something real all along, & it needed somewhere to go. The Void is just new shelf space, cleaned up & ready for the you you’ve created. Bless you.
I spend the weekend gnawing away at Nessus material, completely forgetting how Nessus was involved in this Full Moon. sigh. This awareness stuff is beyond me, sometimes. I do very much appreciate the Algol link, too. The Dark Goddess was everywhere in the weekend’s contemplations for me.
Yep, beautifully apt on all levels. I’m working with a particularly feisty knot of integrity/perfectionism/image/nourishment/hangover. It goes deeper and is entwined further than I ever could have first imagined.
Every time I revisit the situation, it carries the feeling of “If I don’t get it right, I’ll fall through the center of the earth and straight out into the abyss of a past lifetime(s)–undoing all of my work on the way down”.
I even sat with the Tarot last night, the 8 of swords was afoot. Clearly the knotty self-torture was my choice. Forcing a denial of healing potential (otherwise known as life) through the no way out perfectionism masquerading as integrity.
Timely post, Amanda. Just what I needed after the full moon weekend.
Thanks Amanda, glad I got to read this before tomorrow when the Gemini Moon comes along to trigger the aspect of opposing Pholus square Mars. I say this because it involves my natal Neptune and Uranus and “little things” have monopolized my concentration to the detriment of making progress in previously planned activities.
Taking it a step further, Minerva (aka Pallas-Athene) has made her conjunction to Damocles (yikes) in Aquarius and as she sextiles Ixion (this time I’ll get it right) and Pholus she complicates matters by thus creating a yod with Jupiter (this is important!) in Cancer as the focal point. Since Jupiter, still strong from a recent station, always increases what he encounters, and Pholus who takes something minor and blows it up into a big brouhaha, and Ixion (can’t be trusted) the overall effect (of the yod) is to increase anxiety into unmanageable proportions.
So I’m dealing with this unmanageable Jupiter effect and now Mars in Virgo (“hung up and obsessed”) comes along to not only sextile Jupiter (blown out of proportion emotion) and together they toss the yod effect back to Minerva (mind over matter) who is now in the hot seat focal point too. Well maybe tomorrow’s Gemini Moon will break up this ménage a trois pattern (she trines Minerva) enough to get me (and my Neptune and Uranus) back on track. Centaur Elatus (elated??) has awaited Mars’ arrival at 20 Virgo and can help (hopefully!) to change the focus of the obsession. Much obliged to you Amanda (Elatus?)
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Oh yeah, Mars in Virgo! No wonder that wanting desperately to get it right while getting it all wrong is coming up again now. Mars in Virgo sliced me open this past week. I can’t even think about getting anything right at the moment. I am dealing with the mess that spilled everywhere, most of it needs to be burned.
By the way, the full moon was conjunct ALGOL in Taurus. I get Kelley Hunter’s newsletter, and she has a good article on the Medusa Moon: http://heliastar.com/uncategorized/medusa-full-moon/
Folks who had a more intense than usual experience, especially if it felt the Dark Goddess herself may have been involved, this aspect may give insight.
I am going back to bed. It’s been an exhausting weekend. Thanks for the read, Amanda.
thanks Lizzy … I am a Pisces dealing with the same natal Virgo / Pisces see-saw. thank you for the insights.
It’s all true for me too Amanda. I’ve fallen for the same type of personality situation yet again. Been doing it since childhood experiences first opened the door to sex for me. My life is a series of unrequited love stories. I need to deal with this instead of “patterns of craving and withdrawal.” I have an appointment with a therapist tomorrow. He suggests tools for courage. I keep on trying to get it right …
Amazing how love can rip us up deep while being sunlight on the birds wing.
Oops, Chiron in Pisces. Monday morning…
Thank you for this wise, helpful piece, Amanda. It resonated so deeply for me. With natal Mars in Virgo and Pisces in Chiron – have finally made contact with how my neurotic perfectonism stems from the inability to see the gifts, skills and experience I have. It’s a kind of liberation and it’s not quite the same as realising I have no sense of self-worth, which I’ve known for a long time, it’s about understanding exactly how that lack of self worth manifests, it’s precision work (I guess that’s the up side of Mars in Virgo!). I hope in sharing this tht I can reach Others with similar issues. it also ties i beautifully wth today’s oracle!