Today is Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. The Sun enters Aquarius today at 11:10 am. It joins three other points currently in that sign: Nessus, Pallas and the last moments of Neptune in Aquarius. Neptune joins Pisces on Feb. 3 after 14 years in Aquarius, so these are our parting and perhaps most conscious intervals of Neptune. However, there’s more immediate news on the event horizon.
Monday is a big day in both Western astrology and Eastern. For those of us who are fascinated by planets buzzing around the Sun, Mars turns retrograde in Virgo. You don’t hear the term “Mars retrograde” very often, but it happens. Virgo is already a sign known for its intensity and even obsession, though those who try to express masculine energy through Virgo can be a little insecure doing so. Imagine how Virgo herself feels, taking up Mars as a guest for longer than the average vacation, eight months. The peak of that time involves Mars making apparent retrograde motion between Monday and April 13.
Between April 13 and late June promises to be an interesting time in the story of the world, and Mr. Cock and Balls treading backwards through the sign of the Virgin sounds like she becomes a woman in the process. Retrogrades are often recovery missions, about claiming lost energy, forgotten personal assets, and aspects of ourselves that threatened others when we were little. Every kid does this — to some extent figure out how not to piss off the adults, however meek the insults.
Children thus embark on a self-pruning process that can leave them feeling neutered as adults. Then come retrogrades, which send us on a soul retrieval scavenger hunt. Mars in Virgo will be useful this way, helping us come to terms with what we think of as aggression (and might feel as self-aggression). I suggest being mindful of the pattern establishment quality of retrogrades. The last time anything like this happened was in early 1965, when the script was cast for the thing called The Sixties that ensued.