As Mars eases out of the grand earth trine from the first half of the week, it’s also easing out of a packed grand cross made up of minor planets in the mutable signs. Minor planets mean small and with an unusual pitch — not less meaningful. Mars is on a mission with this material, providing us a lot of information right now. In this case, we get a detailed look at the web of stories, beliefs and memories influencing our sense of love, desire and self.
In yesterday’s Daily Astrology, we considered Eros and Psyche flanking Mars in Virgo, and the insecurities and wounds regarding love that many of us carry. Mars retrograde in Virgo has been doing its work well these last few months, calling up all sorts of material for us to address. Virgo in general can be a nesting place of our insecurities and self-criticism. So you may be getting a workout – but exercising muscles makes them stronger, even if takes more effort than you’re used to. And Mars, the planet of get-up-and-go, is reminding us that we’ll only get out as much as we put into this work.
Now, one planet we didn’t mention yesterday in the Psyche-Eros conjunction in Virgo is Arachne. This is bringing the sense of interconnection right up to our noses, complete with ideas of ‘conspiracy’, ‘love as a subversive act’, and the ‘stories’ we tell ourselves about how love is or is not something we deserve. Sometimes these story lines run so deep, and are so interwoven, a visual aid is necessary to sort them out. In fact, try that: get out a piece of paper, and try mapping out the discoveries you’ve been making lately. Make it as visual as you like (symbols, icons, scenery) and draw the pathways from one false belief to another, through as many relationships as they affected, and see how far back you can trace them. Amidst all of that, where do you locate yourself? Is there room on the page for you? Or is it time to step outside the web and see what you actually are?
Let’s check in on the other side of the zodiac from the Virgo stellium. There we have Orpheus and Borasisi. Martha Lang-Wescott and Jason Schwartz note Orpheus as being about mourning or grief, longing for what is past, and grieving a missed opportunity or missed person. It is teamed up with Borasisi, Mr. ‘If I believe it, it must be true’ himself. All of us have grieved love lost at one time or another; most of us feel we’ve missed opportunities in our relationships. But have we really? Or have we been exactly where we needed to be each step of the way? Consider that Chiron and Pallas are close at hand in Pisces, opposite those Virgo planets. Chiron is asking you to question and heal some of these assumptions; Pallas suggests there are practical steps to the process.
Perpendicular to the Virgo-Pisces axis is the Gemini-Sagittarius axis. In Gemini, we have the asteroids Memoria and Chaos in conjunction. Have your memories been feeling at all chaotic or disorienting as Mars has made its way backwards? Are you questioning beliefs based on the past, which is actually a fiction (because it does not exist now)? Even collective memory is in chaos – which could help us un-stick ourselves from the past, but may feel like being unmoored. There are important things to remember (like why access to birth control and voting are important) yet so any things we’d rather forget – like the massacre of Afghani civilians this week by one or more U.S. troops. One of our jobs is to keep memory in perspective: we must remember as a culture in order to retain our humanity; yet we must keep our beliefs about ourselves in the present.
Finally, in Sagittarius, we have the centaur planet Chariklo conjunct the Great Attractor. Chariklo was the devoted wife of Chiron; the GA is a deep-space point rushing away from us just as fast as it’s pulling our entire galaxy toward it. We have a combination of a need for devotion with the need for space. Devotion is itself a powerful attractive force. When we devote ourselves to our own healing and self-love, as Mars retrograde is urging us to do, we feel less need to chase others for that validation.
Mars, however, is ‘leaving’ this configuration for earlier degrees of Virgo – but it will be back soon. These asteroids and similar points move slowly, so Mars will make contact again along this axis. It did its work calling issues into focus and now is moving deeper toward an opposition to Chiron — an essential element of all of this. There are many ways to think about it, but in essence, the warrior spirit is awakening — through two of the most feminine signs. How is your feminine side responding to all this activity — and potential for healing?
be: I think you’re right about March, it is a kick in the butt and I struggle with it every year.
Huh. There is something to this reference back to March 2008…I was seeking a job that was more sustainable, that fed my soul a little more, and I ended up applying to the job I’m currently working at part time while I finish up grad school.
I find myself in a very similar situation now – seeking a more sustainable job – but with a much clearer vision of what sustainability looks like from a soul perspective. At the same time, I’ve come down with a cold (my third or fourth this season – and I used to proclaim that I never got sick!), and am trying to be good to myself while balancing thesis-writing and a need to figure out where my soul-sustaining livelihood will come from after I graduate…
There’s something to this “face your repressions” energy, too. It’s nagging at me constantly, and I feel like I’m totally missing the mark. I dreamed I was swimming through deep black space to Mars the other night, and then last night in dream I was dressed in all red, with a tree full of little red birds in a bedroom (this is my second hit of three mars returns in this virgoy mars transit)…Seems like such a healing time, and yet the urge to just watch TV is stronger than it’s been since I was a teen!
Cleansings…kicks in the butt…opportunities (taken and missed)…hmmmm…
Be: I was hoping you would comment! Thank you for that insight. I know just what was being purged then, and now. 😉
(thanks too Sarah!)
Nice to be reminded that Arachne is in the Virgo transit party. I encountered a large spider in the shower on this morning; air-lifted her to safety at the window. Seeing as her astro-self is opposing natal Ophelia in Pisces, I suppose it’s fitting she was rescued from the water.
ooops, another Mercury rx faux pas below. Never mind that remark about “upcoming squares” between Saturn and Pluto, that’s old news. I was thinking (or something like that) of Uranus and Pluto squares of course. So sorry.
be
Yes, HS. I was in the throes of a reactive depression in March 2008.
Melissa,
Well, maybe that’s it, your Neptune opposes transiting Urania, and your Pholus (small cause, big effect) squares them both. I consider it a big effect in that you shed a lot of light on these little known astro bodies. Thanks again!
Hugging,
I feel for you and think you may be on to something with the Pluto Saturn trine in 2008. That was only about 2 months after Pluto entered Capricorn, and Saturn was retrograde in that ingress chart at 7+ Virgo. Pluto was also conjunct Venus at 2+ and Jupiter at 8+ of Cap so they would all be trine Saturn. For the body at least, it would be an “easy” way to rid itself of toxins all at one time. I’m sure it is hard to think of it as a blessing, but it just might have been. Now it’s happening to you again and since Mars is retrograde (turned inward) like Saturn was, and since Jupiter and Venus are in the mix again only trine instead of conjunct Pluto it probably is another “cleansing”. Or maybe it’s just that March is a kick in the butt, for some more than others! I’ve got a killer sinus headache (off and on) but no flu thank goodness.
As for the massacre of the Afghani civilians by “one or more U.S. troops”, I don’t know if we will even know the answer to that since Sphinx (unsolved mysteries) was conjunct the Sun at the time. Also Lachesis, the Fate Twister, was nearby with Kassandra and nobody believed her. Still, the Moon was about 25 degrees or so of Libra, having just squared Pluto and was nearly conjunct Saturn, so this incident was probably part of the “big” picture of their upcoming squares. Some might think of Pholus and his penchant for wine in square to the Sun in Pisces might give support to the involvement of alcohol. Especially since he was in the company of Ixion (2nd chance, but not a nice guy at all) and Hylonome (grief stricken), it seems likely. Then couple that with Mars conjunct Psyche and Eros (what turns you on) it just seems to grotesque to think about. But just like Hugging’s horrible flu, maybe there’s a reason for it. QB1 at 26 Aries 51 was/is just opposite Saturn at 28 Libra rx. If QB1 represents a threshold crossing and we who insist on warring without concern for costs, yet don’t give our warriors the time or the services to heal, then some good may come of this tragedy if it raises our consciousness enough to cease and desist.
be
My current flu (and the stuff I’m processing now) made me remember the end of March 2008, I had a flu and an INTENSE migraine, so bad I fainted from it. And I don’t get headaches. I was slowly having a breakdown and it was in full swing by that March. I can’t make much of this, but I did pull up the chart to see what was there and why it felt so similar. What stood out right away was a trine between Pluto in Cap and Rx Saturn in VIRGO – pretty much right where Mars is/was transiting now. (Then I’m seeing a triple conj of Merc, Venus, and Vesta in Pieces – which is really lit up right now.)
http://serennu.com/astrology/ephemeris.php?inday=25&inmonth=03&inyear=2008&inhours=&inmins=&insecs=&insort=type&z=t&gh=g&addobj=&inla=&inlo=&h=P
Anyone else have feel a similar feeling?
HuggS
bkoehler: Thank you. I do not have anything precisely at 6 Gemini. It aspects other parts of my chart, such as opposing retrograding Neptune at 7 Sag, square Pholus at 6 Pisces, and sextiling my Asc at 7 Leo. I do have Urania retrograding at 9 Libra, which trines Jupiter conj Mars in Aquarius. I was not sure how Urania fit into my chart, but I appreciate any insight.
Melissa,
I can’t thank you enough for linking these stories and sharing your own thoughts on the meaning of the group of Pisces astro bodies located between 6 and 8 degrees of that sign. I’ve long wanted to know about Teharonhia:wako, and the story of Tahirih and her connection to Magdalena was unknown to me. Together, they have provided me with fresh insight into the planetary bodies who are named for them.
I noticed too that the asteroid Urania is presently at 6 Gemini 4 and wondered if that degree is prominent in your birthchart. Thank you again for sharing.
be
There is also this interesting group of Chiron, Teharonhia, Magdalena, and Child. This is a link to part of the myth of Teharonhia.
http://www.wampumchronicles.com/creationstory3.html
To me, these beings seem to be the child manifesting a healing of our sometimes unrealistic expectations and judgements of mother. A child, on a deeper level, knowing her. Teharonhia had patience with his mother and saw her in all creation. Magdalena was judged harshly. In the Baha’i Faith, it is believed that she came back as Tahirih. She was best remembered for unveilling herself in an assemblage of men, then being renamed “the Pure One.” She was a mother. She lived in Iran. This is her story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahirih
“All of us have grieved love lost at one time or another; most of us feel we’ve missed opportunities in our relationships. But have we really? Or have we been exactly where we needed to be each step of the way?”
Yes, as uncomfortable as it is to admit (because it wasn’t the ‘opportunity’ I was consciously looking for!), I grasped the opportunity in a key relationship last year fully. That was the opportunity to re-experience the grief associated with never having the kind of deep, boundless, merging love that I should have had with my mother, but didn’t. I have kept looking for that, and I have kept re-experiencing the rejection of it. How could it be any other way when I, myself, have continued the futile search?
It is so terribly seductive to believe, in our innermost childlike hearts, that we can go back to the womb. I think that is why sex is often so compelling, itself a physical attempt to re-enter that state.
It is a key part of our work as adults to recognise and embrace our alone-ness. But that is also the starting point of building an identity that no longer relies on others’ expectations of us, nor on a need to be acceptable or accepted. Freedom. 🙂
thanks for such wonderful writing everyone! I’m interested in the Chiron Mars opposition and how you will describe it. But I think I’m feeling it already as a kind of “face your repressions” energy. We will really need to nourish ourselves through this (that’s what so many here are telling me to do). Thankfully my flu is getting better…
mapping the lines of false belief ok but are there any real and true lines/points, cos those are the ones to ink in/illuminate/enter into/stand with
Well – it’s more my ‘worrier’ spirit than my warrior spirit that’s coming out these days. Or maybe I’m a worried warrior. As I already mentioned – I’m being faced with old insecurities and lack of self-worth, and though I know it’s irrational, they just won’t go away – and I know that that’s because there’s a deep seated belief inside me that believes it’s all true – and that the healing takes place when one is able to turn and face that stuff that has such hidden power when it isn’t brought to the light: “When we devote ourselves to our own healing and self-love, as Mars retrograde is urging us to do, we feel less need to chase others for that validation”. Once again thank you for this amazing blog, that answers questions that I didn’t even know I was asking. Just fabulous.
Well the warrior spirit in me sent this link to my FB page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX07PKhKTa0
I actually had it come up on my shuffle two hours prior to reading this post and thought it was perfect for the mood I found myself in all day! Is this astrology not beyond wild? 😉 and to cap it all off, I spoke of Arachne this afternoon at an event held to educate on the topic of permaculture. The buzz in the air was palpable. I remarked on it saying that it seemed that people were buzzed and connecting well, as if we are weaving ourselves together into a common goal of growing a world through loving means and a return to nature. One of the speakers was tremendously powerful, and it was her passion and logic that won me over. She can run for Prime Minister of this magnificent country any day and I’d vote her in! She’s a rebel of the kind we all are inside and need to be on the outside. It’s time to get my show on the road for starters alongside women like her.