By Len Wallick
This coming Wednesday, the Moon will pass completely in front of Mars, blocking it from view. That is called an occultation. It would also be appropriate, if not precisely accurate, to call the event a special-case conjunction or an eclipse. Sound familiar? It should.
Something very similar happened near the end of June, when Luna crossed paths with Venus in exactly the the same spot in late Gemini. We are therefore getting an opportunity to participate in a grand and potentially enlightening experiment that will tell us all something about ourselves individually and collectively. A good experiment maximizes the constants and minimizes the variables. That way, it is possible to isolate the variables and learn something about them.
The successive lunar occultations of Venus and Mars in the same degree of the same sign, 28 days apart, along with a remarkable number of events to follow, are clearly related. Those are the constants. The most substantial variables are the archetypes represented by Venus and Mars themselves. The object of our experiment, then, is to distinguish our relationship to those archetypes and figure out how they are expressed in our lives.
The 26th degree of Gemini has an auspicious Sabian symbol that includes the image of trees, frost and winter skies. The visionary astrologer Dane Rudyar interprets that tableau to represent the “revelation of archetypal form” as all the extraneous umbrage is stripped away leaving only the barest expression of reality and an “essential rhythm of existence.” In this case our attention is clearly being directed away from the constants distinguished by repetition and toward the starkly contrasting variables that remain: Venus and Mars.
The eminent astrologer Robert Hand refers to Venus as “a Yin planet” that “rules the spontaneous power of attraction.” Mars, on Robert’s other hand, is described as the Yang counterpart representing “the drive of an entity to be itself.” Together they form a set of polarities with a continuous and dynamic balance that is “rather delicate and easily upset.” If the course of public events in July is any indicator, the lunar occultation of Venus seems to have coincided with a tipping in favor of the Martian archetype.
Everywhere you look, the energies of Mars have been operating recklessly, neglecting what Eric Francis recently referred to as the “collective benefit.” The imperative is being expressed either in a desperate attempt to aggrandize excessive power or in an effort to maintain some semblance of individuality in the face of it. Either way, it simply isn’t possible to indefinitely sustain an expression of will that has no end except to deplete and exhaust any and all resources available. The impending lunar occultation of Mars will not reverse that trend all by itself. It will, however, give us a glimpse of what it will be like when things swing the other way, as they must. After its special case conjunction, the new Martian variable engages the remaining constants one by one.
As was the case with Venus, the lunar occultation of Mars will take place just before the Moon moves on to conjoin with the Sun, starting a new cycle. Then, just as it was with Venus, Mars will enter the sign Cancer shortly after the new month begins. During the course of August, Mars will then repeat what Venus did in July, consummating the continuum of a cardinal grand cross with squares to Uranus and Saturn interposed with an opposition to Pluto. Every one of these events will be a chance to compare, contrast and combine current impression with recent memory.
It all begins on Wednesday, shortly before 1:00 pm EDT. The whole solar system is making room for it. There will be no planetary or even lunar aspects for over an hour beforehand and for yet another hour afterwards. It’s just us and Mars with the Moon directly in between. If you have the time and attention available, it would be worth your while to find out for yourself where you fit in a very grand scheme.
Offered In Service
susyc – “19 year old boys are beautiful though, still a little goofy and fragile.”
yes, they are, aren’t they? and some of them a coiple years after that even, i think.
🙂
So I tend to start looking for boys to mature by the time they’re about 26, interesting, that’s how old my husband was when he married me. But he’d lost his dad at 19 and his mom right before our wedding. So he’d had a sort of grieving fatalism about life for a while by then. He’d certainly learned how to say goodbye and depend on himself, and I’d learned about the healing powers of a generous body. 19 year old boys are beautiful though, still a little goofy and fragile, and maybe I’m too hard on late adolescent Mars. I have a special soft spot for young men having brought two into the world and seen them through their rocky adolescences. Now just waiting for the youngest to work out some demons he hasn’t been willing to look directly in the eye quite yet. No worries. His Saturn Return is coming.
You know I’m awfully glad this doesn’t happen to Mars until Wednesday because tonight he was really cool in the hands or voice of the President who spoke via TV to the US citizens tonight. He asked everybody to let their state representatives and senators know how they feel and to tell them to get this debt ceiling business done, and after that the White House servers crashed from the overload of responses.
I could talk a lot about the chart for that message (9:03 PM); how the Moon was conjunct the President’s Moon and how the Sun was conjunct the President’s Mercury and how they were sextile and formed a yod with Pluto on point, you know how I am. But what I REALLY want to talk about is that Pandora was on the 7th house cusp; the partners to the President, We the People, and when she opened that box the servers crashed. Of course Vesta was on the ascendent too, so she was working her Aquarian thing, and she trined Saturn, one of the chart rulers, and that’s important. But it was Pandora that knocked my socks off.
And Mars, being where he is, . . .where the south node is still hanging ’round, and where the Sun was in the Lunar Eclipse last month, and where Mars was when Pluto ingressed Capricorn, that’s so important. But Pandora. . . . or as Pholus might say (and he trines Pandora) it only takes a little thing to start a really, really big thing, and well, Pandora is such a little thing.
I’m not knocking Uranus and Ceres trining the Sun and sextiling the Moon and squaring Pluto, mind you; through the magic of all the electronic inventions and the telephone, these times we are living in are just breathtaking. The fact that Atlantis is conjunct Juno and has been for some time now, doesn’t escape me either. But you got to hand it to Pandora by golly, she’s still got the magic touch.
be
Gary,
Thank you. Good information for everybody to keep in mnd. Mars is less mature than Venus right now. Subtracting seven for the visibility factor and dividing by two for “human years” equivalency that would make young mister Mars about 19 years old and “standin’ at the crossroads, risin’ Sun goin’ down”. Reminds me of “my good friend Willie Brown” way back the last time Uranus was in Aries.
interesting bit if insight, gary — thanks. all i know is that the current “young” mars conj my nessus, opp my moon conj the GC, is all feeling a bit…. difficult at the moment.
OK, in defense of Mars as an archetype I would have you please note here that this is still a very “young” Mars. Similar to the “New” Moon phase, Mars is less than 45 degrees from the Sun yet and so still very early in the cycle…not all Marses are created equal. This one still needs to mature a good bit.
Sorry, Len. You’ve been working along – *I’m* the one who has been away. Somehow I missed the last couple of blogs.
No ‘faint praise,’ just not looking hard enough.
Lovelove,
M
Well, this kinda worries me Len. If the Venus energy was hidden by the Moon last month, however briefly, it could mean we had a shortage of love for the past month. Now if the Mars energy gets hidden by the Moon could that mean a shortage of the fighting energy available for next month? Could that mean we get the fighting energy with a dose of feeling? I hear that Speaker Boehner has a plan that will get voted on this Wednesday but don’t know what time. It could just be that the old boy will be charging forward with tears in his eyes. Oh dear; just noticed that Mercury is almost opposite Neptune at that time.
Guess there’s no escaping it; a softer, gentler, House of Representatives on a see-saw between drama king Mercury in Leo and tragedy king Neptune in Pisces led by a weepy Speaker of the House weaving through the mine field of negotiations over money spent and money loaned. Can’t wait to see the movie (or is THIS the movie?)
be
Len, welcome back! And whatever you’ve been doing, it has cleared your voice in a subtle but powerful way. Keep it coming!
As for your interpretation of the effect of Luna on Mars, hmmm… it seems a little en contra de rerum natura (which ain’t necessarily a bad thing).
This occultation is happening *right* at the degree of my natal Venus, and my instinct tells me this Venus placement isn’t (for me personally) gonna be nearly enough to ameliorate the effect of Mars *upon* Luna. My sense is that the more ‘natural’ effect is going to be an inflammation of the emotional body, esp. as Luna goes to black/new. THEN Mars will sail into Cancer in full battle dress, Luna clearing the path. As a Kallinectes born with Mars therein I can say *categorically* that Mars is NOT in detriment in Kalli, but under this aegis, will and emotion become a dynamo.
I have some fairly serious decisions in front of me as I consider how much heat and light to bring to the problems before me. Venus at that spot in the chart is a clue, but I’ve discovered over the years that Goddess is sometimes too convinced of her puissance in a world where She is largely ignored or worse, fetishized.
Fortunately, I’ve moved to town named after Mercury (Mark/Marcos is the Latinization of Mercurios), so I’ll keep a tight eye on His placement as well.
Cooling in Five Rivers,
M
Mars energy?
“The day they signed the death warrant for the NHS
Andrew Lansley has announced that, from next April, NHS services worth £1 billion will be opened up to competitive bids from the private sector.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthadvice/maxpemberton/8655242/The-day-they-signed-the-death-warrant-for-the-NHS.html#.Ti2nWCtSTXA.facebook
“Everywhere you look, the energies of Mars have been operating recklessly, neglecting what Eric Francis recently referred to as the “collective benefit.” The imperative is being expressed either in a desperate attempt to aggrandize excessive power or in an effort to maintain some semblance of individuality in the face of it. Either way, it simply isn’t possible to indefinitely sustain an expression of will that has no end except to deplete and exhaust any and all resources available.”
I guess it’s no wonder I have a prejudice against Mars, but maybe I’d like the putz better if he was in balance with feminine energy. I mean, I certainly don’t mind being able to access and use my masculine energy to get things done, assert and protect myself and the vulnerable where possible. But I do think the old boy has had his head unimpeded long enough.