Sun in Sagittarius is moving to square Mars in Virgo at the end of the week. Since aspects involving Mars tend to express well in advance, we should start looking at it now. It all starts with the Sun, source of our daylight, archetype of your consciousness. It is largely when signs host the Sun that they reveal their characteristics and an aspect to the Sun is a defining baseline for other objects in astrology. This week’s solar aspect to Mars may be defining for you, implying a choice or set of choices that will reveal the true nature of your focus and give you a chance to think about it.
It is natural to check in with yourself when Sol is in Sagittarius. Its mutable quality is about preparing for a new season, in this case initiated by a solstice, when the Sun’s apparent motion on the horizon stops and changes direction. The fire element energizes those preparations for initiative and stimulates us to imagine a new direction for our conscious action. The Sun’s presence prioritizes acting with awareness, as do some other long term constants unique to Sagittarius.
For centuries, Sagittarius has been the home of two distant points beyond our ken. From the middle of the sign, what we can only call a Great Attractor humbles us in contemplation of the unknowable. In a later degree is the homing signal of our place in creation, the galactic core. Over a generation, Sagittarius has been the home of a disproportionate number of Centaur planets, encouraging us to go where we fear to tread. This year brought the lunar north node, with its eclipses, reminding us to be responsible for what steps we do take. Finally, the recent solar ingress to Sagittarius took place during the stormy prelude to Mercury’s retrograde station in the same sign. That’s a lot. It probably corresponds to a lot on your mind, and it does not include the other eleven signs and their resident objects to which Sun is connecting by aspect. Virgo is one of those signs; Mars is there.
Virgo shares a mutable quality with Sagittarius, but its distinguishing element is earth. Signs with a common quality are oriented in a cross configuration on the zodiac and aspects between them are always either oppositions or squares. The difference in element contributes to the tension that a square implies. Earth confers a pragmatic approach to the preparations for a change of season. The archetypal energy of Mars is lending itself to Virgo’s “git ‘er done” ethic. The approaching square between Sun and Mars is, at least in part, a tension between the Virgo imperative to do it now and the Sagittarius inclination to first consider just what it is we are about to do.
Squares are commonly felt as an inner, psychological tension but sometimes they elaborate eloquently in our common existence. This last week provides an excellent example that bridges the Martian archetype to the actual planet. It is the tale of two missions to Mars.
On the one hand we have the initial success of launching NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, otherwise known as ‘Curiosity’. It a one-ton robotic vehicle designed to roam the surface of Mars equipped with a jack hammer and a vaporizing laser, all powered by plutonium-238. The mission of Curiosity is to search for evidence of life. What the hey? Search for life with what is in fact an all-terrain weapon? Of all the brilliant scientists who participated in this mission, did any one of them pause to consider what they were about to do? Apparently not. The brain trust assembled at Cape Canaveral on Saturday seemed to have one focus to the exclusion of all other perspectives: Do it and do it now before the launch window closes, giving us another two years to actually think. If you think that’s a success, wait until you get a 14-ton load of the failure right over your head.
Russia’s concurrent Mars mission, with the unfortunate name of Phobos-Grunt, has pooped out in an uncontrolled orbit above our own planet. That’s 14 tons, half of which is Nitrogen Tetroxide and Hydrazine, which will end up in somebody’s rain should, as seems probable, the Grunt plummet back to where it came from. Oh yes, there also is an undisclosed amount of radioactive Cobalt-57 on board which will do wonders for your thyroid. Once again, did anybody think about the consequences of failure before designing, constructing and launching this thing? Can you say ‘nyet’ boys and girls?
All this is not to say that we should be afraid to act in our own lives. It is to say that we should not be consumed by mindless action or ambition. What you choose to do during the course of this next week may well be necessary. Nobody will deny the importance of feeding yourself or your family, for example. The square of Sun to Mars is simply saying that every action resonates endlessly beyond its original intent or justification and, unlike some of the greatest minds among us, you should take that into account. Consider dispensing with the hard-ass and try some hard thinking. Necessity should not be the mother of regret.
Offered In Service
(Late comment since I am late in reading the PW materials…) I was extremely offended almost two years ago when NASA bombed, literally bombed, the moon to see if there was water there. Bomb Luna? Luna, who influences so much of our lives, visibly? Looking for water? Water for what? To support “human” life? What if there is “life” other than we and/or science now define it?
We “humans” are treating our celestial neighborhood just as we have Earth: to be exploited (for profit) and appropriated without regard to the consequences.
Thanks, Len, for expressing an outrage that has been simmering near boil for me for almost two years.
JannKinz
A niche waiting to be filled is perfect since it is Mars in Virgo Len. Thanks!
I think some of the greater minds among us are right here at PW thank you very much – ability to build pink-flamingo vaporizors aside. Besides, I think the Martians should be able to decorate their lawns with whatever they wish too, and we have no business interfering. Or was that the OWS tents I was thinking of? Well, either way, another brilliant article Len and thanks too for everyone else for dotting i’s and crossing t’s here. And now, I’ve got a train to catch.
Kelly: You are most welcome.
be: Thank you for such a be-youtiful observation and citation to Marc Edmond Jones (who is usually noted for his contribution to Sabian symbols). Would it be going too far to suggest a niche waiting to be filled? By the way, Curiosity’s laser is intended to vaporize mineral deposits for chromatographic analysis. Imagine, however, that it were in your back yard, weighing a ton, jack-hammering away at your flagstones, vaporizing your pink flamingos, making tracks in your lawn, irradiating the roses – that would not seem very friendly.
Getcalm: Thank you for your example, very resonant and very true.
Hugging Scorpio: Please never be quiet. You got it going on.
That’s f#@* great Len. With my Asc, Venus and Mars in Sadg, I’ve been waking up in the morning with a power to project outward – to the point where I ‘feel’ like I am within a very close range of peoples aura. It poses a problem as where I am projecting is in fact to those with whom I have had the most challenging moments in so far this year.
See, till I read your post I was only half aware of what i was doing.
You have brought it fully into consciousness for me. I am turning this inward because I really need to relight my fire;getting into an exercise regime, tweaking my nutrition..
Thanks
…well, I just reread Eric and Amanda’s nice article from this morn. I’ll be quiet now…… 😉
thanks bkoehler! Maybe, since we also have a trine between Jupiter and the conjunction with Venus and Pluto, this is suggesting the other half of what is going on with this Mars Sun square. I’m not sure yet what that means and I look forward to reading more here in the coming days and weeks. I can’t help but feel under a blessed sky. To be in a trine with Pluto is a gift. To have Venus and Jupiter pouring those energies into the mix is a time for beautiful and deep healing. If Saturn is filling this trine as well, then perhaps what we are learning will take us far into the future in our ability to bring deep and lasting structures into how we relate to one another intimately and socially.
Am I okay with this reading?
Thank you Len, I’m learning so much here.
HS
Sorry Hugging, empty trine means there are no planets in-between the two planets trine one another. It implies that it is “uncharted territory” so to speak since no energy (planet) is occupying the space. Therefore something to be ‘conquered’. I shuda knowed better! Thanks for asking.
be
bkoehler: what is meant by the term “empty trine”?
And Curiosity should not be the one to kill the cat ~ or anything else on Mars. Good grief Len, a vaporizing laser? So much for carrying the banner for peace. And Getcalm, you of all people should not have to worry but I can see why you do. I commend you for your bold attempt to raise the consciousness of your fellow attendees. Especially the stupid ones who snickered.
As for Mars duking it out with the Sun, there’s this: Because of the empty trine between Mars and Jupiter which has been in place since November 19th, not counting minor asteroids, etc., it forms a pattern called “Locomotive”. In this case Mars is the engine, as Marc Edmond Jones explains, as it is “the one of the two in the empty trine which forms its aspect clockwise in the zodiac…”. This means that any chart set between the 19th and whenever the moon next appears in late Taurus, early Gemini, will have this pattern. Jones says of this pattern “The basis of the dynamic is found in the native’s resulting strong sense of a lack or a need, of a problem to be solved, a task to be achieved in the social and intellectual world around him.” I would only add or include . . . and any other world the native finds himself and his vaporizing laser in.
Now if it were Venus, it would be much different I’m sure. Anyway, I’m hoping that impetuous Sagittarius and all those powers within it will give Mars a run for his money. Should make for an interesting 3 week period in the stock market.
be
Len, wonderful column. I attended a lecture last week where the speaker was discussing the upcoming launch of the James Webb Telescope to replace the Hubble. As part of his comments, the speaker remarked that the mirrors of the telescope are coated with a substance more dangerous than asbestos and that the workers had to all be space suited to even touch them. When I asked whether anyone was considering what to do if the launch failed or the telescope plummetted back to Earth – there are tons of seriously toxic materials after all! The audience members all snickered and shook their heads and the speaker “assured” me that nothing like that could happen and I, in effect, shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about things like that!
When I continued to engage him about the topic, the moderator shut down my dialogue and moved the discussion right along to all the “great” things we would discover by using this handy device. When asked about how they planned to return it to Earth and dispose of the toxic materials, I was told no reason existed to bring it back, it’d just continue to circulate “forever”. Asking whether there were any scenarios in which forever might just be less long than that and it could plummet back to Earth “prematurely prior to forever”, the speaker told me that while it could happen, again, not to worry.
Needless to say, I AM worried, as a thinking person and am even more worried that those responsible don’t seem to feel it necessary to be thinking people.