Today is Wednesday, August 3, 2011. Mars ingresses Cancer at about 5:22 am. We’re moving into the first full day of Mercury’s current retrograde phase, with Mars, the Moon and some potent goddess power moving the day along. Some people find the couple of days surrounding a Mercury station to be turbulent, so take a moment now to check in with yourself. Allow yourself a little mental space and see if you can follow any tension, impatience or impulsive conclusions deeper in.
What you uncover may prove key as the retrograde deepens, particularly with Mars bringing its drive, assertiveness and heat to the emotional body of the cardinal sign Cancer. This ingress lights up the Aries Point and completes a cardinal cross. Notably, the first aspect Mars makes is a square to the Ceres-Uranus conjunction in Aries. According to Eric, this aspect represents the fear of starvation and hunger. It’s something we’re seeing more of close to home, as people continue struggling with the economy.
Anticipating Ceres moving onto the Aries Point, Eric had mentioned that we should watch how food issues and possible crises play out in the world. Sure enough, the Horn of Africa is in the midst of famine — and we hear about it now. Valerie Amos, Emergency Relief Coordinator of the U.N., was quoted Monday as saying that “12.4 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti are in dire need of help, and the situation is getting worse.” Thousands have died in southern Somalia. Given that Africa is generally considered to have been the cradle of humanity, I think it’s fair to say this crisis has a message fundamental to all of us. How does our personal sense of nourishment affect how involved we get in matters of community, however locally or globally you define it? How much of what captures our attention and energy actually feeds us in any way? There have been famines forever, but we can ask ourselves what this one says to our current collective moment.
In the Friday subscriber issue, Eric noted that as Mars moves through Cancer, it “makes what are called hard aspects to Saturn, Uranus and Pluto — indicating the potential for some hotheaded, reactionary and yes, rigid emotions (the sign Cancer principally expresses itself emotionally). This is a good time to get beneath the shell (associated with the crab) and defensiveness of this sign, and open up to the deeper empathy we’re all capable of. And we will have help.”