{"id":34885,"date":"2011-02-24T01:31:57","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T06:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=34885"},"modified":"2011-02-25T09:44:52","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T14:44:52","slug":"mars-conjunct-chiron-astrology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/mars-conjunct-chiron-astrology\/","title":{"rendered":"Mars conjunct Chiron"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is an aspect happening right now. Tell me if you can feel it: Mars conjunct Chiron in Pisces. I don’t know if there’s any unusual suspense in the air or it’s just my imagination — but it seems to be going around. This is an aspect that involves awareness of and healing the male side of the psyche, and one’s experience of oneself as a man. In a girl or woman it’s also identified with her experience and perception of men. In an astonishing, to-the-day manifestation of this aspect, Pres. Obama on Thursday instructed the federal government to stop defending the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, opening the way for federal recognition of same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo in Krakow, Poland by Eric Francis. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like just about everything that involves Chiron in Pisces, this is happening for the first time since the late 1960s. In case you’re following the other aspect I’ve been writing about that has a potent ’60s resonance, that is Uranus square Pluto; that is reminiscent of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction that happened to occur in the mid-1960s. Synchronously, that was the most recent time Chiron was in Pisces. So two longterm events are developing right now that have a direct line of energy back to approximately 1960 to 1968.<\/p>\n

As for the current aspect, Mars conjunct Chiron: Both of these are warrior energies. Both are yang or male energies. They are set in a vibrational field (a sign) that is distinctly yin or female in nature — Pisces. Note that this conjunction can happen in any sign, though its location will be determined by where slower-moving Chiron is located. Just a few weeks ago Chiron entered Pisces to stay for the next eight years.<\/p>\n

Even without Chiron’s influence, Mars is a challenged planet in our era, that is, in the modern world. Men are genetically prepared to be hunters and defenders of the brood, and instead they’re frequently turned into either office workers, or people who are paid to commit various forms of injustice. There is very little defending the brood that happens and there is nearly no hunting; one can purchase a sausage and egg sandwich. The wars that our brilliantly trained fighters are sent to do are the bidding of corporations in mercenary wars. Indeed, the war in Iraq started under a Mars-Chiron conjunction in Aquarius<\/a>, which I wrote about at the time.<\/p>\n

Here in the United States, we have a lot of guns, and a lot of gun deaths. I would call that some frustrated Mars energy. Apart from the deaths there is an obsession with possessing and carrying firearms. This year we’ve seen one glaring example of this problem with the mass shootings in Tucson in early January. Yet sadly this kind of incident has become something that happens on a fairly routine basis.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, wholly organic sexual desire is gradually being criminalized. We have a very, very serious rape problem in the world, and we have an even more serious problem with the extent to which that perpetuates distrust of the men who would never do such a thing. Still, sex is constantly conflated with violence, and pornography is the least of it. The most pervasive images come right on prime time cable television and in feature movies. Yet healthy desire can be treated like the bomb squad ought to be called in.<\/p>\n

\"Mars
Mars conjunct Chiron set for Kingston, NY.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many get this scenario projected at them with various forms of “men are pigs” and “all men want is sex,” accusations which always involve some form of self-denial on the part of the person making the accusation. All projections have an element of denial, which masks the real issues underneath. For example, anyone who says “men are pigs” has a level of gender rage<\/a> they’re not addressing.<\/p>\n

I could go on with examples of how Mars is under stress in our society, even without the influence of Chiron. We could talk about what happens to most desire: it’s turned to shopping. When we bring in Chiron, we start to focus the issues. Mars in aspect to Chiron can add an injured quality, and also begins to resolve the wounding by making it conscious and available for healing.<\/p>\n

That is the nature of Chiron: to raise themes, issues and circumstances to consciousness so they can be addressed. While there is often a long struggle around situations involving Chiron, there is also the gradual focusing of power. I don’t mean the ‘sense of empowerment’ but rather the actual awareness that one can direct one’s energy and focus one’s life. In the case of Mars, that’s about focusing the will, the desire nature and shadow material involving desire.<\/p>\n

By shadow material, I mean fear, guilt, shame, attack thoughts and any of the disturbances surrounding them. Denial, which often covers those emotions, is also shadow material and a defense against other painful emotions. One of the benefits (some would say drawbacks) of the awareness-raising property of Chiron is that it brings these things to the surface and they must be addressed in a way that is often accompanied by psychic pain. It is, however, productive pain in that it can describe the nature of what hurts, and why, and open the way for healing.<\/p>\n

\"Detail
Detail of Mars conjunct Chiron, which was exact at about 4 am Thursday. Mars is the red glyph that looks like the thing on the men's room door; the next planet over is an orange key and that is Chiron. Notice how they have the same location -- 1 degree and 4 arc minutes. Notice the many other planets clustered around them, which amplifies the energy and offers other dimensions of the aspect to consider.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are many ways an injury connected to Chiron can manifest, and often the person with the aspect will get to make some decisions about how to work with the energy. Mars-Chiron aspects, in any case, are about reconciliation with one’s desire nature. And that nature often is mired in shame, which is invoked when one outwardly expresses desire. As the shadow is processed, the underlying emotion becomes more available in a clear state.<\/p>\n

Thursday’s aspect was the first meeting of these two planets while in Pisces. The most watery water sign brings in the emotional dimension. That’s where this is happening: it’s on the feeling level, and we all know how much shame many men have there. Pisces is an essentially feminine energy field, some say the most feminine of all. You could spin a lot of themes off of this, such as the sense of emasculation that so many men feel, and for which they feel compelled to overcompensate. We might consider the root of homophobia, which is a kind of shame around one’s feminine or passive side. This includes many potential situations and it certainly includes sexuality. Personally I think that male desire is being exhausted on the cultural mandate that men are, traditionally, the ones who must exert that desire as a conditioned response to equally conditioned female passivity.<\/p>\n

Thursday — as I mentioned earlier — the Obama administration decided to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a law which essentially prohibits the federal recognition of same sex marriages. This is a step away from the obsessive homophobia of our society, much of which is projected by men at other at men. Homophobia has many roots, one of which is fear of self, and another of which is the fear of letting go of control in sexual situations.<\/p>\n

I think that male desire needs a chance to relax, to accept the femininity inherent within its own nature. This aspect is an invitation for everyone to give men a chance to be themselves, rather than who they are ‘supposed to be’ or ‘made out to be’. Women need to be given space to express desire outwardly, but I think closer to the point, they need to give themselves that space and take the chances they typically expect men to take. And we all need to give ourselves room to ease off of our belief in, and our obsession with, weaponry and war as the solution to anything.<\/p>\n

Remember that thing about ‘boys don’t cry’? That’s where it starts, and after enduring so many centuries of that — then being handed a gun — we surely do have our healing journey set out for us.<\/p>\n

Related: The Onion enters discussion of Mars conjunct Chiron<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is an aspect happening right now. Tell me if you can feel it: Mars conjunct Chiron in Pisces. I don’t know if there’s any unusual suspense in the air or it’s just my imagination — but it seems to be going around. This is an aspect that involves awareness of and healing the male … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}