Saturn and Neptune… and Mars?

3.22.07


Mars likes to poke, press, pilfer or otherwise project into whatever's got his attention.

Just look at the glyph that represents him in astrology—it's the traditional 'male' sign, with its pointy arrow jutting outward from the circle of spirit. You can tell he wants to get into something… not unlike a certain other male-gendered 'pointy arrow' we know (but that's another type of story altogether!).

This week, Mars continues traversing across the landscape of Aquarius… toward a hit (or, more properly, a conjunction) with Neptune. And this is a combination meant to spark up our compassion and idealism—if not also to simultaneously muddy our straight-line path with exceptions, concerns, sensitivities and space-outs.

If anyone can dull the sharp Mars pierce, it's cloudy and convoluting Neptune.

Mars in Aquarius, generally speaking, is a warrior for 'the good of the people'. He appeals to a higher-minded intellectuality in fighting his battles, pushing against-the-grain ideas that edgier or more altruistic thinkers are likely to embrace… and doesn't mind coming off weird or cold to the traditionalists, as long as reform is ultimately the order of the day. He asserts himself as 'a visionary for a better future'—and doesn't mind freezing out his opponents' emotional responses to prove he's right.

Of course, in combination with Neptune, Mars is unable to do much freezing-out of emotions. Neptune makes Mars (against his better judgment) empathize with the sadness and suffering of others in the world, to the extent that it greatly impacts (for better or worse) his ability to be firm and forthright. One glance at his enemy's terminally ill child, and suddenly he's fighting on everyone's behalf… not just for his own ideological agenda.

This Mars-Neptune conjunction (which is exact on Sun Mar 25) provides a wonderful opportunity to forge ahead toward inspired goals that reflect an acknowledgment of our universal interconnectedness—though it may seem more like a 'feeling around' rather than a 'forging ahead'. At the same time it brings force and fervor to our dreams, it also blunts our forward-moving drive in a damp fog blanket. With faith intact, you'll know the movement's still happening… even if you can't see the next intersection up ahead.

But these days, wherever Neptune is involved, so too is Saturn—in long-term opposition to Neptune, and therefore also opposing Mars. I've written (and continue to write) about the Saturn-Neptune opposition, as it's the most significant macro-transit affecting us right now. Suffice it to say, Saturn is indeed standing in the way of Mars/Neptune's fullest potential for dream-building and vision-manifesting.

In his current position in Leo, Saturn represents the bloated self-importance of certain powerful people and organizations, hell-bent on preserving their centralized power… at the expense of what's spiritually best for all of humanity. As such, we can expect some degree of sobering reality to try raining all over our jamboree, in the form of an influential stakeholder or institutional red-tape that obstructs our fantastic apparitions from taking shape.

Contrary to what our emotions tell us, this obstruction is not so evil, bad or wrong. It's a test—to see how serious we are, how many times we're willing to knock on the same door (with different clothes and an updated resume, to be sure), and how political we can be in brokering our deals with the Saturnine status-quo. Don't curse the reality check; bless it for forcing you to better prepare.