Mars Direct, Post-Grand-Cross

5.22.14


Has there been enough for you yet?

Have you experienced enough life-refiguring shocks and shakeups, tight squeezes and bearing-down strains, symptoms of your discontent grinding their gears with ratcheted-up intensity, and/or once-in-a-lifetime shots to carry that ball through the goalposts… enough, for the time being, to decidedly activate your next big onward thrust? Good.

With Mars direct again (as of this past Monday, May 19) after 2½ months of retrograde foot-dragging, the scene has been set: Now, we muster the strength, we gather the pieces, we re-engage our engines, and we move forward, like it or not.

Strange though it may sound, this unstable reality we've lately been living has become no longer as startling as it was, say, a mere three months ago. One after another, components of our former existence have come loose—perhaps even fallen from their perch, or been ripped free and dropped on our heads—like the first pieces of flying debris from an earthquake, before the whole building comes down. Those of us in touch with our animal-instincts knew to get out in time, to save ourselves and leave the distracting inessentials behind… and to treat this altered landscape as our opportunity to rebuild better than before, a new home, even as we grieve what's no longer with us. Some who got hit especially hard are still stumbling through the rubble, brushing off the dust, stunned. We all seem aware we cannot go back to what's no longer there. All of this has really started to sink in, and is thus less inconceivable.

Just because Mars is the planet of get-up-and-go action, Mars's retrograde obviously doesn't mean that no action occurs and we're all just frozen in immobility. These past several weeks have clearly shown that. Plenty has happened (thanks, in large part, to Mars's contacts with Uranus, Pluto and Jupiter)… only, it probably went down in zones-of-life we hadn't expected it to, and/or according to rhythms quite distinct from our typical ones. These climactic developments were so heightened because they so resonantly represented the clash between past and present versions of ourselves.

This has been the collision of the revolutionary Uranus-square-Pluto disruptions with the Mars-retrograde reappearance of old habit-kinks: an exaggerated confrontation with our unconscious, ingrained, automatic action-responses, whether fight or flight, frozen-in-fear or reductively-rationalizing-it-away (Mars retrograde), in our precarious process of shedding ill-fitting skins and metamorphosing into whatever updated individual will best prosper in this altered here-and-now (Uranus/Pluto).

For perspective, this disruptive revolutionary assault carried on the backs of Uranus and Pluto colors nearly an entire decade—it began impacting us, roughly, around 2009 and continues its influence into 2017, with the exact squares occurring from 2012 to 2015—but this few-month period is arguably one of its most potent, poignant points due to this collision with Mars. That's why April's cardinal grand cross got so much press from astrologers. It's not necessarily that the biggest or most dramatic expressions of our grand transformations all transpired during this small window-of-time (though many, in fact, did). But these recent expressions, even the more subtle or unspectacular, have carried uncanny symbolism that speaks volumes about what we're moving away from, indeed must move away from if we wish not to suffer, in the act of moving toward something else.

Now that Mars is direct, we are no longer being asked by the cosmos to dwell any further in our encounters with the old habits and responses. This reliving-of-the-past is due to give way to a radical embrace of whatever must happen next, if a genuine advance is desired. The first forward-motion we must take? Based on our most unflinchingly realistic glance at what's been kicked up, we begin by addressing the biggest pieces first. They've got to be put somewhere, in a keepsake drawer or out to pasture, perhaps… or maybe center-stage, right in the line-of-fire, so they are ever-present in our awareness as we do what we're about to do.

Though Mars is moving forward again, he remains in Libra (a continually uncomfortable place for him, as he often gets caught bouncing his drives off what he imagines others' potential reactions to be, rather than just proceeding) for another two months. In fact, Mars won't clear his retrograde shadow until mid-July either… which means these weeks ahead are tailor-made for the inevitable acts (the lead-ups to which have already been set into motion, consciously or not) that'll really put the past in the past. Mars also must cruise by for one more Pluto square (Jun 14) and Uranus opposition (Jun 25), providing a last palpable grind against any stubborn residue that's resisted release. Still, the most extreme round of this drama has been played out, and now it's on us to drive the momentum ahead by finishing the cleanup-and-move-on that's been started.

When Mars finally hits Scorpio (a sign he rules, where he's markedly stronger and more effective) at the end of July, we'll welcome what's arguably the most noticeable energetic shift of the year… so noticeable that it'll feel like 2014's been broken up into two distinct chunks, with very different vibes. This first 'chunk', then, is proceeding toward the early stages of its wrap. Consider what happens between now and late July as a chance to wrap up this larger wrap-up-of-the-past with as few straggling loose-ends as you can. Moving forward with the lightest possible load affords a greater capacity to pick up new goodies up ahead.