Mercury/Mars Meets Uranus/Pluto: Sharp Confrontations

7.13.15


This week (exact on Wed Jul 15), Mercury and Mars conjoin each other in Cancer, continuing, as I described in my last article, the crab-sign's influence over the current astrology.

Mercury-Mars conjunctions bring a sharp, assertive edge to our communications, helping us add some fight to our ideas and interactions… and/or increasing the one-sided willfulness with which we vie for our desires to be met.

What makes this union of Mercury and Mars even more noteworthy—and potentially stormy or hazardous—is the duo's simultaneous oppositions to Pluto in Capricorn on the same day (Jul 15). This aspect potently heightens the likelihood of full-on conflict, due to how it pits our willful words and emboldened efforts (Mercury/Mars) directly against some undaunted, unflappable power-player obstacle (Pluto)… whether an intimidating foe or the nastier side of someone we thought was a friend (or more), an inconvenient outer circumstance which cannot be dodged or an innocence-shattering encounter with our own shortcomings, or some attempted re-inscription of those very structural parameters we've been struggling to get beyond. Nothing, it seems, is as simple or straightforward as we might prefer.

This parallels a similar vibe we felt last week, when the Sun in Cancer opposed Pluto (Jul 6) before then squaring Uranus (Jul 12).

A Mercury-Mars conjunction is at once a useful concentration of ready energy and a likely magnifier of our blindspots, so galvanized are we to proceed full-force, with both mind and might, down our self-selected path that we could struggle to see what lies outside it… or, perhaps more fittingly, blocks its way. When together Mercury and Mars confront Pluto head on, that which we haven't seen coming (or, more likely, tried to avoid looking at) reminds us of its cumbersome and/or savage existence. We cannot go forward from here, not without dealing with the full depth-and/or-breadth of this obstacle, opponent, or unconscious obsession.

At this confrontation, we must dig through the dirt, accept difficult feedback, face demons, unpack psychological complexes, lay it all on the line, and/or come to terms with the less-ideal facets of an inevitable reality. We are challenged to prove our resolve, for we must be really committed to our advance to make it past here. We could become so angry or offended, we go overboard with our insistence on continuing ahead, leaving damage in our stead, for we might not be as authentically 'threatened' as it seems. Or we may feel disappointed, discouraged, even devastated. Perhaps this is as far as we'll get.

Let's not overlook the Cancerian influence on Mercury and Mars, bestowing a marked emotional subjectivity on this conjoined pair. Our thoughts and actions are strongly colored by how we feel… and how we wish to orient those feelings, in showing our 'nurturing' regard for those we care about, so we might 'help' them attain a securer foothold however we believe is best. Of course, the supposedly helpful nurture we argue for and/or assert could well be an audacious imposition upon the other party's self-determination, should our one-sided read on the situation blind us to the manipulative, domineering, or antagonistic tone of our behavior, even when we have the most caring or loving intentions.

Any intense or jarring responses we receive to such efforts, therefore, are our reminder: Just because we feel something, that doesn't make it appropriate or considerate or universally true.

In the days following their opposition to Pluto, these two planets then move into squares with Uranus in Aries (Mercury on Jul 18, Mars on Jul 25), exacerbating their erratic, independence-declaring reactivity in the aftermath of any confrontations. Naturally. We're still breathing fumes from the years-long Uranus-Pluto square, even though its final exact hit was back in March. This Uranian side to our ongoing revolution involves taking liberatory, status-quo-disrupting risks which break us out of whatever stale or confining dynamics threaten to curtail our continued growth. Lately (as we should well know by now), whenever an inner planet aspects Pluto, it also necessarily aspects Uranus, setting off the sparks of another symbolic expression of their generation-defining square. We saw this just a couple months ago when Venus occupied Cancer in a similar position to where Mercury and Mars now are.

Now that faster-moving Uranus has slipped ahead of Pluto (in terms of moving past the orb of their longtime square), our challenging confrontations with shadowy psychological material (Pluto) will now consistently precede the pressure to innovatively upend convention or habit (Uranus) with our next moves. In this current case, Mercury-and-Mars's squares to Uranus push us to try a different tack in how we address any upsetting blocks we've hit: Do we radically switch gears and look elsewhere for a way forward? Do we explode, with a franker no-holds-barred discharge of what we'd previously tried to mete out more cunningly? Do we swallow our pride, eat crow, and/or open our minds to a 'eureka!' moment of sudden awareness? Or do we call it a day, uproot, leave this behind, and/or seek greener pastures?

Before rushing to answer such questions in the several days ahead, please don't neglect to evaluate any possible breakthrough solutions against the backdrop of Saturn in Scorpio, who warns against not properly considering the interrelated ripples of consequence… as well as Venus, about to dip out of Leo for a quick minute, whose impending retrograde (starting July 25) promises to resurrect any unfinished relationship business for another go-around in the couple months to come.