HEALING MARS! Full Moon in Aries 9th October

We are all probably familiar with the idea of the Red Planet being the God of War, and traditionally Mars gathered a reputation for being maleficent. Terrifying herculean toxic masculinity! BUT, if Martial energy is aggressive in a dysfunctional way, it’s because our inherent need for self-assertion has been suppressed, skewed, warped and manipulated by all sorts of toxic narratives and expectations that exist in society, conflicts in our own personality, in our family background, and so on. You don’t need to understand anything about astrology to intuit the energy of Mars. He is the basic need for action. Mars doesn’t inherently cause harm, but because he is neutral raw energy, he has the capacity to. It’s how you use it! And I am acutely aware of how large chunks of society can be run on passive aggression, cynicism, devoid of love, and how the 'civilised' deride the 'coarse', and so on. How not saying what you want at the time will lead to hours, days, months and lifetimes of bitching resentment. The vision of a functional Mars is simple: do what you need to do with love and sincerity, don't take yourself too seriously, and flap your wings. Good action just feels good.

Both men and women need to be able to channel this energy effectively to feel fundamentally potent, or our Martial urge for self-assertion will come from impotence, and that’s how wars can start. Desire for power over others surely comes from a perception of no-power. What we love to deride as “toxic masculinity” comes from impotence and is not masculinity at all, and it is not a phenomenon exclusive in men. From the same place, a thwarted Mars leads to toxic passivity, depleted energy and depression. What’s more, we could say that the powers that be (or were) have an interest in keeping the population impotent, so they hoard your energy. Toxic authority lulls you into an unconscious belief that you have no power. Royalty, for instance, have demanded “WE are sovereign! God save US!”, whilst keeping the secret that YOU are sovereign! On a more personal level, does your boss, or your parent, or your partner allow you an effective expression of autonomy?

Why am I talking about Mars? On the 9th October at around 10pm BST there is a FULL MOON IN ARIES, the first, fresh, initiatory, powerful sign of the zodiac, which is ruled by the planet Mars. Mars is currently in the sign of Gemini: energy is channelled into communication, into information gathering; into verbal and written expression. There may be a feeling of urgent action and quick activity. Words may also be hot, or you may feel aggression or anger arising; a rush of blood to the head. Suppressed Mars energy turns into anger, so just meditate on what needs to be said or asserted, and say it charged with real potency. Otherwise, release your anger through writing, shouting into a pillow, through exercise, yoga, or qigong! In any case, “just do it” is what this full moon asks us, or it will at least expose where we are or where we are not potent. Don’t be surprised if your unexpressed rage is bubbling up into the light of awareness at this time. Remember, a full moon is not just for that moment; it could resonate around a week before and after.

If you want to see where your “call to action” is, look where 16 degrees of Aries falls in your chart. Your natal Mars placement will also say a lot about how you assert your energy, if or how it is thwarted, and what could be done about it. Natal chart readings can be tremendously healing because they tap back into the authentic blueprint of You, not a fake copy moulded by society.

This full moon is conjunct Chiron, the “wounded healer” asteroid. This means the collective population (Moon) could be particularly triggered, or fiery emotions in general could be activated. Positively, it is an opportunity to see wounds and heal them and could inspire original, maverick action. This could be a fantastic time to initiate words of healing and speaking about pain. But it re-emphasises the need for a high level of conscious awareness, or further damage can easily be done.

At this time Mars (the ruler of this full moon) is also the focal planet of a mutable T-square with Mercury and Neptune, which channels even more energy into intuitive and creative (Neptune) words (Mercury), but be aware of vague or fuzzy (Neptune) thinking (Mercury) affecting your actions (Mars). Mercury is also trine Pluto, giving power to expression or allowing us to be investigative and deep in our thinking processes.

Finally, the massive planet of expansion Jupiter is on the first and freshest degree of – yes – Aries, so the message from this full moon is clear. In the context of established authority, this full moon also tells us: be aware of big assertions of power coming from the top; or indeed, awareness is simply on the big assertions of authority, present and past! And this may very well have to with the health or wounding of the people (Chiron conjunct the Moon).

Saturn – Uranus waning square (to be continued)

I considered appending the Saturn-Uranus square fully to this article, but I’m going to put it in a new one, because it’s big! To be pithy, over the last two years there has been a showdown between principles of the old (Saturn) and new (Uranus), and we are now in the midst of the last waning square between these two planets before their conjunction and new cycle beginning in 2032. This has much to do with the falling apart of the established financial system. As I touched upon in my article on the triple conjunction, this changes also how we approach energy. Many other things taken into consideration, this will be a new era in how we make financial and energetic exchanges on Earth.