Sun-Mars, Part Two

Warmest welcome to the Sun, Venus, and (even) Mars in Taurus, after the events of the last week had the country on edge.

There are lots of astrological factors involved and I link to many fine blogs below.

I wrote about the Sun-Mars new synodic cycle in last week’s blog, and I wanted to mention it again as it captured my/our attention in this past week.

As we know, the Sun and Mars were conjunct at 28º08’ Aries on Sunday, April 17. What I hadn’t noticed (and thanks to Kathy Allan for pointing it out) is that they were also parallel in declination, intensifying their connection.

Part of my personal draw to this conjunction is that I have a sensitive point in my natal horoscope at 28º Libra. I knew that events surrounding the conjunction would be very obvious in my life. That was the motivation last week to write about working with the inner Mars and the shamanic possibilities of a new synodic cycle.

The marathon bombing was on Monday the 15th and, like some of us, I was riveted to the news.

Although that horror dominated the headlines, on April 16, the Constitution Project, a nonpartisan legal research and advocacy group, issued a report that concluded: “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” in the years after 9/11. (1)

On Wednesday the 17th, the explosion at the fertilizer plant, in West, Texas, killed at least 14 people.

Outer events marked by Mars and the Sun were painfully, dramatically obvious.

I watched a lot of coverage of the events in Boston. I felt that Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the suspects, was a good demonstration of Mars and the Sun; he was direct, impassioned, and forceful when he spoke. When asked by reporters what he thought had caused his nephews to commit such acts, he spoke of the brothers as being unable “to settle themselves and thereby hating everyone who did.” (2) I don’t really know how he meant this, but “settling” oneself reminds me of befriending one’s interior self. It was a rare public comment that hinted at the inner struggle with Mars, side by side with the shocking and violent acts we had been watching. It struck me as a fairly psychologically aware statement amidst the chaos, violence, fear, and anguish of the days’ events.  We know that a disenfranchised, disempowered Mars can act in aggressive ways.

Aside from my fixation on the unfolding events, how did Mars appear in my immediate life? On Wednesday, the day of the conjunction, I burned a batch of beans in my favorite pot, leaving a lingering scorched smell and inedible food. Soon after that, the space heater I had rolled into the kitchen inexplicably lost a wheel and fell over, leaving a dent in the bamboo floor. I also had a friend whose young child was badly burned in a fire in her school chemistry class and a client reporting to me from Hawaii that the Sun had been “blood red” at sunset the previous night.

I decided it might be wise to meet Mars a bit more directly and went to a challenging midday yoga class that was quite soothing — meeting fire with fire, so to speak. (Still feeling a bit frayed, on Friday I went for a detoxifying herbal wrap at a local spa, which was also therapeutic and relaxing until the heat got too intense and I had a momentary arising of panic.)

Footnotes:

(1) New York Times

(2) YouTube

Here are some astrologers with astute observations on the events in Boston. May we have an easier week, Full Moon eclipse and all.

In Astrology Update April 2013: Boston Bombings, Current Patterns, Lara Owens writes on recent events in “this dear old world of ours.” She analyses the chart for the Boston bombing and ends with what sounds like a good idea: “So what can we do during such difficult times? As much as you can, STAY OUT OF TROUBLE!”

Here’s a blog from a prolific (un-named) astrologer at Astroblog, with many specific details, including a timeline of events in Boston, the chart for the City of Boston, midpoints for the chart of the bombing, the explosion in Texas, and the suicide bombing that killed 27 in Iraq on the 17th.

Of the horoscope for suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: “A date of birth has been released — the planets on his day of birth revealing a young man of many contradictions, frustrations, conflicting needs, low self esteem, feeling disempowered, wanted to be somebody, given to fantasies of being in control by challenging the system, issues with father/authority figure archetypes and The State, sensitive side over-ridden by cold and detached frame of mind, deluded thinking, highly impressionable, clear capacity for cruelty. These are his worst-case scenario potentials — capable of being aggravated or accentuated — in effect, triggered by transitory planetary movements.”

David Crook at Stellar Insights Astrology writes on The Boston Marathon Bombings. He notes connections between the recent event, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and this week’s eclipse. “Traditional methods further confirm a strong link between today’s bombing in Boston and the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. The antiscia or solstice points for the 1993 event shows the Ascendant at 26° Gemini, with the Boston Marathon bombing Moon also at 26° Gemini.” David also notes the Aries ingress chart: “The 2013 Aries ingress (Spring Equinox), which sets the tone for the astrological new year, has the highly volatile and explosive Mars-Uranus conjunction in Aries rising at Boston, Mass. The same chart for the US capital has a Pisces Ascendant with the Mars-Uranus conjunction further below the horizon, so not as powerful.”

Ed Tamplin’s Political Astrology tracks events of the past week. This entry begins with Mars Madness and includes the earthquakes in China and on the Iran-Pakistan border and the Marathon bombing.”Besides the obvious connection of the Sun and Mars combination to acts of violence, the most obvious factor is the nefarious Neptune setting in Pisces. Neptune is in the longitude of the auspicious Fomalhaut, a combination described by the authoritative Vivian Robson as ‘secret enemies, or violent death through secret enemies’.”

Eric Francis wrote this entry at Planet Waves while Boston was still in lockdown: The War Comes Home, to Boston. He has the charts for the Tsarnaev brothers and the event chart. “Mercury is that planet that ruled the Virgo ascendant of the Boston Marathon bombing chart. So it’s very much the star of the show at the moment, and is very much about a developing story that fits a much larger pattern of events. Mercury — illustrating a young individual — is about to lead authorities back to a larger group (Uranus), but we don’t know what happens next. That’s because Uranus always indicates something unpredictable happening.”

In The Astrology of the Boston Bombings, written the day after the event, Leah Whitehorse looks back to the Aries New Moon chart. “In the last New Moon chart I noted ‘The problem is that Mars is conjunct Eris shortly before the New Moon, which brings a compulsive, competitive edge to this lunation. It’s every man for himself in this position.’ Now we are just over a week away to the beginning of eclipse season, where light becomes dark and the unexpected happens. Sometimes events occur before eclipses.”
She also takes note of Orcus. “I notice that asteroid Orcus (a trans Neptunian object) is directly conjunct the Ascendant. Orcus is named after a God of the Underworld who was ‘the punisher of broken oaths.’ With Neptune lying on the Descendant opposite, it makes me think that the person or group who committed this terrible act feel justified in their actions — like they are meting out punishment.”

In The Astrology of the Boston Bombings: Shaken to the Soul (written on the 17th), Beth Turnage looks at Boston’s symbolic significance in U.S. history, and connections from the current event’s chart to the 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing charts. She makes what seems to have unfolded as (at least in part) an accurate assessment: “Aside from a weak association to Alexandria, Egypt, the charts do not support foreign involvement. However, local location associations to Pisces are Massachusetts locations — Fall River, Lowell, and New Bedford. This is a person who lives somewhere close to Boston, Massachusetts, possibly in one of these three towns.”

Thanks to all these astrologers and many others who try to help us understand what on earth is going on. All comments and suggestions for other links are warmly welcomed.