In today’s edition of Planet Waves TV, Eric Francis looks at the whole story of Mars retrograde, back to Jan. 3, 2016 when the process started.
Then he reviews all the major themes of this event: where sex meets religion, how to figure out what you want, and most of all, the power of curiosity.
If you’re looking to order the 2016 spring reading that covers Mars retrograde for each sign, here is a link.
I don’t know whether the French “tue” has the same root, but Tuesday is actually named after the god Tiw/Tiu. From our friend Etymonline:
Tuesday (n.)
third day of the week, Old English tiwesdæg, from Tiwes, genitive of Tiw “Tiu,” from Proto-Germanic *Tiwaz “god of the sky,” the original supreme deity of ancient Germanic mythology, differentiated specifically as Tiu, ancient Germanic god of war, from PIE *deiwos “god,” from root *dyeu- “to shine” (see diurnal). Compare Old Frisian tiesdei, Old Norse tysdagr, Swedish tisdag, Old High German ziestag.
The day name (second element dæg, see day) is a translation of Latin dies Martis (source of Italian martedi, French Mardi) “Day of Mars,” from the Roman god of war, who was identified with Germanic Tiw (though etymologically Tiw is related to Zeus), itself a loan-translation of Greek Areos hemera. In cognate German Dienstag and Dutch Dinsdag, the first element would appear to be Germanic ding, þing “public assembly,” but it is now thought to be from Thinxus, one of the names of the war-god in Latin inscriptions.
so it would seem to be full circle — a kind of double etymology leading to the prefix ‘tue’ as having a violent connotation.
Despite my natal moon-mars conjunction in Scorpio (8th house), I’m not interested in how anybody smells, or what’s under their clothes. I don’t ever look a someone and think about having sex with them. I don’t think this is indicative of an overall lack of curiosity; I’m just not interested in sex.
Mars is about to station direct right on my natal mars, and I’ve wondered if anything relating to sexuality would come up for me during this retrograde. Nope!
So……it’s not always about sex. For some of us, it’s never about sex.
Are you curious about how you are the way you are?
One thing I am curious about is whether this is a fixed state for you, or a moving state for you?
Well, it’s curious to be this way in a culture immersed in sexuality.
This is my-normal, so I’ve always been curious about why people want to climb into bed together. Even brothers-in-law, and best friends’ husbands, and such. It’s very strange to me.
Our culture is not immersed in sexuality. It is highly sexualized, commercialized using sex, sexually exploitative — none of that is about actual relating.
This hyper extension of sexuality through media leads to a cutting off effect. If anything we are a society that is numb to actual sexual feeling, and those who are able to go past that and tune in are relatively rare.
Well, I would say that both are true. The perversion of natural sexuality, be it through blatant advertising or through covering of women’s bodies, brings about an intense focus on sex. Yes, sex separate from relationship. And yes, the pervasiveness of sexual images in all forms of media makes our brains accept this as normal, in a way that is unprecedented historically.
But at the root, is this a new issue? Didn’t the tribal head man or woman “get” the best mate(s)? When they had sex, was this about relationship as an intimate knowing of the other, or was it about power dynamics? I look around at marriages, and once they’re past about 10 years, I’m seeing power dynamics rather than deep communication. Is this because our culture doesn’t know how to portray relationship intimacy? Is it because we’re wired that way?
“Numb to actual sexual feeling.” I don’t know. Do all these people hook up with each other and feel numb, so they keep trying? I always thought they enjoyed the sex and went back for more. Am I crazy? It looks to me like the sexual feeling part is easy, and the relationship intimacy is hard.
Well, it’s necessary to be close-in to the experiences, as close as possible, with as much witnessing and personal reporting as possible, to see much — and then to pull back and see the wide, wide ground where this action is taking place.
One thing I can tell you is that we now live with a vast generation, basically most people born after 1975 or so, who were force-fed abstinence indoctrination, invented by fundamentalist christian activists and funded by the federal government. This resulted in many forms of sexual suppression, numbness, ignorance, fear (to the point of panic), and a kind of clueless quality around discussing or negotiating anything.
Set that in the context of hormone birth control (disorienting to sexual and relational choices), and ubiquitous hormone pollution (similar effect), and the result is anything but natural. The total obsession our culture has with imagery of violence, and the tolerance of actual violence, belies just how cut off and numb our society is, and how little interest there is in genuine human contact, exchange and pleasure.
Hey Madie!
No one knows you better than you and I applaud your speaking your self-knowledge in the midst of all this HOO-HA. You may have other things that you’re attending to at this point. Don’t let anyone tell you what’s right/wrong about your desire nature. This is not a one-size-fits-all life … hey, I don’t even have a smart-phone and while some would categorize me as a geezer (I know!) or a luddite, I’m neither. Best to watch out for those who want to tell you who you are and resist. Be all kinds of you and defy the need to fit in to a sign or a category.
mm.
When the camera pulls back for a wider view, which version of reality is encompassed? Your experience is with abstinence-trained youth, mine is with hippie parents (me) homeschooling free-thinkers.
Hard choices have to be made. Without abstinence or hormone birth control, we get more teenagers having babies that the culture doesn’t support. Single parents have a very hard time creating a deeply intimate relationship.
I agree with everything you say about our western culture’s obsession with sex and violence, and the disruptive influence of hormones.
To circle back to the original topic, my experience is that mars in scorpio can be entirely not-about-sex. I look around and see millions of people profoundly angry, feeling betrayed, being easily manipulated through their emotions. I also see a huge social justice movement evolving, led by youth radicalized in the most positive ways to change everyday life for people in their communities.
I am hopeful that as mars picks up speed after stationing direct, some hidden agendas are brought into glaring daylight. I think these might be power plays rather than sexual adventures.
They certainly can be, Madie. While Mars might be rooting out sexual issues for many of us in Scorpio, there is no reason to assume it’s like that for everyone. Issues around power also feature in many, many lives. Furthermore, Mars presides over desires of all kinds – ambitions, creative urges, the drive to work. Anything that speaks to you at a deep level, that encourages you to expend substantial amounts of your energy – that usually falls under the province of Mars.
Yes, I would say my Mars stationing themes — while I have not brought them all into clear focus — have to do more with theses other Mars attributes. There is a sexual thread woven in, but by no means is it the only thread in the tapestry for me.
In fact, abstinence indoctrination does not lead to less sex, or safer sex. It backfires. And in fact, condoms work pretty good nearly all the time, if used consistently and consciously.
This is from a Planet Waves article from appox 2000. Data results are from a GAO study on the effectiveness of the money spent on abstinence indoctrination.
http://planetwavesweekly.com/2003/senators_pubes.html
Hey, Mary! The interesting thing about life is that to myself, I’m normal. So…..my desire nature is just the way I am. It took me a very long time to realize how different everyone else is, but I’m ok with that. It lets me see a lot that’s invisible to people caught up in hormones.
Haha, I love my old “stupid phone” which is perfect for texting!!! I haven’t watched TV in….I don’t know….20 years?
Why resist when you can just walk away? There’s a huge world out there.
could not have said it (texted it) better … thank you, madie!
I’m with Madie. I’ve had lots of sex in my life, with both men and women, and have also had periods when I was celibate. Sexuality is personal, for some people EVERYTHING is about sex, all the time, and for some people, well, we have other interests. I have Mars retrograde in Scorpio natally, and am an Aries, so Mars is my ruling planet. I’m in my 60s now, in a monogamous marriage, and happy. We cuddle and kiss and hold hands, and we’re ok with that. I have friends my age in poly relationships but that just doesn’t interest me. I’m interested in the other aspects of Scorpio, death, resurrection, deep creativity, psychological transformation.
BTW my parents were in show business, and I grew up in NYC during the 60s and was a teenage hippie. I don’t know a single person who grew up with abstinence indoctrination. Maybe it was a thing in the more conservative areas of the country?
Check out this video from last year on Last Week Tonight. It sheds an important light on the current state of sex ed in the US. It would seem that it varies; but that much of it is either absolutely dreadful or nonexistent.
April — the abstinence indoctrination swept through during the 80s and 90s, so you would have been a couple generations too early to experience it first-hand as a child or teen. If you have children who were coming of age at that time they might have experienced it, but it definitely had more of a stranglehold in some areas of the country more than others.
Indeed, and in the supposedly sexually irresponsible 60s and 70s (and into the early 80s) there was still some attempt many places to do comprehensive sex education. Don’t miss the John Oliver piece that Amy posted. It’s utterly brilliant and enraging in equal measure.
Reagan institutionalizes A.O. at the request of the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think thank, in 1981. After 12 years of Republican admins, Clinton continues the policy another eight years. It was taught in public schools in all states but California, which has laws forbidding anything of a scientific nature from being taught that is not validated in some way by science.
It is still federally funded to this day, but at least it’s not a growth industry.
Very enlightening and funny! I had no idea, thanks!