It’s Saturday and the waning crescent Moon is cruising around the zodiac faster than usual. Having entered Virgo only today, Luna will be making ingress to Libra before Monday has run its course for most of you reading this. By Tuesday, next week’s true colors are likely to become more plainly evident. In all likelihood, so will yours.

That’s because Mars is currently moving around the zodiac a bit slower than usual as it nears the midpoint of Libra. Once the Moon is also in Libra, it (along with the Sun’s position in Scorpio) will highlight a Martian aspect that has been sneaking up on us.

By this time next week, Mars will have closed to within 90 degrees of separation from Pluto’s position in Capricorn. It is the sort of geometric relationship astrologers call a “square”.

Square aspects correspond to the sort of tension that is not sustainable. Think of the term “something’s got to give” and you get the general idea. What’s more, any period of time prominently featuring a square between sign-ruling planets tends to favor those who are proactive when it comes to resolving tension.

Interestingly, many modern astrologers consider Scorpio to be the joint dominion of Mars and Pluto. Since Pluto was not discovered until 1930, that has not always been the case.

Originally (and traditionally, still) Mars had the rule of Aries and Scorpio all to itself. Being a fire sign (and, not incidentally, the initial sign of the zodiac wheel), a Martian association with Aries makes intuitive sense. Scorpio, on the other hand, is more complex.

Even though it took decades to connect the proverbial dots, once we were aware of Pluto’s existence, its own astrological complexity gradually became apparent. Even Pluto’s ups and downs with astronomers (who are still in dispute regarding how to define it) are indicative of a layered ambivalence long associated with the one sign counter-intuitively combining a fixed quality with water.

In our own time, correlations with Scorpio tend to be kept behind closed doors. Sex, death and taxes are just a few examples. Politics, especially as it has been related to the manufacture of sausage, is another. Reliably, the Sun’s annual traversal of Scorpio will tend to bring some of that potentially discomforting subject matter to light.

Now, while the Sun is still in Scorpio, Mars and Pluto are moving to double down. In addition, Mars aspects often go off prematurely. Hence, it should be no surprise that an especially self-righteous candidate for the U.S. Senate has recently been accused of plying adolescent women with cheap wine prior to fondling them way back when he himself was well past his first Saturn return.

Nor should it surprise anybody that a significant number of people still intend to vote for that guy. You might be excused for wondering how many of them enjoy sausage daily. Not everybody, however, has that sort of stomach.

Hopefully, choices you are facing in your own life are not as uncomfortable as those facing Republican voters of Alabama. If they are, remember the astrology coming up.

In order to more happily live for the long term with the consequences of your own actions in the days to come, be decisive and choose to reduce tension rather than prolong it. Even if that’s all you do next week, it could well be all that really needs to be done.

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By any standards, 2018 will be a distinctive year astrologically. Get your essential guide to riding the waves of the next 12 months and beyond. Pre-order The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual by Eric Francis.