In this week’s episode of Planet Waves TV, Eric dishes the details on the forthcoming Mars retrograde, guiding you through the period when Mars travels from mid-Sagittarius back into Scorpio. He also draws particular attention to one intriguing feature of Mars, known as the Valles Marineris, while wielding his big drumstick.
You can learn more about what the Mars retrograde will mean for you in Eric’s 2016 Spring Reading, which we’ll publish before Mars changes direction on April 17.
Despite the joy brought by seeming birds of omen to an already exciting U.S. election process, the recent pair of eclipses has surely ruffled some feathers and prodded some progress. Eclipses are anything but boring, and on the Aries Point they can be — to say the least — somewhat more edgy than usual.
Fortunately, the tide has begun once more to ebb, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief, dust off, shuffle our papers and get on with the adventure.
On Friday, Saturn helped begin this process by stationing retrograde in Sagittarius. Saturn is usually looked upon with some side-eye, as if cast as the mustache-twirling villain of astrology. Yet Saturn has a lot of benefits to offer if we choose to take them. In the present case, the planet of order and method bestows welcome stability, and gives you the opportunity to take this calm, peaceful energy within yourself.
In an ancient Egyptian prayer, the author describes hearing “the quiet, still voice of the gods.” This means being still and quiet enough to let the messages of the divine reach you.
Set aside a few minutes (at least) each day to embrace this gift of tranquillity; meditate, visualize or just sit in silence. This is a worthwhile exercise at any time; but at this moment it’s likely to prove an especially effective tool to help you get the most from your week.
— Amy Elliott
Gratitude
Saturn returns
to teach,
to punish,
to reward;
It’s hard not to
take her personally,
but she doesn’t
mean anything
by it,
Or maybe she does
mean anything,
like anything can.
We are no longer
religious
if ever
we were,
but we needed
that then,
that feeling of being
accompanied
and sanctioned
by the approved
powers.
Now, I rarely
look to those
old
repressive
powers
trusting more
in the
acceptability
of myself.
I am acceptable to myself.
I am also
beloved of
the makers
and unmakers,
the knitters
and the
unravelers.
In grief
I travail
In joy
I travail
I am made
and unmade
in every living
moment.
Susy Crandall
My youngest is getting into his first Saturn return as I enter my second. He is banging his head against certain realities and what he chooses now, will choose again for him later, certainly at his second Saturn return, should he live so long. I can’t choose for him, however much I might wish and it wouldn’t be good for him if I did. It’s better for him to choose for himself. It’s better for me to trust that the world, his Saturn mother will do their best for him. They are wild women with depths and heights way beyond what I can imagine. So I release my little trout with all his rainbows to swim in these waters and find his own way. Help him shine mother earth and sister saturn.
In the meantime, I grieve his struggle, my sister’s struggle and continue to do the best I can for myself. I am duty driven which is quite something to say about the person I used to be. Like her son, how she used to shy away from words like that. Duty, responsibility. What is my duty to myself now? What is my responsibility to myself? To feel what is and express it. To enjoy what there is to be enjoyed.
Susy thank you – I loved this poem of yours.
I had come back to post that I don’t know anything, can only (like anyone) endeavour to be and do the best I can and you said it already and so well.
The laughter too.
Ahhhh, Eric: Everything always comes back to sex for you. Are you sure you were not Freud in a past life. Brother.. you have your views, just like others have theirs, it does not mean your perspective is ‘the Truth’. Sure I love good sex, and tons of it, like I am sure many do. But I have had some mediocre sex as well, and especially just sex for sex’s sake and that can feel pretty shallow and superficial, which does not work for me. I would personnaly rather do without sex if not a strong emotional, mental connection..but that’s just me. Can sex be physically healing, liberating? Absolutely. But for me if, there is such a connection, it can go far beyond that too.
Dare I say in, to a deeper level of connection of healing …Entering and opening to the profoundly spiritual levels that may be physically seen, and even as it happens touch through to the effects of peircing the unseen and what moves beyond the personal experience.
I hesitated commenting here. Cause, I don’t know why I feel it has to be my job to speak to, that your point of view is not everyones. I value your astrology experience, i dont follow all of your intrepretations. You based Jesus regarding the course in Miricles last week, holy week no doubt, when i believe the couse was in fact, at it’s ‘Core’ is about forgiveness = Jesus.
I do not believe, that the Mars Retrograde will be all about, will be lead, and driven by the act of sex. Unless that is modivation than I guess it could be. For me, only my perspective that is, if it is looked at, and understood solely as you say the ‘core’ of us is sex, it feels very superficial…I see sex as one, albeit beautiful, aspect of Core.
Core is the Divine Spirit that resides in all of us, connects us, One.. there will be so much more to this Mars Retrograde, beyond sex at hand. That is available, if that is what you are open to giving, and likewise recieving.
Did you happen to read (I just noticed, amazing the synconicity) the Sabian Symbol Degree, where Mercury currently resides: (ARIES 14°): A SERPENT COILING NEAR A MAN AND A WOMAN.
KEYNOTE: Identification in bipolar relationship with the impersonal rhythm of natural energy.
Dane Rhudyer intrepretation speaks about the acceptance of, the meaning of entering into the 3. Polarized conscious participation in the evolutionary process – a polarization that could dissolve alienation, isolation and egocentricity. The serpent, i.e. of developing eonic consciousness and that transpersonal living which once was characterized by the words: Not I live, but Christ lives me – Christ, whose symbolic number in Gnosticism is 888. The image suggesting the transpersonal way to the “cosmification” of desire and the conscious acceptance of polarization as the solution of the problems generated by individualization. But this need not mean what is currently meant by “sex” and the glorification of the orgasm. It implies rather the… RITUALIZATION OF RELATIONSHIP.
Aries 15, Which speaks of projecting and the realization of wholeness (the above mentioned intention and practice) and the fullfilment of Desire.
Everything doesn’t come back to sex. Everything starts there. And Freud gave up on Eros and devoted himself to Thanatos (death) to gain favor of the Nazis. This in turn was picked up first by psychologists who followed the Vienna group, then the therapists who descended from them, in effect putting a cultural taboo on really addressing sexuality within therapy. I have no affinity with Freud, who never underwent psychoanalysis. I have much more in common with DeBeauvoir (the first second wave feminist, imo, who said correctly the ideas of psychoanalysts needed to be subjected to analysis), with Fritz Perls and with Wilhelm Reich.
Eric it might even be an idea came before sex? Or a feeling. Or an intention. Is that seminal then – seeds…
So interesting. And if Pluto is the higher octave of Mars that is ‘death’ isn’t it or transformation. I guess with Freud you are thinking of death as a ‘stop’ rather than transformation (life).
seeds of change…
It depends on whether you want to stick to biology or not. We could speculate about when ‘spirit’ enters the ‘body’ — but unless we have firsthand accounts, we are indeed making up a story. The reason I stick to biology in the first instance is that we can all agree that it’s happening.
As a starting point, it works well. Note that those who object to biology tend to be fundamentalist religious types.
The agreed reality field makes it more difficult for them to impose their selective, pseudo-neo-mythology on us as some form of inescapable divine law.
I use biology for the purpose of orientation because at least here and now, it’s our most accessible point of orientation on here and now. Nearly all of us could share feelings that nearly all of us could relate to.
P Sophia, I could see you raising some concern that I was inappropriately sexualizing something like Saturn retrograde in Aquarius, or the Sun in Gemini, if I was stretching my logic.
But Mars retrograde in Scorpio? Really?
*bashed. You discounted Jesus’ intention and work for creating the foundation of spreading his message. Not fair..
Hello Eric!
Can Mars also be manifestation of energy? Money too? And what about sex at the threshold of death? My feeling is that other elements are called for. Also my experience as a mother suggests that conception and the ‘ignition’ of the soul are at different times, that it may be that conscious awareness (stillness) transforms material? And then perhaps affinities with water or fire etc come into play.
Sex can also be predation. ie the middle ground of having a choice, bordered by force and licence or too much or too little for the individual taste?.
It may be that I am banging on too much about this – just that with my elder (Dad!) these lines have been so in stark relief – always changing – the happy medium between too much and too little and not enough and too much very very subtle, and necessary to divine. Like goldilocks and the three bears. This is not sexual: with age and illness and innocence and childhood, sex is no longer the primary element or even relevant? These lines are to do with energy though (and its waning, or waxing), nursing, and food, and fragility, and life? In this example ‘sacred’ is not amiss as a word perhaps: sacred trust, sacré boulot (to pun ie a lot of work,), the sanctity of endings and beginnings?
xxxp
ignition of the soul – not sure – perhaps the flame is always there just very slight? And then after some time it is more and more incarnate?
Does mars have a higher vibration ie like neptune is to venus – because that could be interesting – Mars energy in a different vibration? Orius? Sila-nunam? or even Mercury?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ78bwKOUs4
does this have a slant on mars?
Pam, I think that it’s Pluto that is the higher octave of Mars
Thank you beleclaire!
Must share my own freaky-Friday event that happened yesterday. OK, it was Monday, not Friday, but all kinds of weather was blowing, including the torrential downpours that afforded me drenched feet by the time I made it to the train station. I missed the 7:15am train, ARG! by seconds but never left my “chill” as I had a ton of time before I was due in Cap Hill. Turns out all trains were delayed as a pedestrian (a “tresspassor”) was hit by a train headed northbound. Skies cleared, my feet (socks/shoes) dried and I made it to Cap Hill in four hours … time for a complete shutdown by the cap hill police as shots were fired in the new visitor center. Whoa. Whadda day!
but I remained calm as I had a place to go, some excellent (Bernie people) to meet and calls to make. Crazy-enough, back in Washington I felt safer than I had in months!
Yep, progress is not for wimps.
mm.
ps: all this astrology is coming to join Uranus on my own natal mars … thrilling, indeed.
Oh, really?. Thats not what i thought you said in you podcast. What i heard you say was sex was the Core and spiituality just covers all that up. Whereas, i view it as the opposite. I guess you and i are polar in our beliefs.
No worries.
Anyways. ..I love this here depiction of the birth of Eros, the god of love! i love the description of what it leads to.. Sounds like the birth of Christ Consciousness.
“At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night (Nyx), Darkness (Erebus), and the Abyss (Tartarus). Earth, the Air and Heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Darkness, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Love (Eros) with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in the deep Abyss with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light.[9]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros
Yes, starting place implies a lot — the core. “The end is written in the beginning.”
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – T. S. Eliot
And yes, spirituality is a coverup of biology. You don’t need to go too far to smell the contrived bullshit.
I have not found that the “octave” metaphor holds up — Neptune as the ‘higher octave’ of Venus for example. Venus has lots of its own expressions; all planets do.
Also, pick any two planets and you will tend to find some level of connection between them, as well as differences.
Yes — for example, Venus and Saturn are related through Libra. Venus ‘rules’ Libra and Saturn is exalted there. That is one that often evades Western astrologers but that is (I’ve heard) is better used in Vedic. This also illustrates the affinity of Saturn for the air signs, which is brushed over most of the time.
Then there is the connection of Mars to Saturn through Capricorn (Mars is exalted there). If you play with these arrangements and hang loose, that is, think on roller skates rather than on train tracks, you can come up with many creative solutions and interesting ideas.
Changing the subject – Is there a good book or place to start with progressions that anyone could recommend please.
The comments about higher octaves and affinities I find super interesting – venus saturn libra air – sounds like a muscian to me! Is it possible to balance or create missing elements in a chart this way? Eric is that relevant to your sex in scorpio aside too? That it is possible to use anything that comes to hand in the mix?
ie mars in scorpio is always about sex – unless it isn’t!
And many thanks!
xxxp
mars in scorpio is always about sex: except when it isn’t! is better ,
What I was expressing is the beauty and potential of what they, (spirituality and sex) hold together. Its kind of like the chicken and the egg. I happen to understand the egg as our divine spirit, core. But they are a reflection of each other for sure.
Yet, Again the main point is, I don’t think they have to be viewed as mutually exclusive; i.e. “spirituality covers up the sexual core as you express adam-mitanly. Religion is a whole ‘nother thing that curupted in many ways the core beliefs for example He asks and other as ended masters intention. I am not a religion fundamentalist, far from it.
As you say, the end is also the beginning. True. There is the never ending connection and I feel that is the overall cusp of this discussion and in particular the potential of the up and coming Mars retrograde as he moves from Sagittarius backing into, and out of Scorpio.
That is only my interpretation view. Others may have different. And I am open to seeing and understanding all.
**He asks and other as ended masters intention.
Interestingly Divine. This is what auto corrected. What I wrote was, Jesus and the other ascended masters Intentions..