Mars Reaches Tender Point with Jupiter

Warning

This is a dizzying meditation that many people will walk away from.  Go as far as you can until your eyes cross - and leave the rest.  Next time you read a post like this you'll get a little bit further ......

Most basic astrology books include a list of ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ aspects.  Here we will be looking at the relationship between two planets by considering where they are in a repeating cycle of meeting during conjunction, separating till they oppose, then returning to meet again in a new conjunction.

 
Mars formed an exact opening square with Jupiter at 6:47 Friday night in Raleigh.  When a planet enters the 4^th house from any point it is in an opening square with that point or object.  I drew the first chart for the exact time Mars reached 90degrees from Jupiter in the zodiac.  That line at 5degrees Scorpio 53minutes looks like a house boundary but  is actually a marker for the mid heaven. (Scroll down for chart) The top half-size chart (further down in this post) is a bit easier to read and shows more about the dynamics of an opening square; I did it for the period when Mars was rising Saturday morn to show how any planet in an opening square looks up to the planet or point it is squaring.  It does not matter if the slower planet is in a sign at the beginning or end of the zodiac, it is in a position of seniority to the planet forming the opening square.  

So, even though Jupiter is in the ‘young’ sign of Leo it is senior to Mars because it is in the 10^th house when Mars is rising.  When Mars in Scorpio is taking action in the 1^st house, Jupiter in Leo is near the top of its daily arc across the sky in the area associated with career.
 

It is really cool to think of how planets relate to each other depending on where they are in a cycle from one conjunction to the next.  When any planet is right behind another one, within 30degrees of catching up to it, it is in the slower planet’s last house, and so in a spiritual, or Piscean relationship to the slower planet or point.  I keep adding ‘point’ because this is the concept behind houses in the chart that most people are familiar with, namely, how many 30 degree sections they are removed from the ascendant;  and also used in Draconian charts where planets are analyzed according to how far they are from the North Node.  Basically houses are just 30 degree sections from a location.  The named houses that we first learn about in astrology are sections counted from the ascendant in their order of rising.  For more on houses see Mechanics of the Chart

Saturn in Uranus' 8th House

If one planet is 150degrees from another it is in its 6^th house of apprenticeship.  If a planet is 210 degrees ahead it is in the 8^th house from the slower planet.  Right now Saturn is beginning to pick up speed in its own deliberate fashion, and advance from the very beginning of Uranus’ 8^th house.  The 8^th house marks the point in a relationship after a deal has been completed and the two planets get down to the nitty gritty essence of what’s between them.  It is where the reality behind the deal is hidden and the fine print is magnified.  Saturn has been in its first adult stage with the planet of revolution since Oct 2013; for the three or so years before that it was fulfilling the 7th house Libran promise of the Aries revolution.

 

Back to Mars Squaring Jupiter

I love this meditation.  In Friday’s case with Mars entering Jupiter’s 4^th house we see that even though Mars is ruling in the sign of secrets it is in a vulnerable position to Jupiter’s expansive drive toward self expression.  As the generous hurler of thunderbolts sits high in the sky roaring about this and that, Mars is probably worried about what would best be left unsaid;  which can of worms is not ready to be opened in the light of day where any passing birds can get an easy snack.

 

Moon in the Mix

In the big chart you can see the Moon in a fulfilling 7^th house relationship with Uranus Friday; but at the same time it was coming to terms with Uranus, it was under the 12th house influence of Mars.  And then Mars, now only 13degrees behind Saturn is in a Piscean relationship to the general who by now knows  the dirty tricks.  You can just go on forever thinking about how all the planets relate to each other at any one moment.  It is an honest to goodness heavenly mandala!

The longer two planets remain in the same stage the more time you have to ponder their relationship.  In the case of the Moon we have only hours to consider where it is to the other planets before it has shifted to a whole new set of relationships.

The Relationship from Both Sides

 

It is confusing, but enlightening, to go back and forth between a pair of planets and consider the relationship between them from each planet’s point of view.  While Mars is looking up to Jupiter the moment it is rising- where ever Jupiter is rising it is seeing Mars in the 4^th house of home, the house associated with family and emotional security.  You can follow the pair through all the houses and consider where the faster one is when the slower one is in a particular house.  For instance, when Leo Jupiter is in the 9^th house of social reform, a nice soap box elevation for any performer, Scorpio Mars is in the 12^th house where it has no control.  Or you can say while Mars is incapacitated in the last house, it can look to vocal Jupiter in the 9th for assistance.  You can make a sentence or two and stop there, but the more you think about how we relate to each other on earth, the more you can see the intricacies involved in the way Jupiter and Mars blend their energies.

Mercury in Closing Square with Mars

The second mini chart for Saturday just shows Mercury reaching the 10^th house from Mars.  (And there's that confusing MC slash again, at the beginning of Mar's 10th house!) So Mercury, the little yo yo, gets to have the next couple weeks every day up in the sky, doing its Mercury in Leo tap dance, shiney shoes and all, while shady Mars in Scorpio is coming up in the east.  And don’t forget Mercury is meeting up with Jupiter, not drawn in the lower chart.  Mercury is basic perception and Jupiter is higher intellect, or synthesis.  This next week should be a real philosophical hay ride.  I can just see Mars and Saturn in Scorpio bumping along on the trailer stacked with hay, scheming to inject a bit of Guy Noir flair into the flashy production led by Jupiter and Mercury.

Looking back at Mercury's Opening Square with Saturn

I see Mars near Saturn and jump to thinking about the relationship between Mercury and Saturn.  Saturn is in the middle of Mercury’s 4^th and Mercury is in Saturn’s 9^th leading me to wonder about the last time Mercury was in Saturn’s 4^th house.  In other words Mercury is almost in a closing square with Saturn, a mature position for the yo yo compared to the general, and I’m wondering about the last time Mercury was in an opening ‘tender’ square with Saturn.

Jan 25^th when Mercury was at 22  Aquarius, an intellectually focused sign associated with mature reason, it reached the tender 4^th house point of its cycle with Saturn in Scorpio.  While the yo yo was communicating established knowledge in its 1^st house, Saturn in its 10^th was deliberately organizing secrets.  The tension did not dissipate till early April when Mercury reached 23 Pisces, the 5^th house from Saturn, and they entered the creative point in their mutual cycle. It is strange to think of it this way, but while Mercury was in mature Aquarius it was like a crawling infant learning to stand up compared to any planet in Scorpio; when it advanced one 30 degree section it was standing on its feet and able to walk.

Lets look again at this couple from Mercury’s Aquarian and Piscean locations instead of Saturn’s in Scorpio.  In  late January while Mercury was between 23 Aquarius and 22 Pisces it was 10 houses from its next meeting with Saturn and saw Saturn in an authoritarian or Capricorn light. In April while Mercury at 23 Pisces was 5 houses removed from its last meeting with Saturn, it could look ahead and see Saturn 9 houses before it.  In other words it could ‘see’ that it had 9 houses to go before catching up with Saturn again; so Scorpio Saturn was in Mercury’s 9^th house and appeared to Mercury in a philosophical or Sagittarian light.  From Mercury's point of view, Saturn went from being an authority figure to an educator.  

Ok, I have been fiddling with this post since I got up this morning.  It is time to send it out into the world and let intrepid readers make what they can of it.  I'm ready to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies!

Mars Ruling in Scorpio

July 31, 2014

So this is what it looks like when Mars is ruling and has 3 outer planets under its influence.  This reminds me of when I first began turning to ‘mundane’ astrology for comfort.  It was about 1988.  I had been studying astrology seriously for 3 years, and was familiar with how the planets affected my chart.  I don’t remember when exactly I was reading the account of the death of Federico Garcia Lorca, a Spanish poet murdered in the early days of the Guerra Civil.  There must have been some emotional transit that day.  All I remember is being completely overtaken with grief at the end of the book.  I had checked it out looking for a biography of Lorca, but it turned out to be a full length book solely devoted to the account of the start of the war, Lorca’s concern for his life, staying in someone else’s home, hoping he would not be rounded up and shot as events unfolded.  But he was.  The author had to do a lot of digging to get the story.  No one wanted to talk.  I remember so little about the book.  There was an introduction by Lorca’s brother.  In another book I learned about the plays he had written and the work he did reviving community theater by organizing puppet shows.  It seems like the book about his murder tried to make it sound as though he were not political.  But a review of his plays makes it clear that he was behind some very provocative productions that questioned the traditional role of women in families as proscribed by the church.  Then I learned even later that he was flamboyantly gay.

I was in tears.  Knowing about my chart was no help.  I needed some form of solace.  I kept thinking if only there were some way to mathematically quantify the energy that erupts in violence, I could see it as a force of nature, and not be so incapacitated with sadness in the face of all the cruelties lacing life.  I knew the answer was astrology, but my ephemeris only went back as far as 1900.  To see the roots of the conflict in 1936 Spain I was drawn further back in historical reading.  I suppose it was about 2 or 3 years after that day that a friend let me borrow his computer to look up the locations of planets in the 1800’s.  I guess he logged me on to the internet and directed me to the site with the ephemeris.  I knew nothing about computers or the internet back then.

I still have the list of dates and locations of planets that I copied down that day.  I kept going back and back in time.  I worried that he regretted making the offer when he came home an hour later to find me copying locations of Jupiter-Pluto as far back in time as the 1600’s.  I don’t remember how far back I went, but that data fed me for a long time.  I studied it to discern cycles; how often planets met, where they met, and if there was a pattern in the location of their meetings.  It was indeed very comforting.  It was fascinating to see two outer planets meet and then go back in history and try to figure out what was happening at that time.  I spent a lot of time learning the history that overwhelmed me in junior high and high school.  History and astrology became my consolation for all the pain and suffering that seemed to go on around me.  

The sadness is still always there.  The need to understand how such intelligent creatures can be so cruel and violent.  Times like this it is not what is in the stars now that helps me stay sane, it is the steadiness of mind that I have gained from observing the cycles repeat themselves like thousands of variations on a theme for centuries.

In the last three years that steadiness has become a post that reaches down to the center of the earth and comes out the other side.  All human history dissolves into the progression of the zodiac signs through one 24 hour cycle.  I am no longer angry at books that advertise the secrets of the ancients.  I know now the secret is only to be found in the stillness of the mind; it cannot be described or explained.  It can only be perceived directly by quieting the mind long enough to perceive something as simple as the actual earth turning on its axis.

 Twelve are the fellies.  What man has understood them?    Dirghatamas

♌ Leaping Leo! ♌

Sorry for the messy graphics- think of all that text in the way as trees obstructing your view.  They must be good for something…..

The above is a screenshot from stellarium showing the sky from Raleigh at 1:20pm July 22, 2014. 

The vertical line through the middle is called the meridian, or midheaven.  It always bisects the blue curve which represents Earth’s equator projected out to heaven, or the celestial equator.  The red curve, which represents the ecliptic, is another story.  It represents the path the Sun makes in the course of a year, so to speak.  In other words things are not as they seem, and we are all DISLEXIC!

Not to worry though.  The zodiac is here to help us understand what is really happening.  And so is Stellarium.  They’ve got this nifty little button you can click to dim the Sun’s light, making the stars that are normally ‘washed out’ during the day, visible.  That bright ball on the meridian is the Sun.  You can’t see Jupiter right next to it, but you can see the last few letters ‘..piter.’  You might have to squint or use your reading glasses.

Back to the red line, or ecliptic; notice how it is off center, skewed toward the west.  That has something to do with the Earth revolving on a tilted axis, the trickiest thing you can meditate on in astrology, but the most important.  I believe it is the real reason we have the zodiac; but I’m just a housecleaner, so I could be wrong. 

Now check out this screenshot for 1:20 am July 22, again from Raleigh.

 

Here the red line for the ecliptic is lopsided to the east!  You probably can’t see the little light for Uranus, but maybe you can see the label in the eastern sky, where the ecliptic is crossed above the celestial equator.  Uranus is currently located in the 2^nd sidereal hour which begins at 15°Aries.  Aries begins where the red line crosses above the blue line.

If you feel lost, please do not give up.  This is heaven.  Just drop in now and then, take a look around, and pretty soon you’ll start recognizing planets and stars like familiar friends.

The down and up roller coaster ride on a tilted planet

Remember we said Capricorn on the midheaven means we’re at the top of our daily revolution and Cancer the Crab means we’re at the bottom.  When we ‘see’ Aquarius on the midheaven at 1:20am it means we are going down.  When Leo, the sign right after Cancer, comes across the midheaven, it means we are taking a graceful leap onto the table from the floor, like a cat.  Today, in Raleigh, Leo crosses the MC (midheaven) at 1:20pm daylight savings time.  Whenever anyone on earth sees the sun in the middle of the sky during the month of Leo, they know their little patch of earth is leaping up.  Meow!  Purrrrr….anything good on that table?