More than one client has entered my office this week with first words being: “What the (expletive of your choice) is going on out there?!?” Well, I reply, in astro-lingo, we have Mars entering Cancer (as of August 3rd) and becoming the fourth arm of a Cardinal Cross formation, squaring Saturn and Uranus and opposing Pluto through most of the month. This peak of the Cardinal Cross energy is taking place during a Mercury Retrograde. And that, in non-astro-lingo, is the cosmic representation of what we might call a (expletive)-storm.
Hopefully I have not already offended anyone with my fake expletives, but I’m feeling very Mars-y these days. (Mars happens to be hanging out near my natal Mercury, and will soon be conjunct my Sun). Mars doesn’t care who is offended, and certainly has little regard for etiquette. Mars energy is direct, to the point, and fast. It is also passionate, and can be violent. As Mars enters into the ongoing Cardinal T-Square, particularly in its current close orb the ongoing Pluto-Uranus square, it is the giant spark that’s just ignited a tinderbox of long repressed emotions (Cancer).
At the end of July I wrote about the U.S. Chart and the Mercury Retrograde, playing at theaters near you for nearly the entire month of August. Of course, that was before the stock market roller coaster and the S&P Downgrade even began; at the time of my writing, the “deal” had not yet been sealed. In that newsletter I did not even mention Mars, as I had enough on my hands just dissecting the many potential unfortunate developments indicated by Mercury Retrograde’s aspects and Saturn’s contribution. We have officially entered a very difficult and heated period wherein Mars is affecting the collective but is also very tied in to the United States chart in particular.
As you may have noticed, this past week has been kinda rough out there in the world; for example, the riots in London (!) And then we had the stock market dive, followed by the S&P downgrade, followed by huge ups and downs in the market and the predicted volatility. “Volatile” is a very Mars kind of word. While things seem to be smoothing out today with the market, what can we expect over the coming month in general?
The worst of the Mars-Cardinal-Cross energy is now dissipating somewhat; it was at its height between the conjunction of Mars to the U.S. Natal Venus on August 7th and its conjunction to U.S. Natal Jupiter on August 12th (as I write this). This past week has been scarily reflective of that. However, today’s conjunction of Mars to the U.S. Jupiter can even be viewed as a boost toward more fortunate outcomes for the moment (today’s upswing in the market, for example). As Robert Hand writes of Mars conjunct Jupiter in Planets in Transit: “Mars-Jupiter has the general connotation of ‘fortunate action’ and is favorable for launching any new enterprise.” But let’s not get all excited and hopeful just yet. The U.S. chart experiences a 1-2-3 punch toward the end of the month: Mars conjuncts the U.S. Natal Sun while squaring the U.S. Saturn on August 23rd – 25th, building to the final exact peak of the U.S. Saturn Return on August 28th. The combination of Mars-Saturn energies indicates frustration, real hardships, and the need for focus and discipline (Saturn) to keep the Mars shadow from running rampant. We definitely have some rough territory ahead, particularly around the end of the month, and we must proceed carefully and patiently as a nation in order to navigate these difficult waters.
In our own lives, this period of the heightened Cardinal Cross energies will begin moving out of orb by early September, at the same time Mercury will be direct and out of its storm. Until then, hang tight. In the words of Bette Davis from one of my favorite movies, All About Eve: “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
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