The morning of November 4th, Mars entered the mutable fire of Sagittarius, emerging from several weeks in its yin home of Scorpio.  A covert place of umbral burrowing and dark discretion, one different from the day-lit momentum of Mars’ yang home Aries, the red planet in Scorpio is like the fire of water tempered in concealment, the pulsing along a riverbed, hidden but with libidinal promise.

In Sagittarius, Mars soars through Jupiter’s yang home, peregrine between its nocturnal temple of Scorpio and exaltation of Capricorn, finding dignity most in its bounds along the Archer’s last five degrees.  Brilliant if not inconsistent, Mars here likes to do things in fits of inspiration and imaginal brushstrokes.  Yet this transit of Mars in Sagittarius happens with its ruler Jupiter deep in a year of exaltation, tilting its significations that much more to the good… higher aims, and sweeter payouts if we put the work in.

It’s too easy to say ‘manifestinist baddy’ in the same sentence as Sagittarius, and as such Mars here is certainly optimistic, implicitly expectant of success, risking a vaguely manic seesaw when the arrow does not hit its target.  A place of philosophical pomp and spirited swagger, Mars in the Archer is visionary, even zealous… and where ideologically aggressive, perhaps the pious pulpit, the disseminating soapbox, one as quick to get fired up as it is back to having fun… both at once, even!

In Sagittarius’ first decan or ten degree period, the ‘Swiftness’ ruled by a Mercury also answering to Jupiter at present, we have the quicksilver intuition, the nonstop party, imagination meets instant action.  Yet it is also at times the unrestrained tongue, the uncompromising pace, the oversaturated vision tyrannically imposing itself in the name of some unity or impatient glimpse of a truth.  To fight for one’s beliefs, in honor and irascibility.  Much of this can be equally true of Mars further along in mutable fire.

When the Sun entered Scorpio this season, I began sorting through the influence of a shifting spread of planets in the sign — then holding the Sun, Mars and Mercury still — as well as the waves of a Grand Water Trine still resonating overhead.  On several occasions, I’ve cycled back to a few notes I took soon after Mars entered Scorpio on September 22nd:

That Mars’ blade rules both the first and last decans of the zodiac, Aries I and Pisces III, by way of the Chaldean order — what Austin Coppock poetically rendered something like ‘we’re both introduced by the cutting of the umbilical cord and ultimately the severing from this mortal coil’ — seems reaffirmed by another curiosity…

It is only Mars’ homes, Aries and Scorpio alike, whose first decans — that is, 10° periods — are by way of the Chaldean order both ruled by the sign ruler, in their case of course the red planet.

I sometimes find myself questioning the efficacy of any social or political cause that seeks to eradicate a source of violence on Earth.  It is of course, not that one shouldn’t vehemently try, or fight for what they believe in… simply my belief that if an archetypal role exists to be embodied, it will forever be embodied to some extent no matter how benevolent or tyrannical.

One can only fight for their ideals, take care of their family and immediate circles, and tend to their own home and garden, literal and proverbial… the world will be changed, root by root, brick by brick — but can I ever stamp out an evil that exists within me as well?

In this imaginal framing of ‘the great year’ by way of the Chaldean order, it does sometimes resonate more with me that Mars would have first and last word… more than, say, the centrality of the Sun or the seemingly cold indifference of Saturn… and why not?  The price of life might be death, but in between these the price of any beauty is the implicit violence of the will.  One door closes, another opens — and stepping through any, millions if not billions of microorganisms are crushed underfoot.

Mars entered Scorpio in nearly the same breath as autumn began its exhalation, and played a pivotal role in the season’s relational dramas, building first with passionate internality.  That the red planet enters Sagittarius just two days after fall’s midpoint, with elections and ideological clashes becoming ever more sporty and self-celebrating, it feels like an uncorking of sorts.  After all, on this planet glasses have been clinked, toasts given over all manner of excitement and exploitation alike.

The Full Moon in Taurus arrives in several hours, not one rotation of the earth after Mars entered Sagittarius.  The red planet is ‘averse’ by sign to both the exalted Jupiter in Cancer ruling it as well as this lunation.  There are festivities that do not see their own aggression and ideological abrasiveness, or that of their ‘enemy’… and this goes for any slice of a political or philosophical spectrum.  Remember of the Archer’s aim, and Mars behind it… what goes up, must come down.  Just as the Sun’s life giving rays promise Saturn’s visitation of death, the harmony of Venus promises Mars’ division bell, even in the singularity song of Sagittarius.

More to come on the Full Moon.  As always, swim well stargazers ~

—A.B.