Full Moon in Leo and a Sun-Mars Opposition Mark the Official End of the Previous Two-Year Mars Cycle

And a cheer goes up across the land! Or it would if we weren't so exhausted and/or emotionally wrecked from the past two years of life on Earth.

I will attempt a post here to mark the astro events of January 29. I'm still having Cipro issues, but I'll give it my best...

The Sun in Aquarius and Mars retrograde in Leo oppose each other just after noon (MT) tomorrow at 10 degrees of the signs. This marks the point in the Mars retrograde process when we have officially discharged the remnants of the previous Mars cycle (December 2007 - January 29, 2010) which began when Mars retrograded in Cancer.

The Moon enters Leo Friday morning and moves all day to a conjunction with Mars Rx at 10:20 p.m. and then to an opposition to the Sun in Aquarius an hour later at 11:18 p.m. This is the yearly Leo Full Moon and, conjunct Mars retrograde just as it opposes the Sun, is an indicator of the emotional culmination of the previous Mars cycle.

This Full Moon is also an indicator that we are ready to let our hearts be our guides as we move forward now. We're ready to fully commit in this way, ready to fight (where we have to) for the right to be self-directed, following our heart's lead. Opposite the Sun in Aquarius, this infusion of heart-level Leonine direction and action is a shift from the very intellectual Aquarius energy we've been used to over the past while.

The difficulty of the past two years, especially, has left us stripped down and desiring to connect at a purely loving level with the people who share the same love we have inside. Horrific difficulty and devastation will do that to ya. At this point, love is all that matters.

Whatever goals we have been working on since the end of 2007, especially related to gaining emotional strength and independence, moving on from old family patterns and connecting our efforts and wills fully to our emotional and soul-level guidance have come to a point of completion, and I hope we have fully achieved our goals on this front.

Last summer's double New Moons in Cancer combined with the triple eclipse season (in Capricorn, Cancer and Aquarius) really intensified our efforts and challenges to find new emotional anchors in light of shifting consciousness about the way forward from here. That eclipse season was a very emotional time full of (for me, at least) intense homesickness and a feeling that I didn't know where (if anywhere) I belonged. I've still got those feelings to a certain extent, although they are not as desperate now as they were then.

The events of the most recent eclipses (in Cancer on December 31, 2009 and Capricorn January 15, 2010) were also emotionally devastating for me and many, many others around the world.

My grandmother (who was overdosed horribly with morphine in the hospital around this time) was talking about how she felt absolutely flattened, and I felt the same way. The past two months have left many feeling extremely vulnerable, helpless and at the mercy of the events and energies swirling around. On a grand scale, the people of Haiti are experiencing this with the horrific devastation of the earthquake and the loss of, some reports say, 500,000+ people. Half a million souls leaving the Earth in such a sudden and unexpected way and the grief and desperation of those who survived has an effect on us all, especially those who are very energetically sensitive.

Tomorrow, we find ourselves at the official discharge point of the previous two-year Mars cycle. The directions we initiated two years ago have garnered their results. We've gotten our emotional sea legs under us as best we can (although it certainly doesn't feel like it a lot of the time), and we now shift the focus of our personal desires and exertion of wills from inner goals (Cancer) to outer ones (Leo). We now move into a cycle related to our creative goals and desires, finding new direction in light of what we now understand to be the situation on this little planet. Mars in Leo Retrograde: Reclaiming Our Primal Creative Force in the Face of Shifting Structures and Changing Paradigms

The shifting structures and changing paradigms pick up speed now making it even more crucial that we are connected to love and to our true heart's direction. 2010 will see two more Saturn-Pluto squares and the final two (of five) Saturn-Uranus oppositions. Dates here. Lots of challenging movement and shake-ups. We're going to need all the love (especially self-love) we can find to guide us through.

And just as we release the old Mars cycle and enter a new one, Saturn Rx in Libra makes its second of three squares to Pluto in Capricorn, exact January 31 at 2:27 p.m. More shifting and morphing of power structures within business and personal relationships, done a bit more on the down low with Saturn retrograde.

With Mars in Leo, we are deeply desiring joy and fun in our lives and in our creations now, however that may come. We need to know, and to experience, that life can still be exciting, inspiring and loving. That it and we are still meaningful. That we're still loved. We need to take comfort and solace in the things that bring us and those around us delight and will need to throughout the next years. This is the balance to the glut of Aquarius energy.

We're living in times that are often bizarre, frightening and traumatic, aware as never before of possibilities for the future of humanity that are difficult, often impossible, to accept.

Pluto in Capricorn has begun to rip the mask off the sociopathic corporate oligarchy masquerading as elected public officials. The collusion between and merger of government and Big Business are attempting to enter the final stages, and real public will has never been further from the minds and decision-making processes of the people at the top of the pyramid-scheme hierarchies.

With Chiron, Neptune and Jupiter in Aquarius, we saw the rise of technology as God and Atlantean throwbacks hell-bent on forcing history to repeat - bringing about the destruction of humans and human societies through the arrogant misuse and abuse of science and technology. Trying to control something as fundamental as nature - imagine the arrogance! The dark side of Aquarius. Yes, it exists.

Many intuitives have been honing in on the HAARP's activities and the use of technology designed to manipulate weather since the horrific earthquake in Haiti. The misuse of energy itself - the symbol for Aquarius being two energy currents.

The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has spoken out accusing the United States of launching an earthquake-inducing weapon off the coast of Haiti and triggering the earthquake. Chavez says the weapon was designed with Iran in mind. Whether you think this is hogwash, world leaders (and he's not the only one) are bringing the misuses of technology to the public's attention. What was once science fiction is now reality.

The destructive hidden agendas so often attached to foreign aid and assistance these days are also (finally) coming to collective awareness (IMF and World Bank shenanigans included). We're reminded of the fact that Haiti is sitting on a reserve of oil, a substance the United States is willing to do anything to gain control over. Here is an article by journalist John Pilger about just that called "The Kidnapping of Haiti."

So we've filled our brains with information through the Aquarian technological mediums and now, in light of all that, Mars in Leo asks: Knowing all that you have come to know, what do you desire to create? And do you have the courage to follow the direction of the love in your heart? What will bring joy and love not only to you personally but to your fellow human beings and to your communities? How can you direct your personal creative power and energy in the ways most relevant within the context of the times in which we are living?

We'll be keeping the new directions of our creative endeavours close to our chests until Mars gets back up to speed direct and the Sun transits Aries in March-April. Listen closely until then as Mars retrogrades and slowly re-directs us in certain ways.

Jupiter has now left Aquarius and entered Pisces, and we have an infusion of spiritual faith, love and truth to guide us in this process of determining new creative direction - just in the nick of time! I must say, all that Aquarius energy without the benefit of Piscean integration was wearing on my last nerve. All those excessively masculine Atlantean throwback versions of reality and of the future were really getting me down.

But thankfully Jupiter is now in the feminine water sign of spiritual understanding and communion, Pisces, to show us the ultimate truth of our energetic connection. To show us that what's good and right and loving and compassionate can never be destroyed or defeated. And that we can never be truly disconnected from that force so long as we live it ourselves as our primary guidance.

I don't think we have an easy road ahead of us with this whole Aquarius shift thing. As I've written before, there are far too many people trying to bulldoze full speed ahead into Aquarius without first learning, understanding and integrating the necessary Piscean lessons and wisdom. Far too much arrogance and detachment from the suffering of fellow human beings (especially among the imbalanced masculine) and far too little understanding of the real, authentic spiritual nature of our existences.

Jesus Christ is probably the most well-known Piscean figure, and we're still playing out that story in many respects - people being murdered, tortured, ostracized and abused because their spiritual natures and ideas about peace, kindness, cooperation, love and compassion threaten the status quo.

Chiron, the wounded healer, ingresses into Pisces in May of this year and will be there for the next seven-ish years - just as the "official" Aquarian Era gets underway. I think this is an indication of the difficulty and pain that will come about as those who hold true Piscean wisdom and understanding watch arrogant and destructive people continue to wreak their havoc and sacrifice (Pisces) human lives for increased power and control.

However, Neptune will also be at home in Pisces (the sign of its rulership) during this time (April 2011 - January 2026), so spiritual reinforcements will be flooding onto the planet full force to get us over the hump. We'll be supported through any great trials with this influx of loving spiritual energy and guidance, and the Chiron in Pisces wounds will experience healing. Our spiritual connections will be very immediate and easily accessed during Neptune in Pisces. We'll need all the help we can get, but tip the scales we will.

One of the most beautiful and comforting lessons Pisces teaches us is that we never struggle alone, no matter how isolated and desolate we may feel. So many good people before us (and with us now) have carried the burden and shared the effort, and we're in it together, come what may. Always have been, always will be. We can take comfort in and find great strength through the good people in our lives. And know that the truth - what we know in our hearts and souls - can never be stamped out (though they sure try). And for those of us traipsing through physical lives on this planet at this point in human history, there is assistance when we need it. There is unconditional love. There are reinforcements aiding us at every turn. Spirit whispers its love for us every day in so many different ways and tells us which way to go when we find ourselves at dark forks in the road.

The loving spirit of the billions of people who have shared and continue to share the struggle to uphold what is right and good is with us always, guiding us, assisting us and cheering us on. And that force is not to be messed with. I pity the fool who tries.