Monday, January 23, 2012

Mars Retrograde in Virgo and the Active Re-Organizing Principle Comes Out in Full Force January 23 - April 13, 2012

Mars' forward motion in Virgo grinds to a halt today at 23 degrees of the sign (6:54 p.m. Central) as we unfold into the Aquarius New Moon. The planet of action, will, aggression, and goals will be retrograde until April 13, when it turns direct at 3 degrees Virgo. 

With this almost three-month retrograde, an active re-organizing principle comes into full force in our lives, re-directing us and making necessary adjustments down to the very last detail as we start to exist under the astrological Aquarian era classification system. This transit addresses dysfunction, and it indicates a breaking point, an official "had enough" point, for workers (Virgo), particularly healthcare and service workers. 

Mars in Virgo is inflaming all the issues and dysfunction that should have been addressed but were not addressed during Saturn's transit of Virgo (2007-2010). This Mars transit is a breaking point and a precise re-direction of the efforts of workers within (or out of) criminally corrupt and unresponsive Pluto in Capricorn structures. This includes workers both un- and under-employed (numbering in the hundreds of millions in North America alone) as well as those fully employed within systems intentionally designed to fail. 

There are not many workers unaware of the problems at this point. Those attempting to reinforce and gloss over the dysfunction rather than working to change it are the owners, the CEOs, the upper management. Those are not the people slogging it out, doing the real work. 

The real workers know the score, and, coming out of the momentum-building Occupy Movement, they hold a huge amount of collective power at this time in human history. 

With this Mars transit, if we're lucky, the workers of the world are infused with the guts, the courage, the grit, and the will to stand up and say enough is enough. With this transit, the workers of the world can be infused with enough bad ass Martian energy and rock-solid organization (with the Virgoan intelligence to use them) that they'll never back down again. They'll refuse to bow to the fears instilled by the hierarchies, refuse to allow themselves to drop, silent and passive, under collective Neptunian amnesia and anesthesia. My hand on my heart, I pray this is the scene. 

This Mars transit through Virgo activates the Pluto in Virgo generation in a big way, and the momentum starts to catch for a grand-scale generational power shift. 

Very fundamentally, this Mars in Virgo transit relates to how we apply (or refuse to apply) our physical energy and what we serve or support with that application of energy. This takes on particular importance within the context of rampant structural criminality, moral if not legal. 

From a previous post during Saturn in Virgo: 

"Don’t participate in things that are not acceptable to you. Don’t put your personal energy into things that lack integrity to you. Make your service to the planet a sacred thing and answer to a higher power than the business/money hierarchy. Answer to yourself." 

Virgo is most often about skimming off the unnecessary in order to increase function, and this transit will have us applying ourselves only in the most vital of directions. All the Virgoan territory comes under a state of intense analysis, scrutiny, and precise re-direction, particularly in the areas associated with the house in which Virgo resides in your astrological birth chart. 

As Mars Rx in Virgo forms an opposition to the Pisces Sun at 13 degrees on March 3, the previous two-year cycle of goals, will, and personal direction under the Mars in Leo overlay officially draws to a close. 

New, more practical, effective, and precise goals as well as the uses of will to achieve them start to unfold as Mars goes direct this April. 

As long as we accept and apply the re-direction, these new goals and directions are infused with great and grounding staying power from an exact Grand Earth Trine March 12-15 involving Venus-Jupiter in Taurus, Mars Rx in Virgo, and Pluto in Capricorn, all at 9 degrees of the earth signs. This is big, collective gears shifting and wheels turning. 

Mars has been transiting Virgo since November 10, 2011 and will not ingress Libra until July 3, 2012, after the Venus Transit and the first exact square between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn June 24. This means we have almost eight months to go over things with a Virgoan fine-toothed comb, precisely re-directing ourselves through this three-month retrograde us as we enter the new and active duty indicated by this transit. 

From November 13, 2011: Mars in Virgo Retrograde: Precise Re-direction Within Grand Earth Trines  

November 10, 2011 - Mars enters Virgo 

November 18, 2011 - Mars enters the retrograde shadow 

January 23, 2012 - Mars goes retrograde at 23 degrees Virgo 

April 13, 2012 - Mars turns direct at 3 degrees Virgo 

June 19, 2012 - Mars leaves the retrograde shadow 

July 3, 2012 - Mars enters Libra 

The Mars transit and retrograde through Virgo involves an eight-month period of mutable, transitional energy that requires our precise and active participation to direct, re-direct, adjust, and re-adjust our courses. Throughout this time, we'll be directed down only the most pertinent and effective channels in our lives, honing and refining our courses and withdrawing personal energy from anything that is not necessary, valuable, or vital moving forward. This process is happening, specifically, in the house or houses where Virgo falls in your natal chart. That's the area where things need to be tightened. 

Virgo is one of the quieter placements for Mars. Mars is active here but only in the ways that count. No excess of motion, exertion, words, mental function, or use of will. Small movements, adjustments, and re-direction have big effect, and temperance rules, as too much effort in one direction results only in energy expended for self-correction. 

The energy on the planet will be getting very bizarre and out of control at times over the next years, and things can really go haywire if we allow them to. This is why we need the Virgoan qualities applied through the iron will of Mars to set our courses now, doing battle on the fine points. 

If we're oh-so-careful and diligent, smoothing every screwy detail, critiquing every glowing illusion, attending to every nagging issue, we set a tone with this retrograde that can keep us grounded and out of the worst of the hyped baloney and utter bullshit being amped up on this planet. 

Clean, crisp, clear. 

In Virgo, every detail matters. 

Virgo is a sign that needs things to be just right, and with Mars here, we're going to have to take it personally when they aren't. If it hits our ears as incorrect, it's rejected, no matter how many people are saying it, doing it, or believing it. Anyone trying to fill our minds, bodies, societies, or environments with useless crap is viewed as an enemy of our health. 

Enemies of our health. There are many. 

Under Mars in Virgo, we're consciously fighting to maintain health in a world increasingly toxic to living things. Our systems are quite literally being attacked on multiple fronts. There's an immediacy with this Mars transit. There's no more time to put off the changes necessary to fortify our health. It's on. In order for our systems to continue processing and metabolizing what's going on, they need to be in tip-top condition. 

Diet, exercise regimes, habits, routines, work conditions, the quality of our food and water, our mental and emotional environments - a crucial analysis and refinement is on the docket during this transit, fighting to maintain systemic health while preparing us for the next years on the planet. This involves the removal or at least strong limitation of anything that weighs our systems down: excess alcohol, drug use, cigarettes, perfumes, air fresheners, chemical cleaners, electromagnetic pollution, noise pollution, pesticides and additives in food, refined sugar, artificial colours, genetically modified food, fluoride, excessive internet, TV, music, shopping, socializing. 

Mars is a hard-ass in Virgo, and with good reason. Even things touted as healthful should be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. With Virgo, less is more. Be careful what you add to your life and to your system. In most cases, Virgo is about what needs to be taken away. 

There is a sexual element (Mars) to health (Virgo) here. A more precise application of sexual energy is required. A new understanding of the effects of sexual activity on health and on the surrounding energetic environment as a whole comes about here. 

The "too much, too fast, too soon" sexual ethic constantly shoved down our throats is rejected by those who use this transit well, and the application of sexuality is streamlined with a new awareness and focus on the health of the individual, the partner, the relationship, the immediate social groups and society, and the spirit, in general. 

There's a re-wiring of attractions and sexual habits here, a clarification, and a removal of toxic sexual connections. Holistic sexual health. 

Our work is infused with a necessary level of fight during this transit. We fight to overcome the redundancy, uselessness, and listlessness forced upon so many through mass institutionalized unemployment, underemployment, and lack of meaningful paid employment. 

Charting the course for the next two years correctly requires our absolute focus over the next eight months. Mars entering Virgo sets off a grand earth trine with Jupiter Rx in Taurus and Pluto in Capricorn that will be in effect most strongly November 16-23. Mars retrogrades back into this grand earth trine in March when the configuration will be exact. 

Jupiter in Taurus, Mars Rx in Virgo, and Pluto in Capricorn will be exactly trine each other at 9 degrees of the earth signs from March 12-15, 2012. 

Mars in Virgo will trine Pluto in Capricorn one last time May 15-17, 2012 with Mars moving direct. At that time, Jupiter in Taurus will be out of range. 

Needless to say, within these grand earth trines, the application of specific choices and actions - including what we choose not to do or say - has big ripple effects, creating real, concrete, structural changes. 

Additional articles on the Mars in Virgo Rx transit:  

Mars in Virgo and Going Scent-Free Mars in Virgo Hot or Nots 

An explanation of two-year Mars cycles and the Mars in Leo cycle officially drawing to a close: New Moon in Virgo Sets a Preparatory Tone For the Upcoming Mars Retrograde

4 comments:

Sabina said...

Thanks, Willow. Immensely helpful.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting. As a nurse currently looking for another job, I'm currently incredibly frustrated with what seems to be a generalised lack of intestinal fortitude that ward managers have within hospitals. They all seem to be such 'yes' people and all so conservative and submissive in their approach towards their bosses. There's no taking the bull by the horns there, that's for sure.

On a larger scale our state government is currently pretending to 'negotiate' a new pay deal and they've already shown themselves to be deceitful. What they really are trying to do is wreck our health system, rip us all off, endanger the health of patients and blame the nurses for when people die because they wrecked a system that they don't understand, in order to save money. Sigh. Pity we have to wait till the next election to boot them all out. And we will. They are such total bleeps.

david5379 said...

hmm, read an article recently pertaining to this, scientists said that the amount people should work was only about 21 hours a week, and that any more wasnt biologically healthy, as well, the comments section professed even if they had very long hours most of the time they werent actually doing work, got it done anyway, and the real amount of time they were actually working probably corresponded to the study.

Dan said...

really insightful Willow, amazing read. Thanks!
My best wishes always,
Dan