Metaphorcast 11/9-15, 2020

Into the umbra of the umbra we go, as the Season progresses in Scorpio.  Passions run hot as fiery stars as Pluto squares both Venus and Mars.  Pluto, Scorpio’s planet, on the outer bounds of our solar system, lives in the shadows as books won’t even list him.  His other location is so deep down inside, that integrity crumbles if he’s too long denied.  He is the pre-life of life and it’s regeneration, the wakeful hum of a lively vibration.

Venus and Mars traveling as true opposites now, in their native signs of Libra and Aries.  In their polarity, they evoke a fight for peace.  Venus paints a concept of rest, and fairness, in the sweeps of the horizon for all to see and behold.  Mars reddens the blood with instinct to take risks and go forth in the name of what was beheld in that horizon.  Passions are unleashed.  Unhinged. 

Galileo Galilei called Passion “the genesis of genius”.  Voltaire said it was “the winds which fill the sails of the vessel”.  Van Gogh said that he “would rather die of passion than of boredom.”

Van Gogh’s passion burned bright, as a painter and seer, but it also propelled him to cut of his ear!  For balance in times of a passionate season, its good to make room for the role of reason! 

Benjamin Franklin said “If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.”  Spirited Jupiter and rule-abiding Saturn join Pluto in Capricorn’s pragmatic gift of reason.  This is the sign that knows how to steer, making sure that our passions don’t lopsidedly veer.  With reason on our side, passion maintains its stride.  As Emerson said “passion though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.”

The trickster of mind, Mercury, moves into the Seasonal vortex of Scorpio on Tuesday after a heady trek in Libra.  Seeing now is more infrared-based, like the night vision of cats.  We steer with poise and mysterious confidence.

Uranus in real and texturized Taurus, the Aquarian Age will not be trivialized.

Neptune in Pisces trines our Seasonal Sun, the heart of the dreamer in everyone, the pre-life of life and its regeneration.

The Moon

The Moon begins the week in Virgo, waning crescent with maturity.  Her spirit of improvement channeling the fires of passion into an avenue of strategy.  A moonlit path for her bare feet to touch.

By Wednesday she wanes slighter in Libra, tipping the scales of passion towards the scales itself, that world of otherness.  More you less me, but in you I see, me in ways I could not before see!  As Rimbaud said “I is another.”

By Friday midday, she wanes on into Scorpio, where she will vanish as New in the earliest hours of Sunday morning.  As the tides rise she deepens into her treasured abyss.  The umbra of the umbra, the prelife of life and its regeneration.  The stardust that makes the life of a nation.  Who’s passions collide like the stars in the sky, the same stars that a captain must fix his eye.  

The very next day Mars at last moves direct- full speed ahead and all hands on deck!

The Moon will wax crescent in Sagittarius by midday Sunday.  The thinnest smile in the sky hinting at the power of optimism.  A sturdy optimism, pragmatically wed, between passion and reason, the heart and the head.  

As always, happy astro pondering!

https://www.happyastropondering.com/

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Mars in Cancer: The Will to Home

To associate Mars with hotheadedness, anger, combat, etc. is really to sell short the psychic usefulness of the red planet.

At it’s most crucial level, Mars is the Will.  Everyone possesses this, and some are far more in touch with it than others.  It’s only when one’s Will is being thwarted or ignored that hotheadedness, anger and all of these pressure-cooker emotions bubble up.  Let’s try to go to the root of things rather than obsessing over symptoms, shall we?

What is the Will?

Other words for the Will include striving, urging, wanting, desire, effort, you get the idea!

Arthur Schopenhauer’s Philosophy of Will sees Will as a slave to the world of ideas, therefore we are not free, and life is a sorry affair.

Schopenhauer saw the Will as an omnipresent force, not particular to the individual, but controlling us all, and so he was quite the pessimist.

The only thing that could kind of help us in this sorry world, was in experiencing something beautiful like art.  In the midst of a great painting or an exquisite piece of music, the Will was transformed into ‘representation of the Will’ – the better the art, the better the representation- and in that moment, the person ceases to even exist!

Ah!  At last I am nothing and no longer a slave to the Will!  Courtesy of Van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night.

Another famous thinker who gave considerable amount of attention to the Will (and was incredibly influenced by Schopenhauer) was Frederich Nietzsche.  But Nietzsche ended up being a total optimist about it!

Nietzsche claimed that “The world itself is the will to power and nothing else!  And you yourself are the will to power- and nothing else!”

But where Schopenhauer used the Will as an ultimate negation of life, Nietzsche used it as an ultimate affirming of life.  He proclaimed himself a yea-sayer- and likened this Will to seeing life as positive as similar to that of  the ecstasy-loving Dionysus.

Dionysus- the original “Life is Good” sayer.

So let’s just be happy to be clear on the notion that Mars as the Will is a powerful force that has been pondered for centuries.  It is no small thing.  It might be everything.  So what is it up to now in the sign of Cancer?

Cancer is the sign of home and family but, as the first of the Water signs, it begs us to feel this truth, not just to think about it.

This is Chip (or Dale) inside of a Christmas tree from the Disney 1952 Classic “Pluto’s Christmas”.

I remember seeing this cartoon as a kid and being utterly enchanted by the sheer twinkling magic and coziness of these two chipmunks wandering around on the actual inside of a Christmas tree.

It’s not enough to convey the feelings of Cancer by referring to Christmas alone because you may not even celebrate it, or it may bring up family strife instead of warmth and sparkle.

But the inside of a Christmas tree, with your good pal Dale, now that is magical coziness.  That is a recipe to feel great.

The Will to Home is an urging towards a place of magical coziness.  Magical in that it is dynamic, not stagnant.  Cozy in that it offers total restoration to the spirit.  The destination may still be unknown to you, but you can follow the clues of what it is by tuning in to your true feelings.

Cancer is the stillness of the North Star.  The sureness of that great feeling.

Mars is the Will to get there.

Until next time, Happy Astro Pondering!

-Tess