chartingthesoul.com

27/07/2018
My friend Justin just asked me for my thoughts about tonight's Blood Moon here goes....
This is a powerful Full Moon. The Moon is closely conjunct retrograde Mars and both Sun in Leo and Moon in Aquarius closely square to Uranus in Taurus - forming a tight, fixed T-Square. In addition, both the Moon and Mars in Aquarius and the Sun in Leo are closely aspecting Chiron in Aries and even Saturn is jumping on this band wagon making an inconjunct to the Sun, an exact semi-sextile to Mars, a square to Chiron and a trine to Uranus.
Even if you don't understand the technicalities of astrology, if you just read that last paragraph you will get the sense of a very tightly knitted and knotted bundle of energies - a bit like an overheated rugby scrum.
So now I am thinking about Mars and the many tragedies involving wild fires that we have had this summer. Mars - always associated with Fire - is retrograde and has been for the last month, moving slowly between aspects to Jupiter (who just inflates the heat) and now into the square with Uranus (like a dry wind whipping up the flames) and sextile with Chiron (senseless tragedies, natural disasters).
So tonight the Sun is in golden fiery Leo and the Moon in Aquarius, (which many people do not realise is an Air sign). Fixed Fire and Fixed Air and a dry wind blowing. This recipe for wild fire is, of course, not just about the wild fires in the northern hemisphere but it also has universal meaning - an inner sense of dry, stagnating, (because of the retrogrades) heat.
Mars represents the life force, raw energy which likes to surge out into directed action, passion and aggression. But, when any planet turns retrograde, (and right now 6 planets are retrograde, which is not a common occurrence), the energy turns inward. This is not easy for Mars but this is not an ideal time to try and make events happen in the world - the period of a retrograde is about inner exploration and reflection.
The overall sense that I have with this Full Moon is pressure...the aggression of Mars, the expansion of emotion which goes with a Full Moon - it all has a kind of lid on it at the moment.
An eclipse is made by shadow, in this case when the shadow of the Earth falls on the face of the Moon. So all eclipses are associated with opportunities for shadow material to come into consciousness. It can bring about a difficult time in the weeks after an eclipse when a few ghosts start popping up from the underworld.
But the strongest sense I have of this eclipse is the feeling of pressure - particularly from the fixed T-square with a lot of heat in it but not a lot of movement - frustration. And what I hope is that the people of the world use this time, the hottest summer on record, to reflect on the grim realities of climate change as well as thinking deeply about the various political messes that we have brought upon ourselves. The sign of Aquarius is ruled by Uranus and both are connected to the quest for political change and revolution, the intention to bring about a more just egalitarian society. Uranus goes with the archetype of the Titan Prometheus who gave up his life to bring fire to the human race - his longing to make the human condition better.
If you really want to get a felt sense of the experience of retrograde Mars conjunct the blood Moon in Aquarius and square to Uranus, then look at the disastrous fix we in the UK have got to with Brexit. Right now, there appears to be no possible way forward. What can we do but stand still and reflect on this mess, which is entirely of our own making? We are right in the middle of this paralysing, impossibly matted tangle of planets - our very own Gordian Knot.
The great thing about astrology (and life), is that nothing ever stands still. In exactly 1 month from now, Mars turns direct and as we progress into the autumn, slowly all the retrogrades will start moving direct. The hope (for Brexit) is that as Mars gets back into action something new will happen - possibly some new direction will emerge, something we haven't even thought of yet, some unknown Alexander coming to slice through this Gordian knot? We shall see....
Well, that brings me to my next article, which I have been trying to get myself to write for at least a year), about the massive line up of planets in Capricorn coming in early 2020, which is what we are all really waiting for.