Mars retrograding in Scorpio sure has been bringing a lot of internal sludge up to the surface and putting it front-and-center for us all, serving it up raw-and-bleeding-style.  It gets pretty hard to ignore our character defects under this vibe, as Mars retrograde in Scorpio is all about facing down anything grotty lingering in dark corners of the psyche.  Now the Red Planet turns direct in fairly short order (June 29th), but its current slowed movement has put it in prolonged contact to both Uranus & healing asteroid Chiron.  We have certainly seen the Mars/Uranus end of things via the shocking outburst of rage that hit the news recently; a man said to be waging an internal war with his own sexuality who lashed out and perpetrated a horrific act of violence at a gay nightclub in Orlando. But rather than focus on this tragic facet of Martian energy, let’s direct our attention to the tremendous healing potential afforded to us by the current trine between Mars in Scorpio and Chiron in Pisces.

With Mars in Scorpio, what we are fundamentally looking at is the destructive side of anger and how it can implode on us from within if we don’t transform it. Before I go any further, let me just state that I strongly disagree with the general New Age mentality that entails automatically slapping a “negative” label on emotions such as anger – I don’t believe in judging any natural, organically-occurring emotion as being inherently “bad”.  All emotions serve a legitimate purpose, and our ire can also be a vastly effective motivational tool when channeled properly.  But for the purposes of this post, right now we’re going to be discussing the more pathological side of anger, as any planet found in Scorpio can easily corrupt if we’re not digging for the insight that allows us to turn it into a source of empowerment.  It is the nature of the beast, after all; Scorpio is either the Scorpion or the Phoenix as it is a sign of extremes.

So Mars’ retrograde back through Scorpio (since May 27th) has involved many of us getting face-to-face with our “demons”; anger being one of them.  But with The Red Planet now in harmonious contact with Chiron in Pisces, we start to heal this with things like compassion, acceptance, and forgiveness.  We come to an understanding that – underneath it all – anger is often just a reaction to pain, and we start confronting it instead of denying so it can be dissolved, released, and ultimately healed. Perhaps the source of this is frustration, or even deeply buried grief – if you’re into working with the metaphysical properties of stones and crystals at all, the energy of Apache Tears may be helpful to this end.  Regardless, the next month+ is a fabulous time to bravely face the REAL source of our rage: Our pain. The blessing inherent in Chiron/Mars contacts is they do tend to bestow motivation to “heal thyself”, where we are driven to seek wholeness rather than act from a place of woundedness. Along this vein, anger (especially the chronic variety) can take energy away from our individual healing process, so when we’re pissed off about something know the answer isn’t always the outward-based focus of having it out.  Sometimes it lies instead in retreating to look within so we can reflect upon the way(s) this emotion may not be truly serving us, and seeking to mend that which has been doing more harm than good.

06/22/2016