Get Ready For 235 Days Of Mars in Virgo—-Woo-Hoo!

‘News You Can Use’

While a lot of attention is being focused on the ‘end of the Mayan Calendar’ and it’s unknown aftermath, as well as the 11.11.11 date, are we also ready for another Mars tour, and slow detour through a sign not exactly known for its Mars friendliness?  Let’s hope so, because here we go, ready or not!

On 11.11.11 Mars enters Virgo for 235 days.  Yes, that’s 7.8 months.  During that long spell, Mars will slow and retrograde on January 24 th, 2012 at 23 degrees of Virgo and move backwards for 82 days until it slowly turns direct on April 14th at 3 degrees.  It will finally leave Virgo by July 3, 2012, just in time for America’s Birthday celebration. Those are the hard facts.

Perhaps it’s now a good idea to take a look at your own birth chart and figure out just where that Mars energy is going to be, if not simply sit (!) for a spell, in the months to come.  Pay careful attention to that arena because you will definitely get catalyzed there with all sorts of Virgoan themes.

What are some key Virgo themes to be aware of?  Ram Dass said it best, “BE HERE NOW”.  Virgo isn’t exactly a sign that embraces fantasy and escape from reality.  Virgo prefers to tackle problems that need to be addressed right now.  That’s why Virgos make such great practitioners of all kinds.  They like to solve problems and even get their hands greasy like good mechanics do, or bloody, like good surgeons do.  Get in there and get the job done, and don’t muck around thinking about what you’d rather be doing!

Another great Virgo asset needs to come to the fore while going through this Mars tour of duty:  HUMOR.  Virgo is unsurpassed for its ability to mimic, and literally poke fun at the idiosyncrasies and short-comings of us humans.  Lots of Virgos are great comedians. One wonders whether the up-coming election campaigns in the United States won’t be a huge collective comedy of errors since much of the brou-ha-ha will be going on during this Mars rite of passage.

Another theme I can see in Virgo is the BABY STEPS one.  Virgo is not the place to long-distance run, or even short-distance sprint.  Mars will literally have to play that game that many of us are familiar with from our child-hood; remember ‘Simon Says’ or ‘Mother May I?’.   Remember that you had to follow the rules and got sent back to the beginning line if you didn’t?  Remember that feeling of itching to go, and you couldn’t just run non-stop to the goal?  Oh!  Such frustration!  Virgo will demand that Mars move carefully, and with great discrimination.  One false move and you’re out.  Ouch.

Once Mars moves into that retrograde phase between January 24th and April 14th (3 months), things will really slow down and a great deal of analysis will take place as false starts and false steps are sorted through.  Pay careful attention to anything in your chart from 23 degrees back to 3 degrees of any of the Mutable Signs (Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces, and Gemini).  This will be a time to carefully sort out what needs to be done to correct something in all four arenas, and once Mars turns direct, to carefully, and oh, so slowly, move forward with your carefully thought-out plans.  Note I’m emphasizing the word CAREFULLY.  Not exactly one of Mars favorite styles!

The final theme I want to mention (and there are obviously myriad themes) for Virgo is IMPECCABLE.  A true Virgo style is just that, impeccable.  Every little detail has been attended to.  With this goes the higher octave of INTEGRITY.  So the question to ask will be, “Am I acting impeccably in this situation?  Am I acting with the highest level of integrity I can muster?”

Mars, as an archetype, is our potency.  On this planet it represents our will to survive by getting us in touch with what we want, and what we have to do to get what we want.  How do you express your own potency?  Do you feel potent?  Or do you feel impotent?  Impotency creates victimization and pushes to the depths unconscious rage.  When such rage is blocked or suppressed, the Mars energy can be directed against oneself, or against the world outside oneself.  This type of blocked Mars energy in Virgo can result in sado-masochistic practices.  Jeff Green, the expert on Pluto and sexuality, has a lot to say about this theme in his books.

If we take that theme to the collective issues we are now facing on this planet regarding the right use, or the misuse of Mars energy, we can probably forecast that Mars in Virgo will be creating a collective crisis of enormous impact.  There will need to be in this equation the ability to collectively examine where acts of aggression are taking us.  Will there be the collective ability to critique ourselves with some humility?  Will there be the ability to step-by-step figure out how to take a natural urge in all of us and turn our Mars energy away from the ‘god of war’ back to it’s original blueprint as ‘the god of agriculture’?

We all know in our hearts that this is what has to happen, or we are all doomed to a scenario eventually straight out of ‘Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome.’.  I’m serious folks.  We really don’t have time to muck around with this primal energy that keeps us in our limbic brains.  Time is running out.

So there’s going to be a lot of necessary work ahead.  Mars in Virgo will help all of us as a collective provided that the ‘sadists’ among us are exposed and restrained, and some type of mass healing of the Pisces shadow of the last 2600 years of  predator (sadist)/victim (masochist) takes place.

There are many guides now available to those who want to awaken.  You won’t find these guides on TV, in politics, or in your local Chamber of Commerce.  They are not doing the ‘business as usual’ routine.  Virgo guides are going to be unobtrusive and humble people.  They’re not going to be leading out of a need for ego self-aggrandizement.  Just ask, and they will appear.  It’s that simple.  The veils are thinning between thought and synchronistic manifestation.

It’s important to note that Mars in Virgo, during this lengthy time, will catalyze the 1960s generation, especially as Uranus is now forming it’s waxing square to Pluto.  The revolutionary changes bolstered in 1966 when Uranus conjoined Pluto in Virgo imprinted all the souls born then.  This generation is now in their 40s, and moving into their power positions in society.  May enough of them have the courage to act impeccably and with added passion as the energies of 2012 gain momentum.

Finally, think about this:  During the next 235 days millions of babies will be born with Mars in Virgo.  Millions of them.  That’s a wowie to think about.  They will be turning 21 years in 2032.  May they all be blessed with the will to survive and work hard for a new world that is yet to be revealed, for they may very well be ‘the meek who inherit the Earth.’    Let this be a bountiful, heavenly Earth!