Mars in Gemini Square Neptune in Pisces

Transcript:

0:00
Hi everyone this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology. Happy Friday everybody. Today we're going to take a look at Mars square to Neptune which is perfecting today on April 9. Before I dive in, I want to remind you all that my new class ancient astrology for the modern mystic is now open for enrollment. The early bird rate is in effect you can check that out on my website nightlight astrology .com. If you're interested in taking a deep dive into Hellenistic astrology studying in a really nice structured environment for a whole year. There's 30 classes on the year that I teach. They're all about three hours each. In addition to that, you have 12 guest speakers you have classroom forum, you have optional breakout study sessions that some of my staff lead. You have email access to me year round bonus material, that's optional, homework that's optional quizzes that are optional tonnes of stuff to help you really develop a practice if that's what you're interested in, whether it's for yourself or you want to practice for others. It's a great programme. I feel like it's something that I've been making and remaking for the bulk of my career as a professional astrologer I put my whole heart and soul into it. So if you're interested in going a lot deeper, check it out. If you have any questions, feel free to email us info@nightlight astrology.com. Alright, so that being said, let's put the real time clock up and take a look at Mars squaring Neptune.

1:18
So here's the square between Mars and Neptune it's been building all of this week perfecting today, and you will still be feeling it for the next couple of days as Mars passes over the square to Neptune. So you can watch for that for the next three or four days to be in effect as well. Alright, so what does it mean? Well, here you've got the, the martial God, the God of War conflict, a God that is associated with fighting for causes, like a mission or a crusade, as well as Mars is related to martyrs. The word martyr, like the root of Mars, come from the same place and has the connotation of dying for something, dying for something that you believe in. So Mars Neptune is really interesting, because Neptune is this sort of subtle, timeless, imaginative, illusory archetype that is often associated with things that are intangible and sort of vast or sublime, ecstatic, but also imaginary, fantastical, imaginary in both good and bad ways. And as someone who likes the imaginal, I say that, and Neptune is also connected to intoxication, the desire to be disembodied, as in a state of drunkenness, or being high or blissed out. So Neptune's a very vast symbol of its own. And when you put them together, it's a really interesting combination. For one thing, Mars loves to fight Neptune loves to give some kind of intangible transcendental, cause or mission. So you'll find these kinds of holy crusades or a numinous sense of calling or purpose that's very muscular and strong and charismatic behind Mars, and Neptune dynamics. The archetype of the missionary who goes into a place where they might be killed, or the idea of someone who risks life and limb and sacrifices a lot for something that they believe in, whether it's a warrior, something political, something philosophical or spiritual, literally a martyr who will die for something bigger. Now, you can also have the kind of Don Quixote archetype where there's a tilting at windmills, you know, thinking that they're dragons or a sense of the masculine as almost like a delusional charade, where the masculine is taken in by some intoxicating potion, and even the ant thinks that it's Hercules, you know, so there's that kind of almost like delusional, masculine quality. There's often a tendency to speak in terms of we with Mars Neptune.

4:10
This is our cause. We're in this together a sense of the collective uniting of will or force. The the way in which political leaders get everyone together feeling angry about the same things. Those are Mars Neptune qualities, potentially. The ability to tap into the Zeitgeist and figure out what is the collective will what are the fights and what are the culture wars that are happening at any given point in history. Neptune Mars, people are sometimes particularly aware of those things. Sometimes you have the anti hero or the weakening or dying hero or the failure of the hero, Mars Neptune will sort of dissolve or weaken. Neptune will sort of dissolve or weaken Mars, but Mars may also tinge Neptune and make the hero very glamorous, and otherworldly and perhaps unreal or unobtainable. You will have this idea of Mars as very masculine and potent and sort of muscular but this kind of strength or masculinity could be subtle and almost magical. For example, think of the sex appeal of David Copperfield. I don't know if he's even still alive or doing magic. These incredible feats of magic, these tricks, these optical illusions, he would make boats sink in the Bermuda Triangle... all sorts of crazy stuff. There were always really beautiful women on stage with him and he was always very seductive and that Mars Neptune can be like the sorcerer or conjurer with a leopard bikini on or something.

5:53
Oh my god, what comes into my head? So yeah, you can think of you can think of Mars Neptune is kind of erotic or seductive but still potent or virile Mars. Very good at seduction Mars Neptune like the the the hunter who traps or the hunter who lures Mars Neptune. The failure to convert. Mars Neptune likes to convert things and people to the highest or to the ideal, but sometimes will fail or will have to deal with the frustration of some kind of psychological cosmic or evangelical impotency. The failure to convert martial arts, swimming, those are things that can be very Mars Neptune, like manipulation of the will sort of deceptive trickery, but also a little Machiavellian. Also annihilation, the desire that it's like a kamikaze pilot in World War Two, I think that's what they were called. The Japanese would intentionally kill themselves with their aeroplanes and crash dive in into these things. And I believe that there were there were like religious ceremonies, even where they might drink before they did it. Or I'm not, I'm not very educated on the topic. So maybe those of you who are could fill in the blanks historically, that's always struck me as a Mars Neptune archetype. So this idea of annihilating something or or you know, for the sake of some grand cause, like a terrorist bomber, for example.

7:27
You also have the complex way in which trauma, sinners and saints are all related to one another. You know, there's a funny way in which Mars Neptune can speak to both trauma, collective trauma, personal trauma, as well as the release from trauma that happens in a very, you know, physical way. But it can also speak to, like a tendency to feel victimised or to to feel persecuted, like almost like a hero with thin skin. So there's this kind of heroic quality but also this like an overly sensitive and intensely overly sensitive quality where a person ends up almost acting or behaving like a victim while also having this kind of heroic quality, they're constantly overcoming traumas, but then feeling victimised over and over. And I also equate this with almost like a spiritual, I mean, this in all respect, but almost like a spiritual form of bulimia, where, you know, and I have, you know, people in my family people that I close with, who have had bulimia in the past, so I'm not at all trying to play on this as or make a joke of this, but where people will almost like binge on things that they know, are not good for them. Maybe out of a feeling of feeling, maybe maybe out of feeling pent up or overly restricted and then they'll they'll like, binge on something, and then they'll go in the opposite direction, trying to like cleanse themselves really, really intensely. You know, or people who will do something trying to be carefree and then they feel like they're overwhelmed by the very thing they tried to do to loosen up and then they feel like a victim of it. It's this really like sensitive cycle that people can get into where they feel like saved and dammed or you know, needing to let loose and then feeling victimised by a situation that's overwhelming. And and also the desire to purge or cleanse oneself from something, and that this feeling of almost like there's a poison in me that I have to get out that I have to purge and and some of that can be related to almost like an underlying struggle with the will, feeling out of control versus feeling in control, feeling overwhelmed versus feeling like you have your hands on the steering wheel and it can be it's like trying to steer a boat on the high seas with Mars Neptune and trying to discover what control means. And in an environment that's much more fluid than other people might experience. Those are all the kinds of interesting things that can you can see happening with Mars Neptune placements. And you'd be amazed to see how many people in the martial arts and swimming and competitive swimming and stuff like that we'll have Mars Neptune as well.

10:20
Anyway, there was one thing that I wanted to focus on today, just on a on a little bit deeper spiritual note, which is this idea of failure because as someone who was born with Mars, Neptune in my life, and not really a super tight aspect, but I have a favourite book, my favourite book of all time is called Silence by Shūsaku Endō. And he's a Japanese novelist. And he wrote this book, which I just became obsessed with in my 20s, while I was living alone for most of my 20s, and just doing a lot of writing, because I was in I was in grad school for creative writing for a long time. And that's how I ended up writing my book. And I was drinking a lot of ayahuasca during that time, and but his book I read and read and read, I love that book. Martin Scorsese made a film based on it wasn't as good as the book is still pretty good, but it wasn't nearly as good as the book. But anyway, I won't give away everything. But I want to tell a few pieces. Actually, I kind of will. So spoiler alert, if you're going to watch that you probably want to skip over this piece. But there is, I'll try to mask it a little. Anyway, in that movie, it's about some missionaries, Catholic missionaries that go over to convert people in I think it's Japan. And obviously, there's a strong Buddhist presence when they get there. And there they are on their own, they no longer have the institution of the church behind them. So they have to learn how to, in a sense, carry the the institution within themselves. And what they find is that in many ways that they can't live up to the heroic proportions of their mission, they can't live up to the grandiosity of the mission to go and save all of these people. And as they realise that they there's this failure to to convert and that they don't have enough strength to do this, and that there's this this breakdown of their of their will. And as a result, what I will say is that their faith is deeply transformed in arguably a very positive way though, the author also leaves that open for people to have to work through because many people could say that they they lose their faith. But in other ways, it's very clear that their faith evolves in a very big way, specifically, because their mission has to fail. That's not giving anything away. I promise. You'll still love the book or movie if you read it.

12:56
But I really, really resonate with that, because every day, you know, I feel like we're always trying to convince people of things, this part of our Mars, like story, especially in this moment in history, think about how persuasive we're always trying to be with our I mean, when I look at myself anyway, this is what I see we post things often because we hope that we'll get likes. Isn't this interesting? Isn't this impressive? Isn't this likeable? We're always trying to persuade people to do things or feel things or think things. And oftentimes, we're aiming not backward at ourselves, you should do this, you should become that Come on, just do this or do that, or whatever. And how often, I mean, we're like, in that regard, we're sort of like beggars at the at the gates of some city that we imagine has all of the riches and everything that we could ever want, but we're always sitting on the outside like holding our, our bowls just being like, like me, or, you know, come on to my way of seeing things or, or, you know, there's always something that we need and we're trying to get we're hunting for we're trying to lure people into giving us something. And it's part of it's it's part I'm not trying to condemn that because it's part of the reality of this world. We have to make money we have to get food we have to you know, deal with a sex drive. There's there's so many things that are always presenting us with needs hungers, thirsts desires, and they're always just just begging for something for just a little something, you know, and I see this really vividly in my children. Like, it's amazing how, you know, I've heard lots of comedians joke about this. It's like really true that you know, your your kid basically believes that no, is just the beginning of negotiations. You know? You say no to your kid, like okay, but just how about this version? No, no, no, still no. Okay, well, that's cool. But how about this version? By the end you're like, Okay, look, this version is okay. But that version is not in there. Like thank you for doing business. Now. Give me my 1/3 Have a cookie. Right? And you're like, what the hell? Like how did that? How did that just happen?

15:04
Right? But you can see it so clearly in kids. It's so innocent, like it hasn't taken on so much of the baggage that comes, I don't know later in life, it's still just a sucker or it's still just, you know, can I watch some TV is still something that's pretty innocent. But as we grow, that hunger never really goes away. I'm realising that now with kids that that hunger is always there that like, no, you're, you're telling me No, you didn't give me a like on that video, or you didn't do this or that? Well, what about if I do it like this, or what about like this or what we're, we're always pressing like that. And what I love about Mars, Neptune transits is that there's an opportunity to fail to just kind of kind of realise that it's the end of the day, I've been holding out my ball all day. And my big effort to get something has failed, it hasn't gone the way that I thought it would go. And when you're left with your, your, your begging bowl empty, so to speak, and you can set down the begging bowl, it's only then you realise what is in your heart, what what kinds of riches are there in your heart, that they're the kind that they were there at the beginning of the day, when you started begging, and they're, they're there, at the end of the day, even if your pots empty, and you have to set it down and you got nothing. If we have any introspective vnus at all, we realised that in that emptiness, there's still something there. And if we start tapping into that, it's so rich, it's so rewarding. And so, you know, Mars, and Neptune often deliver an opportunity to taste the sweetness of failure to taste the sweetness of emptiness, or the the inability to convert, to convert my desire into a realised accomplishment. I think that's one of the most profound things that we can do is to actually develop a taste for that, because we're going to go on begging, right, we're going to go on asking and pleading and manipulating and trying to get and when you realise that there's no there's no end to that there's there's no hunger that can ever be quenched. There's a real freedom and a release that comes we can we can release the will and surrender and that's part of the Mars Neptune archetype is this idea that when you reach a place of utter surrender, we start to realise the actual function of the will, which is not to hunt for personal desire or gain, not to protect against things that might take something away from us that without without, which we think will be unhappy. But instead, we realise that the true use of our will, is in willingly laying down our own agenda. But it's the most beautiful expression of the will to take our sword and just lay it in the grass.

18:01
And to me, it's just amazing, what profound strength ironically or paradoxically, seems to rise up in us what, what riches, what treasure, what affirmation what, what potency starts to appear in the heart. And we realise that kind of potency, I can't hang on to, I never need to hunt for and I never need to defend or protect. It's a real thing. So that's to me. And that's such an interesting part of that book that I love so much, is that, that when the Buddha when the missionaries encounter Buddhism, and their ability to convert their their, their big plans, and their big missions and their failure to convert, is also meeting with Buddhism and the quality of emptiness that comes through in a sense. Their faith transforms, and it doesn't go away exactly, but it doesn't stay the same. And that book was pivotal for me at a time in my life where my own Christian faith was evolving. People asked me sometimes are you a Christian? And I say yes. And I just say, but I'm, I'm also, I'm also more than that. I'm not a part of any sect. I just love God. And I honour all of the forms, and prophets and teachers that God sends in so many different places.

19:28
Just think for a second about what it might be like in a totally different galaxy in a totally different planet, to encounter divine teachings. So they have so many forms, right, and they're so variegated. And I think that's the other thing that's worth mentioning about Mars is that Mars is often a planet that has like single pointed vision, like the tip of a spear. And Neptune tends to turn that into a trident like a multi pronged approach. And boy when our faith moves from spear mentality to trident mentality and maybe when the tridents also turn into flowers because we've put it down in the grass of our soul and some beautiful feelings of strength that can flow through. So anyway, least these are the things that I tell myself while pretending not to go insane while raising kids, so anyway, Happy Friday everybody. I hope that you guys have a great day today and a great weekend and that you enjoy this Mars Neptune energy. Please tell me your stories in the chat box below. What are you learning about Mars Neptune right now? How are you seeing it in your life if you were born with it with that in your natal chart, tell us a little bit about yourself. It'd be interesting to hear your story. Okay. Have a great weekend, everybody. Take it easy. Bye.