Mars in Virgo Opposite Neptune in Pisces: What I Love and What I Could Live Without

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we are going to preview Mars's upcoming opposition to Neptune. This is also taking place as Mercury is about to turn retrograde in the sign of Virgo, and the two transits are happening almost simultaneously.

We're going to take a separate video to look at Mercury's retrograde. In that video, we will revisit the context of Mars opposite Neptune happening at the same time that Mercury is turning retrograde, just in case people are wondering why I don't mention it today.

The purpose of today's video is to look at the Mars-Neptune combination in a little bit more of an archetypal vacuum. Let's turn that jewel and see what there is to see. One of the ways I like to approach talking about a planetary combination is through the things I love about the transit and the things that I hate or the things that I can live without. Sorry, those of you guys out there who knew the backstory of the protest against the word hate in the title of this particular style of talk will know why I'm cracking myself up.

Anyway, these are the things that I like and that I could live without, with respect to Mars opposite Neptune; by the way, it was born with Mars opposite Neptune. So this is a transit that is very familiar to me because, natally, it's a transit that was present when I was born. So anyway, I find this one really easy to talk about, although, you know, it's interesting at every new stage in season of life, the way that this appears in my life, psychologically, or you know, literally in the world around me and it never ceases to amaze me how different placements in our natal chart are from one period of life to the next. Anyway, we're going to spend the jewel of Mars Neptune today and see what we can see.

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Well, thank you so much for letting me plug or our little flash sale here; what I'd like to do now is pull up the real-time clock to show you the Mars-Neptune opposition that we're going to be looking at today. So here you can see, this is Wednesday, August 16, and there's Mars opposite Neptune. Mars, in opposition to Neptune, is perfecting very slowly, and let's see how it comes through. So you can see the actual opposition comes through Tuesday, August 22. So we're getting about a week out in front of this.

The next day Mercury stations, and we see the retrograde happen of Mercury. Of course, during all of this, we still have Venus retrograding, and Venus will be retrograding through a square with Jupiter at the same time too. So we're going to try to contextualize all of that together in a future video. But today, what we want to do is look at the fact that for the next week and a half to almost upwards of two weeks, we are going through a Mars-Neptune opposition. What do Mars-Neptune oppositions look like? Well, here are three things that I love about them and three things I could live without.

The three things that I love about Mars-Neptune oppositions are any Mars-Neptune contact could be a trine square. So we're just looking at the archetypal combination in general. These aren't in any order, but the number one thing on my list that about things that I love about Mars-Neptune combinations is the romance.

When we think about Mars, most people think like conflict, violence, war, hostility, and aggression. But we forget about the sort of sacred, masculine qualities, for example, desire and the pursuit of what we desire. Like if you're a young man or woman and you decide you want to pursue someone that you like, you get your Mars on. There's that sense of the hunt with Mars, and it doesn't have to be about killing.

Although see how the hunt immediately implies, like death and Carnage is very Mars word. But when you combine it with Neptune, a planet of romance and imagination of the subtle and timeless and immaterial of dreams, and a really sort of less Neptune is so lightly connected to this world.

You know, it really points us into the realm of heart and imagination. So when you have Mars tapping into that, you get the romantic conquest of Mars becomes amazing. I would say, for example, that growing up, one of them as a Mars-Neptune native, the movie that I loved the most and I don't remember when I first saw it; I think it was probably no I do because I actually looked at the transit one time. Oh, God, I can't remember what it was. But anyway, it was the Dead Poets Society.

What I loved about that was the daring and the sort of chivalrous and sort of knightly qualities of these young men who were daring to leave this boarding school during the night to go out into a cave and read poetry together. Which was like forbidden at the school. It was a kind of strict boarding school, and that's Mars-Neptune. Are you the person who seeks adventure, you know, who likes to travel, and you travel not to conquer something or to win something but to experience the sublime?

That's Mars-Neptune. Mars-Neptune is, I would say, in my chart what definitely connected to my desire to go to India and, you know, dance in the streets with the Bhaktas or to go to Peru when I was really young during a Pluto going over my Mars Neptune and drink Ayahuasca.

There's this sense that life is meant to be a romantic adventure, and so Mars-Neptune, the best and brightest things that Mars-Neptune offers us is the romance the what, let's call it the romantic conquest, the theme of romantic adventure of a life lived with romantic daring, it's very Carpe Diem, Mars Neptune. That's one of the things I love the most about it, and we've got this in the air now for about almost two weeks, really, if you count the separation period too.

The crusade. Now this is a little different. This has to do with almost like I always compare Mars-Neptune to Joan of Arc, where there's a Sacred War, a holy war, it could be political or ideological or religious, and there's a real shadow to this obviously in terms of things like genocide or colonialism, or you know, wherever someone says, I saw God tell me that I needed to go and conquer these people to you know, and like bring them God or something that's like, well that could be Mars-Neptune.

The evangelical quality of converting or convincing or persuading or, you know, the leaders of charismatic movements often Mars-Neptune. I enjoyed writing as a Mars-Neptune native for Reality Sandwich magazine when it first came out, and one of the things that we all wrote about with great zeal was the coming of the 2012 Mayan Calendar end date, and we talked a lot about a shift in consciousness, and it was a very like, almost like an evangelical movement that was closely wrapped into my early experiences with Ayahuasca as well.

The book that I wrote was called Fishers of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest, and it was very much about a kind of spiritual; there's the adventure of it all. But there's a sort of spiritual crusading. This is there's a change in consciousness, there's a healing, and almost like there's a sacred or holy war that we're fighting in our psyches with the powers of unconsciousness or darkness or greed or materialism, and it's light versus dark. These can be very Mars-Neptune themes.

Now the reason I'm listing this in terms of things I love because, as you can tell, it's a little dicey, is that I would say that I don't think I would be here doing astrology if it weren't for the Mars Neptune signature in my chart. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like I think that everyone has to have one in order to do astrology. I just think that that was my archetypal entry point.

It was this, like getting bit by the astrological bug. Speaking of bites, I have a big mosquito bite right there. Getting bit by the astrological bug and feeling this. Almost like a very much like I'm on a mission to make astrology something that's accessible and interesting, and also, it's always been a goal of mine to make it economically feasible for people of all different income levels.

I just think there's something about living a life with a charismatic sense of mission that is very romantic, and it's one of the most magical features of life when you find something that you could live for, that when you find something like Mars actually that you might even die for. Now, that's a little extreme, but Mars-Neptune provides us with a sense that there is a sacred mission and it's an adventure. It doesn't have to be something that you fight for, but it's close to it. It's something that you sacrifice for that you burn with a passion that you have. Passion means to suffer alongside. There's something of a passion in Mars-Neptune that makes life really, really interesting, and I think it's one of the great archetypal features of this combination of the shadows aside.

Number three is the overcoming of weakness, fears, and doubts. So one of the things that is, I would say, most uplifting about this transit is the fact that Mars-Neptune will often put us through, you know, kind of, we go through the wringer, and we come out the other side, having overcome a sense of ineptitude or weakness, having overcome a sense of fear or inadequacy, having overcome a sense of cosmic or existential doubt and then you come out the other side, and you feel victorious, and you feel like something higher or greater carried you to victory morally or spiritually or intellectually, you feel like you've wrestled with something felt like you were being overcome felt like you were being torn apart. But somehow, you came out the other side lifted up.

So there's, there's almost like this kind of, I always think of Mars-Neptune is like the protection of the ark, angels, you know, like, Michael, or, you know, Gabriel and stuff like that this idea of there being higher forces that have helped you overcome a struggle and miraculously, you are now more faithful, hopeful, optimistic, buoyant, you're stronger but more humble. These are things that Mars-Neptune, it's like a sacred warrior thing that you get to experience. I've overcome something. But often, it's moral, or it's spiritual, it's psychological, or it's a physical ailment even that you overcome. So those are the things I love.

Well, there are three things about Mars Neptune that I could live without, and number one on my list. Again, no particular order, but the first one on my list is the failures. Mars Neptune is really good at humbling us where there is some kind of heroic pride. I'm so strong; I'm so wonderful; I'm so successful. I'm a big shot. Mars-Neptune comes along and says, no, no, you're not. Not right now, anyway.

There's some humbling that has to happen in this feeling of ineptitude and failure and weakness that comes in with Mars-Neptune sometimes comes in to humble, and I mean, I can't say it's a bad thing that happens, but it's not an enjoyable feature of Mars, Neptune the way that you'll be, you'll be frustrated. Your will will be overcome by forces larger than yourself. You'll be overwhelmed, and you can't go on; somehow, you've been blocked.

So the failures. Now again, there can be sometimes it's like a roller coaster ride, you're failing, and then you're Overcoming, you know, and, but a lot of I think that the failures usually come as a matter of being humbled and that's not easy to live with. I'll tell you a story.

When I was in college, I had a Saturn transit that was hitting Mars and Neptune in my chart, and what I would say is that I was on a high horse, and I didn't know that I was. I was on a bit of a high horse intellectually and spiritually since I was at it was going to a Christian school and was, you know, in an eat sort of evangelical space in my life with Christianity at the time, and I broke my arm playing a pickup game of football, and it was as Saturn was activating the Mars Neptune contact in my chart.

Never forget it; it's quite humbling, quite humbling. Paralyzed my hand, the radial nerve, in my arm after a broken humerus; you can see the scar on my arm right there. It broke in half as a compound fracture, and, you know, had to have a plate put in, and my radial nerve had been stretched. So I had no ability to lift my wrist. I lost the function on my wrist for about six months before it came back; it tightened up again, and then the nerve came back, and I was able to move my hand again, but, like, almost paralyzed my hand.

Mars-Neptune doesn't mess around. It was very humbling and set me on a path of inquiry philosophically that took me outside the realm of the traditional Christian faith, the evangelical kind of movement that I was a part of. So you never know. Don't mess around with it. Right.

So number two is the feeling of phoniness. Mars-Neptune has an interesting and interesting way. It's like the magician archetype, and you have the magician say in the tarot versus a magician who does tricks, and I think that there's something about Mars-Neptune that wants to be strong and flat.

Mars-Neptune, for example, is classically; you can have, like Mars, Neptune transits in the sky will sometimes correspond with scandals in major league sports with doping or steroids because there's some. Is that real? Was that? Or was there a performance-enhancing drug that was being used? Same thing, is it magic? Is it sorcery? Or is it like a cheap, you know, like a parlor trick or something like that.

So one thing that can happen during Mars-Neptune is something that is being shown to you as strong and sexy and confident and wonderful. Sometimes it is, you know, it's fake. There's a degree of, like, charlatanism. I would say that almost every single time that I've ever had a transit to my natal Mars-Neptune, there have been opportunities for me to get more honest with myself. In some cases, when I was younger, for example, when I was really young, this is like when I was a teenager.

So just we all still it's very clear. This was a long time ago for me. When I was a teenager, I had a transit that activated Mars-Neptune in my chart, and I went through a period of thievery. Very petty stuff, like candy, or you know what I mean? For stuff, before we go to movies, we go to Ben Franklin; I think it was that's what it was called as a drugstore. They had candy, and we would like stuff it in our pants, or we'd steal a CD from Walmart.

But then I got caught, and I had to have this like a reckoning, and I'll never forget the parole officer who, like my dad, took me to a parole officer. I didn't have to go to one. He took me to one so that, you know, I'd get nice and scared, and the parole officer was a member of our church, and then the parole officer sat me down and was like, You got everyone sold on being the good preacher's kid, you know, and he like, he scared the crap out of me. I was so scared. But it helped me pull my shit together and stop doing that, you know, so there's an encounter with what's real and what's fake. What is, you know, and trying to sell something as strong or viable or attractive when you know, maybe it's not real, so dealing with phoniness fakery?

Number three would be the self-sabotage look more Neptune to Mars transits that I could possibly count in my career at this point where someone starts drinking, and it's, it's what I mean by they start drinking is they start. They launch into some kind of codependent addictive behavior; they start doing drugs, you know, they start doing things to sabotage themselves. It's as if there is a drive toward oblivion with Mars opposite Neptune, and sometimes it just captures people and takes them in the wrong direction.

It's self-harm trans transit; it's a very classic one associated with taking one's own life. Not that I have any judgments about people who take their own lives. I think that's a vast topic. But Mars-Neptune is a signature that corresponds with it.

So those are some of the ones to watch for self-sabotage, the feeling or encounter with phoniness within yourself or within someone else. The failures that you go through and the feeling of being humbled when you're on a high horse get knocked off a little bit. Anyway, I hope that this was useful for you guys to consider. So these are some of the things that I love most about Mars-Neptune and some of the things that are hardest, so yeah, put that in your book. Anyway, um, we'll see you again tomorrow. Bye.