Mars Opposite Pluto: A Terrible Love of War

Transcript:

0:01
Hi everyone this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology and today we are going to take a look at Mars upcoming opposition with Pluto, which is happening over this weekend. Before I do that we have just about a week left before my new class starts ancient astrology for the modern mystic you guys know I've been in promotion mode for about a month now and I'm gonna pop it up on the screen in case you haven't heard about it yet you probably have if you watch my channel regularly, check it out at nightlight astrology.com go to the courses page click on the first year course you can scroll down and learn everything about the programme that you need to know. It's about 30 courses on the year about 100 hours worth of content we have an additional 12 guest lectures that come in. It is a very thorough and very well organised well structured course in ancient Hellenistic astrology. And throughout the year you can participate live and the webinars that I lead every week. Or you can participate remotely many people will watch the recordings because if timezone differences or maybe they have to work or something like that, so you can follow along live or remotely. We have breakout study sessions after our modules so that you can have tutoring help if you need if you need it. You can ask questions year round we have a discussion forum with staff there that are going to help you with all of your questions. So we try to provide as much you know personalised tension as we can. There's also a lot of bonus material homework, optional quizzes, reading assignments. It's a great programme towards the end of the class. After we've studied the history, philosophy, all of the techniques and practices of ancient astrologers that we after that we go into having live clients come into the classroom. And when they come in, I read for them and then we sit and break down the sessions together talk about them, you can ask all your questions and I explained how and why I structured the reading in the way that I did. That's generally the best part about the programme. People love that section of the programme. So that's definitely a highlight of the course. If you end up liking this course, you can jump into my year to programme where we continue and start unpacking some of the more complex forecasting and prediction methods. I also have a horary class starts in June if you like horary astrology should be doing a demo on horary tomorrow or maybe Monday. So yeah, lots of good stuff. You have just a few days left to save with the earlybird rate if you pay in full before the start of class, you can save $500 off, there's a payment plan. There's also tuition assistance for those who are in need. So I hope to see some of you there if you have any questions feel free to email info at nightlight astrology.com.

2:40
Alright, so today we are going to take a look at Mars opposite Pluto. And there's a lot to say about this transit. It's a big one. It's one of the biggest transits of the month, if not the year. And you know, it's gonna affect everybody a little bit differently. So we're going to try to cover all of our bases today. And just really get into the archetypal dimensions of Mars and Pluto. So here you can see Mars in the sign of Cancer is currently moving through the opposition with Pluto in Capricorn. Now that is something that will play out. Let's see here, if I go just a couple of days, we're gonna see it move through that 26 degree on Saturday, June 5, and through Sunday, June 6. So the fifth and the sixth are sort of the target dates, but you can feel it right now you should have been able to feel it this week already. And you'll be feeling it really all the way until the new moon, which is on June 10. That's a solar eclipse. So this Mars opposite Pluto comes in between eclipses, which makes it pretty potent in that regard as well. Alright, so that's that's the gist of it. Mars will then enter Leo remember Mars is in its fall in cancer. Right now, we've talked a lot about the difficulties of moon Mars combinations, as well as some of the virtues of that placement. But what we're gonna do today is further unpack this Mars, Pluto dynamic. And I'm going to talk a little bit about these by first reading a few entries from one of my favourite books, Cosmos and Psyche. You can see it right here. It's by Richard Tarnas. It is one of my most well loved well used books, fantastic book, kind of a modern archetypal psychology, approach to astrology. Really fantastic. I'm going to also be taking us into a little bit of James Hillman today. I don't know if you guys know Hilman or not, but he was a student of Carl Jung, and a very famous archetypal psychologist. Here's what Tarnas writes in his entry about Mars:

4:45
"The principle of energetic force, the impulse and capacity to assert to act and move energetically and forcefully. To have an impact, to press forward and against to defend and offend to act with sharpness and ardour, the tendency to experience aggressiveness, anger, conflict, harm, violence, forceful physical energy, to be combative, competitive, courageous, vigorous, Ares, the god of war."

5:14
So that is a you know really good concise, it's just packed he has a he has a way of being able to pack information about planets together. You know, it's really unforgettable the way that he describes the planets and it's has influenced my own use of astrological language really. So let's talk about Pluto. This is his summary of Pluto in Cosmos and Psyche.

5:40
"Pluto is associated with the principle of elemental power, depth and intensity with that which compels, empowers and intensifies whatever it touches, sometimes to overwhelming and catastrophic extremes with the primordial instincts libidinal and aggressive, destructive and regenerative, volcanic and cathartic eliminative transformative, ever evolving the biological processes of birth, sex and death, the cycle of death and rebirth with upheaval breakdown, decay and fertilisation, violent purgatorial discharge of pent up energies, purifying fire, situations of life and death extremes power struggles all that is Titanic potent and massive. Pluto represents the underworld and underground in all senses elemental geological, instinctual, political, social, sexual, urban, criminal, mythological and demonic. It is the dark, mysterious, taboo and often terrifying reality that lurks beneath the surface of things beneath the ego, societal conventions and the veneer of civilization beneath the surface of the earth that is periodically unleashed with destructive and transformative force. Pluto impels burns consumes transfigures resurrects in mythic and religious terms it is associated with all myths of descent and transformation, and with all deities of destruction and regeneration, death and rebirth Dionysus Hades and Persephone, Pan, Medusa, Lilith, Innana Isis and Osiris the volcano goddess Pele, the serpent power Kundalini Shiva, Kali Shakti."

7:25
So I think what I liked most about those descriptions is when you just juxtapose them kind of set them side by side, and really hear how they sound together. If you if you don't feel, you know, you should feel in your body, that combination of Mars and Pluto after taking it in and listening to it right now. And that is one of the main lessons that I've learned about astrology over the years is to just repeat, repeat, repeat the basic archetypal qualities of the planets. So here are some of my own qualities that I wrote down to talk about, as I contemplate. I mean, generally, the way that I organise my talks for the day is, I will often revisit some of my favourite descriptions of the planets, and then sit with them and sort of, you know, doodle out some notes, in terms of what I'm feeling what I'm noticing, and also, you know, just imaginative, associating, you know, just free associating of the archetypes. And this kind of exercise by the way, if you do it at home, really great for learning astrology, when you know, an aspect is coming. Make it a part of your meditation for the week, literally take 5-10 minutes before bed and journal about, you know, what your experiences were during the day, you don't necessarily need to link them to the planets. But if you just write them down, and then revisit them and have kind of like at the top of the page, which aspects are perfecting during the week, you're gonna start noticing things. So anyway, just a side note.

9:01
So, one of the other texts I don't have in front of me at the moment, but I really love is the Archetypal Universe by Renn Butler. It's easily one of my most used desk references, and a fantastic, really fantastic account of the archetypal combinations of planets. One of the things that he writes is "determined efforts toward renewal and regeneration." So if you think of Mars as willpower and you think of Pluto as that destructive but regenerative quality, then you're often talking about a combination that leads to this willing or forcing or pushing or this determined action toward rebirth. You're trying to pick yourself up off the ground, you're an underdog you're feeling behind, you're feeling exhausted, you're feeling tired, but the heroic Mars needs to be reborn somehow. It's like, you know, I guess you could say it's it would be like an athlete who are or a team that's that's down and counted out and they muster the strength to come from behind to be reborn and to revitalise. It's when someone has to work really hard after an injury, in order to come back from, you know, like a torn Achilles or something like that. It's the, it's the will to regenerate after hardship. Mars, Pluto can also be a combination that will do anything at all costs, to break to have some kind of breakthrough or to get what it desires. And that can lead to straining, tearing, harming, overpowering, kind of like a ruthlessness. So you have to be very careful of the Mars Pluto drive because it is a resurrecting drive that in one sense is very positive and powerful, especially with Mars in its fall right now, but just about to leave its fall, the feeling of pushing through difficulties and recovering from some kind of period of hardship, but reaching a finish line that's been really hard to get to. That's a positive, right, but if you push too hard, you could strain or break something right now a relationship, you can harm yourself by pushing too hard. You know, I'm having to be careful with that in terms of like moving we've got just a lot of stuff to move around. And I just yesterday, I caught myself I almost fell almost fell down a few stairs, because I was carrying something and was just, you know, it's just in that mode where you just get to that point. When you're moving. And you feel like you've been moving all day, and there's just you're just like, you get into Hulk mode. And then it's like, I'm going to break a toe. Like that's what happens next. So, you know be careful of that overexertion right now, I think that's something that could it could hit pretty hard over the over the weekend.

12:30
But there's also the idea of passion and dynamism. So you know, there's nothing wrong with suddenly feeling like there's blood and muscle and strength and courage just coursing through you and the need to act in a very strong way. With Mars in Cance, sometimes it will be a very instinctual or emotional way the need to act or speak out from the emotional body or from a very vulnerable place. You also have to be careful about people who may trample on or harm those who are more vulnerable. For example, Mars Pluto is associated with rape because it's so forceful, and sort of primal and ruthless. But Mars Pluto is could also be associated with breaking and entering into a home because of Mars being in Cancer. Or and I'm not trying to scare everyone, but just just you know, it's like, I saw a meme yesterday. Actually, that was very Mars Pluto. I don't remember where I saw it. But it showed a bear, it wasn't a big bear up it is a bear trying to crawl over. And I think kill or take some puppies that were running around. And this mama dog was like, you know, jumping and trying to get it away. And then this woman came tearing out of a house and literally just ran up to the bear and pushed it off the balcony ledge that it was climbing up. And the whole post I think someone might have even mentioned Mars in Cancer. I don't remember. But defensiveness, protectiveness you know, the mother bear instinct, the primordial defence against the weak or the vulnerable or the protecting the nest, those kinds of things come to mind.

14:23
Also, you know, death and rebirth regeneration can come and in the family there can be almost like little nuclear bombs that go off in the family, family karma. You think about, you know, kind of really going in deep into something and pushing through. You can also think about some very regenerating or emotional breakthrough is related to sex or intimacy. It's not just you know, the potential for violence ruthlessness or even rape, which can especially with Mars and cancer can happen towards like women children, the more vulnerable but this is also about the emotional break through insects or intimacy that can come an escalating or pent up energy that's boiling, the lids on and it's just you know it's just shaking the tea pot the tea kettle is screaming you know and there's something that needs to burst. So even like honestly like even people having like an infection that needs to be lanced, you know and drained. I know that's really gross, but that's very Mars Pluto. If you are really forceful or aggressive with people trying to get things done, it'll often backfire. So you have to be careful of that. There was a good quote that Renn Butler had, he said, "blood and thunder," and I thought that was a good one for Mars, Pluto. And also, just in general, the idea of catharsis, that's very intense.

16:16
Now, how does this show up in the collective? Well, in the collective, you're going to see these themes make, you know, in the headlines, somehow, probably over the next three to four days, there will be at least one major event that will unfortunately look just like the transit. And there already have been some, for example, there was a mass grave, I believe, discovered recently of indigenous school children or something like that. I don't, I don't remember the details. I just someone mentioned it to me, as a heads up this looks like Mars, Pluto. There it is. There's this atrocity toward children toward the weak toward the innocent. Remember, again, it was several years ago that Mars was opposing Pluto in cancer and the whole Jeffrey Epstein scandal really exploded in the news. And that was with children again. So these are some of the things that are the darkest side of it right now. But one of the things that I love about Mars Pluto is that there's just emotional breakthroughs with Mars and cancer, that places that need like like pent up emotions that need to be released, can be released, let's just make sure we don't harm ourselves or others in the process. Let's just make sure it's not too forceful and reckless. I mean, Mars, Pluto can be like that obnoxiously, alpha male type of personality. And I'm not talking about just men, it can appear in anyone, anyone can act like that. You know, dominant, hungry, muscular, you know, domineering type. So you do have to be careful of that one. Also, anything that you're mean, it could be very mundane, the things that you're trying to get done in your life right now. And the feeling of some kind of breakthrough because you finally achieved something that you've been working on. So those are all things to consider. I want to read you a few things about, you know, most of the time, I feel like it's good to know what's coming. It's good to know what kind of karmic weather is in the air just because it's helpful. It's helpful for us to stay centred and to have healthy, participatory conscious relationships with the gods. Daily cosmic health, that's what astrology is helping us to do, right? If we're living our best lives, we're practising spiritually we're eating right, we're sleeping, okay. We're just doing our we're doing our best, you know, whatever that looks like, but we're trying to do our best. This astrological weather just helps us to recognise what's going on.

18:44
And when we do, we tend to make healthier choices. We tend to live in alignment with the flow of the universe, and we tend to understand and see the hand of the Divine guiding us we know what lessons we're supposed to be learning. We listened to our conscience a little bit more. That's why we do this. And we also learn it and study it so we can help other people with it. But why? Some people? I mean, it gets pretty existential doesn't it to sit and consider war? to sit and consider Mars Pluto? Like, why does it exist? And I think that we have a lot of, there's a, understandably, there's an impulse to try to explain, rationalise, solve, or resolve the existence of, especially Mars and Pluto because they're so destructive because there's such heavy archetypes to sit with. One of my favourite books of all time that taught me a lot, still teaches me a lot about how to carry these archetypes as does the study of bhakti yoga. This book is called A Terrible Love of War by James Hillman. You can see it right there.

19:00
And it is really about the archetypal study of Venus and Mars. The two gods that are elicit lovers. They're always together even though they shouldn't be. Venus, the goddess of beauty, love, harmony, friendship, peace, agreeableness, sensuality, comfort, all pleasant things. Mars, the god of war, strife, the God of conflict of violence. Let's read a few things. "Officially memory is short, the evidence of atrocities desiccated and institutional archives. Yet wars in humanity does not fade with time it lingers haunts can the dead be fully buried? Anthony Lloyd, a journalist wrote, 'was trying to sleep swinging in and out of half consciousness. Eventually I must have drifted off. The dead child arrived in my room without warning standing listlessly at the end of my bed, chopping me out of sleep with a single blow. He was silent and I started upright. He stared into my eyes with an unwavering gaze that seemed like an accusation. Two small severed heads lay on the blood covered table behind him.' Severed heads on stockade poles on tree stumps, scalps, skulls delivered by the sackful the cartload by victorious troops, their chief. Kali with her necklace of heads dancing on the funeral pier. Golgotha place of skulls, the severed head is memento mori warning of war can do does do. Long after the deeds are done the gazing heads generate memories and replications visiting similar sins upon unborn generations, much as the Bible says, dreams bring back the dead and the unconscious nothing changes, said Freud, the souls and Hades are doomed to repetition."

21:49
This is interesting. One of the reasons I like this passage so much is because death plays a very important role in memory. One of the reasons that we remember things over and over on an instinctual biological level, you know, even you know, evolutionary biologists and so forth would tell us this, we remember, because we have to remember in order to survive, we have to remember what harmed us what could have harmed us. So memory and trauma go together, there is a way in which memory and trauma, they haunt us. Trauma haunts us and plays a role in our memory, so that we might make appropriate choices. But we live in a very tentative world, we think will live forever. But it's very tentative. There's a quote from a book I was reading earlier this morning. In the Bhakti tradition, it's called The Science of Self Realisation. And one of the it was an interview that was being done and someone said, what is the most amazing thing about human beings? That they and the answer was well, that they walk around every day, acting as though they'll live forever, completely unaware of the fact that, you know, death is around any corner. Death could happen literally at any point in time. So remembering death, life is so closely tied to the memory of trauma and death, to live Vitaliy to live fully to live deeply to live intensely.

23:38
I remember when I was a kid, I loved the movie Dead Poets Society. You guys probably have seen that movie before. You know, Carpe Diem, seize the day, but seize, why is that so compelling, you know, to seize to be seized. And this is what the gods do to us, they seize us, they're called grabbers or graspers, they seize. And we live out the archetypal powers of the gods in our lives, all the time. So why do we study astrology, because we're seized by these powers constantly. And it's much better to be in some kind of conscious relationship with that which is seizing us. So we have memory of what it feels like to be seized of what kind of seizures of you know, cosmic ecstasy exist. So we have to remember these things. And they haunt us because the things that sees us are often you know, very Dionysian, they tear us apart, but they also bring us very close to the very life giving power of existence. Of course, these are divine powers. So I like this even though it's a dark quote; "severed heads on stockade poles on tree stumps scalp skulls delivered by the sackful the cartload by victorious true to their chief Kali with a necklace of heads dancing on the funeral pier Golgotha place of skulls the severed head is memento mori warning of what war can can do does do. Long after the deeds are done the gazing heads generate memories and replications visiting similar sins upon unborn generations, much as the Bible said, dreams bring back the dead in the unconscious, nothing changes, said Freud, the souls and Hades are doomed to repetition." Now obviously he's being poetic. But he, you know, we're talking about the life of the soul, the soul is immortal, eternal being according to ancient astrologers.

25:40
So, how do we not fall asleep in this garden thinking that we'll live forever in a body that will die, we have to have, we need to seize the moment of this very fleeting and temporary life and the moments are passing. So memory and trauma, memory and death, they're very important, they have to stay very close to the soul. This is why you know, many people when they first hear about Buddhists, Yogis contemplative mystics of all different kinds of traditions, even pagan traditions, of course, they'll say, God, it seems kind of dark, seems kind of heavy. And it's like no, actually, it's about living, you know, with a conscious awareness of death and its power. And living closely to it, because when you live closely to it, it puts you right in touch with what is also life giving there. They're so closely linked, they're separated sometimes just by the thinnest of margins. Let's read a little bit more.

26:50
This is one of my favourite pieces. In his book, he says, "Since war's autonomy generates its own momentum, war has no cause other than itself. Is war something which really does have a life of its own asks Barbara Ehrenreich. Wars in humanity tells wars truth, its origins lie outside the human sphere beyond human control. We've been misled, she argues, pinning war on two persons, politics, economics, gender, it is the autonomy of war as an institution that we have to confront and explain. Her explanation is remarkably imaginative. She conceives war on the model of a living organism, a self replicating pattern of behaviour possessed of a dynamism not unlike that of a living thing. Suddenly, war emerges as a fictive figure, a robotic Gollum, a brutal, quote, a brutal giant stalking his human prey, as in these lines from Thomas Sackville and quoted by Michael Walzer, lastly stood war in glittering arms he clad with visage grim stern looks and blackly hewed in his right hand and naked sword he had that to the hilts was all with blood in brood, and in his left that kings and kingdoms rude, famine and fire he held and there with all he raised towns and threw down towers and all, we are entering the territory of myth and approaching the war god himself. Ehrenreich hesitates at that threshold."

28:27
And he goes on to talk a little bit more about it. But it's really important because there's this really interesting way of understanding war that ancient people had, you see it very similarly, in the Puranas in bhakti, where the the lila of God, the divine play of God, and creation, has to be understood in all phases, and facets. And that's why there's all of these demigods that are like different faces of the Divine, different autonomous powers of the Divine. And more is one of them. We like to say, we can perceive in war, so many different causes. So many different things to pin it on or to blame it on. And it's not that that's wrong or bad. But if we lose touch of the fact that war is an autonomous force, in, in nature, in Divine reality, in the divine play of reality, then we can't ever have the right relationship to that God or to that archetype. If we don't allow it to be an autonomous function in the human psyche if we don't allow it to have its own existence in the play of life itself. So I love this book because Hillman is not saying look, war just exists. You can't do anything about it just sit on your hands. It's much like the Bhagavad Gita and other classic Gita Bhakti text where, you know, Arjuna finds himself on a battleground. And Krishna says, yoga doesn't happen by, you know, pretending that these are just, you know, fleeting shadows on the cave wall that you can do nothing about. So just go off to a cave and meditate on higher truth. Somehow yoga happens in in through the actual encounters of life, including those on the battlefield. And so it's very important that Krishna explains to Arjuna that this is destiny. What does destiny mean? It means that this is something that has its own autonomous reality. It's not a contingency. It's the real thing. So, I love this, you know, drawing down the gods into this discussion of war helps account for why wars are mythical, not coherent despite all their hyper rationality not logical for all their reductions to structural opposition's not human for all the analyses of their causes, and human drives and errors. As Tolstoy said, none of these causes account for war. Over and above is some unnamed force not unlike that of living beings.

31:28
We call that in ancient astrology a god. Here's another one. "Mars and Venus are always in the bed of the image, even when the tale says they fly off and away from each other. They remain an inseparable, archetypal conjunction where Mars is Venus will be loving beauty, seduction, glamour and pleasure, intimacy and softness shall accompany Mars wherever he goes. These camp followers belong to his battle train, the world of wars, horror, and fear is also a world of desire and attraction. We have come to another place for understanding our subject as again, most baffled, wars beautiful horror. It's terrible love, an exhilarating fusion we call sublime." Don't get it twisted, as the kids say, you know, this is not a glorification of war. It's a recognition of its divine nature, of its archetypal autonomy, not that it is only happening if we do such and such things that are wrong. So, in Krishna lila, which is to say the past times of God, as they're described in the Bhagavat Purana. Even in the spiritual world, where let's just say archetypal tensions are resolved in love, there's a kind of perfection in this, you know, in the, in the sense of, you know, the enlightened spiritual dimension of life. These pastimes still go on, they're like a divine sport. And they're, but they are experienced differently from the standpoint of a soul who is awaken to the nature of immortality, just why Krishna says in the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita, You're mourning for that which is not worthy of your grief for all of these people on the battlefield, including you and me, you know, we've lived many lives before I can remember all of them, you can't. We're all eternal beings, nothing can harm us and we'll all live many more lives to come.

33:37
How do we change our relationship with Mars? When we start to perceive ourselves in life from that standpoint, that's the question I'm meditating on. I like to think of this, this is something that I say to myself pretty regularly. Especially when I am going to war and losing track of that eternal perspective. It's not bad to be compelled by action forced Mars, Pluto stuff is not bad. But if I lose that eternal perspective, that's when something goes wrong. It always goes wrong at that point. So always remember this that my most passionate convicted ideas that I feel most strongly about that I feel like pushing or fighting for that they are still followed by my humanity and in these are the simple things that I keep into consideration. You know, if I get into a Facebook fight with someone, which I don't anymore, I'm not on Facebook, thankfully. But let's say I get into some kind of heated debate or I get in an argument with my wife or I feel short with my kids or let's say that I'm being hard on myself or I'm impatient, or I'm feeling like I want to, you know, ram something through that which needs more patience or if I'm feeling high on the muscular strength of my own ideas, the force of my own convictions, my righteousness, whatever, I have to remember these things, there's a good chance on any given night of the week after feeling so strongly about something that I will have trouble sleeping, that I may experience indigestion at some point this week, that I could, any of my relationships could be troubled, that I could end up feeling like a failure, even after feeling so strong, intense, passionate, right about something. And that, someday I'm going to die. So I just remember that it can help you to be forgiving of other people to, like, even I don't want to encourage people to walk around judging people, but like, you know, if you run into someone, and they're like, you know, just on the warpath about something, or there's so you know, over the top, you know, they're just in battle mode, they're, they're on a horse about something, you can be like, yeah, they'll probably have trouble sleeping tonight, the you know, they, they probably get less sleep than they need, you know, they probably look in the mirror and fiddle around with things on their face. You know, and, um, there's probably, you know, wrinkle or stretch marks somewhere on their body, and they could very well have trouble processing broccoli, if they eat it. I'm not kidding. If you do simple, like, even like Buddhists will tell you there's many meditations that are actually very helpful like this not not to diminish other people's beauty or relevance or divinity. It's just like, it can help to not take yourself so seriously, if you just remember, like, I'm a sack of skin and bones, you know, and whatever my ideas are, like, there's a good chance that I'll like sleep weird on my hip tonight.

36:59
So, anyway, how do you guys keep yourself honest, I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear about your Mars Pluto experiences over the next three or four days, if you see a relevant story in the news, leave a comment on this post so we can all learn from it. Again, just to plug my upcoming course, the new course starts on the 13th if there's any reason to study astrology, specifically, it's because if you're if you're in touch with these archetypes and they become autonomous forces, a you get to develop an actual relationship with them. And, you know, be you have a skill set for the rest of your life that you know, a lot of people don't have when I when I walk around the world. One of the things that helps me to have a lot of compassion for human beings in myself is recognising how much we are lived by these archetypal forces and powers and that they're autonomous. There's no cause for them. We don't we don't have to always go seeking for how we got things wrong. It's it's that would be like saying, Well, you know, how did this gigantic wave sweep me along? How did I get things so wrong? Well, it's bigger than you dude. You know, and astrology helps us with that. And it helps us to help other people with that and God does it feel good to take that pressure off. So come study some astrology if you're into it. The class starts on the 13th check it on my website, nightlight astrology.com. I hope you guys are having a good week. We'll have one more video tomorrow before the end of the week and should be a little bit more on we're gonna do some chart work and a few other things. Okay, that's what I've got. Take it easy, everyone. Bye.