Mercury Opposing Mars Retrograde in Cancer: A Heated Conversation

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology (https://nightlightastrology.com/). Today we are going to take a look at Mercury's upcoming opposition to Mars Retrograde in Cancer. This means, of course, that Mercury is in the sign of Capricorn making this opposition. So we're going to look at this from the standpoint of five things to watch for. This is an archetypal breakdown of a Mercury-Mars opposition that hopefully will help us identify, work with, and stay conscious of the transit as it comes through tomorrow. I'll do some horoscopes on the exact same opposition.

 

Remember, this is kind of an echo of last week's Sun-Mars opposition. So, we're kind of reiterating that same opposition that we had last week. That is our goal for today. Remember to like and subscribe. We did some research and found that a lot of people who regularly watch the channel are not yet subscribed. It's free to do so, and when you do, it really does help us grow our channel and community. We're seeing if we can grow this channel to 80,000 subscribers by the spring equinox. It's a big goal. Let's see if we can get there. Subscribe and like if you haven't already—it really does help.

 

Transcripts of any of these daily talks can be found on the website NightlightAstrology.com. Just a couple of things I want to show you today. If you haven't yet, go to NightlightAstrology.com and make sure to book a reading and see our need-based astrology readings. This is a new service that we provide at Nightlight that offers tiered readings at different price points for all of you, so that astrology readings can be affordable. We have our course directors at the top tier, some of our tutors at the middle tier, and some of our promising students who are just getting their start at the lowest tier. All of this is designed to make sure that people out there have a variety of price points for affordable astrology readings. These are all wonderful astrologers. I couldn't recommend them highly enough.

 

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All right, on that note, let's take a look at our opposition on the real-time clock, and then let's go ahead and see where's my Epic Pen. Epic Pen, you disappeared. Oh, there you are. Okay. So you can see the opposition today, Wednesday, January 22, and it's forming in the sky. If we go forward just a little bit, we're going to see that it is January 23 tomorrow that the opposition perfects. So we'll do some horoscopes tomorrow, looking at the whole sign house placement that this opposition lands in. You can take everything that you learned today about the opposition and carry it into the meaning of your horoscopes tomorrow. That will be the way that we take a look at this.

 

Anyway, Mercury in the sign of Capricorn will then separate from Mars. Give it a couple of degrees of separation. It will really be fading by Friday into Saturday. But this is an interesting opposition because, at the exact same time that this is taking place, Mercury will also be trine to Uranus, and at the same time, we will see that Mars will be sextile to Uranus. So we have the Mercury-Mars opposition coming through at the same time that Mercury and Mars both sextile Uranus. Uranus is configured strongly with this opposition, which adds a little pop. It creates a little bit more of the unexpected breakthrough, a harmonization of this opposition with Uranus that could make the confrontation of these two planets in an opposition just a little bit more constructive.

 

The ability to work through complex or confusing situations, to find problems or ideas that represent a kind of breakthrough in thinking or solution to a problem, innovation and revolution outside of the normal way of doing or thinking about something might be present. This conflict may also constitute something of a real shift. More of a Uranian emphasis creates a little bit more meaningful confrontation between these two planets. So keep all of that in mind, and let's talk about five things that you can watch for.

 

One, we have Mercury in earthy Capricorn with Mars Retrograde in watery Cancer. Very basically, we may see the earth-water tension come up, which might appear as something like emotionality—the importance or relevance of how we're feeling or what we're sensing, or what our bodies or instinctual awareness is telling us about our needs, wants, or desires. On the other hand, we have Mercury in Capricorn, who might be slightly more practical, with a little bit more of the earthy engineer's mindset, maybe looking at things with a more detached, practical perspective. This means that the two energies may compete. We may see, on the one hand, emotional demands being asked to calm down and be rational and practical, and we may see those emotional, practical dimensions of our personality being asked to consider something that is deeper, more heartfelt, or emotional. Or we may be asked to set aside a rational, practical view to consider the deeper needs, hurts, or feelings. But anyway, one simple way of breaking down an opposition like this is to consider water versus earth and all that that opposition between the elemental dispositions of these two planets might entail. So let's start there.

 

Number two would be verbal, mental, and emotional conflicts. The reason I say verbal, mental, emotional is because we do have Mars and Mercury opposing one another, which can create sharp words, harsh thoughts, mental energy. It's a bit like a debate team, where you're fighting with words or debating with ideas, principled conflicts, differing ideas, shouting matches. These can all happen under a Mercury-Mars opposition. With Mars being in watery Cancer, we also may consider that verbal, mental, and emotional conflicts, probably with an emphasis on communication—how we're communicating, how well we're communicating, how emotionally intelligent we are communicating—all of those kinds of themes can come up with Mercury in an earth sign opposing Mars in a water sign. But verbal, mental, emotional conflicts, where harsh words or a release of expletives or something like that can certainly come up. So one thing to watch for with a transit like this is reactionary things that come flying out of our mouth, or harsh words or speech, or emotional verbal abuse as themes or patterns, as well as things like, can I intelligently and maturely communicate something of my emotional needs or feelings or frustrations? This could be a moment where emotional frustrations boil over on the level of mind or speech.

 

Number three, analyzing or breaking something down. Most people don't know that Mars and Mercury in ancient astrology together, their cooperative symbolism was associated with things like math, science, analysis, analytical reasoning, surgery, and anything that is deconstructive, analytical, and cutting, mentally or intellectually. So scrutinizing something, breaking something down into its parts, studying something, having testing done, and seeing the results, drawing blood and analyzing the results—these are Mercury-Mars kinds of themes. Mercury-Mars might be an interest in learning biology or physiology. Mercury-Mars can be about mathematical and analytical reasoning, and so the combination of them in an opposition might come up, especially as an intense moment of scrutiny or criticism, or breaking something down and pulling it apart in order to understand it. There can be a mentally combative energy, but also a rigorous, intellectual, rational kind of energy. Probably a little less so with Mars in Cancer, but I could see, for example, something like genetic testing—Mars in Cancer might reflect something of an interest in your ancestry, or the DNA testing kits that people order to see where their family came from and all that. So anything that would involve an analysis or scrutiny of details and so forth, even like family planning or looking at your budget or analyzing how to better organize your home—all things that could be a nice reflection of Mercury in Capricorn with Mars in Cancer. We could also see tendencies to be verbally, mentally, or emotionally domineering or controlling, and how much should we control versus how much should we let go and trust a process might be something that comes up. The analyzing and breaking down of something can also be associated with the mental tendency to want to control things.

 

Now, number four would be a weighty decision. I look at this and I go, yeah, Mercury opposite Mars—you might be confronted with a choice, a choice that you have to make that's not easy. You'll be presented with a situation with facts and details and options, and Mercury-Mars opposition reflects the weighing of two different paths. The opposition can represent this or that, and the opposition may represent the tension that you feel between getting it right or getting it wrong, or making the right choice or upsetting someone, or what principle will guide the decision that you make. But being faced with a kind of crossroads, and there's a weighty, consequential decision that has to be made—you have to weigh the information, balance various subjective, personal, emotional elements with practical considerations, and sort of do something, make a choice that could be easily seen with an aspect like this.

 

Then we have mental and executive energies—anything that requires creating a plan. If you create a business plan and say, "Okay, I'm going to execute this plan," you create a dietary plan, a workout plan, a plan for yourself to study and learn something. You come up with an idea that you're going to act upon. You look at the details of something, take that information, and come up with a course of action rooted in how you've analyzed that information—very Mercury-Mars. Mercury-Mars can also be about when conflicts and tensions arise, and you think to yourself, "What's my strategy here? What's the approach? How am I going to handle the stress or tension? What will my course of action be to work through this dilemma?" That can be Mercury-Mars. And so the mental executive energy says, "I'm going to look at something, analyze it, and then act in a strong way." It may be that with Mars Retrograde, there are some prohibitions with respect to what you can do or what you can't do, or how much information you have, or what your limitations are, and how to practically deal with various frustrations and limitations with respect to willpower or how many resources you have available is also a big part of this.

 

I think, for example, of so many people being displaced from their homes with the fires that have been happening. And I think about—by the way, you know, people have been asking me to comment on that. Maybe I'll say something at the end today, because as I'm making this, you know, I'm a week behind and everything like that. So this is the first week in which I've really even had the space and the production schedule to even say anything about it. But I know you guys know I don't really address current events all that much, but I will say something about it, just for the sake of the timing. Anyway, so when you think about all the people displaced from their homes, Mercury opposite Mars is like, "What comes next? What's the plan of action here? If we've been displaced, we have to start a new path, or we have to return and rebuild, or what's the action?" So when you think about Mercury hitting the retrograde Mars, you may also be thinking about, "What is Mercury's wisdom or advice or counsel to Mars, given the debilitated position Mars might find itself in—frustrated, dealing with a hurt, dealing with a wound, dealing with loss of some kind? What is the course of action? What's the plan here?" That might be something that's coming up right now as a mental executive energy. "Here's what we're going to do. Here's how to heal, fix, move forward. Here's how to deal with attention that Mars Retrograde has brought into our life. Here's the mature way through it." So these are things that I see.

 

Okay, so just briefly, the simplest astrological reflection—there's two ways of talking about things like this, right? One is the human level of things. And there, you know, it's like, what it's obviously a huge tragedy. Many Nightlight students have lost their homes, been displaced from their homes. We have a lot of people in our community, in our classrooms. Our Roots and Spheres program recently—we did a lot of sharing. Several people in our Roots and Spheres program on the Full Moon shared about losing their homes, being there, some of them are in a hotel. So yeah, it's definitely been a lot. We gave a donation from the Kickstarter to support the relief efforts. Just, you know, the least we could do. But yeah, so is Mars. You know, Mars in a fire sign, hitting the opposition to Pluto and then retrograding into Cancer in its fall, where it carries the sort of Plutonian release of tremendous destructive force into residential areas and becomes threatening to the lives of people. This is very Mars in a fire sign opposing Pluto, retrograding right into Cancer. That little sequence of events is how we see the development taking place. I mean, that's the timeline that makes the most sense.

 

And, you know, the only thing I can say—there's other symbols, there's always different ways of seeing things. For example, on a small level, we had the Moon in Aries in a mutual reception with Mars in Cancer the first day of the fires, right after the Mars-Pluto opposition finished, and Mars changed signs from fire to water and moved into its fall. Small little detail like that can be meaningful. There's other things, but just purely in terms of tracking the symbolism, I think it's probably the most appropriate one. And if you look back at some of the Mars Retrograde videos that we did anticipating Mars Retrograde, I said, you know, one of the things that can happen is there can be things like neighborhoods, homes, families can feel under threat or more vulnerable when Mars is retrograde in Cancer. This is one of the reasons why Mars in Cancer was considered debilitated, because Mars in the domain of the Moon is a challenging tension there. The Moon in Cancer is seeking things like bondedness, safety, nurturance, connectedness. Mars severs and cuts. So that's one of the reasons—there's a lot of reasons that ancient dignities were created in the way that they were, and they have to do with archetypal tensions between things and the way they tend to manifest in consensus reality, where we have distinctions between pleasure and pain and so forth, which never means that there's not a very constructive way of reading Mars in Cancer—there are plenty of them, but those tensions exist for a reason. Certain archetypes in the way they present are tenser than others, and we experience that tension in a myriad number of ways.

 

But the Mars Retrograde in Cancer, with respect to the devastation of a major place in which people live—a city—is appropriate. We have a god associated with death, destruction, and fires in Mars, a very fiery planet, and coming off from the opposition to Pluto, backing into the neighborhood of Cancer, so to speak. So that's the symbolism, as I've seen it. I've heard some other astrologers sensitively reflect on it in other ways too. But yeah, just my prayers to all of the people who watch my channel who have been affected or displaced or have lost your homes. Yeah, it's been—there's a sort of helplessness that you feel. And I have to say—not in a trite way at all—but this is kind of awe before the destructive forces of nature themselves. It just kind of reminds you, like, we live in a more tentative space than I think we often are aware of, you know, and it's very humbling, and also can inspire a sort of reverence, a sort of sacredness.

 

There's a podcast that I really, really like called The Emerald, and I forget the guy who does it, but it's easily one of my favorite podcasts. And he had an episode on fire, on the animate force of fire, that I think is a kind of salve. A number of community members in the Nightlight community classroom—students have mentioned it as something, for some people who have been displaced and dealing with it more firsthand than others—that his episode on fire was very healing. So anyway, in case that's a helpful reference, it may not be helpful for everyone, I don't know. But anyway, just a few words about that. Yeah, just prayers to everyone out there. It's a difficult moment, you know, and right in a big part of the Mars Retrograde, apparently, this is one of the collective events that we're seeing around it.

 

In my humble opinion, at the very least, we have astrology as a way of understanding that all events in time and place and circumstance—all events that we experience—we see reflected in the heavens, and we know that we live in a sacred world. It's mysterious. There are tremendous forces of death and destruction that are a part of reality. We have to just little by little make some amount of peace with their existence. I'm not saying that's easy. I'm not saying I can do it sitting here on YouTube, but I think astrology helps us with that. I do. So I'll leave it there. We'll see you guys again tomorrow for some horoscopes on this Mercury-Mars opposition, see what we can't do to understand the topical areas of life that they are showing up in in our charts right now. All right, take it easy. Bye-bye.