Why Mars Opposite Pluto is Both Wonderful and Terrible

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we're going to take a look at the upcoming entrance of Mars into the sign of Leo, where it will immediately make an opposition to Pluto in the sign of Aquarius. We have been slowly breaking down the T-square between Jupiter, Pluto, and Mars in several different videos, and the way that I've been approaching it has been to take it in pieces and take it as a whole.

So recently, we also looked at this upcoming T-square between Jupiter and Taurus, Pluto and Aquarius, and Mars in Leo from the standpoint of their combined energies or their combined expression. We also previously looked at Jupiter and Pluto together.

Now, we're going to look at Mars and Pluto together and give you a feel for what that archetypal combination is like as a standalone because I think it helps when you get three planets involved to break them into pieces and then put them back together and break them into pieces and put them back together. It's a good way to turn that jewel so that you're really getting a deep sense for the different nuances involved. So that's what we're going to do today.

As always, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your comments. If you have them, I love to hear from you guys. You can find a transcript of today's talk on the website, which is nightlightastrology.com. Most of you know that we are approaching the start of my next class called Ancient Astrology for the Modern Mystic; it is a one-year program in ancient Hellenistic astrology; you can find it on the website. And when you go to the website, click on the Courses page. Click the first-year course to learn more about it. Year two and horary also begin in June for students who have already been enrolled in year one or finished it or who are already currently enrolled in year one or who had finished it; you may look at those as well and join up with the advanced classes.

In the first year program, we are diving deep into the world of ancient astrology and learning how to read natal charts while also including an archetypal and psychological dimension, which comes from our modern tradition. So it's kind of a fusion course in that regard. Ancient astrology is a bit like karmic analytics; it's teaching us how to be very specific and accurate with our delineations of the karma that a person is born with, as well as the times in our lives when that karma will blossom in what areas and in what ways.

But we pair that in this program with psychological and archetypal insights so that we can have both a predictive and a highly subjective kind of, you might call it a counseling approach where we're helping people work through and understand themselves, and we're also helping people understand the different faded or destined seasons of life. So with both tools together, I think we have a really complete way of doing astrology.

At any rate, you can learn more about the program, what alumni have had to say about it, and what the class includes. We have tutors that help in between major units of study with breakout tutoring sessions; they are there in a forum to answer questions year-round; you can be in touch with me; we have tons of homework, optional reading bonus material, and quizzes to help you.

So if you have the intention to become a professional astrologer to read for other people, you know, this class will definitely support you in that. If you're someone who just wants to deepen your understanding of the language and use astrology for yourself or just to deepen your own spiritual path, we have tons of people who take the class for that reason too. And you know, it can be a little bit more laid back if that's your intention. Whereas people who are going to go professional might be a little bit more intense. The class really meets people wherever they're at.

At the bottom of the page, you'll find the different ways that you can enroll. And you'll see that there is an early bird payment; the early bird payment is going to save you $500, and so that's a really good deal. You can also use a payment plan and spread things out over 12 months if that is helpful.

Finally, we have need-based tuition assistance; we do have some spots left. If you are hurting for any reason and need some help, please be sure to take advantage of that. Tell us your situation, and you know we'd be super glad to help you find a price point that works, given whatever is going on in your life right now that's making it hard to do something for yourself. Studying astrology is a privilege, and it's a beautiful thing to do that we think that should be available for anyone who has a sincere desire to study. So as long as that's, that's the requirement, and if you need a little help to make it happen. Check out the tuition assistance. Let's see if we can give you a hand. Okay, well, on that note, let's get into today's talk on Mars and Pluto.

First of all, let's get a look at the real-time clock. You can see that tomorrow or to round out the week, we're going to be looking just in particular at Mars in Leo. So breaking it down even further by doing a planet and profile episode. I'll be moving back into the Planets in Profile series. Shortly I'm finishing a series on Parenting Tips for the 12 signs of the Zodiac, and we'll be moving into a series on the meaning of the moon through the 12 signs. In this case, we'll be looking at Mars and Leo in-depth to round out the week.

So today, what we're going to do is look at Mars opposite Pluto as a planetary combination not so much rooted in Leo and Aquarius but just in general; what do we understand about Mars-Pluto's opposition? That's really the main thing that ancient astrologers paid attention to was planet-to-planet interactions. So, in fact, if you wanted to understand what Mars and Leo meant, you would say that Mars and Leo is a Mars that's sort of behaving like or behaving through the lens of the sun because Leo is the sun sign. So you're really thinking about signs even based on planetary hosts. Whereas you think about Pluto in the home in Aquarius, the home of Saturn.

So you know, it's an airy Saturn, not the earthy, Capricorn-Saturn; even so, the planets are really the main way of understanding things, which is why we tend to break things down on my channel in terms of the planet-to-planet combinations. So it's a little less focused on the signs and a little bit more focused on the planetary combinations and how they express themselves. So that's what we're going to do today.

How does Mars opposite Pluto behave? How does Mars How do Mars-Pluto combinations behave in general? The opposition, of course, is going to pit the energies against one another in a kind of grudge match or a push and pull like a sometimes that expresses itself as a kind of power struggle between the archetypes. Now what I want to do today, and you guys know, I like to do this from time to time, as I want to call upon up some passages and pieces from my colleague Renn Butler's book, The Archetypal Universe, you guys have heard me talk about this book more times on this channel, probably than you could count, because I have about probably, I don't know, maybe ten reference books that I use as I'm helping prepare my talks and this one is right up there, as I think one of the best I've ever written.

I think that it could do nothing but help you have a better understanding of archetypal combinations, maybe better than any book that's ever been written because it has such an approachable way of the writing is very approachable, and the way the book is organized is very approachable. So anyway, this is a passage on Mars, Pluto, and what I want to do is just go through some of I picked certain things that he said that I want to elaborate upon. So there are all sorts of things that he writes in here. So I can't cover all of them, you know, but if you have a copy of the book, I recommend reading it in the week ahead for these pairings.

So Mars-Pluto, intense willpower, and courage. Now you're getting willpower and courage from Mars, but you're getting the intensity that almost like you're turning up, you know, it's like the voltage is going up because of Pluto. So it's like a Mars that is being given the depth and power and focus and intensity of Pluto, the lord of the underworld.

Drive and passion. Now drive and passion both are sort of like Mars's words already. But when you get the word drive in there, that word is, has the feeling of almost something like nuclear behind it, some sort of self-propelling, like very similar to the word willpower, that there is something motivating us from a deep place like the power beneath the plates of the Earth, or the power beneath the volcano, the pressure that causes it to burst, this is a passion that has a very deep source of power behind it that creates a passion and a drive and an intensity. That's Mars-Pluto.

Determined efforts toward renewal and regeneration now, renewal and regeneration are Plutonian words, but the determined effort toward renewal and regeneration would be the presence of Mars. So, one of the things that I love about the way he phrases that is that you know, there could come a time in your life where you, like, let's just keep it super simple.

You guys know I like to think about things around the house. That's because I'm a Cancer, I guess. But right now, there is a room in our basement that is a storage room, and it has lots of old stuff in it. It's funny because as Mars has been building towards Pluto, I feel this very intense need to purge and, like, create a healthier, cleaner version of that room. I feel obsessed by it. Like, and that's like then it's in the basement, which is sort of Plutonian, and actually, one of the things is that it carries a lot of the boxes are a lot of my childhood things that I haven't gone through. Isn't that interesting? So the intense, determined efforts toward renewal and regeneration that come from somewhere deep.

Volcanic catharsis, you know, interesting that more Mars-Pluto is often also associated with a couple of different things in the process of procreation and like, you know, human sexuality, one of them would be powerful sexual discharges like female ejaculation or male ejaculation, but female ejaculation or even like the potential for ripping or tearing. Is it the perineum is that was called during, you know, when a woman has when a woman is giving birth, it's possible that the skin can tear a little bit, and that's something you know, obviously, like, if you have a doula or something that they're going to be maybe doing massages and giving oil to make sure that you don't tear.

Mars-Pluto has that kind of erupting, tearing, bursting, open kind of quality, which could be ecstatic as an orgasm, or it could be, you know, tearing a ligament or tearing the skin during birth or whatever. But it also this feeling of like libidinal and instinctual releases of energy that are often ecstatic, even if they're somewhat painful, like you often think of Mars-Pluto, in the cases when, you know, everyone has a code word right now, right?

Let's just say, let that, you're getting into a space in intimacy, where things are getting, there might be something like bondage happening, or there might be something a little bit more about power and control and experimenting with those things in a safe way. But those are Mars-Pluto, and Mars-Pluto can be intensely sexual in that way. And about the release of like pent-up primal urges and instincts that, the release of which can be very relieving. But also the release of which can sometimes be damaging. That's why you need a code word. You know what I mean?

Anyway, tendencies toward brute force and ruthlessness. This is one of the things that I worry about the most with Mars-Pluto in the air right now. I would not be surprised, especially when you throw in Jupiter, unfortunately, to see, and I said this earlier when we're looking at the combination of all three of them to see, you know, acts of terror or acts of violence. The combinations of Mars-Pluto have long been associated with very dramatic, sudden outbursts of violence, rage, anger, destructiveness, et cetera. You have that feeling of being like a loose cannon, very Mars, Pluto, sometimes Mars Uranus, to sow tendencies toward brute force and ruthlessness.

Over-exertion and pushing too hard. Like, for example, this is something to be aware of when you are, you know, like someone like myself who, over the past couple of years, has gotten really into lifting weights at the gym. That's been like a way of caring for myself and taking care of my body and mind and stuff. But I have noticed that when Mars gets into it with Uranus or Pluto, in the past couple of years, that I've been lucky so far, I haven't had any major injuries or anything like that in the gym. But I might strain something a little bit, or I might get close to pushing to the point of harming myself by mistake. So over exertion and pushing too hard, whether it's psychically, emotionally, or in a literal physical sense, you have to be very careful of with Mars-Pluto.

Vulgar, or course, sexuality. Now, again, that's relative, right? Everyone gets to define that differently. Everyone has a different code word, a safety word. So, but still, like, I'll tell you this, like my wife, I'll never forget that we had a close friend of ours who worked on our staff. And my wife was close, good friends with her, and under a Mars-Pluto aspect, she was raped and murdered. It was horrific. It was easily one of the darkest things that have ever happened in my life because she was on our staff.

She was a friend, a much closer friend of my wife's. But that was she lived in DC. And that's what happened to her. And that was a Mars-Pluto moment. I just remember thinking, at that moment, I remember thinking this is an evil aspect, you know because that's how I felt at the time, in hindsight. I think that any planetary combination has its potentially like, darkest, most disturbing expressions that you'll see throughout your lifetime as an astrologer. I don't like to sugarcoat things or blow smoke up people's butts. Mars-Pluto can be like that. Mars-Pluto can be like the, the, you know, like like like rape or sexual predatorial things like that or molestation like these are Mars-Pluto dynamics as well.

Power over other people with instinctual complicated libidinal sexual elements that can make it particularly dark. This is not the great aspect to go to a bar by yourself and not have friends with you or something, you know, like, it's not one that I would recommend in terms of, like, safety first. You know, just being safe with this aspect to me would mean being with good people, being in the right environment, stay sober because these, you know, that when the inhibitions are down like, and you've been drinking or something, this is the type of aspect that can be very destructive with words or emotions or unfortunately, like, you know, actual violence or whatever.

Now, on the other hand, we've covered that lovely set of topics. I like what he says here, which is qualities of assertiveness and decisiveness, courage and resolve, guts and gumption, a capacity to blunder through or forge ahead, despite opposition, the will to do the soul to dare high and sustained levels of energy, powerful reserves of strength and endurance. So you have that feeling of the hero that's been like bloodied and battered and their eyeballs hanging out of their socket and their arm is broken, and they're still somehow trudging with a broken leg across the finish line to save the day and somehow miraculously win. That persevering heroic quality that has died but stays alive, it's a survivor; that's Mars-Pluto as well.

The will to go on in the midst of great darkness or challenge. A high and sustained level of energy, powerful reserves of strength, and endurance ability to heal or transform situations through cooperative effort. Now, that's interesting because often you think of Mars, and you think of Mars, and you think of individualism, but with Mars-Pluto, there's a collective dimension that comes through the collectivity of Pluto is often the urge or impulse to act heroically on behalf of something larger or bigger.

Like to rush into a crowded stampede to, you know, save a kid like there's everyone's panicked and running, and you see that some kids are gonna get trampled, you just run in and help and put your own life on the line or something. I'm making this up. I don't know where people get stampeded. Does that even happen? I don't think so. So, yeah, so, but the cooperative effort of Mars-Pluto can be profound.

Feelings of sexual empowerment, regeneration through sexuality. That is pretty cool. So it can be dark. We can also be, you know, healing and cathartic. Shadow qualities. Tendencies toward excessive self-will and machismo. I love how he puts that feeling drawn into such situations that draw out and test one's aggressive tendencies. How about that? And that's so true. Mars-Pluto will put you into situations where it's like, will cooler heads prevail, or will you snap, you know?

I think a lot of the time; those situations are not life or death. It's not like, well, you're really going to come to blows with somebody, but it could be that you're going to put your foot in your mouth, or you're going to snap at someone, and you're it's like you're being tested well, are you strong enough to be cool and collected? Or are you, you know, do you have to fly off the handle and try to like win or beat someone down to be right, you know, mentally or verbally or something?

Feelings of savage ferocity and raging aggression, a struggle between the impulses towards self-preservation and those of transcendence, your selfishness versus doing something with your will that's on behalf of something bigger than yourself. That's a very Mars-Pluto-like dynamic.

Sex and power sadomasochism, lust, and rage urge to shove one psychological shadow material into other people's faces. Yeah, that's interesting. Like the idea that I don't care what you think about me, I can feel you judging me, but then go one step further and try to flaunt or shove something in somebody's face that you feel doesn't like you were judging you to provoke them. You know, stuff like that. That can be very Mars-Pluto.

He talks a lot about predatory things and criminal acts and also the feeling of being in hell and having to just keep going, which I think was a Winston Churchill quote. My experience of Mars-Pluto natives, like if you're born with Mars-Pluto, is often that the relation with anger, assertiveness, and dominance is not easy. It doesn't mean because you're born with that, that you will be some kind of overpowering, you know, domineering type.

More often than not, it means that you're afraid of power and have to, you know, learn to develop a healthy relationship with, like, assertiveness and anger and force because none of those things are wrong or bad in and of themselves are just energies. But learning to work with them, not be afraid of them, standing up for yourself. Those are sometimes the lessons I see in the lives of Mars-Pluto natives.

Sometimes you do have people who are born with excessive bravado and machismo, and they tend to be domineering, and they have to learn how to tone it down. Often, I see a lot of people who actually struggle with the positive qualities, and Mars-Pluto will often manifest in terms of, like, people in situations that have, over time, convinced the individual that their own anger, will, and aggression is dangerous and not to be utilized. It's too dangerous, don't go there. And then other people somehow get to have that power in the person's life, and I think that could be something we see right now, as well.

By transit when Pluto hits Mars in your chart, it's funny how the same kinds of themes will come up temporarily in the life situation somewhere, as usually expressed by the house location in the chart, that you'll work with needing to stand up assert yourself regenerate, overcome something heroically. Your heroism is being tested somehow. So your metal is being tested.

Anyway, these are some of the qualities of Mars and Pluto that I hope you will take with you as a meditation coming into this weekend. Remember, let's look at the dates one more time; I'll put this up on the real-time clock. Can't remember if I went over them or not. So it comes through Saturday, May 20, into Sunday, May 21, and it's past the zero-degree mark by Monday, May 22. So if you put all that together, you're really getting the May 20, 21st 22nd window, and then Mars will go into the square with Jupiter. So we have talked about Pluto-Jupiter, and we've talked about Pluto, Jupiter-Mars, and now we've talked about Mars-Pluto.

So we'll continue with this as we go along. Tomorrow, we're going to be talking about Mars into Leo and just getting a deeper feel for the archetypal meaning of Mars in the sun sign and the sign of the lion. So that's it for today.

Don't forget before you go to like and subscribe if you haven't already; share your comments helps the channel to grow. If you want, you can find a copy of the transcript of today's talk on my website, nightlightastrology.com.

Don't forget my reading schedule is changing in the beginning of 2024. I will be down to fewer time slots per week; I'll be only seeing clients Mondays and Tuesdays as the donation-based reading clinic will be launching. I should call it the affordable reading service because I'm not exactly sure how it's going to be; we're still working out exactly how it will be structured.

But either way, I'll be down to readings two days a week for forecasting and prediction, and divination work for you guys. So the wait time because I'm having fewer sessions per week now, the wait time could go up. So I'm just letting people know that if you're thinking of scheduling your 2024 reading right now or looking into it, it's January or February of 2024. So you know, signing up now before the wait time gets longer would be my advice. All right. That's it for today. I hope you guys are having a good one. We'll see you from Mars and Leo later. Bye.