OCTOBER 2006 FEATURE ARTICLE

[Note: In February of 2005, Maya also wrote about Mars retrograde and the United States' apparent turning away from ideals of progress and justice. We urge you to reread that piece in the light of recent political developments and the coming election.]

Retrograde planets turn inward, and to the past. They are often isolated, and divorced from current conditions.

For the first time in its history, the U.S. progressed Mars is turning retrograde. This nation is turning away from conforming to the rule of law of the rest of the world. It is returning to more barbaric times—in fact, we are returning to the days of absolute monarchy, before the Magna Carta in 1215.

As Senator Patrick Leahy says, “It is a total rollback of everything this country has stood for…. Here we are, a great, powerful, good nation—running scared, giving up our values.”

This potentially outlaw Mars at 19 Libra conjoins Bush’s Jupiter, which expands it. It also conjoins Iran’s powerful Pluto. Pluto is the alpha player here. In addition, Pluto in the heavens is squaring Iran’s Mars, infusing it with power and persistence.

Mars transits through Libra and Scorpio during October 2006. Mars reaches 19 Libra on October 5, the day of the huge scheduled anti-war demonstrations. Prior to that, on October 2, Mars conjoins Bush’s Juno, a locus of fear. (He has Juno conjoined Moon, the people. This shows how his own fears reach everyone through emotional lunar vibrations.) About October 6, Mars conjoins the U.S. Juno, also in Libra. This is in the U.S. 10th house, and there Juno shows the fears and potential for abuse of and by the U.S. Administration. Stimulation of that Juno seems like a natural outcome of the Oct.5 demonstrations.

Does the U.S. progressed Mars mean the development of a military-police surveillance state in the U.S.? The signs are saying that it does. Mars will be retrograde for about 80 years. It progresses all the way back through Libra, to the first degree. It first entered Libra in 1940, at the start of WWII, which gave the military-industrial-congressional complex enormous power. Is that the past to which U.S. progressed Mars returns? Do we get to create a peaceful world instead of an insecure, warring world?

It is really up to us.

I recommend in the Oct-Nov 2006 MOUNTAIN ASTROLOGER the article by Bryan Trussler, p. 57, “America’s Mars Does an About-Face.” He goes into both history, and mundane mapping of retrograde Mars.