LOVE IN THE TIME OF WAR: A meeting of Venus, Mars, Pluto - Part 1

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Bloody Mars is forever quarreling!

The Iliad

February 24th , Russia invades Ukraine as the Moon conjuncts the heart of Scorpion, the star Antares (Antares meaning “like Mars”). Before sunrise, in the dark of the last quarter of the moon, Vladimir Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine asserting his dominance for the Russian empire. I have for some time now been developing thoughts for an article on the current extended conjunction of Mars and Venus. This current event brings it more clearly into context. So, I want to send out something earlier than planned, which is this Part 1. Mars and Venus have been very close to each other since early February, coming into exact conjunction on February 15th. They continue in conjunction essentially until after Equinox, March 21st, but while together they meet Pluto on March 3rd.

From astrosophy we are aware that the physical planet we observe is only like the hands on a clock, indicating for us the activity of an entire sphere of planetary beings, helping us to understand the nature of the “communication” among the cosmic intelligences of these spheres. We must follow these “clock hands” in time as an expression of an unfolding of relationships. So, in order to understand this conjunction of Mars and Venus and their coming together with Pluto, we must look at the whole context, including the location of this activity in the fixed stars of Archer (Sagittarius). This conjunction is exceptionally extended, lasting weeks longer than a typical Mars/Venus conjunction. This unusually long conjunction period for Venus and Mars is due to the fact that Venus has come around out of retrograde as it approaches Mars, so appears to move much slower along the zodiac than otherwise. We have been witnessing a conjunction of Venus and Mars since the start of February when they were in orb, only about 5 degrees apart, coming into exact conjunction by Valentine’s Day and essentially staying conjunct (within 1 degree) until mid-March and continuing in the orb of conjunction even after Equinox on March 21st. During this unusually long period the are moving side by side so to speak towards their meeting with Pluto, the King of the Underworld, with exact conjunction on March 3rd . Around March 3rd , as Venus and Mars progress together towards Pluto, we might see a culmination event around, which could in fact be quite explosive or transformative. Of course, what can appear as highly destructive is often what is needed for a higher transformative process to become possible.

For a more in depth look at the sphere of Pluto and the entities at play in current events, I suggest watching my video course on the Outer Planets. (Course II, Sessions 7-10. https://www.astrosophy.com/online-course ) Also on March 3rd , Mercury conjuncts Saturn and the Sun is only 2 degrees away from conjunction with Jupiter (exact conjunction March 5th). So, we have a wealth of planetary meetings in the next two weeks which indicate a kind of conclusion or culmination of a certain phase and the inauguration of a new element. It all takes place in the lower body region of the stars of Sagittarius where Pluto has been residing for many months.

Sagittarius, the Archer, and particularly the lower body portion of the Archer, where Pluto sits, has had a significant role to play in planetary events since January, 2020. First Saturn in early January, 2020 and then Jupiter, three times over the course of 2020, met Pluto in this region of Archer. You can read articles on my website (see: Current Articles) to understand the significance of this constellation, which must always be considered in relation to its opposite constellation Gemini. We must remember that if we consider the Earth/Sun relationship as a moving relationship, then the Earth is passing always through the opposite constellation as the Sun. This two-fold relationship deepens our Earthly understanding of cosmic phenomena. Rudolf Steiner speaks about the cosmology of the future in which we understand this relationship of Sun/Earth, even in our astronomical understanding, as a lemniscate movement with both Earth and Sun moving along the zodiac creating a lemniscate form. (See https://www.astrosophy.com/online-course Course VI: The Future Lemniscate Perspective)

It is in this sense that Sun in Archer also means Earth in Twins, which is the “vertical” axis of the cross of Solstice/Equinox for the Earth and underlies our understanding of these two constellations in a unified way: one carrying the upper more conscious part of the axis, the other the lower more unconscious part, representing more our struggles to bring a higher consciousness into that darkness. So, without going further into it here, when we consider the Archer, we consider human egoity arising out of the encounter with opposites, or opposition. In the mythological figure of the Centaur, we have this opposites nature in picture form: the animal form and the human arising with bow and arrow, aiming towards its goal. The stories of two of the Centaurs in Greek mythology represent this evolution of the “horse/instinct” forces in Greek time. The story of the centaur Nessus is one in which the centaur is a hostile, unruly creature who tries to abduct the wife of Hercules and then to destroy Hercules through poisoned blood. Here we can recognize the instinctual forces of the blood as destructive and “poisonous” to humans. The story of the centaur Chiron is one where the centaur is a helper and healer for humans with knowledge of natural medicines and who even ultimately sacrifices himself for the release of Prometheus. Here we see the healthy working of the instincts and the power of sacrificing it to free the awakening of the higher human thinking element. In these myth imaginations is so much depth about the human being’s evolution and becoming! It is Chiron, who offers himself in sacrifice for Prometheus, who stands in the heavens as Sagittarius. Here is this great image of the human becoming, the emerging consciousness out of the transformation of the lower realm, the sacrifice which sets free Prometheus, the one whose name means “he who thinks before”, meaning the new human thinking. Yet the great evolutionary question in this axis and the emerging Spirit Selfhood called for in our times cannot be grasped without the recognition and realization of the Christ impulse, both in evolution as well as within the human being, in which the opposites are resolved through the third element in the center. Dualism becomes trinitized through the Christic I AM so that the human is not forever living in opposites. In this true egoic activity the new human emerges. This is a profound dimension to contemplate in relation to the Gemini/Archer axis and to the spiritual meaning of the solstices, which I explore in past articles. What did the Christ event bring to redeem and transform egohood?

So, it is out of this gestalt that we must consider Pluto, Mars and Venus now, with special awareness that this meeting, as in fact all the planetary meetings with Pluto since 2020, has been in the lower animal body of this dualistic Archer imagination. Pluto in this region of Archer is highly eruptive, with immense potential for destruction but also transformation. This is up to out of what consciousness (or unconsciousness) humans take up the challenges presented. As we have written before, Pluto is the ruler of the underworld, the deep and unconscious realm of the will out of which old forces of the blood and instinct prevail as well as deep subterranean will forces in the Earth. These forces were once wise guiding forces for the young humanity, but as egoity and human freedom arose, they have become destructive because they are from the past. All that arises out of any tribal/group consciousness (in any form) or nationalistic impulses of the folk works against human progress now.

One could see all of the backwards and destructive impulses that we are witnessing in the world today which arise out of this realm of the unconscious are expressions of this element of Pluto in Archer. In some ways they are all efforts to come to something new, but without a new knowledge or understanding of the true nature of the human being. In other articles I address also this relation of Pluto to the covid/vaccines crisis which takes the question of identity/self even into the physical organism. These movements have been arising for some time, but seem to have emerged more fully over the past two years during the pandemic and coincide with the meeting of Saturn and Pluto in January, 2020 and the triple meeting of Jupiter and Pluto throughout 2020 which culminated in the Great Conjunction at solstice 2020, in which the cosmic world called to us for a new birth in the world akin to the original new birth at incarnation of Christ. But every birth is accompanied by the great travails and pain of birth. Phrases such as ‘humanity is crossing the Threshold and meeting the Guardian’ or humanity is encountering our Double, the global consequences or karma of our unconsciousness, in order to awaken to the challenges of our becoming human. Within all the upheaval, breakdown, dissolution of the old ways there glimmers a new potential for transformation and new world possibilities. This current configuration of Venus and Mars meeting Pluto is bringing us to a kind of culmination and transition of one phase and entering a new phase. One can almost feel how we are transitioning out of the one big crisis of covid into the next big crisis, now connected to the world situation between Russia and the West. In many ways really a morphing of the old forces of power and control onto a new front, particularly shaped by economic forces. In this action in Ukraine are deeper spiritual roots on both sides that are even now shaping forces for the approaching 6th Culture, the Slav Age. The battle between destruction and renewal, or one could even say between the Soratic and the Christic, rages on many fronts.

Perhaps we can learn from Venus and Mars in this context. In my previous letter of January 3rd 2022, we looked at the loop of Venus around the Sun coming into conjunction with the Sun in the horse body of the Archer. Here already the activity of Venus conjuncting Sun was addressed in relation to the deeds of Christ, specifically in relation to the work of Mani and the transformation of evil. In this letter we continue with Venus as it now comes around the Sun after this conjunction and on January 29th appearing to go Direct, meaning moving forward against the backdrop of the constellations. In this process we can see how Venus has gone from the bright evening star we have seen for months, to the morning star now. But now we have this approach and meeting of Venus with Mars and then the two of them together traveling to the meeting with Pluto in the body of the Archer. How can we view this and what is our part in the outcome of this meeting? This will require penetrating into the deeper meaning and tasks of these spheres of cosmic being.

One can of course speak in a superficial way, which still retains elements of truth, of the meeting of Mars and Venus as the meeting of Mars, the god of war and Venus, the goddess of love and harmony. Our culture is full of imagery around this aspect of Mars and Venus. This is true, but from where does this image of Mars and Venus arise and how can we understand this on a deeper level through spiritual science? What do we mean when we think of Venus as the bearer of love, art, beauty, harmony and spiritual re-union and Mars as the bearer of confrontation, aggression, separation, mastery of matter, and earthly power, but also of individual freedom. How do we understand the evolution of these spheres of being out of the past so that we can take up the work of transforming them into the future? Just as every human being is a complex tapestry of higher and lower, light and darkness, love and hate, so too do the planetary spheres have a complexity of being. We must remember that they too progress in evolution and they too include beings who have evolved and those who have not.

In the next follow up article, I will take up some of these questions as we take a deeper dive into these planetary spheres, so that we might be ever more conscious of our role in addressing this configuration. It is the work of a new star wisdom that we come to a spiritual understanding of the world of the stars so that we can begin our human task of uniting our will, through conscious understanding, with the divine plan, the will of the higher world, as offered to us in the language of the stars, which is the Word of Worlds.