January Kite

An Astrological Meditation

In my first essay of the New Solar Year I look at a beautiful and powerful astrological formation that will take place later in January. This essay is a bit technical but the underlaying intention is not. We live in a time where there is a lot of tension between masculine and feminine, love and strife and generally Martial vs Venusian concerns. In what follows I invite the reader into an imaginative engagement with the bodies involved in this configuration and their own relationship with the themes that arise among them. I hope this leads to healing and understanding, if not in the larger world, at least within the individuals who take this trip with me.

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Recently I published an entry about the Grand Cross that took place on the Winter Solstice (December 21,2024). The aesthetic appeal of such configurations suggests (at least to me) a powerful “summit” among the Gods. I like to imagine the conversations that take place at such meetings as a way of petitioning these powers to act on our behalf. If astrological configurations present a range of things that might happen, perhaps we can lean into some of these possibilities, away from others. Perhaps an animistic approach to astrology can be more than mere eaves dropping on the Gods, perhaps we can become participants in their conversations or, at the very least, make our wishes known to them. To that end, I want to look at another striking configuration that will occur on January 23,2025.

The chart shows a “kite”. This configuration combines a Grand Trine (in this case in the Water Signs) with an Opposition which forms a Minor Trine. By looking at the planets involved and their placements within the overall pattern we can get a sense of the conversation between the Gods involved.

To start with, we see an opposition between Mars in Cancer and Mercury in Capricorn. Mars is depressed or in “Fall” in Cancer. I have described this position as being like that of a fully armed soldier being left in charge of an infant. Cancer is about nurture and protection, especially of the weak and defenseless. As a warrior, Mars can play the role of defender but might be ill equipped in terms of nurturing. In my essay entitled “Like A Surgeon” I suggested that Mars might be best adapted to the role of nurture not as a warrior but as a surgeon. Like a warrior, the surgeon wields a blade (scalpel), sheds blood and, in some cases, must dismember the patient. Unlike the warrior, however, the surgeon does their work to PRESERVE life. None the less, courage and an eye to the greater good is every bit as necessary to the surgeon as to the warrior.

Still, Mars must learn a good deal of patience, reserve and precision if he is to be recast in the role of a healer. Being not only in the sign of his fall but also in retrograde might well facilitate this learning. Retrogrades can be powerful periods of rethinking and finding new approaches to old ways of doing things. Although Mars really dislikes moving slowly and circumspectly, he doesn’t have much choice in the matter for the first several months of 2024. Perhaps we can appeal to his valor as a brave protector to learn new applications of his skills and talents. This is where the opposition from Mercury will serve him well.

We find Mercury in Capricorn, sign of Mars’s exaltation. As a Saturn ruled Earth Sign, Capricorn is all about building toward higher things. It is not only the cardinal Earth Sign but also the part of the zodiac where, after the Winter Solstice, light begins its slow emergence from darkness. Capricorn has long been associated with the ascent of the spirit from its entrapment in matter. All of these things make Capricorn a great place to take a new approach to tangible, earthly things that serve a higher good.

Mercury is especially well placed here to be Mars’s tutor. As ruler of Gemini, Mercury takes pleasure in deconstructing and reassembling old schemas, as ruler of Virgo, s/he has a deep appreciation for precision and detail. The former allows Mercury a certain sympathy toward the Martial drive to cut and lay waste to old forms. At the same time, the Virgo love of orderly beauty allows Mercury to understand the demands of building a new order that is so much a part of the Capricorn environment. If Mars has any potential to beat his swords into surgical instruments, he would be hard pressed to find a better guide in this process than Mercury who, incidentally, has a good deal of experience as a guide to the dead. Who better than a psychopomp to lead a depressed warrior to a new role in a new world.

Moving to another corner of the Grand Water Trine we find Venus conjunct Saturn in Pisces. This is the sign of Venus’s exaltation. Pisces loves the boundlessness of dreams and mystical union. It is little wonder that Venus loves being hosted here. Her conjunction with Saturn is particularly striking. Saturn, planet of boundaries, limitation and sober maturity is not especially well suited to Piscean waters but his relationship with Venus here might be a saving grace to both.

Trigger warning, the story of the relationship between Saturn and Venus is pretty gnarly.

According to an ancient tale, Saturn (Chronos) was the sun of Uranus (Sky) and Gia (Earth). Uranus could never get enough of Gia and so the two were bound in unceasing copulation. Of course, this led to offspring that could never be born because, well, Uranus could never get enough of Gia. In the growing agony of perpetual and unending pregnancy, Gia placed into the hands of Chronos (Saturn), the strongest and bravest of the unborn race trapped within her, an adamantine sickle and tasks him with the castration of Uranus. Chronos does the deed and throws his father’s bloody genitals into the sea. Whereupon a great foam overtook the surface of the sea. From this foam (aphros) arose fair Aphrodite (Venus). By his bloody deed, Chronos not only freed the race of Titans from the earth (Gia’s overburdened womb) but also gave birth to the embodiment of beauty and love.

The line between Venus conjunct Saturn in Pisces and Mars in Capricorn forms one side of the Grand Water Trine. This happens to be a “Superior Trine” which means that Venus/Saturn has a greater influence on Mars than the other way round. Mars receives this testimony as a retelling of Venus’s Origen story. He can see the whole bloody mess and how the blade, (a favorite tool of Mars) acted as a tool of liberation for Mother Earth (Gia). In addition, how the sacrifice of the masculine generative organ led to the birth of Venus who, is the only one Mars loves nearly as much as war. She was born from the hand of the God most associated with restraint who wielded a tool that Mars himself might know well.

Let Mercury reveal to Mars the secret of this bloody tale.

The Moon travels quickly through the Sign of Scorpio this night, making this beautiful kite so short lived. Scorpio is said to be the “feminine domicile” of Mars. Scorpio is the Fixed Water Sign. In these deep still waters lay all that is secret. Our deepest longings and most violently repressed rage. All that directs us from darkness but also longs to be known and integrated, lay like sunken treasure there. It takes the same kind of Martial drive and courage to plumb these depths as it does to conquer an enemy force. We could say that Scorpio is, or at least could be, the sign of Mars’s self-conquest.

Mars stands in Superior Trine to the Moon. She waits in his home and receives his testimony from the sign of her own rulership. This puts the Moon and Mars in mutual reception so that, even though Mars speaks more to The Moon than the latter to him, still she rules the place from which he speaks. The Moon is our memory, our body, the gateway through which the spiritual becomes material. She is patient and sympathetic but also unbullshitable. She will hear all of Mars’s woes but will remind him of all his follies. She will remind him of all the good that a hero can do and how heroes become villains when they forget what they fight FOR.

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There is probably more to add here, more to imagine and to dream. There is a lot about art and the ways in which beauty can arise from horror but I will leave it here for now. I will spend the next month imagining the conversations taking place among these Gods and how they might go. Perhaps you, dear reader, might do the same.

I wish you a joyous New Year.