More Haste, Less Speed
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Oh, I do love me a new year – and this week’s trine aspect between Mercury and Uranus comes at the perfect moment (Dec. 30, 2:42 pm) to settle in front of the fire with a new planner and brainstorm innovations and strategies for 2020. Make your rough draft, then revise – upward and bigger – as Mercury conjoins sky’s-the-limit Jupiter in ambitious Capricorn (Jan. 2, 8:41 am).
Then, take advantage of the First Quarter Moon in Aries (Jan. 2, 8:45 pm) to put at least one of those plans into motion. But as much as I like quoting a relative who said, “Whatever you do will be wrong; act at once!,” a raftload of planets in restrained Capricorn prompt me to repeat what my husband says whenever I’m rushing around and dropping, breaking, or colliding with something: “Less haste, more speed.” Sometimes, hurrying only slows us down in the end… so don’t let your Mercury/Jupiter ebullience, or Aries impatience, get in your way of reaching your destination.
In similar news, Mars enters Sagittarius this week (Jan. 3, 1:38 am). Fighting for what you believe in is a hallmark of Mars in this sign, though it doesn’t always have a clear battle plan and can sometimes bring to mind Don Quixote and his impossible dreams.
What does Mars mean, astrologically? It’s that feeling you get when someone makes a snarky comment online that pisses you off. It’s the feeling of being a little kid with so much energy that you can’t slow down and stop yelling, no matter how much your parents try to restrain you. It’s the feeling of driving really fast on a wide-open highway, competing in a race, hearing footsteps behind you on a dark street, feeling strong physical desire for someone, getting in a fight.
In short, Mars is the uncontrollable force within us that the entire world conspires to tame out of us – first parents, then teachers, then bosses. It’s everything about us that’s annoying, threatening, or sexy – and in extreme situations, it’s the instinct for self-preservation that keeps us alive. Others respond strongly when they encounter Mars in us. And we feel a strong response to Mars in the sky, as it moves through different signs and forms aspects to other planets or to our birth charts.
As Mars moves into a new sign, watch to see what gets people riled up, what they’re willing to fight for. As we recorded this week’s podcast episode, I made a throwaway comment that I later worried would annoy some listeners; in the end, we decided to leave it in… and I laughed when I realized it was the perfect example of Mars – the warrior – entering Sagittarius, the sign of beliefs. I wasn’t trying to be provocative, but when Mars is involved we don’t really even have to try.
Mars in Sagittarius will travel through my first house, the house of emergency response, new situations, and exerting one’s personality. Nothing in the first house goes unnoticed, and I get to wear the Mars badge in the next couple of months. Which house of your chart will get ignited by Mars in Sagittarius? That’s where you’ll feel both enlivened and occasionally embattled in the days ahead. (Don’t know how to find it? This blog post might help...)
In the second house, you’ll fight for essential resources and security. In the third, the fight is for your opinions to be heard. In the fourth, you’ll fight for Your People. In the fifth, you’ll fight for your creative vision. In the sixth, you’ll fight to uphold standards. In the seventh, fight for your partner and for justice. In the eighth, the fight is for truth. In the ninth, fight for your creed. In the tenth, be an exemplar of what it looks like to be a fighter. In the eleventh, fight for your friends and your future. In the twelfth, fight for anyone or anything that can’t fight for themselves.
Mars risks getting lost in the shuffle between faster-moving planets that are always up to something that gets our attention, and slower-moving planets who get all the press with their jaw-dropping shenanigans. But Mars is literally where the action is. Saturn and Pluto are rattling their chains (more about that next week), and many of us are feeling crushed under the heel of deprivation, lack of control, and loss of autonomy. But at a moment when it can be hard to see what we can do, the house Mars is in shows us where we can act… right now. We just have to watch where we’re going.
Less haste, more speed.
This week on the podcast, Jen and I explore this week’s highlights and give a look ahead at next week’s epic Saturn/Pluto conjunction. And if you’d like some help plotting your strategies for 2020, book a personal reading with me! (New rates go into effect on January 1.)
© 2019 by April Elliott Kent
