November offers up a potent series of transits, the most dramatic being the conjunction of Mars (male principle) and Pluto (transformation). For the world in general and for each of us in particular, issues that have been building will reach a crisis point. What has been festering beneath the surface now leaps into form.

 The Cross comes alive

Mars transits are a crash course in the law of manifestation: the mass mood becomes overt, exploding into the headlines. If you’ve been tracking transits over the past several years, you’ve seen this happen each time Mars makes a major aspect to the degree range of Uranus and Pluto in the sky.

Any time a personal planet joins forces with the transpersonals,⁽¹⁾ some form of inscrutable power gets a nudge into visibility. In the collective, highly-charged emotions and ideas coagulate and become events.

On the personal level, the same process is at work. The secret box where we keep our phobias and shames might spring open this month. Now that they’re out in the open, this is our chance.

First of all, we let ourselves realize the extent to which we’ve repressed these energies. We notice how much power being hidden has given them. Then we imagine how it would feel to withdraw that power. How freeing that would be. Thirdly, we try it out. We start taking our power back from the demons.

Don’t skip the third step.

Law of Decay

Especially between 11/10-13, ask yourself where in your life there’s a secret box, releasing its contents. Whether it’s taking place in the external world or within the psyche, this is about courageously confronting (Mars) something unsavory (Pluto), and allowing it to break down. This is how we render safe what was toxic before: by bowing to the organic process of decay.

Ask yourself this month whether there’s something in your life that has become corrupted, like leftovers in the refrigerator that are starting to smell. That thing wants to be redeemed. It’s ready to die, and it needs to be respectfully buried. So the cycle of life can go on.

Beyond the drama

Among the superstitious, Mars-Uranus-Pluto contacts are approached with fear and dread. Unless we’ve cultivated a detached perspective, nobody relishes the prospect of power struggles (Pluto), especially those we didn’t even realize were afoot. We don’t want our ego dramas (Mars) to ignite. Maybe we don’t want to know what our survival issues are. Personal revolutions (Uranus) can be frightening, whether emotional or philosophical.⁽²⁾

But astrologers have good reason to appreciate transits like these, as do therapists and somatic practitioners, because they make so clear what needs to be healed. We don’t have to dig to see where the client’s hot buttons are. They’re suddenly right there in front of us, very real.

Forewarned

This combination of planets results in a sharp, unmistakable experience for those who are paying attention. Pluto is the truth we have been loath to face, Uranus is the shock of discovery, and Mars gives these issues a shape in present time, so we can do something about them. As wisdom-seekers, we don’t have to like transits like these.⁽³⁾ But it is important that we respect them.

What’s respect-worthy about triggers to the Cardinal Cross is that do away with deniability. We can no longer plead ignorance of our underlying intentions.⁽⁴⁾

As with any other Mars transit, forewarned is forearmed. But this isn’t enough, when the trans-personals are involved. To avoid this transit’s shadow, we need to remind ourselves of Pluto’s essential purpose. It is inviting us to assimilate something we’ve condemned as dangerous.

Remember the story of Beauty and the Beast? We face a test this month like the one Beauty passed with flying colors. She embraced something that was ugly, something that once made her afraid. And suddenly everything was different.

Notes

1 Mars conjoins Pluto exactly on the tenth and squares Uranus exactly the 12th through 13^th.

2 These descriptions are necessarily general. The transits’ effect will depend on the specifics of your individual chart; without knowing these, we can’t know what parts of our lives are being hit. But speaking broadly, if you have planets or angles in Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn) your relationship to the Uranus-Pluto square (2008-2023) has been impossible to miss. If those natal planets are between ten and thirteen degrees, the transit is peaking right now for you. Hunker down with your chart and ephemeris, if you know astrology. If not, have your chart read professionally.

3 In my webinar from Sept 2014 I discuss the danger to the study of astrology posed by the “like/ dislike” mindset. As a signifier of our society’s entrenched dualistic thinking, “liking” (or not) has become pop culture’s favorite lingua franca: a way to register our opinion without conferring meaning. “Like/ Unlike” became institutionalized ten years ago by the button on Face Book, which changed “like” from a feeling (Venus) to an act (Mars): voting, via a computer click, to convey a judgment of unspecified approval or acknowledgment.

4 Ignorance is always possible, of course; our degree of awareness about anything can shift and mutate at any point. But these transits make it harder to stay unaware.  To the extent that we are conscious of what’s trying to happen, we’re directly identified with the planet(s) in question: we recognize that the impulse originates within ourselves. To the extent that we’re unconscious of it, we may project that impulse: we attract it to us in the form of somebody else. The former scenario is generally preferable. See my essay on transits of Mars.

5 On December 14^th the Uranus-Pluto square will have its sixth exactitude: the second-to-last time, in our lifetimes, that they make this angle to the minute of arc. Then, just before the solstice, Venus and Mercury will set it off, through Christmas eve. The last exactitude of the Cross is March 16th, 2015.