Where do we stand on the issue of courage?
The question seems old-fashioned. We modern folk don’t have legends of dragon-slaying heroes to look up to. We no longer erect statues to great warriors who comported themselves honorably in battle.
Probably the last vestige of this type of society-wide inspiration was the respect paid, by almost all Americans, to the Greatest Generation who stormed the beaches at Normandy. But as the population ages, this heroic model, too, is fading fast.
How does the world define heroism these days?
Shouting match
In the digital age, especially in the USA, boldness and daring are no longer expressed through valiant deeds, but through extreme sociopolitical stances, ratcheted up through internet trolling and partisan violence. There’s no cultural consensus about anything; just an infinite shouting match of colliding opinions.
We Americans still revere Martial prowess — it’s an ineradicable urge, native to the human condition — but the dominant paradigm is to measure it in bullying posts and inflammatory memes.
Ethical power
Even so, we have heroes. We have Greta Thunberg, whose staggering ethical power is daunting enough to threaten
those with staggering financial power. We have journalists who haven’t sold out, artists who risk arrest to express their truth, and brilliant thinkers who suffer for their integrity.
But, remarkably, there’s no broadly-agreed-upon moral viewpoint. Especially right now, in this society torn apart by culture war, there are no models of rectitude that are acceptable to everyone. This has left us collectively bereft.
We are going through a rough phase.
Alive and well
But planetary forces haven’t changed.
Mars, the warrior, is still orbiting above, alive and well within each of our charts. Jupiter, the planet of moral clarity, has not gone anywhere. Neptune, 
the planet of unity consciousness, abides eternally, in both inner and outer worlds.
We are still responsible for expressing these energies as creatively as we know how.
Right now, with the sky full of Aries, our goal should be to get in touch with the impulse — inherent, if not always conscious — to express courage amidst the chaos.
Hammer and Fury
As transit-trackers know only too well, there’s a big difference between using Mars well and using it poorly. If assertiveness isn’t channeled with awareness, the result is rock-dumb aggression. Bar fights, smear campaigns, masculine overcompensatory violence. “Midnight Hammer,” “Epic Fury,” bonesmashing.
Mars is a fighter, built to tackle the hardships of life. But ideally, we would do so with imagination and care, not just mimic the brute force displayed in video games. Unfortunately, there’s not much cultural value placed upon finessing obstacles with grace.
Did you learn to cope skillfully with adversity when you were a kid? More likely, you were taught to try to vanquish adversity, using your willpower as a blunt instrument.
But eliminating adversity can’t be done, any more than we can delete Saturn and Mars from our charts.
Leadership
This month is a good time to practice facing the inevitable adversities of life, large or small.
Mars goes into Aries, the apex cardinal sign, on the ninth. Mercury follows on the fourteenth, firing up our communications. The Sun stays in Aries until the nineteenth. Saturn and Neptune, still dominating the skies, remain in conjunction around the Aries point.
Astrology posits various leadership styles (cardinal planets). Aries, being fire, has an approach about as subtle as a bullet from a gun. Cancer, the sign Jupiter is in, is also cardinal, but it leads in a watery way: through emotional bonds.
Cancer takes the initiative not through ballistic force, but through asserting itself in matters of security. Think of the ferocity of a mother bear with cubs. Think of the courage of the people of Minneapolis, who set up food deliveries for their neighbors huddling at home for fear of ICE.
Each of us has our own unique way of meeting this moment. Check your chart for the houses where the four cardinal signs reside (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn).
They’ll show you how to access courage you didn’t even know you had.
