Dear Readers,
Last week, I wrote a bit about the Mars-Pluto conjunction happening today. It’s a volatile combination that can inspire violence and brutality, and we would all be wise to be mindful around our feelings and impulses this week, particularly if we have planets or points in our chart around 0° Aquarius, Taurus, Leo or Scorpio.
This, however, brings up a larger question that has inspired several recent conversations centering around the topic of how much of life is fated and how much is free will.
Writing about and practicing astrology as I do, this is an ongoing and pertinent question. If indeed I can see symbols in the chart that might indicate trauma, a certain relationship dynamic, a period of physical or mental health challenges, or that someone lives in another part of the world from where they were born, how much choice do we really have?
I’ve always operated from the assumption that life is about choices, and we are free to choose what’s “good” for us, or what takes us down a different road that looks to others like it’s “bad” for us. But what if we landed here in these bodies to make “bad” choices because of the way they intersect with other people’s choices that look like “good” choices?
Personally, after 62 plus years on this planet in this body, I’ve done a lot of wrestling with my angels—or my demons—depending on how you answer the above questions about good and bad. Is it my fate to live like this? Am I wired this way? Or is it the result of choices I made earlier in my life than I remember—and were those choices actually free will choices? I’m not sure anymore.
Here’s what I am sure of around all of this: Mars and Pluto are conjunct today—and in my chart, they’re with Saturn. Archetypally anyway, you could say that I have the three roughest characters in the Greek/Roman pantheon fighting with each other for space in my subconscious. I slept poorly last night and woke up this morning in a grumpy mood. Reading a few news headlines, I found myself wanting to pick fights with the writers and commenters. I actually wrote something inflammatory in one comment thread before realizing what I was doing and erased it.
Aha… free will! I chose to delete the comment before putting more negative energy out into the world… I chose to align with my values in that moment. Or did I? What if I didn’t actually choose, but the hand of fate moved through me? Or maybe this… I grudgingly listened to the angels of my better nature that were tapping me on the shoulder trying to get my attention before I did something that I’d end up pissed at myself about later in the day?
A few years ago, deep in Covid-time, I read Michael Meade’s Fate and Destiny. He describes fate as the givens of our lives—the wounds, challenges, genetics, family, culture, social context, etc. There’s not much we can do about these things. To my mind, it’s like the cards we were dealt when we landed in our bodies. Destiny, on the other hand, is subject to free will. This is the part of us that dreams, imagines, and strives to live our own authentic story, beyond the limitations of our fate. To accept our fate then is the ground from which we can grow and transform our lives in such a way that they align with our deeper sense of who we came here to be. I can’t spend my life beating my head against a wall because I grew up in a dysfunctional family and expect to create a different reality for myself. Only when I accept the original context and all that came with it do I stand a chance of transforming my inherited dysfunctional beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors into something that empowers me. Transformation requires a death. I must be willing to let those inherited elements fall away if I want something different that aligns with my authentic self and my values.
I agree with the idea that astrology is archetypally predictive but that it doesn’t predict specifics. The symbols hold certain meanings, but more than that, they evoke a certain flavor of energy. Combined, multiple possibilities for the way they might manifest emerge. On a day like today, when Mars is conjunct Pluto at 0° Aquarius, there will be myriad ways the symbols that contain the energy of these three elements play out around us.
This morning, Astro-Twitter was blowing up (sorry about the pun… but not really) with anecdotes and stories that accurately describe the Mars-Pluto in Aquarius combination of archetypes—just as did the grumpy incendiary comments that my guardian angel arrested me from posting this morning.
Therefore, we can conclude absolutely nothing definitive, but I believe that there is such a thing as fate and that by truly embracing what is fated, we can create a life more aligned with who we really are as we grow into that knowing.
This week’s astrology is rough. To my mind, Mars-Pluto asks us to look deeply into our individual needs for power, our cruel and violent feelings and impulses, and to accept and be curious about them rather than horrified; then choose how to engage with the energy in alignment with our values. While the conjunction is exact today, it will be in play for the remainder of the week.
As the Mars-Pluto conjunction fades, Venus steps into the void. Venus conjunct Pluto in Aquarius will be exact on Saturday, but we’ll likely be feeling it Wednesday through Monday. In this case, what we value will come under scrutiny. Pluto asks us to go deep, and Venus speaks to our relationships, as well as love, beauty, and harmony. We will probably not be content with superficiality in any of these arenas. Our petty jealousies, neediness, controlling behaviors and obsessions might come to the fore. These too, we’ll need to accept and be curious about in order to choose consciously.
Valentine’s day might be a little subdued or completely out of control this year…
On February 18, the Sun moves into Pisces, but that’s another chapter for another day. Today it felt important to me to address the question of free will in the context of these challenging planetary combinations… which to me are simply concrete symbols that refer to the energy we’re living in and participating with in everything we do.
Last year, I had the great pleasure of meeting some of you face to face. If you’d like to begin 2024 with a better understanding of yourself or what the month, year or years ahead might hold, I’d be delighted to serve as your guide. 2024-2026 promise to be big years.
As always, thank you for reading.
Cami