Father Earth-The “Must-See” Film No One is Watching by Marcia Buchart

“You figure he’ll crack quick?”

“I figure,” Val Con said…”that the luck has favored us, in that Nelirikk has been so badly used… I take him for a man who possesses a strong and innate sense of Balance…If we are clever, and give him what he starves for—work, discipline, and respect—we may yet preserve him.”

from Plan B, by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

And so, I offer the solution before naming the issue, because it is all too easy to shudder at the issue and turn away before even asking whether there is a solution. On the very Friday on which I saved Venus’ sacred bee, I opened the Seattle Times to the top story of a father who had been killed by random gunfire while driving his children and parents from the airport. The very next day a man went postal in a downtown club and five more people were shot dead.

While all our eyes and minds are focused on the thrilling—but invisible!—dance between the Horns of the Great Bull, let us not forget the planets that are visible in the sky almost all the night.

Grief hangs over Seattle following senseless shootings 

Let’s think about Mars.

Night after night, since late March of last year He has kept an often lonely watch in the night sky; last May He met, all too briefly, with His Goddess lover, Venus near the baleful stare of Cetus—Rick and Ilsa sharing their last moment together.  

After their parting, only Saturn and Jupiter have kept Him distant company throughout His long months on patrol in the zodiac sign Virgo, against the constellational backdrop of the Lion.

Ewww! Mars?? Do we have to talk about Him?? Isn’t this whole time supposed to be about the special potential signified by the Venus dance?? Well, I hate to break it to you, folks, but lissen up. An ignored Mars is like the Bad Fairy at the christening: the one who has been dissed, intentionally uninvited, and who will therefore pronounce the Curse that it will take a loooonnng time for the Heroes and Heroines symbolized by all those multiple conjunctions  to resolve.(Remember those? See Preview of Coming Attractions post)

Quoting from that post:
This whole series of events is a mammoth sequence of conjunctions—Venus with the Pleiades, Venus with El Nath, Sun with Jupiter, the solar eclipse of May 20th, Jupiter with Mercury, Mercury with the Sun (where He sheds His worn-out Explorer’s leathers for His Administrative robes , Mercury with Venus, Venus with the Sun, Venus turning away from a conjunction with Jupiter, Venus with Aldebaran, Venus with Chi1 Orionis [the business end of Orion’s club].
OMG, this whole sequence will last until August 6!

To put it bluntly: if He is dissed, He’ll kill your ass, bitches. And there are very few zodiac signs that are more dissed than Virgo.

Mars began His long stay in zodiac sign Virgo in early November 2011. He spent a looooonnnng retrograde in Virgo and will finally leave Virgo for Libra on July 3rd. “Whew!” many may be saying. Even some archetypally oriented astrologers have shaken their heads over Mars in Virgo; Adam Gainsburg has noted a special tension in people with this placement. So it is perhaps unsurprising that, while all the shooting insanity was occurring in the Seattle area, (Dec 02 1869, 12 noon, Olympia, WA) while in hard aspect to that chart’s Destiny Axis (Midheaven and Lower Heaven).  What can the planet of direct, sometimes brutal action find at all convivial about supposedly picky, detail-oriented Virgo?

One thinks of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Coriolanus, of the warrior who cannot cope with civilized life

(“Who am I without my sword?”).

No swords in civilized life? Think again.

Consider these deeply necessary, detail-demanding endeavors, at the mastery involved in bringing fire, sharp implements and brute strength (all ruled by Mars) under fine control…

Watching this mastery is riveting. I once stood for a half hour at a blacksmith’s booth in a Renaissance Faire, marveling at the precision with which this person struck the blade he was building.

At a granite finishing shop I watched a gnarled gnome of a man work for a solid hour on polishing the same two-foot section of marble slab.  I watched a physician with hands that seemed much too large for the task tease away the scars and scabs from the stitches in my husband’s hand before deftly drawing them. At dinner overlooking Elliot Bay, I watched two tugboats maneuver a monstrous vessel to berth.  Homely, ugly, battered little craft, ridiculous-looking tires lining their bows and sides, pivoting like dancers in the water as they passed the towing cable between them. The power implied by their maneuvers took my breath away. Watch Tugboats Working

No nobility in what used to be termed “honest work”? That’s certainly how it seems Governor Scott Walker and the plutocrats who back him see it. And wasn’t it interesting that a bid to topple him took place on the very day of the Venus Transit? “Way to go!” some of us (me) thought; “Get the Goddess (Venus) championing the Virgo Mars!”

Wrong.

That special conjunction of Sun and Venus was not only in challenging (90°) aspect to Mars. She did so while engaging in Sacred Marriage with one of the celestial bodies that Babylonian astrologers believed symbolized the King (Sun). Of course Scott Walker (the local king) won. BUT! the Martial underdog (Virgo) forces also won: Wisconsin’s senate wrested control from their King’s party.

If you click on this link to  you will hear a fascinating discussion between Adam Gainsburg and Eric Francis on Mars’ retrograde cycle “lassoing the Lion”. The Lion, of course is Leo, the actual constellational backdrop for this whole drama taking place in the sky. I watched those tugs lassoing the giant beast of a ship and turning it to guide it into its berth. Astonishing.

In another recent podcast, Adam Gainsburg asked with the new beginnings of Divine Feminine consciousness being forged in the heat of the solar transits—the Solar Feminine—where was the rest of the revolution: where were “Father Earth” and “Mother Sky”? Mother Sky has been with us since at least the days of ancient Egypt, in the magnificent depictions of Nut, the goddess who represents the entire night sky. See the following link to a lovely Visual Astrology Newsletter speaking of the return of this Goddess.

But where is “Father Earth”?

With Mars in Virgo, I would offer this idea: He is right under our noses, and we’ve ignored Him just as we so often ignore the daily details of our lives that require focus, precision and exactitude in execution. Chop wood, carry water. Even the most spectacular of Martial idols…Olympic athletes, perhaps?…have put in untold hours of Mars-in-Virgo practice to earn their right to compete for the prize.

Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration (thank you, Thomas Edison)? Believe it.

Don’t miss this opportunity, people: consider in what area of your own life you may need to apply that 99% perspiration to master focus, precision, strength, the symbolic cutting forces of fire and steel. (Contact Claudia and/or Carol for help in figuring this out.)

Consider it now, because, after July 3rd, your window of opportunity to honor and cultivate what we often dis—to give that part of yourself what He starves for: work, discipline and respect—won’t come again for another two years.

The world can’t wait that long. Neither can the Divine Feminine, riding the Horns of the Great Bull, Who longs for union with the Divine Masculine in Love:

“…the sense of having striven against an obstacle and survived is absolutely essential…It is our refusal to recognize this that makes Mars malefic. It is my opinion that only when your Mars has functioned at this level can you love. You can’t love if you don’t know who and what you are and you can’t find that out unless you have striven against resistance and measured yourself against it.”

– Robert Hand, “Handling the Malefics” in Essays on Astrology.

Music at the Wake for those killed in Seattle shooting in May 2012