Desire, Anger and Responsibility – Mars Opposes Saturn

Mars – action, passion and desire – opposes Saturn today (exact 10:12 pm PDT), slowing down the pace and asking you to turn inward and reflect on what you want and where you’re going. What are you committed to? What really matters? How are you taking responsibility for your needs, values and desires? How do you spend your time, and does that reflect what you say you value?

With so many planets moving through Taurus now, and each at some point opposing Saturn and the North Node in Scorpio, we’re really working on this balance between clarifying and standing strong in our own values and priorities (Taurus), and allowing for the transformation of values that happens when we’re intimate with another (Scorpio). The Mars-Saturn opposition is asking us to clearly define what matters, but also notice where we might be overly rigid or stuck, using our values as a defense against deepening intimacy, or protecting our egos from healing and transformation.

Mars rules anger, which can also show up as frustration, crankiness, resentment and even depression. Mars in Taurus – a Fixed, Earth sign – can be prone to getting stuck, to letting anger fester and build until it explodes, or suppressing the natural flow of life force into a state of stagnation. Mars’ opposition to Saturn – planet of restriction, limitation and obstacles – can potentially increase the feeling of frustration. This is especially true if you default into the opposition’s tendency toward projection – blaming someone else or some external situation for your own stuckness, seeing another as responsible for fulfilling your own needs and desires.

There’s also the potential for transforming frustration into action, stagnation into power – if you’re willing to do the Saturn in Scorpio work of emotional healing. Saturn is Retrograde, turning attention to the past, specifically those old wounds around self-worth, self-confidence, assertion and desire. Those times you didn’t value yourself enough to ask for what you wanted or needed, the times you DID ask and were rejected or abandoned. Feeling the feelings, allowing them to move through you, helps you come back into present time to be able to discern what’s actually true for you now, as opposed to operating from old defensive patterns.

If you’re feeling stuck, finding some way to physically move the energy could be helpful. Dancing, drumming, singing (Taurus rules the throat), beating on pillows, going for a walk or run… (While writing this post, sinking into the stuckness, I had to get up and dance a few times.) Communing with the Water element – taking a bath, swimming, visiting a river, ocean or lake – could also be helpful for softening up the Fixed Earth energy and helping you get back into the flow.

We’re just about at the halfway point between the first two (of three) Eclipses this Spring. Next up is a Solar Eclipse in Taurus on May 9 – an especially potent New Moon, setting into motion a major new beginning that will develop over the next 19 years. The Taurus Solar Eclipse wants to build something solid and lasting, aligned with our deepest values and priorities. Today’s Mars-Saturn opposition offers an opportunity to feel into what that might look like, and to heal and release what could get in the way of moving forward with confidence and clarity.

– Emily Trinkaus