Throughout August and the first half of September, Mars – planet of fast-paced action – is in Libra.
Mars is a mover and shaker. He doesn’t plan ahead. He goes after what he thinks best for him at the moment and works out the details (if at all) later.
But in Libra, Mars is forced to slow down. Caught in a quagmire of debate and indecision, he is confronted not only his choices, but also their consequence. This is terrible news. There’s nothing Mars hates more than to sit still. Yet how well he manages this present task may well map the course of his entire life.
Consider the story of the Trojan warrior, Paris, whom the great god Zeus once called upon to decide which of three powerful (and jealous) goddesses was most beautiful. As you might imagine, he was immediately bribed: Hera offered him world rulership; Athena offered him military prowess; but Aphrodite offered him what any red-blooded young man would fancy most – the hand of the world’s most beautiful woman, Helen of Troy. Unfortunately she forgot to mention Helen was already married. The result was the Trojan War in which Paris lost his life.
It’s easy to understand why Paris chose as he did. But perhaps if he’d been less headstrong and self-focused, he might have chosen otherwise.
In today’s society, we’re encouraged to be like Mars – to take what we want and get on with life as fast as we can. But as we saw with Paris, in the long run this may not be the wisest approach. There is another way.
Mars in Libra offers us the opportunity to take a step back for a moment and explore not only what we might win for ourselves but also what we might win for the good of mankind. Think of the possibilities of what Paris might have accomplished as a sage world leader or a seasoned military man. We will never know. Likewise, in our midst of our modern hustle and bustle, we’ll never know what might be accomplished by contemplation and compromise until we give them a try.
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