Last night, as Mars ingressed into Scorpio, I had a dream.
I had come home after a long journey, and there was a party going on in my house. I saw a mix of familiar faces and even more I didn’t know. Exhausted from the long journey, I made a beeline for the stairs to rest in my room.
Not long afterward, some friends came up to see me. “We wanted to see how you were feeling,” they said. “We wanted you to know you’re not alone.” They spread a picnic blanket on my bedroom floor and I joined them, happy to spend time with people I cared about in the intimacy of my own space.
But then I noticed the door was open, and the room was filling up. I saw a couple I had never met before, casually eyeing my books, decor, and personal items.
“I’m sorry,” I said to them, “but I don’t know you. I didn’t invite you in. You need to leave.”
My friends looked a bit shocked at my bluntness and what they perceived as a lack of hospitality. I felt their judgement and began to second-guess myself. But beyond the piece of me that wanted their approval was something deeper, something that said “This is my space, and I decide what happens here. I want what I want, and I will be the creator of my own life.”
And so as the room filled up, I continued to say, “I don’t know you. You need to leave.” To the boys looking for a place to drink and smoke cigarettes. To the former friend I have chosen to have some space from.
And whatever judgements my friends may have had about the summary dismissals, they rolled with it. They stayed.
Mars is known as a strong action-oriented planet with severing, separating qualities. When he is in his masculine fire sign domicile of Aries, that action is directed more outward, into the world at large. When he is in his feminine water sign domicile of Scorpio, that quality is turned inward, to the hidden, more subtle forces at work in our subconscious mind and interpersonal relationships.
We often think of Venus as the planet governing desire, and while Venus plays an essential role, so does Mars. There is no desire without polarity, without the push and pull of wanting and aversion, of fulfillment and deprivation, of assertion and surrender, of separation and union, and Mars is the hard-edged, driving yang to Venus’ soft, yielding yin.
Over the last month, we’ve been spending a lot of time in Scorpio, with the Sun illuminating this shadowy, deeply emotional space, and Mercury retrograde forcing us to slow down and reflect on it.
Mars now asks us to take what we’ve learned and use it to guide us into action. Mars in Scorpio is a time to get clear about what we really want in life and to cut loose anything that is standing in the way. That might be beliefs about who we need to be or how we need to act in order to gain the approval of others. It might be relationships that are sucking us dry. It might be behaviors and habits that keep us mired in misery.
Many religious and spiritual systems teach us to fear desire. It is true that desire, when not made conscious and held with love, care, and respect, tends to come out sideways as cravings, attachments, and addictions, with terrible and destructive effects.
But true desire is the best compass we have to guide us on the journey of our soul’s unfolding. We are each a piece of divine love sent to earth to manifest as something completely, utterly, and brilliantly unique, and our deepest desire is the desire of God herself.
It’s not a straightforward road map. Locating desire requires us to wade through the muck of our fear and shame, Following our desire is a constant attuning and re-calibrating as we work through the layers of ancestry, trauma, karma, and conditioning to find it. Each time we shed a layer, we find ourselves renegotiating our relationship to desire. The things we thought we were chasing after may dissolve into mirage, but if we are paying attention, the time we spend is never wasted.
All the work I do, in my psychic aura readings, natal chart readings, and spiritual coaching, is rooted in this essential belief. I’m always seeking to help people trust their deepest desires and to learn to follow them.
There’s more to say about the transits this week, including the transition to Sagittarius season as the sun leaves Scorpio, and I’ll write more about that either here, or more likely, on Instagram as I try to beef up my presence there.
If you’d like some help deepening into your own desire, you can schedule a session with me via Zoom or in person at Minka Brooklyn.