Mars in Capricorn

[Jim Eshelman]

Mars will pass through Capricorn March 23 to May 4. What will we see in the top headlines during this time?

During the entire time, Saturn is also in Capricorn. The two Capricornian planets will conjoin in a few days. I expect a heightened focus on autonomous survival and many of the themes already identified as historically occurring during Saturn's stays in Capricorn. viewtopic.php?f=34&t=3344#p28419

In humans with Mars in Capricorn at birth, we expect the following character:

Courage, stands own ground (prefers action to complaining). Confrontational, discontent: creates unnecessary struggle & conflict (over authority, control, father issues). Private, secretive, self-veiling. (Mysterious façade, or deceptive; to avoid control, look good, or not be found out). Much unresolved shadow; vulnerable to dark moods; carries past darkness around. Sexually forthright (strong needs + practicality).

During Mars' long (six-month) stay in Capricorn two years ago (when it was retrograde), items observed included: Unusual volcanic activity, other "raging of the Earth." (Hate speech?) - (Amphibious craft tragedy.) - Widespread brooding darkness and mistrust, dominance struggles ("dark father" archetypes active), dread to be found weak (compensatory or retaliatory striking out).. A separate thread on it is here:
viewtopic.php?f=34&t=2591

[Jim Eshelman]

As we enter this Mars in Capricorn period, many story lines carry over in the news from earlier Mars transits (and many were started on Capricorn themes by Saturn in Capricorn).

Foremost, of course, is the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, COVID-19. Each of disability, disadvantage, deprivation, isolation, risk of death, and general hardship (that is remarkable and almost shocking for the developed world in the 21st century) leads the news every day, nearly every hour.

The stock market has been tanking. President Trump has gotten fed up with it and loudly questioned yesterday whether the cure (by which he meant the plummeting stock market) was worse than the disease (thousands of people sick in this country and potentially millions at serious risk). On his screaming he'd had enough and wouldn't let social isolation keep America from the work place much longer, the stock market rose more today than on any other single day since 1933.

Retailers, especially pharmacies and food delivery companies, are hiring like crazy!

In a possibly related theme, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that states are not required by the Constitution to allow an insanity defense in criminal cases.

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

Not sure the stock market rose on Trump's blithering, or on the very good chance the relief bill is going to pass the Senate. I think it's the latter, but I'm sure the jerk helped because a lot of rich people think they can't get the disease or will have access to ventilators and so on. Maybe they will.

[Danica]

Health industry is hiring like crazy, too, and no protective equipment available (same for retailers and all others).
DIY masks and gloves from wherever you can find them, is how it goes.

[Jim Eshelman]

The lead headlines from March 24:

The coronavirus pandemic is the top feature in the news. The main stories around it for the day are Congress debating a stimulus bill (with a fear that they are running out of time to do something effective with it, plus divisions over whether the money is going to the right place); rising U.S. death numbers (crossing the line of 100 per day); UK going into lockdown; and China stabilizing, close to lifting lockdown restrictions.

Related to this (nearly the same story) is that health care works are begging for more supplies, especially respirator masks. Pressure on Trump to activate the Defense Protection Act, continues and increases. Medical supplies are stretched, medicines are on national backorder. (On a personal note, my doctors have been trying for a week to get me a prescription medicine for an eye infection and they haven't yet found one that is appropriate and is in stock anywhere. Last night I found a pharmacy a few miles from here that had one of the viable drugs in stock, and let the doctors know, so hopefully they'll act before it runs out.) A man in Arizona died (and his wife is in critical condition) from self-treating with chloroquine.

And then there is the economy which, measured by the stock market, is tanked but making some recovery this week. In the broader economy, the news is that retailers and service providers are hiring hundreds of thousands of people from the pool of recently laid off or fired people.

The Supreme Court ruled that states are not constitutionally required to allow an insanity defense.

Primarily, then, it is familiar Capricorn (especially Saturn in Capricorn) themes of disease, death, lockdown, borders, shortages, tumbling and struggling economy, mobilizing executive and legislative protections, etc.

[Jim Eshelman]

Top news items from the morning of March 25:

White House and Congress may have a deal negotiated on a $2 trillion stimulus package, following days of contentious negotiations. With this, Trump (against the strong advice of his medical advisors) is pushing really hard on easing restrictions and getting people to act normally again, famously calling for the churches to be filled by Easter on April 12, saying he doesn't want the cure (a tanked economy) to be worse than the disease (COVID-19).

The virus itself, of course, is at the top of the news. About one-third of the world population is under lockdown or at least movement restriction - a gigantic number of people constrained and bounded. (This is even with gigantic China lifting most of its restrictions.) Gigantic India just announced a complete lockdown - nobody to leave their home at all for three weeks! NYC cases are multiplying rapidly, making up about half the cases in the U.S.

The Olympics are delayed until next year. Democrats are reassessing how to handle their national convention this summer.

Meanwhile, 64 corpses were found in a sealed shipping container in Mozambique. (The truck driver had been offered $500/person to transport them.) I think the main Capricorn themes here are corpses and the restrictive isolation of a sealed shipping container (again, the frequently seen "borders & boundaries" or "available space" themes.)

[Jim Eshelman]

Top news stories from March 26 hit the by-now familiar top Capricorn themes:

Predictably, the coronavirus pandemic is at the top of the news. Stories for the day center on climbing numbers infected and dying, Prince Charles' positive test, new estimate that deaths could peak in three weeks (that means mid-April), rapid increase in NYC (where confirmed cases are doubling every three days), and a freeze on U.S. troop movements.

Second biggest story is the economy. Focus of the day is that a large stimulus package is moving through Congress (with still back-and-forth as part of the process).

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is undergoing a record-breaking bleaching, i.e., coral expelling algae as a stress response to warming water. (Yup, global warming is still in the news.) Two other bleaching events in the last five years killed about half the coral.

In secondary news, ammunition sales in Colorado have risen 1,000%. "Around the country, people seem to be stockpiling guns and ammo alongside their toilet paper in response to coronavirus restrictions, the data show."

[Jim Eshelman]

Top news stories from the morning of March 27:

Coronavirus pandemic: The U.S. now has more cases than any other country. (We are No. 1! ) Concurrently, President Trump announced how well we were doing with our great success in battling it ( ). China, the best real success story on containment so far, is lifting internal restrictions while sealing its border to nearly all foreigners to defend against another wave. Biden is doing a virtual town hall on coronavirus impact.

In more general health news, doctors are learning the actual effects of COVID-19 on the body. It causes possibly permanent lung damage from inflammation and increases risks in heart disease. Hospitals are looking at whether to change their DNR policies because CPR on a COVID-19 patient could increase risk to health care workers. Shortages of masks continue.

Venezuela is in the Trump administration's cross-hairs, filing narco-terrorism charges against its president.

[Jim Eshelman]

Coronavirus news continues is the primary story. As we hit the Mars-Saturn conjunction in Capricorn (and nearly have it on the quotidian angle in Washington), the news centers more on death, with Dr. Fauci estimating 100,000 to 250,000 U.S. deaths before this is over. - However, the statistical curves are starting to flatten just a bit, possibly suggesting that current methods are working. The peak is currently estimated to hit mid-April, with matters seriously worsening in the next two weeks.

On the medical side, pharma companies are hard at work on vaccines and treatments, hoping to have them through testing and available for use by early 2021. Some older drugs, already approved, are being tested for possible use against COVID-19.

Hungary's parliament voted to let its prime minister rule by decree indefinitely. (Yes, folks, that's an officially authorized dictatorship.) He can even suspend the parliament that gave him this power and punish the press for how they report.

Not sure if this is a Mars in Capricorn story, but the DOJ has started a major probe into members of Congress who sold stocks ahead of the sharp downturn a few weeks ago.

[Jim Eshelman]

In "keep it simple" terms... the COVID-19 pandemic is really the one, only story right now. I keep looking for other stories with Capricorn related themes (among the biggest stories each day) but, really, half of the Top Five already about the pandemic directly or indirectly and other potentially connected stories are slight connections at best.

When we look back on this month and a half down the road, this one story (and its impact on dramatically shifting how life is lived for a while) will be what we remember.

[By Jove]

The lockdown restrictions are very Saturnine in character. They utterly cramp and limit people's daily lives.

[Jim Eshelman]

Corona corona corona... The main headlines are mostly "all coronavirus all the time," or matters related to it such as the economy. However, yesterday's shift is worth noting: The bottom is falling out of the oil market for a while. Every oil-producing part of the world has run out o places to store what they are producing, even with drastically cut-back production.

Yesterday, the price of crude oil went negative: Some locations literally are paying people to cart oil away just to get rid of it.

In other news, Kim Jong-Un's health may have taken a nosedive. There are rumors out of North Korea that he's in serious condition following a cardiac surgical procedure. No other details.

[sotonye]

Are the protests happening with respect to the lockdown a fit for this transit? People are out in arms to pursue their daily bread

[Jim Eshelman]

Are the protests happening with respect to the lockdown a fit for this transit? People are out in arms to pursue their daily bread

Fitting for Mars in Capricorn, you mean? Probably consistent with that, or at least with the causes behind it. Nothing so far suggests that it's a "protest" position per se AFAIK but, I think it fits as to causes.

Or, to be more blunt: Every report I can find addressing the question says that these protests aren't a wide cross-section of people. The heavy, heavy majority are specifically far-right extremists of the gun-toting, corporate-supporting, "leave me the F alone" conservatives that Capricorn best exemplifies.

While Moon-Uranus is much more consistent for populist uprisings than Moon-Pluto, Moon-Pluto is second most common, and of course every lunar ingress for a couple of years has a Moon-Pluto aspect - possibly as close right now as it ever will get with Pluto at it's station 0°02' from the 0°00' Rim Moon of all the ingresses.

What I miss, though, is an angular Moon. None of the current ingresses for Washington have this, and we'd expect it for a true populist uprising in the sense of the group mind of the wider "herd" is moved by a common subconscious wave. This makes it easier for me to believe that these protests are mobilization of right-wing voices organized by purely business means (all the Mercury in the ingresses for two months), to support the agenda of big business that is tired of being shut down.

[Jim Eshelman]

Today's leading headlines are (as on all days recently) primarily centered around pandemic issues, but there is a new twist today worth noting.

Because Trump fired the inspector general overseeing how the administration spends stimulus funds, the House of Representatives is setting up a new oversight committee. This issue of financial oversight is definitely a Saturn in Capricorn issue and, perhaps, also comes under the umbrella of Mars in Capricorn. Worth noting.

Additionally - another Saturn in Capricorn issue that looks like it is given some teeth by Mars, The Netherlands' highest court just ruled that doctors can legally euthanize some patients with severe dementia provided it is in compliance with a pre-dementia written request by the patient. (Netherlands' criteria for euthanasia "include a well-considered and voluntary decision by the patient, suffering without the possibility of improvement, and a lack of reasonable alternatives," according to CNN.)

[SteveS]

Cheers for the Netherlands! I wish my Mother had this option with her Dementia. There was times in her last 3 years of life she begged me to end her life.

[Jim Eshelman]

Here is my current generation Mars in Capricorn mundane interpretation, integrating the earlier interpretation (based on past years) with the unusually pure effects of this year's passage (perhaps purer because Mars and Saturn were together in Capricorn).

For this pass of Mars through Capricorn, more or less the only story was the COVID-19 pandemic. (Pandemic does come from the same word that is the name of the Greek goat god, and came into much more widespread use during this time.)

• Heightened focus on autonomous survival (heightened unemployment & risks of death; gun and ammo sales increased; intensified libertarian individualism; reassessed DNR and euthanasia policies). General hardship (at a level remarkable and almost shocking for the developed world in the 21st century). Corpses in the news.
• Disadvantage, deprivation, shortages (including shortages of space), disability, disease. (Supreme Court ruled that states need not allow an insanity defense in criminal cases.)
• Lockdown, isolation, boundaries & borders, struggling economy, restrictions on mobility and activities; executive and legislative controls as protections.
• Unusual volcanic activity, other "raging of the Earth," populations dying off.
• Widespread brooding darkness and mistrust, dominance struggles ("dark father" archetypes active), dread to be found weak (compensatory or retaliatory striking out).
• (Amphibious craft tragedy.)

Or, in tighter form without references to so many specific events from this current transit:

Heightened focus on autonomous survival (heightened unemployment & risks of death; gun and ammo sales increased; intensified libertarian individualism; corpses in the news). General hardship. -- Disadvantage, deprivation, shortages (including shortages of space), disability, disease. -- Lockdown, isolation, boundaries & borders, struggling economy, restrictions on mobility and activities; executive and legislative controls as protections. -- Unusual volcanic activity, other "raging of the Earth," populations dying off. Widespread brooding darkness and mistrust, dominance struggles ("dark father" archetypes active), dread to be found weak (compensatory or retaliatory striking out).

[Jim Eshelman]

Mars has re-entered the sign of its exaltation, Capricorn, where it will remain February 27 to April 8. This places Mars with Saturn in Capricorn, a team-up that occurred in the early months of the pandemic in 2020. Just before Mars leaves Capricorn in early April, a Mars-Saturn conjunction will occur in the exact exaltation degree of Mars, a region of space that historically has been very volatile and destructive.

Here is the most recent version of interpretation notes for Mars in Capricorn for mundane astrology. Let's see how it compares to events of the next several weeks.

Heightened focus on autonomous survival (heightened unemployment & risks of death; gun and ammo sales increased; intensified libertarian individualism; corpses in the news). General hardship. -- Disadvantage, deprivation, shortages (including shortages of space), disability, disease. -- Lockdown, isolation, boundaries & borders, struggling economy, restrictions on mobility and activities; executive and legislative controls as protections. -- Unusual volcanic activity, other "raging of the Earth," populations dying off. Widespread brooding darkness and mistrust, dominance struggles ("dark father" archetypes active), dread to be found weak (compensatory or retaliatory striking out).

[SteveS]

[Jim Eshelman]

With events in Ukraine, it seems the main keyword for Mars in Capricorn this time is: brutal.

This, of course, brings in other themes mentioned above. "General hardship" is an understatement. Basic survival is imperiled and being fought for. Curfews and other lockdowns are being enforced. Piles of corpses are in the news. The entire thing is a border and boundary issue. And I'm willing to say that Putin's entire motivation comes from or ties into, "Widespread brooding darkness and mistrust, dominance struggles ("dark father" archetypes active), dread to be found weak (compensatory or retaliatory striking out)."

[Jim Eshelman]

Also, here at the end: Piled up corpses.

[Jim Eshelman]

It's over, with lots of violence, brutality, inhumanity, and piled up corpses to show for it.

[Jim Eshelman]

Mars just entered Capricorn.

Let's hope it's kinder than last time. On a world scale, I'm not optimistic for that.