The center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Photo from the Wikimedia Commons.

BOTH PLANETS that rule Scorpio are currently in the spotlight: Mars because it is retrograde, and Pluto because it is conjunct the Galactic Core and about to be met by Jupiter.
 
Mars retrograde is not all that rare, but in the sign Cancer (where lately, it's retrograde about every 14 years) we get an interesting story for you, involving your relationship to your long-range plans, your 'spiritual' life and your ideas about existence. Pluto conjunct the GC is extremely rare (occurring every 250 years or so), and this is highlighted by the forthcoming Jupiter conjunction -- a triple conjunction of Jupiter, Pluto and the GC. What is perhaps most interesting is that the two setups are in an opposition; that is, Mars recently opposed Pluto, and will make two more oppositions over the next few months.
 
This is like two aspects of your nature facing one another like mirrors; or looked at another way, two distinct processes working themselves out on either side of a complex equation, each of which will need to be reconciled. It may be disconcerting to have what seems like two entirely independent issues at play, neither of which seems responsive to the other.
 
You may, as well, be in some kind of a titanic struggle over sorting out who you were in the past from who you are now, and there may be some significant confrontations brewing in your life that represent your process of working your way free from those situations.
 
In the syntax of astrology that I use, the traditional planets come first in nearly any discussion, in this case Mars. Then having made contact with tradition, we can look at the modern ruler of your sign, Pluto, and the even more newfangled point that it's conjunct, the Galactic Core. First things first.
 
Mars is the key that turns the ignition of the human world: volition. That is, desire, impulse, and the conscious drive to survive. Cancer brings in all of those questions of basic nurturing and survival, but here is the first twist: the 9th house  (where this occurs in your solar chart) is were we seek refuge, as adults, in a potentially hostile and threatening universe. It represents one's ideas and beliefs, and in your case, the question is, do your ideas about life support you? This may seem like a silly question, but you would be surprised what comes back to one's basic ideas about life.
 
I will give you an example. I was reading from something called The Urantia Book a while ago, an interesting text that can seem at once cosmic and outdated and which one of my most trusted teachers once picked up, looked at and declared an obvious fraud. In this book, it suggests that humans have no right to existence, survival or happiness; we are merely born and must fend for ourselves. There are no guarantees.
 
Now, a lot of people walk around with ideas like this, many of them picked up from religion and spirituality and its toxic derivative, superstition. Worse yet, many more live in a world where there is "a God" but that God sees fit to allow genocide, homelessness, starvation, unemployment, greed and so forth -- all on a planet where there are plenty of resources to go around and where the real issue is how those resources are distributed.
 
Mars retrograde in Cancer is suggesting strongly that you conduct an inventory of your spiritual, religious and metaphysical beliefs and see which work for you and which work against you. You may wonder whether it's really that easy, and I would say yes. That is because beliefs are not the truth; they are merely beliefs. They have no currency except what we give them, and usually we have no idea we are giving them any at all. We typically don't see how meaningless beliefs are until we experiment withdrawing power from them and watching what happens.
 
Also, you may feel that you were raised without religion; therefore, religion has no impact on you. But the whole mission of religion, pardon the pun, is to infect the secular world with its ideas, and it does so with astonishing effectiveness. Therefore you need to look at which values you were taught and ascertain which of those have religious roots. I suggest you work your way up your family tree starting on your mother's side and see what the people who came before you believed and why they believed it.
 
The chances are there were some people with what I will politely call issues, and they are not defined as neat psychological concepts but rather as an emotional survival struggle that is at its base existential: it involves core ideas about existence, transmitted to you without words. The long Mars retrograde in Cancer and later in Gemini will help you give language to these themes and finally see the ways they impact your relationship contracts -- particularly marriage and financial partnerships where the resources of others are involved.
 
While this is brewing away all winter, you are in another dimension of your life rapidly discovering the present. It is another cosmos where you are self-confident, free from the values of others, independent, and certain of your worldview. You have worked long and hard for your moral and financial independence, and you know you are on the verge of some enormous breakthrough that will all but guarantee that you are solid and stable in life, running under your own steam. This is represented by the meeting of Jupiter, Pluto and the Galactic Core in your 2nd house of personal values and resources. The suggestion here is that you have plenty to work with, long-earned, well-deserved and organically your own.
 
What you may be certain of is that this development, this emergence into your freedom, involves knowing and being firmly grounded in what is important to you. From that viewpoint, it may seem ridiculous that the influences of the past or the unfinished business of anyone in your ancestral line could be snagging you in any way. But that is what the picture says, and the solution seems straightforward enough: keep working both sides of the equation. To the extent that you are stepping into your independence in the present, reach back into the past to at least continue identifying the old beliefs that could be making keeping yourself grounded and stable in the present very challenging.
 
I would repeat: the old beliefs you are wading through -- which may be manifesting as various forms of feeling stuck, as insecurity, or as panicky feelings -- are emotional reactions that are based on some form of metaphysical deception. Someone at some point in the past decided to cling to a fundamental belief about existence that was passed on to you in some mutated form, perhaps unrecognizable. There is a very good chance that belief involves men, male sexual energy, and by extension, whether you are allowed to possess your own will, or your own self-confidence.
 
In this world, I would not put it past even a Scorpio to miss the connection between sexual self-confidence and self-confidence in general. I have little doubt that this Mars retrograde in Cancer theme I am getting at, this core belief about existence, involves some idea of "how men are" and whether they inherently deplete or nourish women. As a man, you may have taken on a belief that you are less-than-wholesome; as a woman, that the men you need in your life are less-than-wholesome. Consider your mother's ideas about men, in particular, and consider the possibility that you swallowed them whole at a very young age. Over time, new ideas have moved in but have not, entirely, taken their place -- and that is the process you are in now.
 
It may seem like a stretch to say that these ideas, or any ideas, regulate the course of your existence. Yet your charts at the moment are a study in this particular phenomenon. I would say take a look at your life and at your mind and see what you discover, and see what moves once you identify an idea that does not work, or does not belong there. See what happens when you replace it with something that does in fact work.
 
You know that at this stage of your life you have so much to celebrate, so much to experience and so much to look forward to. While you are basking in the light, turn around and look at the shadows of the distant past, and seek your freedom there.



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