Snow Drop Reminders
...On the Mars/Pluto conjunction
“The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
The harbingers of Spring have arrived. Countless white flowers blanket the English countryside, intimating a shift and offering a reminder of purity. I learned that it was the Romans who brought them here. I was also told they are called "death tokens." Traditionally grown around graveyards, there are all sorts of superstitions surrounding these small beauties who let us know Winter is coming...to a close.
I recently finished my first Cormac McCarthy novel, Blood Meridian. I started it with purpose while in New Mexico last Fall and finished it while taking in the snowdrops on the train back from London. The contrast was fierce. It's not a book I can comfortably recommend. The only reason I read it is that so many people have told me to read it and that it's sometimes called the Great American Novel—which I'm still trying to figure out. For a book with little to no plot and absent any character depth—save for one judge—it's astonishing you remain compelled to continue forward. The prose is mainly what drives the story, but one could argue the grotesque realities painted with words do as well. It's hard to look away. One could also say that life along the changing borders between Mexico and the US where it takes place was/and is just one perpetual Mars/Pluto conjunction. McCarthy captures it well.
Back then, if you were "brave" and starved for cash, you could ride off into the desert and hunt Apache ($100 a scalp). If you didn't want to do it alone, there were plenty of demented outfits one could join—Mexican and American alike. The brutality is hard to fathom, yet it never left us. It's just covered differently. War is ever present, always macabre, and we never seem to learn from it.
Two hundred years later, the border is still an issue, even if the drama has changed. Even today, with the conjunction, we see the impeachment of Mayorkas by the House due to his relationship with border security. Borders are always an issue—especially within our own hearts. How we enforce our own boundaries is crucial to how we engage with the rulers of Scorpio (Mars/Pluto). Without any enforcement of them, people will take advantage. We will get trampled. We will be used. We will become resentful. And so, we must be clear about our border to preserve our power. Whether nations do it, is another matter entirely.
The vulgar display of power we see daily guarantees higher blood pressure. The amount of news we take in doesn't seem to be helping anything. Back in 1850, there were only papers and the migrations of stories. Did people in New York or Mexico City actually know what was happening in the Sonoran, or did the headlines read: Now that the war is over, only a few troops remain to patrol the borderlands? Or: Apache's kill two cadets and a sergeant, more troops to be deployed. There wasn't X or Youtube or Tiktok to show us videos in real time of what is happening—not just there, but everywhere! We don't have the capacity. It's driving us insane and it's bringing us closer to war.
Now, whether this transit is manifesting with a hole in the wall or a dark hunch you may have, it's important to know where it is happening. Any planets or angles you have in the first degrees of Aquarius will be branded by it. Mars' sword points to the divide within all of our hearts between good and evil; Pluto is wearing his helmet, and remains invisible and hard to track. It's always on us to take our power back by making the right choice. To create boundaries made from the finest steel and to have the willingness to defend ourselves from those who would love to see us fail. As Gabor Mate says, "Something can be so wrong, not even the opposite is true." We are blessed with copious examples of this today. There is reason to be angry, but what then? Is it fuel or is it poison?
Enjoy the excited molecules in these first degrees of Aquarius. Use it wisely to burn off some useless calories. If you are in a place graced with hopeful snowdrops, remember it was the Romans who brought them—a culture birthed by Mars himself. Like a clean fire that leaves nothing but bone-white ash, we must burn through the detritus, discover purification, and be left with a cooler head. Nobody wants to live in one of Cormac's worlds. Nobody I'd like to know. Let's do our best to avoid it by not falling for their ideological traps.
May you and those you love remain strong through it all.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Facts:
Mars conjunct Pluto: today; Feb 14th @ 6:05 am GMT(00º Aquarius)
Mars ingress to Pisces: March 22nd
Eudaimonia,
Adam
to work with me:
...to adventure deeper into kosmos, mythos, and psyche
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....to support the creation of my writings/podcasts and be showered with gifts as well
Thank you, Adam, for this amazing transmission. You are such a gifted communicator and one way I know that is that your words--whether written or spoken--always inspire me to spend more time working on my writing and speaking. I've been in an energetic rut since I returned from my 3-week trip to the US at the end of January, but I'm coming out of it now, so thanks for this push you've given me.
Second, I'm really glad you brought up Cormac McCarthy. Why? Well, in December a dear friend whose literary opinions I respect told me how much she loved McCarthy's work and I put up some resistance, having read "The Road" back when it came out on another recommendation and finding it a really tough slog. I told my friend that I just found his worldview too bleak to understand what all the fuss was about.
However, she told me to read "The Border Trilogy," and I downloaded the free sample on my Kindle, read a bit of it, was impressed by the writing if not the "plot," but then forgot about it. Currently, I'm halfway through book 2 of Ben H. Winters' "The Last Policeman Trilogy," which I'd highly recommend for those who like tight writing, detective tales, insights into the human condition and an apocalyptic background (in this case, an asteroid that's going to hit the world in less than a year's time).
Anyway, when I finish with that series---probably around the end of February---I'll then turn my attention to "The Border Trilogy," because, like it or not, with migrants pouring over the southern border in droves never seen before, and with the eclipse of 4/8 literally crossing the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, one of the hot spots of that migration, well, I think it behooves those of us who want to more fully understand our world to find creative ways to learn about that area of real estate.
Okay, keep up your good work and I'll do my part to do mine---I'll spend a week or so brainstorming some ideas for my new blog, "The Archetypal Lens," and then, well, some words should start appearing on it!
Borders and boundaries... I love that you brought them into the Mars-Pluto contemplation, because of course they're the source of so much conflict and so much of the difficulty in resolving it--ie resentments.
As I think you know, I can't read Cormac McCarthy. I've tried and failed and there are too many beautiful stories to beat my head against that wall, but his insights are transcendent and the man can string words together in a way that makes me swoon. Congrats for making it to the finish line with Blood Meridian!