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This is your Horoscope Highlight for the week of January 1oth- 16th 2022,  with world-class astrologer, historian, and author of The Cosmic Calendar, Christopher Renstrom.

This week, Christopher encourages us to go with the flow and “get Neptunian” as the outer planet’s transit through its home sign of Pisces, followed by a Mercury retrograde, appears to threaten the willpower and beliefs of Mars in Sagittarius.

If you’d like more personalized guidance from Christopher, make sure you subscribe to receive your free Weekly Horoscope so you can read what the week ahead will bring for your sun or rising sign, delivered to your inbox every Sunday!

Chapters

0:00 Mars square Neptune

0:48 Mars in Sagittarius

1:54 Neptune in Pisces

4:31 The dynamics of zeal & ambiguity

9:53 Concerns on over-assertion

10:38 January 14th Mercury Retrograde in Aquarius

11:43 Summary

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Transcript

This transcript is automatically generated. Some miswording might be present.

 

00:00:05 [Christopher Renstrom] Hello. My name is Christopher Renstrom and I’m your weekly horoscope columnist here on Astrology Hub. And this week I wanted to talk to you about the Mars Neptune square on January 11th. Now it’s easy to lose your way when Mars forums have square to Neptune that’s because Neptune tends to cloud the mind, water down the defenses and damp in the willpower. Whenever it’s square,

00:00:33 the planet of gumption and drive. This is something that I very much want you to pay attention to this week, because it’s going to really sort of alter your mindset very deeply and also very subtly. Here’s why when Mars is in Sagittarius, Mars is very spirited. Mars is the planet of gumption and drive. If it sees something at once, it goes after it and it says,

00:00:58 I want that. And it goes after it and, and, and, and seizes it. Mars is the sort of planet that’s absolutely in your corner when it comes to getting the things that you want in your horoscope. And as I said, when it’s in the Zodiac sign of Sagittarius, it’s very, it can sort of take on an evangelical spirited flavor.

00:01:19 That’s because Sagittarius is often what I like to describe as the cheerleader of the Zodiac. It’s the Zodiac sign that likes to get everyone riled up and excited and super duper enthusiastic about something. And it’s like, come on, you can do it. You can do it. And everyone’s like, yes, yes, we can do it. We can do it.

00:01:36 And Sagittarius are like, go ahead and do it. And everyone’s like, yes, yes, let’s go ahead and do this. Of course, Sagittarians would never do half the things that they get other people excited about, but that’s beside the point. Sagittarius is the Zodiac sign of enthusiasm and of the spirit. Now Neptune right now happens to be in the Zodiac sign of Pisces.

00:01:59 Okay. So where a Sagittarius can be very sort of high voltage excitable and full of spirit and enthusiasm. Pisces is more soulfull. Pisces is more about depth that’s because Pisces is a Zodiac sign that’s associated with the ocean. And if you’ve ever been to the ocean, and I’m sure you have, but let’s take a lake or pond. You can look out over the body of,

00:02:24 of water. And you’re going to see the top of the body of water, right? If it’s the ocean, it’s going to stretch the horizon, but you have no idea what lies below the horizon. What lies below the surface of the water. And that is the realm of Neptune. That is the realm of Pisces. Neptune is the modern ruler of Pisces.

00:02:47 And so this is why Pisces of all the water signs is really the one that’s most connected to the soul. Okay. It’s about depth, depth of feeling plunging into other worldly experiences into not only the unconscious, but the collective unconscious, that is the collective dreaming of the entire planet. So when Neptune is in Pisces, it speaks to us through things like Icons and symbols,

00:03:15 the symbolic language, whether it’s a star in a Crescent moon, or a cross or a flag, you know, these, these icons, these symbols are immediately identifiable and have a tendency to bring out very powerful, emotional responses. This is the realm of Pisces, and this is the realm of Neptune for, so for Neptune, the other worldly, the things that are invisible,

00:03:42 the things that we know are there, but are really hard to explain. This is what Neptune is comfortable with. Particularly in the Zodiac sign of Pisces. This is why Pisces was always associated to mystics and mysticism people who were the outsiders in institutionalized religion, the people who had the visions, the people who had these powerful experiences that went outside of scripture that went outside of ritual.

00:04:12 And depending on what century you happen to be living in the church, either praised these mystics as saints or the church burned these mystics as heretics and witches. So this is all something that’s very much bound up in the Zodiac sign of Pisces and Mars. As I said, when it’s in Sagittarius can be very much about its zeal and very much about its excitement and Sagittarius is also connected to religion.

00:04:39 We understand this in the archetype of chart with Sagittarius is association to the Ninth House. And Sagittarius was always associated to institutionalized religion, religion that had scripture, religion that talked about morality, moral values, philosophy, and higher education, which we all associated with the Ninth House. And of course, higher education was always connected to the churches in the medieval period.

00:05:06 That’s where universities and publishing houses come from. It’s from the churches, hence the idea of higher learning and publication and religion are all connected to the Ninth House in Astrology. What I’m getting at here is that Mars is zealous. What it is in the Zodiac sign of Sagittarius, Mars gets really excited about something and it’s like, that’s really fabulous. I want to go and,

00:05:31 and do that. Or I want to accomplish that. That is my unwavering goal. All right. And it can become even more fiery. The more that it is challenged. And that’s because, as I said, Sagittarius is connected also to the notions of faith and belief. Now, faith and belief don’t really apply to the realm of Pisces. Pisces goes more with its fascination.

00:06:00 Pisces goes more with it’s sort of attunement its natural affinity to the things that cannot be easily explained. So when we’re dealing with Pisces and particularly when we’re dealing with Neptune in Pisces, we’re dealing with mystery. Now this isn’t an Agatha Christie mystery where you sort of like follow the footsteps, see the finger smudges on the dining room table top, and are able to discern after some deduction that it was Colonel mustard in the study with the candlestick.

00:06:33 No, this isn’t that kind of mystery Pisces. Isn’t a riddle that that’s meant to be solved. Pisces is about enigma. Pisces is about conundrums. Pisces is about a conundrum rubbed up inside an enigma. Okay. Anyway, I couldn’t resist. I’m sorry. But anyway, Pisces is about those things that cannot be easily explained, but are to be experienced and felt on a very deep level.

00:06:59 Now we often talk about or think that the opposite of faith and belief is doubt. Okay. That’s why science is often, you know, sort of put on into this antagonistic relationship with religion because religion wants to sanctify the mysterious and science wants to analyze and explain it. Okay. But again, if you’re dealing with an institutionalized religion, it doesn’t want things to be too mysterious because that’s when they get too questionable and really hard to explain to like a congregation or people who are following you.

00:07:33 So what we’re dealing with here with the sort of Pisces Sagittarius square, the Mars and Sagittarius this week may react is if it’s being questioned. Okay. And so, and so that might get your Mars going in terms of a more determined fashion. So, so what would question it, would it be doubt, for instance, doubt, isn’t really the realm of Pisces.

00:08:02 We have to remember an astrology, each of the planets, each of the signs, rules over a particular aspect of our personality or experience of life. You can almost think of it as ruling over a shade of color. Okay. So this is why Astrology can get very nuanced. And so, and so there might be this feeling, not so much that you’re being challenged or questioned outright,

00:08:25 you know, about something that you believe is a right action or something that you believe is the thing to do or something that you believe is what you want. That’s not going to be the problem or the issue that Neptune in Pisces introduces the problem or issue that Neptune in Pisces will introduce is ambivalence. It will be ambiguity. It will be susceptibility. It will be this feeling that,

00:08:53 well, maybe there’s another explanation this, or maybe there’s another thing that’s going on here. Or maybe my feelings about this action that I’m taking aren’t as strong as I thought that they were okay. Remember that Mars, Neptune, square clouds, the mind waters down the defenses and dampens the willpower. So there can be a sort of drowsiness or sleepiness whenever Neptune is very powerful in the sky,

00:09:25 there can be sort of drowsiness or sleepiness or kind of like, I can’t really focus here experience that’s going on and that’s okay. You know, like if it’s turning the mercury or if it’s sex tiling, the sun, this is usually, you know, all right, we can, we can, we can navigate this sensation wonderfully and, and maybe even produce something out of it,

00:09:46 like an inspired piece of writing or a song, or just a moment of reverie, which is lovely. But what I’m concerned about a little bit this week is that in the struggle of Mars and Sagittarius to assert itself, all right, that it may become even more assertive and even more, no, this is what I think, and this is what I want and even louder.

00:10:09 Okay. Because Sagittarius, I’ve got a Mercury in Sagittarius so I can say Sagittarians can get really loud. Okay. So it can get very loud, either vocally or loud in terms of its insistence, because it’s thrashing around in the water against this, this Neptune in, in, in Pisces, again, that might just sort of be a right you’re,

00:10:30 you’re, you’re getting louder and more insistent and, and something like that. But what concerns me is that on January 14th, mercury turns retrograde in Aquarius. And what worries me about that is that with mercury suddenly reversing direction like that, there may be even more of a feeling like, like, let’s say, there’s something that you want or you’re assisting on and it’s being postponed or delayed,

00:10:57 or maybe, you know, the other party says, well, why don’t we sit on this for a little while or something you may find yourself, you know, having a very strong, visceral reaction and saying, no, we’re not going to sit on this or no we’re going to do this right away or, or, or take it or leave it or it’s now,

00:11:12 or never. That’s what I’m concerned about. Maybe you can hear that. So it would be this kind of like susceptibility or this ambiguity that’s filtering into the willpower that then gets triggered when, when mercury turns retrograde on January 14th, making you even more insistent on something, particularly something in which the timing might not be so great. Or actually it might be a good idea to put it off a little bit or to wait or to see how things develop.

00:11:43 So you’re going to feel very much like you’re not on solid ground with your own convictions and your own beliefs this week. If you can sort of let that be that’s. If you find yourself starting to retaliate or get really upset, please take a moment to, to check that and to, and to really sort of dial it down. The thing is when you’re dealing with Neptune here,

00:12:10 Neptune is in its own sign. It’s it’s in the sign of Pisces. It’s considered, as I said before, the modern ruler of Pisces Neptunes, the stronger planet here, it’s not Mars. Mars is not in domicile or exalted Mars. Isn’t getting any sort of planetary strength there. I mean, it does find Sagittarius, you know, but it’s Neptune,

00:12:29 which is the more powerful planet here. So what you want to do is get is, is to sort of let yourself get Neptunian. And what I mean by letting yourself get Neptunian is to sort of like tune out anyone that you feel is challenging you or, or going against you or anything like that, sort of adopt not, not necessarily a laid back attitude,

00:12:56 but going with the flow and going with the current sort of thing. What it reminds me of is that we’re always told as kids when, when I was growing up in Northern California, that if you swam out into the ocean and that you were suddenly snatched by, by an undercurrent, the undertow, the first reaction is to panic and to start thrashing about in the water.

00:13:17 And we are always taught. No, what you want to do is relax and sort of gently sort of move almost parallel to, to the beach where you’re swimming until you’re released from the current. And then you can sort of like take the wave on, on, in, but it’s this idea that you may suddenly feel seized by a current, by an undercurrent that’s taking you down.

00:13:39 And what you really really want to do is relax and let the energy move through you until that current releases you and you can swim safely ashore. So basically this is kind of like my way of saying, be very careful with decisions that you feel like you have to make, that you’re feeling the most urgent about or the most pressed or pressured about nothing good is going to result from,

00:14:06 from those sorts of feelings. If there are suggestions to reschedule or to postponed or to put off, it’s not a bad idea. It’s probably a good one because mercury is going to be retrograde. And as far as this feeling of like struggling against a dampened willpower clouded mind, or a watered down defense, give yourself five days after the square. So that’s January 11th,

00:14:32 give yourself five days after the square. This would be January 16th. That’s when Mars will move out of the orb of influence of, of Neptune. And you will emerge from the other side of this feeling much more secure in yourself, confident about your convictions and like your are ready to move on forward with the things that really matter most to you.