It seems Mars has invited us to ponder his upcoming retrograde—indeed we could say it has already begun, as Mars has been in the degree of his station for nearly a week. The ill-fated cruise of the Costa Concordia was waylaid by Mars—or his emissary, Captain Francesco Shettino, who embodied Mars at his worst: reckless, irresponsible, and cowardly. Tennis star Marcos Baghdatis also found himself overwhelmed by Mars, when in a fit of anger, he destroyed four of his own rackets, two of them new.  Mars is retrograde from January 23 to April 13, but the weeks before and after the station may be most volatile. Life slows down—things don’t work, people don’t cooperate, machines behave strangely. We could find ourselves responding with out-of-control frustration, moving too fast or too recklessly.  But the key is to do the opposite: slow down and move cautiously.  

In his retrograde station, Mars squares Jupiter in my chart. I did not expect him to take shape as an intruder! This week, an unbalanced and angry former friend snuck into my house, stole a couple items, and left the side gate open, so that my dog Jupiter ran free through the streets! Jupiter was eventually found, the police were called, and the house is newly secured. I did a ritual to Mars and made an offering: I gladly paid $99 to the locksmith, whose profession is ruled by Mars.

Last night I ate a heavier meal than usual. This morning I slept in. Later I won’t go to the gym as I usually do. It’s solstice time. The sun appears to be standing still as it slowly turns to go back along the horizon line (moving north or south, depending on your hemisphere). This is how we shift into the new season. A lot of people get sick during solstice week, though we don’t need to pause that way. Rather, we can follow the body’s subtle or insistent promptings to slow, tune inward, and when ready, reach out to reconnect with the wheeling planet. Freshly centered within ourselves, we can enjoy the profound delights of sensing the air, listening to the trees, watching the new flight patterns of birds. Something in the body wants to do this; it’s ancient, powerful, and pleasurable. Some people like to sit in meditation on solstice. Others perform ceremony and ritual. Some buy new journals, others select goals for the season, some light candles, others take walks in the park. It doesn’t particularly matter what you do on solstice. It’s the spirit with which you do it that brings the magic. The solstice is a bright jewel on the year’s necklace. Wear it with joy this week.

The eclipse makes this a special “Long Night Moon.” For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere the December Full Moon heralds the coming of Winter Solstice, which is always a good time for sitting alone in the dark. Dark Sitting is a simple yet profound practice. You can do it with or without lighting a candle. I recommend trying both ways. I like closing the practice with a prayer of gratitude to the guardian angels. I rarely think of them but I know they’re with me, especially when I’m in the dark. You have yours too of course. Say something heartfelt and spontaneous. Or recite this traditional Catholic prayer (scroll midpage to “Christian Prayer”). The advantage of using traditional prayers is that the “mana” or power in the words has been nourished by centuries of repetition, particularly when they’re recited in Latin. Or light a small birthday candle and say these words from Draja Mickaharic’s Practice of Magic: “You who are with me in this life as my guide and protector, I express my gratitude to you with this candle which I light for you. I thank you for your loving care and guidance.” Let the candle safely burn until it extinguishes itself.

This eclipse is visible in west and central North America, the islands in the Pacific, Asia, eastern Africa, Iceland and most of Europe. If you’re not able to view it (the time is listed on our home page), you might enjoy “The Moon is My Mistress” from a blogger who watched last year’s winter lunar eclipse with his wife.

First, a former defensive coordinator for Pennsylvania State University’s football team was accused of engaging in sexual abuse of children, and his behavior appears to have been covered up by his supervisors. The story has stunned the nation, but has had a particular disorienting effect on the Penn State community, where university football and coach Joe Paterno have long served as a unifying social and even moral nexus. Reporter Michael Winereb, who hails from State College, Pennsylvania (home of Penn State), summed up the stunned reactions of the town in a piece for Grantland (italics mine):

When I saw those televised shots of [coach Joe Paterno's] house on McKee Street, something caught in my throat, a conditioned response to a man I’ve been raised to believe was the moral arbiter of our community. All I can say by way of explanation is that there are people here who will cling to iconography because this is what they’ve always done. That’s what I think is happening here: It’s not that we are condoning child rape, and it’s not that we don’t recognize our obligation to the victims above all else. It’s that we are condemning all that Jerry Sandusky is accused of and trying to make it right while also dealing with this involuntary response to the death throes of a way of life.

Second, videotape emerged of campus police using pepper spray on peaceful Occupy demonstrators at the University of California Davis. The videotape (and waggish collages, like the one above, that insert pepper-spraying cops into works of art) went viral over the weekend, and UC Davis’ Chancellor has met with angry shouts from students and protests, demanding her resignation. The shocking footage of the incident has made UC Davis the latest focal point of the Occupy movement. As an employee of UC San Diego remarked to me yesterday, “I thought campus police were supposed to protect the students, not pepper spray them.”

You may not be involved with a university, a sports team, or the Occupy movement – but with this week’s eclipse in Sagittarius, you’re asked to examine your core beliefs. When people and institutions that we trust are revealed to have feet of clay, what is left for us to believe in? Fortunately, Sagittarius the optimist offers this:  We can always trust what we know to be true and ethical in ourselves.

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Guest blogger April Elliott Kent is the author of The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology and Star Guide to Weddings. Visit her website to learn more about her eclipse report, Followed by a Moonshadow. April is a regular contributor to MoonCircles.