This is war: Fresh hell awaits during this week’s Mars-Pluto opposition

Buckle up, my babies; this week, we have a powerful opposition between Pluto, the planet of death and destruction, and Mars, the planet of conflict, action, and aggression.

If it sounds yikes, that’s because it is.

The opposition is exact on November 3rd, but we will feel the effects and the heady fallout of this face-off for several days before and after the main event — including but not limited to Election Day.

Meaning of the Mars-Pluto opposition

In cahoots with one another, Mars and Pluto are combative, but they also invite us to find and stand in our power, overcome our base instincts, and fight the proverbial good fight.

Mars in Cancer directly opposes Pluto in Capricorn at a fateful and anaretic 29 degrees. Both are mere days away from shifting signs, and this precipice amplifies the energy of antagonism.

Mars is the planet of war, while Cancer is the sign of maternal care and memory. In this way, this transit asks us to consider what memories and past pains continue to cause conflict in our consciousness, what triggers keep triggering — and what roles we insist on resurrecting.

Mars in Cancer craves stasis, the toxic familiar over the eerie unknown, and tends to react more than respond. During this opposition, emotional resistance, all-out outbursts, and hypersensitivity are predicted.

Conflict may arise to test whether we operate from a place of brave empowerment or shadowy instigation and patterned victimhood. While there’s no stopping the divine machine of fate, there are ways to observe and integrate its lessons.

Power struggles and trigger warnings

Pluto is the planet of karmic retribution, and Capricorn is the sign of paternal power, authority, and structure. Since Pluto began its tour in Capricorn in 2008, the dark lord has been at work revealing and destroying traditional structures and oppressive power dynamics. See the financial crisis, the #MeToo movement, and the takedown of accused predators and power wielders like Weinstein, Epstein, and Diddy.

At its highest expression, Pluto in Cap shifts and overturns the outdated. On the other side and underbelly, it can express itself as a dark need for control and an oppressive father knows best energy. In the final stages of this transit, it will be interesting to see what curtain the planet of death will close.

Pluto = death, and Mars = vitality, so this opposition could manifest as life-or-death scenarios — or power struggles that reach a fever pitch and make you feel like survival can only come through severance.

Yet, Pluto ultimately comes out of the hell mouth to heal. Pluto is also the planet of karmic reckoning, and this opposition and the subsequent presidential election occur a few days shy of Pluto entering Aquarius, the sign the planet was in when the United States declared its independence.

Cultural catharsis

Similarly, this opposition and this upcoming Pluto cycle promise to usher in a new era for our nation.

Some people will experience this transit as immediately explosive, while others will see seeds sown in the coming days produce the flowers of change and challenge over the next several months.

Whether the effects are swift and furious or slowly transformational, it’s a moment of profound catharsis.

Remember that the etymology of catharsis is to make pure through purging. Typically, catharsis follows crises, as one has to reach a pivotal degree before one can actually pivot. We can’t be redeemed without failure, we can’t purge without being poisoned, and we can’t rise without resistance, folks.

In myth, the clearest connection between the god of the underworld, Pluto/Hades, and the god of war, Mars/Apollo, is Orpheus, the lyre-playing lady killer.

By most accounts, Apollo taught Orpheus how to play and/or gave him his first instrument. So beautiful was Orp`heus’s playing that all manner of life and even inanimate objects moved in cadence with it.

When a snake bite killed Orpheus’s wife, he descended into the underworld to bring her back from the dead. His grief and the music it bore were so moving that Hades himself was brought to tears and granted Orpheus his wish, on the condition that he never look back until he reached the world of the living.

In this sense, our instructions for surviving and surpassing this transit are similar — we must keep moving forward, and only when we are delivered to the other side of destruction can we turn around and begin to understand the path that brought us through it.

In essence, if you’re going through hell, keep going. If you have personal planets that fall in the late degrees (25 to 29 degrees) of the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, or Capricorn), you will feel the effects of this opposition most acutely.

Good luck out there. After the rubble and the rabble, may the road lead to better, brighter days to come.

Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture and personal experience. To book a reading, visit her website.