Mars has a 2 year orbit around the Sun and rests in each of the 12 signs of the Zodiac for 6 weeks per sign. The observant among my readers will calculate correctly that 12 x 6 weeks adds up to 18 months NOT 2 years, and will ask “What happens to the other 6 months?”

We are in the “other 6 months” now. The orbit of the Earth is overtaking Mars’ orbit thus creating the illusion that Mars is going backwards, or retrograde, as we call it. Back on 11th November, 2011 Mars entered Virgo and is slowly making his way before turning backwards on 24th January 2012. It will continue to go backwards until 14th April when it turns direct and leaves Virgo on 3rd July, 2012. Mars’ retrograde periods occur every 25 months in subsequent signs across the Zodiac, i.e. last time it fell in Leo in 2009 and next time it will be in Libra.

Please note that planets do NOT actually go backwards. This is an optical illusion created by the angle of earth’s orbit in relation to a planet’s own orbit. It’s a lot like a fast train flying past a slow train and making the slow train appear to go backwards. If you’re on the slow train then you feel as if you really are going in reverse motion for the time of the other train passing you.

I am always alert to what is happening in the outside world and how the events reflect and embody the planetary movements. On 13th September, 1974 a baby boy Stephen was born to an Anglo-Caribbean family called Lawrence, living in London. On the 22nd April 1993 aged 18 years, he was brutally stabbed to death by a gang of white teenagers who were known to be violently racist. The police were sluggish in their enquiries, to say the least, despite initial arrests and prosecutions that came to nothing. This despite it always being alleged that everyone knew who the perpetrators of the crime were. There followed by a private prosecution brought by Stephens family that also came to nothing, which resulted in the suspects being acquitted of any wrongdoing. The attitude of the police towards this crime indicated deep and systemic institutional racism within their organisation. As a result, it instigated a country-wide clean-up process across all the police authorities in the UK with regards to racism, sexism, etc. Many large and small heads rolled as a result of this.

Fast forward to 2011, 18 years on, and a “cold case” investigation began using the latest technologies. The same two men were finally brought to trial in November 2011 as Mars entered Virgo, Stephen’s Sun Sign. They were found guilty and sent to prison with Mars sitting on the actual degree of Stephen’s Sun, 20 Virgo. Mars equates with action, anger, knives, soldiers, just to give a few correspondences. The Sun is the life force, identity, the droplet of God, men in authority. This transit of Mars over Stephen’s Sun will continue to reverberate as Mars crosses 20 Virgo twice more due to the retrograde motion, the last crossing in mid-June 2012. I wonder if the other gang members ( as it was more than just 2 boys who murdered Stephen) will be brought to justice during the next few months. We will see.

The eclipse points, or Moon Nodes, were in the same degree at Stephen’s birth, his murder, and the guilty verdict – this position was 14 Sagittarius. I always see the Moon Nodes as a fated or destiny position whether in a birth chart or an event chart such as this.

When events like this occur it is useful to ask what was going on with the slow moving planets at the time, as they seem to be markers of collective or political changes. The year that Stephen Lawrence was murdered was an important one as far as Uranus (orbit 84 years) and Neptune (orbit 150 years) were concerned, because it was their conjunction, a celestial event that occurs once every 170 years. The previous conjunction was in 1822 in Capricorn, the sign of institutions, when the British Government set up the Royal Irish Constabulary. Due to its success, 7 years later they then set up the Metropolitan Police in London. This rare planetary energy reformed in Capricorn and echoed throughout the UK, homing in on the British Police through to the racist murder of young Stephen Lawrence.

The huge impact of this boy’s tragic life has echoed down 36 years of British legal history and indicates to me that some people come into the world to create sweeping changes in their collective. Stephen Lawrence certainly achieved that.

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