“I’m checking on you!” I bellowed into the phone, when my depressed friend picked up. Before she could answer, I pulled the phone from my head and realized I had called my mother-in-law. Oops!
She laughed.
I then had to decide (Libra) if I should lie and act like I meant to say that…or if I should apologize profusely, and maybe tell some jokes. Because I have Mercury and Mars in Libra, in the 9th house.
I went with the latter. It was okay, because of her manners, but jeez.
I’ve come to wonder if some of just don’t have the capacity to be smooth. I have spent my entire life trying to be well-mannered. I mean this. I have read books on social grace since I was a child and I can still just barely function.
I think I may simply be cast as a joker this life. Because every time I open my mouth, there’s a potential, jarring problem.
It’s no surprised I have depressed friends, huh?
How is this long transit of Mars in Libra going for you?
It’s a grind, but it’s much better than when it Rx’d in Virgo!
I’m mostly smooth and well-mannered as usual because of my Natal Libra planets, except that sometimes I would be quite blunt and harsh in speaking to my former partner. I do notice this tendence to forget proper manners in others too.
Well, my vocabulary is a bit harsher than it used to be (cussing a lot), but overall communication is a lot more better. I am more talkative and people finally understand things I say as I mean them. Strange but good experience. 😀
For me, it’s revisiting suppressed anger I should have acted on much, much sooner. I have 5 planets in Libra and prefer peace at any price, but this Mars Rx is showing me I need to take action, create better boundaries and resolve the situations triggering my anger. Fortunately, with enough self-work, the Libra influences will usually enable me to do it gracefully.
I’ve been wondering whether this is an infinite master class in refining my passive aggressive traits. But I’m not so sure. With my Libra ascendant conjunct Libra Venus, I often hear myself say yes, just to please even if what I’m asked to do is totally against what I really like to do. I try to say to myself that it can be a bit more constructive giving a No if that is really what people need to hear from me. So maybe that’s the gift of this extended first house Rx’d Mars. My personal natal 3 Scorpio Mars seems to think it’s a great challenge to wait so long for its next return. But other parts of me would rather have an extended nap and wake up in August…
I have no cardinal energy in my chart at all so I’m not getting the squares and oppositions that are causing all the tension for my more active friends. However, with Mars backing up in my 3rd house, I did have some expensive *car trouble* and biking season has been *delayed* for this avid but sissified cyclist. And worst of all, I couldn’t get my act together to send out releases in time to *local* press about my gig on April 24. All that pales in comparison to Saturn squaring my Asc/Desc but that’s another subject and another post. The nice thing about transits is that they’re temporary!
Those are the best phone calls. I love getting them! 😀
CP you like another person’s shaaaaaaaaame, lol. 🙂
I suspect you have ‘depressed’ friends because of your compassion and ability to reach out and in, as well as your great sense of humour!
Mars in Libra in the third, as far as I can tell it is un-aspected; if there was an Olympic medal for charm, there are days I could win it. There are other days, much to my and other’s dismay, when I’d win the ‘using nuclear fission to crack a walnut’ competition.
Also, I sometimes think that, really, you get to call exactly the right person, when that sort of thing happens… ;^)
You have no idea how badly I don’t want to be a dipshit, but I just can’t overcome my condition…really. 🙁
Elsa if you overcame it, you would have one less extremely entertaining thing to write about. Our loss!!! So, keep it, it is a great failing, something to be very, very proud of!
…and I don’t think it’s a failing in any way at all, it is who you are. All the better for it. 🙂
I agree. Two left feet.
Sometimes the veil lifts and I see just how terrific the phenomena. I’m like some kind of supernova dipshit – I wish I were exaggerating.
I feel that same way sometimes, like I am all put together and classy and my children point out I am more like the crazy aunt in the attic. Ah me!
haha! 🙂
I totally agree about this transit highlighting and forcing me to revisit my passive aggressive tendencies. The retrograde period is allowing me to at least try and say what I need to say, rather than what would be most polite. I’m not getting much backlash or anger as I would when Mars is direct.
One major thing I am noticing however is I’m having the hardest time letting go of resentments. There are things I think I’m over but in reality I’m using latent anger as a defense mechanism (ahem passive aggression). While Saturn was in Virgo I felt myself mastering forgiveness, now I feel like I just can’t do it.
I was worried about the transit for this time frame (where tr. mars is squaring my mars/merc/asc but loosely trining my sun/sextile my moon). But I seem to be getting a lot done and getting things going on projects/goals that I was not very motivated about. So it’s working out so far,
Angie
Ugh. Butting heads or debating others at work on a DAILY basis now. Feelings of discouragement, like I’m hitting the same wall over and over, are setting in. Also not seeing eye-to-eye with my parents at the moment. This Libra is a little unhappy these days, and battered. My fight is just about gone. I’m tired.
-_-
The universe helped me out by shutting off my phone…but I still have internet so there is still potential to screw up communications. The fact that I actually am beginning to want to talk to other humans is a step in the right direction though 🙂
I, also, am a rather bad mannered Libra, only I have never truly tried to overcome it. I just don’t believe peace is better than speaking my mind!
Now, during this Mars retrograde, I have noticed that I have more patience in getting my meaning through to people – in choosing the right words and CARING that they understand.
I have no idea why this is so.
I am having an easier time on mobile since the site changed over 🙂
I have noticed more moments if intense motivation, I am also more assertive and often enough more aggressive than usual. My words tend to be more direct, sometimes harsh, more impatient.
Marina, I’ve noticed this too! Might explain why I’m doing so well these days in Toastmasters. LOL
Technology is so fast now. That error would never have happened with a rotary phone. Too funny. I can relate. 😀
I’m not being more people pleasing than my usual libra rising+libra south node have me to, but I’m observing anger and aggression exploding at every corner.while I’m getting more and more accostumed to the fact that I upset people just with my presence, I’m being forced into calculating and weighing words.I’m feeling my pisces conjunction (mercury-chiron-eros) more strongly, both with the risk of hurting and provoking retaliations, and with pleasure and lifting pressure off my voice, in singing.or just asserting myself,which is my aries north node conj chiron,challenged by saturn+rx venus in aries.I’d say my current issue is self-assertion in the face of people’s opposition,so far
It’s so hard lately. People jump to judge you, make assumptions, or whatever. It’s happens so quickly and so frequently, I have severely limited my interactions because I just don’t feel like being beaten!
I meet the gals left over from my woman’s club, once a month. I talk on the phone, maybe 10% what I did 5 years ago.
It’s because I am sick of making enemies by what I consider to be, merely breathing.
It’s the Pluto / 12th transit too. There’s just very little left above the surface.
I wonder how things will be in 10 years…or in 2020 when Pluto crosses my ascendant. I actually think it will be okay…but only because I’m working with this so intently.
‘It’s because I am sick of making enemies by what I consider to be, merely breathing.’
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because it puzzles me why all my life people (friends?!, family, strangers) have felt it okay to say the most cruel and downright rude remarks straight to my face right out of the blue. I mean, they will walk right up to me and just blurt – when I have said and done zilch. Now, I’m not someone who gets angry in the moment cuz I’m standing there thinking, what the hey? Besides, I don’t want to be rude or cruel to people. But it’s like I’m in the stocks in the marketplace and everyone thinks it’s great to peg me with rotten tomatoes. I’ve even taken to watching youtube vids about how to react to people who behave like that and I hope I can remember to say, ‘Now, why would you say that?’ but mostly I am mystified by their meanness.
I said “Shove off laddies” (in an English accent) to two men at work who were sitting chatting where I needed to work. One of them said “That’s not nice” and I realised he was right – it was exactly how I felt though so it just came out. Then I thought I better back track so I said to one of them: “So when are you and your girlfriend going to Thailand?” Then I saw that they were looking at photos of women wrestlers in bikinis!
Funny! I am flat footed at times and blunt but have some family experience in diplomacy. What a revelation to equate Libra energy with decisions. ‘doh. Thanks, Elsa. I’m really enjoying your blog. I can’t remember how I found it but am grateful.
Mars in Libra driven to observe Libran graces, I would have thought! I have Mars in Libra, but perhaps it is coloured by Venus conjuncting it – closely .
There is some serious passive-aggressive bullshit happening around me. I’ve been good about recognizing it, restraining myself, and refusing to be victimized by it.
Mars and Neptune in Libra . . . so I can relate. Being Leo, I need simplicity in my life, and have always tried to keep relationships above board or out-front as a simple rule. There are consequences to telling the truth, however.
In my older age, I’ve realized that I should choose battles carefully. I’ll only take on one at a time, and that’s proved effective. It’s a trick sometimes to block out the static, but that’s how I’ve got to do it. I really don’t like fighting, but it’s often necessary in order to maintain.
Also, there’s the consideration that someone else’s emotional or mental problems make confrontation useless. So, why ruffle your own feathers about someone’s behavior when they will probably never change?
My in-laws are incredibly rude except for one of my husband’s sisters. I used to object openly, but it’s the culture they grew up in, and passed down in generations. When we go to visit, I must stay detached . . . go take a nap or something like that. My mother=in-law pushes the snacks away from me when she thinks I’ve had enough. If she’s expecting one of the daughters, she makes me get out my chair because it’s my sister-in-law’s favorite. I’ve been with my husband for 35 yrs. and like you, I was raised with Emily Post, and ethical considerations. Every time I’m around them, I go through culture shock. oops, sorry, I’m rambling. . . in short – I can relate.
I do not miss, eight months of Mars in Libra!