[Image description: A plate of marinated ribs, decorated with pink bougainvillea flowers. I couldn't find out who made the picture, so unfortunately I can't credit the maker. End of Image descriptions]

Mars transit over Ascendant is making me a carnivore again (for a moment)

 

[Image description: A plate of marinated ribs, decorated with pink bougainvillea flowers. I couldn't find out who made the picture, so unfortunately I can't credit the maker. End of Image descriptions]

20-12-2021 16:30

In my quite old-fashioned traditional schooling in astrology, I learned that you shouldn't pay attention to transits. William Lilly called them merely 'passing atmospheres'. But I really do love transits: they show us the everyday insignificant poetics rather than the big life events.

Last week Mars transited my Ascendant (Sag), without me realizing. Later, I noticed the transit and wondered what it might have caused. My natal Mars is quite prominently in opposition with my Ascendant, so I must have felt something. But I couldn't think of an event related to Mars. 

Then it occured to me: last week I suddenly had an enormous craving for meat, even though, as a vegetarian, I hadn't eaten meat in years. When I checked the transits, I saw that my meatcravings started as soon as Mars ingressed into Sagittarius, making an exact conjunction with my Ascendant (symbol for the body) on the 17th of December. This day my craving got so intense that I spent minutes staring at the honey-marinated ribs  and the roast chicken in the supermarket.

Eventually I cracked and ate meat for the first time in a long time! 

What does Mars have to do with meat? 

Mars has strong associations with killing. Mars rules over butchers and people working with knives and heat, like chefs. The theme of Mars is that sometimes we have to cut things out of our life to survive, or eliminate something to make space for something new. Killing to eat is definitely a Martian thing to do. It's not all bad, there is a good side to the sharpness of Mars. For example: sometimes, cutting away a cancerous tumor can cure the disease. Mars is the 'Lesser Malefic', but there are also positive attributions to Mars, like vigor and energy. 

Update 27 September 2022: This transit proved itself to be more impactful than expected: I gave up my knighthood of vegetarianism and became an ordinary, vulgar flexitarian.