While the sultriness of Venus-Pluto and the yin sweep of Winter Solstice flow to the forefront of our current astrology — more on that in the coming hour — it is still Mars’ Day.  These are my reflections on the Sun and Mars’ engagements with Ketu, South Node of the Moon, during some of the pointed moments of Sagittarius season.  This makes up the last of my three pieces for Sagittarius, as I’ve done for each sign this year.

The astrology of the past three weeks has certainly found interesting reflections in the world of professional sport — namely UFC and snooker, which I will explore as my primary examples here.

There was UFC 269 ‘Amanda Nunes v. Julianna Pena’ in Las Vegas, where Pena toppled ‘the Lioness’ against staggering odds — and the 2021 Snooker UK Championship, where for the first time in history both finalists were ranked outside the Top 16, neither Belgium’s Luca Brecel nor China’s Zhao Xintong representing any of the four nations within the United Kingdom.

It was on November 23rd that the Sun — executive agency, the ‘throne’ of the psyche — conjoined Ketu, the South Node of the Moon (suggesting physical loss or decrease), andDecember 15th, that Mars — aggression, division, physical passion — newly into Sagittarius made a similar conjunction with the ‘Tail of the Dragon’ that is Ketu.

The most headline-rattling of these is undoubtedly the shock upset at UFC 269 on December 11th, in which ‘the Lioness’ Amanda Nunes — one of the top fighters in the world — lost her championship belt to ‘the Venezuelan Vixen’ Julianna Pena.  While this technically took place with Mars at the anaretic degree of its nocturnal home in Scorpio, the red planet was still next to Ketu at 1° Sagittarius in an out-of-sign conjunction with an orb of 2° between them.

What’s more, these placements were square to Nunes’ natal Mars at 5° Pisces.  This led me to recall a post of Austin Coppock’s from 12.30.2018, “Congratulations to GOAT Amanda Nunes, on her epic victory last night. Amanda is another Mars in Pisces champ. You might not think fish-Mars could fight, but legends DC, Anderson Silva, Michael Bisping and Chuck Lidell might disagree.”

While Mercury is traditionally more associated with sport than Mars, fighting is probably as martial as sport gets, if that doesn’t go without saying.  Fish-Mars can indeed fight, as Mars in Jupiter’s nocturnal home is tempered compared with the energy of Mars in Jupiter’s diurnal home of Sagittarius, which might flare or deflate in conjunction with Ketu, South Node of the Moon.

The 2021 Snooker UK Championship saw early exits from the defending (and 3x) champion Neil Robertson, as well as fellow Triple Crown winner Shaun Murphy, both bowing out in the first round at the hands of amateur players.  For perspective, there are eleven Triple Crown winners in snooker history, those who have at least one title in each of snooker’s three ‘majors’ — the UK, the Master’s and the World Snooker Championship.  At present, these events pay £200k, £300k and £500k respectively to the winners each year, and number among 22-24 professional tournaments that take place on the snooker circuit annually — several less now since Covid-19 first struck.

The 2021 UK Championships commenced on November 23rd, the very day of Sun conjunct Ketu in Sagittarius — nearly a direct translation of ‘the fall of the crown.’  What’s more, many of the Triple Crown winners still playing are Leo’s with Mercury at or near its exaltation degree in Virgo — whose games are noticeably affected when the transiting Moon, Mercury or Mars in particular afflict the sample planets’ natal placements in their charts by square or opposition.

Cue sports — that is, pool, snooker and billiards — have a special relationship to Mercury’s domiciles of Gemini and Virgo, and their natural opposition to Jupiter’s homes of Sagittarius and Pisces.  The interactions between Jupiter as ‘risk’ and Mercury as ‘odds’ tend to manifest in showy shotmaking vs. contractive percentage play in snooker especially, and people with concentrations in either planet’s homes tend to be uncanny embodiments of these differences in approach to one of the most difficult sports on the planet.

Mercury as ‘spin artist’, whether in sport or journalism, also makes itself known in ruling the Virgo Ascendants of Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, and numerous snooker greats — John Higgins, Stephen Hendry, probably Ronnie O’Sullivan.  This is heavy representation of the swift planet in three sports often compared in UK punditry, as they do share aspects of ball-spin in common.

One-on-one sports have a different relationship to gambling psyche, and not just because of their tendency for indoor enclosure and generally closer proximity to alcohol.  Any two opponents paired, whether it’s a UFC fight or a snooker match, exhibit a power dynamic in which there is little to no distributed risk compared with team sport — i.e. if one person is off, the whole entity might fall apart.

While there are myriad factors that come together in one person out-performing a single opponent, in a one-on-one match of any sort the spectator has an opportunity to witness which contender is giving themself the most permission to win — or simply who’s ‘the stronger man on the day’, as they say.  (Insert placeholder gender pronouns at your preference.)

I’ve been using transiting aspects from (primarily) the Moon and Mercury to the charts of top snooker players to accurately predict the outcome of matches — occasionally even down to the scoreline — e.g. Judd Trump v. Yan Bingtao in the Coral Players Championship, whose finally tally of 10-4 in Trump’s favor was the most accurate I’ve been in prediction based thereon, his status as overwhelming favorite notwithstanding.

If you’re curious about using the planets to track optimal times for cognitive or physical performance etc., and would like to see this kind of astrology incorporated into your toolkit, feel free to specify so when booking a reading with me.  Swim well, stargazers~