Martian Meanie

In an effort to get out of my head and expand viscerally, I chose to work with Mars this year. It's actually my Mercury profection year which could be why this feels so laborious. My brain had been steeped in academia for the past few years and I felt the desire for embodied creativity. My Mars is in my 5th house so naturally they felt like the appropriate guide. Renewing my path to pleasure over productivity has been a mix of guilt and fulfillment. My days are full of paints, collage papers, and knitting needles. I'm lucky I am able to work part time, but I still feel like I should be doing something. I don't know what, but it's definitely something else...

Giving myself permission to play has been harder than I thought it would be. What is the point of making all this artwork? Then I think about Hilma af Klint who didn't want her work displayed until 20 years after her death. Everyone can see what I'm doing when I'm dead.

As I am creating, I've been reflecting and ruminating which has led to some self-revelations. One thing that has surfaced is that I’m sorta mean and not well liked. On a Drag Race scale of niceness from Nina West to Bianca Del Rio, I'm Michelle Visage on All Stars 2.

Since I started unmasking from neurodivergence, I find it is harder to lie. I try to hold my tongue, but it’s all over my resting Aries Moon face. I don’t have a people pleasing bone in my body anymore. The older I get, the less I care about having a large friend group. I have shifted my scarcity mindset to also include my social circle. Cutting people out of my life feels cathartic. I have found satisfaction in solitude and it's gonna take a mighty force to penetrate this exoskeleton.

I do strive to be a nicer person. Maybe I should restart a SSRI? Maybe I should go back to therapy? Is it bad that I don’t want to do either because I feel content with this revelation? Maybe I'm not a mean person and respecting my own boundaries feels selfish? Please know I would never intentionally cause harm to someone. I am embracing being someone who is unliked.

Embracing this part of myself has also made ICU nursing more bearable. It's difficult to talk about my job with people who aren't nurses as I'm sure it comes off as insensitive. Only people who work in healthcare will truly get it.

A couple weeks ago, I am sitting at the computer outside of my patient’s room. She was admitted for cardiogenic shock and had an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) inserted through her femoral artery to help with her heart function. Cardiac patients are my favorite and even better, IABP management is 1:1 nursing. I was settling in for a night of advanced hemodynamic monitoring, hourly pulse checks and intake & outputs when I heard a piercing scream.

Screaming is pretty normal in the ICU but this was different. It was fearful, like scary movie fearful, and coming from our unit coordinator. She could see on the camera monitors that one of our nurses was being assaulted by a patient. The whole unit, all 20+ of us, ran into the room.

My coworker is on the floor with the 28-year-old patient and he is pummeling her with his casted arm. She had been administering medications when the patient suddenly punched her. He jumped over the side rail and managed to knock her to the floor. He was a trauma patient, found on the side of the road covered in road rash. We have no idea what actually happened to him, but he has a frontal lobe brain injury and multiple broken bones. Frontal lobe injuries are devastating as they cause personality changes and impulsiveness. 

We really have no choice but to physically restrain the patient until we can chemically restrain him. We are lucky to have security officers and they helped us lift the patient back into bed. As a few coworkers tended to the assaulted nurse, six others held the patient down as he would not stop hitting and kicking while yelling obscenities. Another nurse is spiking a bottle of Precedex, an intravenous sedative. Fifteen minutes later and all is calm.

I know people who are committed to erasing violent language from their vocabulary. I love bell hooks and know she was anti-violence. I admire pacifists, but in my current profession, violence is unavoidable and I need to be resourced enough to handle it.

Mars is a fighter– training, resisting, cutting, sacrificing, healing. Alice Sparkly Kat/Ace* says “the best fighters are also healers” which feels perfect for Mars in Cancer. We are gonna be in this energy for an extended period. Mars will be in Cancer until Nov 3. Then Mars in Leo will retrograde on Dec 6 until Jan 6, 2025 when it re-enters Cancer. It turns direct on Feb 23, 2025 and finally leaves Cancer on Apr 17, 2025.

"Fighting isn't just about taking action and making sacrifices. Fighting is also about resting, recuperating, and strengthening. Mars wants to play the long game. That means Mars will show you how to heal." -Ace

Here is a compilation of icons that have Mars in Cancer or Leo who offer a little balm for my nerves to as we traverse this long transit. I'll open with a quote from Mother RuPaul:

“My goal is to always come from a place of love ...but sometimes you just have to break it down for a motherfucker.”

Drew Afualo does not have Mars in Cancer, but she does have a domicile Mars in Scorpio and domicile Moon in Cancer. She is out there on social media doing the good work of anti-misogyny that this introvert does not have the bandwidth for. Her podcast is called The Comment Section, which is a section I try to avoid. I discovered her on Soul Boom and really enjoyed their conversation.

YouTube video description: This nunnery has an empowering claim to fame—it’s the only one in Nepal where the nuns practice martial arts. The nuns of the Buddhist Drukpa Order train three hours a day, and they break bricks with their bare hands. Heroes in the Himalayas, these strong women delivered supplies to hard-to-reach villages after an earthquake struck Kathmandu in 2015. The kung fu nuns have also taught self-defense classes for women and biked 14,000 miles to protest the human trafficking of women and girls.

I started spooky season by finally watching a few of the Alien movies and feel like I have been missing out. Ellen Ripley is an awesome action figure. Talk about fighting and making sacrifices. I recommend the first 3 movies. Despite featuring Winona Ryder and Ron Perlman, Alien Resurrection was disappointing.

But this is not allowed....You're uninvited.....

I remember watching this live as a teen and the backlash against Apple. I wish I would have heeded her advice instead of continuing conformity, but ya know, my friends were teasing her so… The 90s was full of misogyny and a terribly insensitive era for mental health. I think society has grown a little, but still "this world is bullshit."

It blows my mind that people are still undecided after watching this debate. I really think it's rooted in white supremacy and misogyny. I'm lucky to live in a liberal bubble in a swing state, but a 10 minutes drive and I am amongst the Trump supporters. My ICU is full of them, patients and healthcare workers. I believe our best chance is with Kamala Harris even though I do not agree with her support of Israel amongst other things. I have been voting since 2000 and I have never voted for someone I agreed with 100%. I mean Obama did not support gay marriage in 2008, but I sure as shit wasn't voting for Palin. As far as Jill Stein, I agree with AOC. The GOP is patient. They know how to play the long game. Here's a John Oliver breakdown of what they did to our judicial system. Trigger warning for being fucking depressing.

Let's end this with some positivity. Dolly Parton is the benevolent caretaker, using her resources to help her community. This is how I imagine I would behave if I ever acquired that much wealth. This is sacrificing and healing.

For the next few months, I'm attempting to be more militant about my boundaries and self-care. Mars cuts like the crab’s pincers, removing what is unnecessary while protecting what matters. Like the crab, it's not always straightforward and requires intuitive movements. Shuffling side to side and staying afloat when the tide comes in. Always moving towards more self-acceptance.

*Resource used is How to Work With Your Mars, a zine by Alice Sparkly Kat that I received by being a subscriber to their Star Kids Club.