My lover and I were sitting in a law office in Quito, waiting for the paperwork to be completed. We were getting powers of attorney for each other. (It seemed like a good thing to do just before she went in for knee surgery.) We whiled away several hours, and naturally the conversation roamed further and further afield. That’s how we ended up talking about whether or not we should emigrate to Mars.

When I mentioned this to a politically astute friend, she went off on a rant. “The U.S. has exploited the whole world, and now they’re going to devastate the planets!” I’m sure that’s how Bush’s Mars fantasy looks to the world at large. Since we’ve despoiled everything else, it’s clear that our intentions towards Mars are not honorable.

Mars is traditionally the planet of boys, and I don’t mean men. It rules that “boy” energy - the urge to play and fight fiercely, to compete and win, to rush off and chase down whatever you want, to follow your physical impulses. This kind of activity shouldn’t just be the province of young male persons. Girls also need to test themselves in all these ways, but it’s not as easy for them to get in touch with this Mars energy. (Playing sports is one way to do it.)

When you grow up, that Mars energy has to be tempered. There’s a place for it, and it shouldn’t be stifled completely. But when feminists talk disparagingly about “boys and their toys” or “testosterone poisoning”, they’re talking about too much Mars. There are men who believe that they should just go after whatever they want, only because they want it ­ and I believe that men like this are in power in the U.S. These are people who are only engaged in fighting and winning, in endlessly proving themselves.

Lesbians tend to have a stronger dose of that Mars energy than straight women. In general, we are more competitive, more feisty, less docile. Sometimes we act out that boy self as children (taking the tomboy role) and sometimes we reclaim it later in life. There is even the new take on the word, the young lesbian who calls herself a “boi”, and that means that she gets to be playful and sexual and tough all at the same time. (A butch could be considered a grown-up version of a boi, although there are also some important philosophical differences.)

But one of the things that makes us interesting is that we’re not all one thing. When you’re a woman, you’re a woman - no matter if you’re also a boi, or a butch. There’s some of that womanly lunar energy in the mix somewhere. And of course, an adult man is generally not all boy either. If he’s really got his shit together, he’s even in touch with his own lunar energy, his womanly side.

So, yeah, we can think it would be cool to blast off into space. We can while away some stray hours talking about emigrating to Mars, especially when we’re doing something markedly responsible and adult. It always sounds like fun to live in a comic book. But in our ordinary lives, we put our energy into things that are longer-lasting and more socially responsible. We tap into our Mars energy when we’re moving furniture or working out at the gym, but it doesn’t direct our every move.

What should the U.S. do now, rather than blowing things up and leaving our garbage on Mars? Well, there’s the Apollo Project, which takes its name from J.F. Kennedy’s vision of space exploration. The purpose of the project is to promote the use of clean energy, and in doing so, to improve the country’s infrastructure, end the dependence on foreign oil, and create an abundance of new jobs. The project is endorsed by both labor and environmental organizations. It seems entirely sensible, clearly too sensible for a gang of boys to appreciate.

This is a visionary time, and so I think there is great hope for this project. In spite of Bush’s war games and posturing, I am feeling optimistic about our direction as a world. His power is not as great as he thinks it is, since most of it is about outer pomp rather than inner substance. It’s up to the people in this world to identify what’s important, and to move forward with it - even when it doesn’t involve explosions, chases, excitement, colorful costumes, and other types of boyish glamour.

Why do I think this is a visionary time? I wrote about Uranus’ entrance into Pisces last month, but didn’t mention the mutual reception between Neptune and Uranus. A mutual reception is when two planets are each in the sign ruled by the other. Neptune is in the Uranus-ruled sign Aquarius, and Uranus is in the Neptune-ruled sign Pisces. This sets up a connection between the two, and it will continue for the next six years.

Neptune and Uranus are the two planets of creativity. Neptune deals with emotional creativity ­ art and poetry, idealistic musings, mystical connections to the universe. Uranus deals with mental creativity - science, invention, progressive social organizations. When they are linked, as they are now, creativity becomes more multi-dimensional. We can see the whole, and we can still experiment with different ways of rearranging the parts.

And February is ripe for this. At the full moon on the 6th, Neptune conjuncts the sun, and so is intimately involved in the dance of the sun and moon. And at the new moon on the 20th, Uranus conjuncts the sun and moon.

Neptune and Uranus are the two planets that rule strangeness, however. Neptune rules artists, dreamers and idealists, but also people who are weird and spaced-out. When it conjuncts the sun at the full moon, some peculiar people may come out of the woodwork, and some odd events may occur. But this full moon will be a time when we can all connect to our inner Visionary, when we can tap into an intuitive recognition of what needs to change.

Uranus rules the inventor, but also the eccentric. It rules the progressive reformer, but also the wild-eyed revolutionary. And so not everyone will be well-behaved at the new moon. But when the sun conjuncts Uranus at the new moon, it will be time to stop dreaming and begin doing something. We don’t have to go into space to find the challenges that will give our lives meaning. We just need to make the space to let our true creativity emerge.

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