The Martian Drive to Do and Be
Regardless of gender, the fiery planet must continually sustain one's separation and freedom from the blob.
“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.” —Marcus Aurelius
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I REMEMBER TOURING a Montessori school with a friend who was exploring the possibility of enrolling her child. We walked the grounds with one of the administrators and stopped to watch a group of kids playing during recess. As some boys will do, their play included yelling and harmless roughhousing.
Immediately, a teacher appeared on the stairsteps adjacent to the play area and reprimanded the boys, shushing and urging them to find ways to play “more fairly.” (Whatever that meant.) Two expressions—being shushed and cooperating—that the astrological Mars, be it in the chart of a male or female, has no stake in.
I’m thinking of Mars in Libra people while writing that out. People who can’t function optimally if they aren’t engaged in arguments (generally thoughtful ones) that let them feel out both sides of a story.
In contemporary culture, political ideologies, converted into blob-like echo chambers on the internet, have done away with healthy Martian expressions. Before the dominance of social media, how individuals engaged with the government was more effective. A person had to leave their house to attend a city council meeting or arrange a protest. Now they argue with imbeciles on Twitter and make TikTok videos in their car railing about—whatever. (BTW: Why are all these people filming themselves in their car?) Oh, wait: Automobiles are modern-day armor. Armor and Mars go together, so this is another expression of a sublimated Martian articulation captured by a mobile phone.
Watch for when your natal Mars is activated by intense transits (like the conjunction or opposition or square). These are moments when it’s wise to provide a constructive outlet to channel the potentially disruptive impulse. Even a Mars in Pisces individual, the most reserved of Mars signs, will find their imaginary life goaded by martial themes and the need to ‘do’ something with them. When Uranus, some years back, transited my natal Mars in Pisces, I became obsessed with the Civil War and went missing into Ken Burns’s lengthy documentary on the epic battle. I then moved on to in-depth studies of WWII and spent months researching its history. A pacifist by nature, I’d astounded myself by how my imagination exploded (Uranus) into enchantment (Pisces) via obsessively contemplating carnage and death (Mars in the 8th).
When not given an outlet, Mars will continue to rumble around in a fit beneath whatever layers of control or censorship are smothering its natural impulses. The fallout of a muted Mars will show up in an array of maladies—both psychic (psychosomatic illness) or literal (accidents or meltdowns). It’s not the content or context. It’s the activity—when it comes to Mars. This previous post of mine, When Mars Turns Against You, offers some critical pointers for giving one’s natal Mars a healthy outlet.
This is a good spot to note that the planets have no gender. Gender is a cultural overlay that people (and astrologers) assign to a planet’s natural function. For eons in Western culture, men were associated with directed—or when challenged—eruptive expressions when Mars was engaged (or provoked). Mars then took on a ‘masculine’ patina. This same formula can be applied to the other planets. Times are different now—gender associations or correspondences should be relinquished. The benefit to removing the gender overlays is that when the chart is reexamined, it changes conceptual notions about how a person is expressing (or depressing) herself and what (gender-free) options are available.
As initiator and aggressor, Mars is also a protector (a quality Robert Hand reminded me of, which is also a keyword for the planet) and functions best when plowing (or disrupting) the ‘field’ associated with the sign it occupies. Tending that field as a guardian is also part of the Martian equation.
Hetero or homo, bi or trans, incel or incellete—none of these bio or sex-related styles have anything to do with the fundamental drive to assert oneself into their environment. Mars, following the essence or directive of one’s Sun sign, distinguishes us from the blob. Be that the impersonal political realm that dominates cultural discourse today. Or, more intimately, the way Mars promotes our separation from the muzzy familial neuroses that crowd and color our psychological lives. Therapy and psychoanalysis, like surgical interventions, are distinctly Martian activities. The past is reexamined and then, hopefully, reframed and made peace with.
Mars is the first ‘cosmic force’ we experience while being born. We owe our messy arrival into this world to Mars. When the too-tight confines of the womb begin to threaten the neonate, Mars triggers the violent contractions that shove us out of the birth canal. Outside, the umbilical cord that binds us to another organism is finally severed—free at last!
Love,
Opening animated GIF by meWho Rob.
⭐️ My new book, I Love You Jeffrey Dahmer arrives in the summer 2024! ⭐️
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I’ve Mars in Pisces and I love Ancient and Medieval history, not minding the horrors of it, while at the same I cannot watch horror movies. I’m also an astrologer/coach I really appreciated the comment about therapy being a Martian art. That’s a perspective that I hadn’t realized. So thank you. 😊
Fascinating take on therapeutic work and birth and Mars. I see your points. Great read. Thank you!