Mars : desire and action
See Planetary Rulerships.
- Element : Fire (Hot and dry)
- Polarity : Male Yang
- Harmonic or complementary Planets (excluding Aspects) : Venus
- Cycle duration : about 585 days
- Symbolizing aspect : Square
- Corresponding life age : 30 to 60 years old
- Physiology : head and muscles
- Mars spends about 45 to 60 days per sign (approx.) -excluding prolonged period of retrograde motion- and travel about 0.5 degree per day.
- Mars is in retrograde 65 days every 2 years or so.
Mars in astronomy.
Mars is a small rocky planet with a red color due to iron oxide.
About half the size of Earth, it is now a barren, desert planet… Its surface has craters as well as volcanoes, but also remains of rivers and traces of ancient large quantities of liquid water, Mars even has polar caps.
Its average temperature is quite low (-85°F / -65°C) because of its thin atmosphere and therefore the near absence of greenhouse effect.
Its light atmosphere containing methane conveys numerous clouds, including very fine dust, sometimes forming storms over the entire planet.
Mars has a seasonal cycle somewhat similar to that of the Earth. The Martian day is about the same as the Earth’s day : 24h40. Mars is weakly magnetic.
Mars also has two small natural satellites, Phobos and Deimos, kind of patatoid asteroids, somehow equivalent to our Moon.
See : Mars on Wikipedia
Mars, astrological planet
Mars represents the masculine archetype, the concrete action, the entrepreneurial spirit, the confrontation and the domination, from fighting or petty rivalry to the war or even the whole violence that comes with it…
Mars is above all “desire”, the pulse to fill the gap is the energy that responds to the attraction… of Venus of course !
It is the desire to live, the deep survival instinct, the attitude towards death and by extension the perpetuation instinct (reproduction instinct and species survival), Mars concentrates the solar primordial energy and focuses it into the individuality assertion.
Mars is a very useful planet in crisis processes, especially psychological crises such as Depression.
As suggested by its 2 Rulerships, there are 2 Mars :
- Aries Mars, which is dynamism, courage, self-confidence, territoriality, combativeness, impulsivity…
- Scorpio Mars, which is animality and bestiality , desire and sexuality, libido, destruction, violence, cruelty…
For all these reasons, Mars was called the “little evil” in traditional astrology (as opposed to the “great evil” that is Saturn).
The process of Individuation has been built through the mental (Mercury), affective (Venus) and psychic (Moon) structures, with Mars we touch the sphere of the social planets and the collective structures (Jupiter and Saturn).
With Mars we take by force, we conquer, we impose ourselves… but it doesn’t really matter the victory or the defeat, only the fight led counts, not necessarily for the pleasure of the confrontation, especially for feeling alive and mortal, activate the will to live and the survival instinct, adrenaline, a bit like a steel that you have to heat it up in the inferno before dipping it into water to activate the crystallization processes…
Very few books have dealt with the subject of the Mars cycle, other than by the simplistic side of “opposition / antagonism / complementarity” that we imagine “Mars / Venus” symbolizing the “Man / Woman” relations or simply by making a reference dictionary listing all the aspects if Mars Square Saturn, if Mars Trine Jupiter…
Yet as a rapid cycle, it has a great importance in daily life in general, and especially in the first years of life when a child is growing up, the affirmation of adolescence, and then imposing oneself in one’s work .
The victories of Mars battles will soon lead to the social achievement and expansion of Jupiter… but the materialistic egocentric actions of Mars can and must be sublimated into spiritual development !
The immense Martian energy can serve as a lever beyond social affirmation into transpersonal functions of the individual’s spiritual development.
In a Birth Chart, Mars indicates where is the force, energy, authority, active vitality, facilities of enterprise and command. Mars energizes, it allows the native to assume, to fight, it indicates where there is expenditure of energy, investment of our power, it describes where and how we can be a locomotive for our environment, our relatives and friends…
Mars in signs indicates the archetype of consciousness with which all this force is used, the way to conquer, to fight, the physical activity type, even the behaviors and orientations of sexuality…
Mars in houses provides information about the activity field where energy is expressed, where there is competition, ambition, entrepreneurship, struggle, even manifestation of anger and violence… This is the place of the assertion of the “Me” against the “Others”, for example a Mars on the Ascendant is therefore very dominant.
In Aspect and in Transits (see Mars in transit), Mars is the energetic function of desire, of drive, of combativeness, of action, of entrepreneurship, one thus often notices during its passages these elements, more or less nuanced by other planetary functions, Mars “energizes” the zodiac… In its dreaded side, Mars can produce violence, accidents, injuries, destruction, even self-destruction… To be watched in particular, the transits on the natal Sun or Moon and on the Ascendant.
Mars retrograde tends to express itself under the colors according to its second sign of rulership, Scorpio.
Mars retrograde in Birth Chart can mean an interiorization of the Martian functions of self-assertion, dynamism, or an inhibition of desire or impulsivity. The natives appear calm, stable and cold, but they boil internally psychologically, and since they have less physical outlet than a direct Mars, they therefore remain perpetually in a nervous tension with underlying destructive impulses. Even if they are closed, they are less individualistic, less impulsive, but more strategic, more reflective. They sometimes tend towards passivity, but with a sudden risk of angry outbursts and animality.
If it’s mastered, a Mars retrograde is on the other hand ideal to sublimate the active energies of this planet, notably libido, towards spiritual development.
Watch for its direct motion resumption in Progression.
Astronomically, in transit Mars is the closest to Earth when it makes Opposition to the Sun (principle of the Retrograde motion loop period identical for all exterior planets), I always advise to watch this period of retrograde arc which maximizes the tension phase (readjustment, nervousness, impetuosity, new project…), to carefully observe the concerned axes and the loop development (retrograde points, station points and points of direct resumption), this can also indicate, among other things, delays in a struggle, or conversely a rest phase, to be specified according to the theme dominants (study the Birth Chart, Houses concerned, other Aspects and transits…), read my article How to live Mars retrograde on a daily basis.
In a woman’s chart, the planet Mars represents the potential fiery lover, the men type that woman wants to attract, her sexual attraction type to live an adventure. Mars also represents her share of masculinity that she needs to integrate, her Animus in the Jungian sense, the male archetype.
In a man’s chart, Mars is his part of virility, of testosterone, his masculinity, his protective instinct with his own and the defense of his territory, his way of living his sexuality, his animality…
If the Sun represents Man in his notion of humanity, of clan leader, of father, with all the idealism and values that this implies, Mars is man in his spontaneous daily concrete action, more raw, more direct, more primary, less thoughtful and interiorized…
Martian personality traits
A native whose chart will be strongly marked by Mars will have qualities of dynamism, bravery, impulsiveness, virility, animality, frankness, fighting, even cold blood (according to Dominants and Aspects).
One finds Mars in the charts of sportsmen, policemen, soldiers, firemen and other professions in contact with fire, emergency doctors, surgeons or other professions in contact with death and violence…
Negative Mars : violence, anger, impatience, grumpy, excessive, proud, intransigent, ruthless, authoritarian and despotic, brutality, lack of tact, tendency to exhaustion…
A certain refusal of emotivity and some intuitive creative sense (Moon-Neptune) can lead to a great lack of abstract sense (see elemental dominants, Earth, Air, Fire, Water…).
Martian audacity and impulsiveness, without reflection, minimize the dangers and produce primitive and unpredictable reactions, often stupid.
Character traits found in Aries and Scorpio (their Domiciles).
In the circle of life, Mars represents the age of the social authority affirmation, from about 30 to 60 years old maximum, a period of struggle to impose oneself, of social affirmation, of material and amorous conquests, the strength of age, the full activity energy, enterprise, the ardent aggressiveness of ambition…
Mars in mythology is inspired by the God Ares, (God of war and destruction), see Ares on Wikipedia.