The Mars / Saturn pair: action and time

This pair has quite a bad reputation in traditional astrology, as they were once called the “two great malefics“, with their procession of problems…
They were seen as often bringing fatality, war, conflict, death, violence, loneliness, illness, and many other similar aphorisms !
But although it’s true that these planets can, at least in part, carry this type of energy (especially if one “resists” them), they are nonetheless essential both for establishing and strengthening the ego and for shaping social functions…

These two planetary functions mainly govern 2 very important dynamics:

• Mars represents the principle of action at the root of all other processes, right behind the solar will…
  In other words, the Sun wants, and the Martian force activates the volition that allows us to initiate a process of realization and to obtain what is desired.
  It represents “the verb” : to do, to undertake, to fight, to defend, to push forward, to help, to speak, to love, to play, etc.
• Saturn represents time, the force that anchors things over the long term and makes energy last.
  We are no longer dealing with a spark, but with a deep fuel that engages endurance, perseverance, patience, and requires discipline, maturity, strategy, even at the cost of certain austerities.
  It’s a force that structures, supports, and builds cathedrals over centuries, or allows stars to conserve enough energy to shine for billions of years…

At first glance, we can see their antagonisms, Martian impulsivity and impatience, Saturnian heaviness and slowness, and yet, important clues invite us to think further : in traditional planetary rulerships, Mars is exalted in Capricorn and Saturn is in fall in Aries !
It’s no coincidence that these tensions are expressed especially through the Cardinal Cross, a clear sign of their nerve-center nature at the root of impulses…

We therefore observe 2 main modes of action for these forces :

• when Martian and Saturnian forces unite and work together, we obtain an extraordinarily powerful engine of accomplishment !
  The spark of Fire finds a resonance, a fuel that allows it to endure, to optimize itself, not only to initiate things but to carry them through daily, adjust its energy, save it when needed, aim for a deeper purpose, and thus a more global, intelligent, practical, pragmatic, hardworking dynamic, ultimately serving self-affirmation and personal as well as social achievement.
• when these forces fight one another, or have trouble communicating, coordinating, or synchronizing, the result can be something truly debilitating that undermines self-confidence and the ability to act…
  Either a spark lights up but finds no fuel to sustain it, resulting in a short-lived flame with great difficulty establishing itself over time; the fire simply doesn’t catch.
  Or the spark struggles to emerge, weighed down by introversion, pessimism, fears, emotions, blockages, limitations, even self-limitations, lethargy, nostalgia, or a fixation on the past, and anything that “holds back” action, etc.

In the birth chart, it’s therefore essential to study this planetary pair when trying to determine the balance between personal and social forces.

In some cases, this dynamic will be directly indicated by an aspect : a Mars–Saturn Conjunction, Square, Trine, etc, which directly reveals the mode of exchange between the planets.


But one must not stop there : it’s crucial to judge the overall strength of these planets, especially through their rulerships, which are often more revealing.
Depending on whether one (or both) of these planets is dignified or debilitated the entire pattern and personal/social radiance can be affected.

In Transits and Progressions, we must also pay close attention to this Martian–Saturnian pair, both in relation to the aspects they receive from the birth chart and the aspects they form in the sky, factors which may modulate how their energies manifest in the present…

Generally speaking, we must consider the overall strength in the sky of the elemental energies of fire and earth, which will nuance the potential qualities or challenges within this Mars–Saturn pair.

We see that we are far from the superstitions of traditional astrology, yet we can still understand why the ancients perceived that the unleashing of these forces, and the conflicts between them, could have particularly difficult consequences for individuals and society…