Picture of the Week: Mars on the Y Chromosome

This picture is appropriate in that I’m now reading The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian in an effort to better understand the burgeoning boy in my life.

Psychology and sociology have conspired in recent decades to promote the belief that temperament and personality are all nurture, no nature. But as most parents will tell you (and as researchers have finally begun to admit), kids come out with their own distinct natures — a portion of which are clearly gender-specific.

Though he is careful to allow for each person’s individuality, Gurian’s book describes the ways testosterone, fetal brain development and other biochemical processes drive the traits we’ve come to identify as “typically” male: physicality, competitiveness, task-orientation, skill-building, independence-seeking and so forth. As someone who has historically experienced competition as anxiety- and shame-producing, this sentence particularly struck me: “Competition, for boys, is a form of nurturing behavior.” (p. 29)

I read the sentence to my husband who, as my mind was still reeling, casually remarked that he understood it instinctively. I had to start reshuffling my own neurons, start accepting the idea that the teasing element to my husband’s and son’s relationship might be, in fact, not a form of put-down or rivalry but, instead, a display of deep affection. How strange, I thought.

Not surprisingly, these “typically male” characteristics are part and parcel of the Mars archetype. Mars is the rawest expression of masculinity in the horoscope chart; it gets refined and strengthened as it goes “up the ladder” to solar consciousness and, then, transformative Plutonian will (this structure is per the Huber schema). But at the instinctive level, we can truly feel the testosterone pumping through, the competitiveness and the physicality and the drive to build skills, the urge to perform and succeed.

In my son’s chart, Mars is in Taurus in the 9th house. He learns well through large-muscle movement, through experiences that engage his mind in whole-body knowing. At three, he’s interested in reading and writing, but sitting in a chair and going over symbols and sounds won’t do for him the way it did for me. He is much better with interactivity, with word games that challenge him to build new skills, with learning new words and trying them out in a sentence, with connecting pictures with letters through books or television shows. (He is currently obsessed with PBS’s Word World, which makes letters into pictures of the things they represent.)

He also needs to move in a way I’ve never experienced: If he doesn’t ride his bike or scooter, kick a soccer ball, hit a baseball or run for several hours each day, he is restless and grumpy all night.

My Mars, on the other hand, is in Aquarius in the 6th house — a very different orientation. My body has always seemed, somewhat, like an appendage to my mind; give me an idea and I’ll chew on it and chew on it and chew on it until it’s spent. If there’s time later and I’m inspired, I might go for a stroll around the neighborhood. My Mars gets pumped by exploring and analyzing ideas, especially if I can organize them into a thought system. That’s why astrology works so well for me as a discipline. Whereas other tasks might bore me, I am continually absorbed by astrology, working to increase my knowledge and skills; it gives me energy rather than depleting it. I want to distinguish myself and be the best I can be in this field.

Sports? Meh, I prefer watching instead.

Take a look at the Mars in your chart. What sign and house is it in? Do you feel the energy pumping through you in the ways suggested by the sign and house? How so?

Photo: Lochnagarth