Depth Astrology » Mars

Picture of the Week: I Heart Boys and Girls

Kathy — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:51:19 +0000

Funny, after what seems to be a lifetime of being female-oriented — going to a women’s college, working in lots of women-owned and women-dominated businesses (including at a women’s PAC), being generally very pro-female and pro-feminist — boys seem to be springing up everywhere in my life these days. I blame Jung and the tension of opposites.

I knew my first child was going to be a boy, and I was right (call it intuition if you want), but I was 99% sure my second child — the one still twisting and gestating in my belly — would be a girl.

Nope. Bubbaloo, as he’s been dubbed till he emerges, is full-on boy as well. Two sons!? I never really considered the possibility that I would be the only family member without a Y. Or, on a more positive note, with a very fine double-dose of X.

And then there’s this freelance work I’m doing, writing grant proposals for a boys’ mentoring program. I’ve been engrossed in distressing research about how the school system is stacked against boy energy; how boys receive messages that set up a struggle between traditional masculinity and contemporary ideals; how, despite appearances, boys’ self-esteem is actually quite fragile; and so on.

The knee-jerk part of me wants to say, Oh, waaah. Get over it. Let me tell you about being female. But the therapist, the mother, the wife and — yes — the feminist in me shush the reactionary, not just with concern for the boys and men I know and love but also with increasingly clear glimpses of how very, very important it is for women that men, too, are deeply understood and valued. Not valued for their traditional power/control/management roles but for their natural, wild, authentic maleness.

And, while we’re at it, how very important that women can claim and integrate traditionally masculine features and that men can claim and integrate traditionally feminine features.

One of the traditional elements of maturing in our society — the rite of passage — has largely been lost to both genders. Oh, the trappings are still there among some sub-populations: confirmation, debutante balls, fraternity hazings. But none that I know of (and admittedly I don’t know them all) carries the deep drumbeat of the initiation process that characterizes a traditional rite of passage: the conscious, ritualized separation from the former, more childish self; the dreamlike hang-time in liminal space; the sense of accomplishing feats of physical and mental survival; the deliberate opening to and cultivation of adult spiritual wisdom; the reincorporation, as an adult, into the society where one was once a child.

In astrological terms, the rite of passage is/was a sort of “graduation” from unconscious, undifferentiated Mars/Venus energy into a firmer grasp of gender energies on a more subtle, conscious, individual level — from Mars to Sun (mental will and awareness) and from Venus to Saturn (physical security and awareness). In other words, it is the movement from the communal energy of the lower half of the chart to the individuated energy of the upper half through the fires of the most fundamental questions of identity: What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? With luck, depth and wise guidance, the initiate may even glimpse Pluto and Uranus energy during this process.

When a boy or girl can claim their gender birthright, not as prescribed behaviors like flirting or competing or giggling or dominating, but as unique, self-aware expressions of their individual mix of gender — XX, XY or some lovely soup of the spectrum in-between — then a rite of passage has taken place. We move away from stereotyped gender roles and into the embrace of all possibilities within, able to move in and out of stereotypical maleness, femaleness and gender-neutrality with much more ease, assurance and spiritual wisdom than we did as children.

And we become able, as it seems too few do in contemporary life, to turn around to the generation that follows, to become mentors and guides to the boys and girls behind us, who still struggle to understand what it means to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman — or anything else, for that matter — in today’s society. The astrological archetypes are not the only container for these energies, for this process, but they are vivid and tangible ones that can be useful guides along the way.

Can you identify a rite of passage in your life? Was it intentional or not? How did you grow through it? What did you sacrifice and what did you gain? Who guided you? What archetypal energies — masculine, feminine or anything else — were important in that journey?

Image: John Paul Bosbolo

Picture of the Week: Mars on the Y Chromosome

Kathy — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:19:33 +0000

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

Picture of the Week: The Venus and Mars in Cars

Kathy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:29:53 +0000

I have a very limited range of emotional responses to cars. If it works, is relatively clean and gets decent gas mileage, I’m good. If it doesn’t, I get frustrated. I suppose that’s because my Mars is more connected to practical, pragmatic needs than to the aesthetic value or power drive that is visible in other people’s connections to their cars.

Astrologically, when talking about cars and trains and other things that get you places, we’re usually talking about Mars — the explorer, the scout, the pioneer. This is especially so when metal and machinery is involved: Tools help Mars scout and explore, and people with strong Mars energy tend to enjoy using rakes and lawn mowers, chisels and drills, crampons and carabiners to achieve their visions.

Look at the activities we’re talking about here: driving down an open road, taming a garden, climbing a mountain, building a bookcase or a wooden train. All of these activities, in some way or another, take raw material and form it to reflect an internal vision. The road, the soil, the hillside, the pine board are there awaiting the active manual work of driving, tilling, climbing, carving — physical energy must be applied to an external object in order for Mars energy to succeed in its goal. The power lies with the actor, not with the acted-upon. And that’s how Mars likes it!

This is in contrast to Venus energy, which would rather move with the flow of the atmosphere around her. Whereas Mars is jumpy to get out on the open road, Venus might meander through the market first, choosing just the right watermelon and daffodils for when we get there. While Mars wants the garden to behave according to his vision — rigging sprinklers, building stone walls, weeding aggressively — Venus is more satisfied to prune here and there, to let the plants grow in the ways of their instincts. When Mars is up at dawn to strap on his harness and head for the next cliff face, Venus would rather sleep in, then have a late-morning picnic in the shade of the mountain, awaiting Mars’s return. And while Mars wants the pine board to become something else — something more functional, more useful — Venus likes it the way it is: We could just rest it on these bricks and make it a shelf.

It is important to note that no one is purely Mars or purely Venus energy, though we all have a tendency to one way or another in certain areas of life. And neither is a better or worse way of being; both are needed for life and creativity and energy and enjoyment. But it is good to know which energy is driving you in a given moment so as not to disappoint or frustrate yourself or alarm or anger others. It is also important to know which energy is more appropriate to which tasks. If you’re going to climb a mountain, it is better to leave your Venus idling at home. Not that you can’t appreciate the view from the cliff side, Venus-style, but the primary task is more Mars (or, more precisely, Mars-Saturn — safety first!).

The photo of the car above also reminds us that rarely is any single activity strictly Mars or Venus. Cars function in a Martian way, yes, but they’re also used in Venusian style: for the aesthetic, the showy looks, the shiny paint job, the curve of the lines; to seduce objects of attraction past the passenger-side door; to enjoy the hum of the engine and the music on the radio and the tires’ hold on the road. Even the idea of taking a photo of a car is more Venus than Mars: It shows an appreciation of beauty — Mars-inspired beauty, perhaps, but beauty nonetheless.

Photo: exfordy

Sandra Day O’Connor and the Libra-Venus Archetype

Kathy — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:47:48 +0000

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was Jon Stewart’s guest on The Daily Show last night and, befitting of the nation’s first female Supreme Court Justice, she did an exemplary job of demonstrating the Libra-Venus archetype.

She looked lovely, of course, her hair, makeup and clothes tasteful and appealing. She spoke with a quiet, comfortable sort of humor and an affability that moved in consort with Stewart’s traditional teasing and deadpan jokes. Unlike some guests, she did not try to match Stewart’s humorous style or skill but, instead, met his personality with a light and grace all her own. That is, she didn’t spar with him but allowed him to make the joke and then responded in a similar vein, mirroring him but not trying to become him.

This ability to move with another person is uniquely Venusian, and it finds its most familiar home in the sign of Libra. Whereas a Mars/Aries person might wear louder clothes, spar more competitively with Stewart and try to make a big splash, O’Connor seemed happy to share the limelight and make an impression with her mere presence. The way she matched Stewart’s style with her own calm self-possession — and a twinkle in her eye — made me think what a pleasure it would be to have lunch with her.

But the gracious manner and lovely appearance of strong Libra-Venus types are only the most outwardly-obvious signs of what underlies the personality. There were a couple moments in the interview that belied the archetype even more deeply than O’Connor’s visible style.

The first sign was early on (at about the 11:50 mark in the video). Stewart asked O’Connor about her latest project, the website www.ourcourts.org. She said she got the idea as a response to the growing criticism, over the last several years, of “activist judges,” adding that she had read, in a study by the Annenberg Foundation, that only one-third of Americans can name the three branches of government (while 75% can name at least one American Idol judge!). The implication was that something seemed amiss in her environment — she was feeling criticized, something Libra-Venus types don’t take lightly — and she had to do something to fix the situation to her satisfaction, to bring it back into harmony with her own experience.

The other telling moment came at about the 18:40 mark on the video, after Stewart noted that, “The Supreme Court is famous for its collegiate atmosphere,” and asked how the justices are able to maintain that cordiality with each other over so many years of making tough, sometimes controversial decisions together. O’Connor’s response was simple, profound and quintessentially Libra-Venus.

She said, “One of the things you have to start learning in law school is how to disagree agreeably. Because when you’re on a court like that, a collegial court with an odd number of people — which they all are — you have to learn to disagree agreeably. Because you’re going to be there together a long time.”

It is not that Libra-Venus types are always agreeable — not by a long shot. But both relationship and harmony are of paramount importance to them. It is uncomfortable for strong Librans to not be in relationship. Yet whenever two people are engaged together, differences will arise and have to be resolved. An undeveloped Libra-Venus type might lash out, get jealous or feel slighted — and definitely regret it later because the all-important relationship has been damaged or lost.

But the developed type finds a way to get along with people, even people with whom she disagrees. She learns to “disagree agreeably” so the relationship can survive, flourish and bring good things in the long-term — because she knows that disagreement does not have to mean dissolution.

Picture of the Week: The Feminine Principle in the Saturn Archetype

Kathy — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:50:38 +0000

Though I believe it is hanging in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, I was unable to discover anything more about this painting, the photo of which is this week’s Picture of the Week.

There are two different schools of thought about womanhood in astrology. (Well, truth be told, there are probably many, many more. But I’m only going to discuss two of them here.) While all astrologers, to my knowledge, recognize Venus as the holder of feminine energy, most western astrologers also ascribe the mother role, and general feminine traits, to the Moon. The Huber school, on the other hand, says the Moon is gender-neutral — pertaining to emotional and contact needs — whereas Saturn represents the mother principle: It is keyed toward physical security, survival, protection, boundaries and attachment. It is most comfortable near the bottom of the chart, where it can grow roots and provide stability and assurance to the chart native. In the midst of crisis, it is this sturdy sort of mother that we all seek, not the mother figure suggested by the Moon.

But these motherly traits of sturdiness and security are not always the ones associated with femininity in popular culture. Femininity is seen as much less solid than Saturn: more emotional, changeable, flirtatious and irrational as well as tender, loving, caring and abundant. (It is this changeability, as well as this tenderness, that are sometimes missing in strong Saturn types.)

In my eyes, the picture above models the Saturn style of the feminine. Here is a woman alone with two animals: one domestic, one wild. She appears to be leading the horse, as if she has already gained mastery and command over it; she has tamed it, provided rules and boundaries, and made it dependent on her in some way. But then she comes upon a wild tiger — a beast from whom most people I know would run. Yet she holds out her hands as if to tame it, too, as if to say, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” What’s more, the tiger is bowing its head at her feet, as if it already knows the woman’s power — already knows she will be the authority in the relationship.

Saturn may put reins on wild horses, but when confronted with wildness, chaos or danger a healthy Saturn will not freeze or run or kick but, instead, draw on its own resources to survive. In action films, that often means shooting guns and outrunning bad guys (more masculine, Mars-oriented stuff). But in real life, it may take fortitude, determination and creativity more than speed and strength.

A 2000 study published in Psychological Review claimed the traditional explanation of human stress response (“fight or flight”) was insufficient — particularly in females, for whom stress responses lean more toward, as the study put it, “tend and befriend” (notice it’s not an either-or but a both-and):

Behaviorally, females’ [stress] responses are more marked by a pattern of “tend-and-befriend.” Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process.

So when the going gets rough, women tend: They hunker down, grow roots and ensure they and their loved ones are protected and provided for. In other words, they go all Saturn on you. They also befriend, more a function of the social Venus archetype (with a good dose of Mercury, perhaps) than of the Moon (though a healthy Moon may certainly have a role to play in befriending as well). Yet even befriending, at least for the long-term, requires some Saturn energy of sacrifice, memory and protection as well as nurturing and maintaining deep connections.

In the picture above, the woman is tending and befriending. She is holding close to her faithful friend, the horse; developing an attachment with the tiger rather than separating from it; making the tiger dependent on her rather than chasing it off; taming it, restraining its wildness the way Saturn imposes order on chaos, organizes what feels unruly, protects us from the dangers of the world. What’s more, the woman appears calm and unruffled, sure of herself, not at all hysterical or flirtatious or indecisive.

After all, she is just going about her business, tending and befriending, in order to survive the wilderness of her life.

Photo credit

Reader Question: When will my overwhelm and anger end?

Kathy — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:21:09 +0000

Reader Andromeda writes:

“yesterday was an angry day for me and i had felt it bubbling up for a few days. after a fight with the SO, snapping at the Dictator, slamming the door (4 times, i kept forgetting things) i FINALLY made it out the door to school – late, beaten, angry, down. i didn’t start to feel better until i spent about 5 hours in the darkroom.

“things are starting to make sense now. i suppose it would be a good time to channel all this energy into writing 2 term papers, an artist statement, do artist research, rewrite the art history essay that i completely failed, read 2 books for history, and study for 2 upcoming midterms. any planets coming into play soon that will help me from feeling completely over-whelmed?”

This certainly does sound like anger and overwhelm not just running amok, but smashing right into each other! Andromeda has external forces (her husband, her child, her school work) making lots of demands on her. At the same time, she’s getting down on herself for not managing it all perfectly. The result is anger and resentment. There are a few horoscope elements coming into play that reflect this development in Andromeda’s life.

First, her natal horoscope chart shows someone who values stability and reflection — and who needs sufficient “down time” to recharge before she has to motivate to action again. If she doesn’t get that down time, she likely starts to feel frantic and overwhelmed. This is not a natural state of being for her: Though she is by no means a slacker, she simply doesn’t thrive on constant Type A activity. It’s counterproductive.

Second, with her Age Point early in the 6th house of her natal chart, Andromeda has recently been thrust from more pleasurable life pursuits into facing the demands and realities of the world — and, at the same time, learning to cope with them. The Age Point in Aries adds a more demanding dimension to the life of someone who prefers to think and reflect before acting: The world is asking her, now, to just do it: Move, produce, create, react with little respite or reflection. That can create a sense of helpless resentment for someone who’s not used to this level of demand. Andromeda would do well to be a little selfish in this area right now: Set some boundaries and schedule some time when she need only focus on her own health and well-being. Otherwise she runs a serious risk of burnout.

Third, Andromeda’s progressed chart (which progresses the natal chart forward to show how her internal life has developed over time) shows a continued need for stability but confirms the greater level of activity she’s involved with now. It also shows that she’s putting a lot of energy into higher education and processing her experience on a deeper level — making what she learns an integral part of herself. This effort is also connected to a restlessness that is striving, but not yet finding, a strong outlet for expression.

It’s as if the productivity she’s engaging on one level wants to blossom into individuality, but the time is not yet at hand. And that can be frustrating. She should start feeling more directed with this energy after the new year — definitely by February — and its direction should become more and more clear with each coming year.

Finally, at the time of Andromeda’s question to me, Mars was (and remains) conjunct her natal Uranus, which is strong by house placement. This transit can indicate sudden intrusions, rash responses and resentfulness, not unlike those described by Andromeda in her message to me. It can also indicate an urge to unique self-expression and intense desire to go your own way — to buck authority, break the rules and forge out on your own. (It can also be an accident-prone period if a person is not aware of herself — so a time to be cautious as well.)

So I would warn Andromeda to slow down, pay attention to her surroundings and be absolutely sure that any rash decisions she makes now are either easily reversible or truly good for the long-term. This influence remains for Andromeda* until next Sunday or Monday (October 26-27), so until then she should be especially aware, and more careful than usual, of how she expresses her individuality, anger or impatience.

She could actually make use of a longer-term Jupiter transit, square her natal Pluto, to carve out time for emotional self-reflection and growth. If she is disciplined enough, she could do this on her own (that darkroom she describes could be the perfect place, if she sees it as a place for deepening instead of a place for escape); or she could seek out a wise person to be her guide. In any case, this kind of daily practice in self-reflection could be a steadying, long-term, maturing force in her life.

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*Please note: This interpretation is specific to Andromeda’s chart only. Please e-mail me if you have a question about your own chart that you’d like me to answer in my blog. Include your birth date, birth time and birth place in your message.

Anger, Productivity, Creativity and the Mars in Your Chart

Kathy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:26:12 +0000

I’ve been grumpy for a couple of days.

Nothing has really changed in my life in that time. I’m just grumpy.

I’m not usually a transit-checker — that is, I don’t wake up every morning and check where Venus is in my chart, or the Moon, or whatever. I know approximately where the outer planets are, and I try to watch what I say when Mercury is retrograde, but I don’t live and die by my transits.

But this morning I had to check them out. Because the inexplicable grumpiness was getting to me.

Sure enough, there was Mars sitting right on my natal Sun-Mercury conjunction, opposite Saturn: a driving force in my life and personality.

If you’re not an astrologer, that last sentence won’t mean much to you. What’s important to know is that, when Mars energy bursts into a major part of your personality, even for a short period of time, that part of you can get pretty energized — for better or for worse.

If you’re not in full awareness and possession of yourself, as I haven’t been the last couple days, Mars energy can get pretty prickly, pretty quickly. I’ve been snapping at my three-year-old, feeling edgy and tense, defiant and selfish. On the other hand, the whole house is clean and I’ve done more walking and weight-lifting this week than I’ve done in ages.

See, Mars is productive and physical as well as angry and irritated.

It’s a good example of how each planet and sign has both positive and negative manifestations. At the core of each planet is not good or bad but, simply, energy.

Mars contains the energy of output and individuality. It’s like the first yelp of a baby as it emerges from the womb. It can be a yelp of pain and protest, or a yelp of concerted effort, or a yelp of productive breathing, or simply a yelp that says, “Hey! I’m here! Look at me!” The important thing is that the yelp occurs: The baby is bringing individual energy up from inside, out into expression in the world.

Some people feel Mars-like most of the time; it means Mars is prominent or particularly energized in their horoscope chart and personality. (On the other hand, people with a weaker Mars may try to make up for it by adopting Martian habits — but feel woefully inadequate about them.) We see strong expressions of Mars energy in sports figures, soldiers, drummers and Nike’s “Just Do It!” slogan. We also see it in red-faced anger, mouthing off, reckless driving and crimes of passion. It’s no wonder that professional football players, for example, have a reputation for getting into trouble — and that their fans sometimes cross the line between excited cheering and incited rioting. It’s all on the Mars continuum: It’s output of physical, productive, creative, instinctive, freely-expressed energy.

When we feel Mars energy bubble up in our lives — and we especially tend to feel it in our bodies — we might first feel irritated or angry for no reason we can readily identify. Or maybe we can identify the reason, but it’s something that wouldn’t have bothered us last week. Or it’s something that always gets to us but we feel like a hamster on a wheel with it: running, running, running with no productivity, no resolution.

For me, this week, it was my preschooler’s clinginess — an apt example because Mars wants to be free and independent, able to choose where and when to go, and what to do, tied down to no one. The Dragon’s clinging and whining this week made me feel angry and trapped, whereas in other weeks I’m able to take it in stride, address it, soothe it and move on. Not this week: Instead, I felt like a volcano about to explode. I’m actually planning to spend this evening out so I can indulge my need for freedom and independence instead of giving into irritation and anger. I hope I can return a little calmer, having gotten my short spell of freedom.

It’s really important to be aware of when Mars stirs your anger. However Mars is situated in your chart, if you haven’t learned to manage your anger, certain triggers — a child’s defiance, a spouse’s socks on the floor, a boss’s tone — could set it off at the drop of a hat. On the other hand, many people suppress irritation and anger because it’s not considered polite to show it. This can, of course, be just as damaging: Witness the ample evidence that the stress of suppression is connected to heart attack and other ills.

It might seem strange, but both hair-trigger anger and suppressed anger are sourced in the same place: the inability to manage Mars energy productively. Mars is not anger; anger is one expression of Mars energy. But that energy can be channeled into a more productive and creative place. Primal scream therapy is a quintessential example of this channeling, though other activities — like cleaning house, going for a walk, lifting weights, mowing the lawn, drumming, listening to loud music or having (safe and respectful) sex — will do just as well.

Astrologer Robert Hand says:

One way to ensure that a Mars transit will not cause disputes or arguments with others … is to have plenty of hard work to do. The negative side of Mars most often manifests itself when there is no other outlet for its energies. (Source)

Maybe, instead of anger management, we should call it Mars management. That would acknowledge the more productive and creative uses of this wild, unruly energy instead of dissing it completely. Because, like a needy child, Mars gets really, really, really pissed when it’s ignored.

Photo credit

Three in the Bed: Venus, Mars and…

Kathy — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:47:36 +0000

On Monday, the Sun enters Libra, whose ruling planet, Venus, was brought to wide public awareness as a psychological principle in 1993 by John Gray’s book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Like Gray, astrology often pairs Venus with Mars — ruler of Libra’s opposite sign, Aries. Both symbolize the instinctive ways we seduce, pair up with, oppose and work productively with other people. But they do it in completely different ways.

Venus tends to draw the other in with magnetism and charm, creating an atmosphere that will naturally unfold in the desired way. Opposition is met with negotiation and compromise.

Mars, on the other hand, is more direct. It identifies the goal and sets about achieving it. Obstacles get removed, not negotiated.

I hope you noticed that I didn’t use gender pronouns in the preceding two paragraphs. Yes, women and men have been socialized in the obvious directions, but I think it’s unfortunate that Gray chose to pigeonhole each gender into one archetype alone. The truth is, we all have both types of energy at our disposal (never mind the fact that not every relationship is made up of one man and one woman). Understanding and owning both energies, and being able to choose which to employ from moment to moment, would be enormously helpful, and even empowering, no matter who you’re in bed with.

Okay. I know this post seems about 15 years too late, but I wasn’t yet blogging in 1993, and besides, I want to talk about the third one in the bed. Because when Venus and Mars get jealous, defensive and angry — as they’re likely to in the coming weeks, being in each other’s signs and all –that’s when shadow material comes out in unconscious and destructive ways. If these planets are hitting any sensitive points in your own chart, you could be in for some serious conflict learning moments.

In psychology and astrology, we like to say, “You marry your shadow.” But Venus wasn’t married to Mars in ancient myth. She was married to Vulcan. And he’s been in the bed ever since.

Venus was born of the churning sea foam but chose to be a goddess of the sky instead of the water — a horizontal energy reflected in her rulership of Libra and the 7th house. Vulcan, on the other hand, was born on Mount Olympus to Juno, who found him so ugly and deformed that she threw him off a cliff into the sea: a deep and vertical energy if there ever was one. One came out of the sea at birth; the other went in.

So already, the couple’s birth stories have them going in different directions: Opposites attracting, or at least being compelled into couplehood. Venus went on to play out much of her divine drama with earthly humans — a beautiful, social, sought-after goddess — whereas Vulcan made his life solitary and underground, shunning the other gods, harboring anger about being rejected.

But, because they were human(ish), both of them longed for love.

Venus was empowered from the start: Did she want water or sky? Feeling worthy of respect and deserving of choice, she found that love came easily. Men and gods flocked to her feet. But when they didn’t, her jealousy arose quickly: Perhaps she relied too much on beauty and charm. Perhaps there was a bit of uncertainty below the surface. Did she really deserve love? Or was it just her beauty they were after?

For Vulcan, there was no such uncertainty. He knew he was unworthy, and grew resentful and angry toward everyone as a result (with a special hatred for the goddess who had birthed him, then rejected him). Vulcan holed up in a cave, silent and removed, working his forge but having little contact with gods or humans. Even his marriage to the goddess of love and beauty, Venus herself, was not enough to convince him: It was arranged by Jupiter, after all, and his new wife continued unabated her habit of coupling with a wide variety of men and gods. One of those gods was Mars.

Strong, athletic, handsome and confident, Mars was everything Vulcan was not. Once, fed up with the affair, Vulcan caught Venus and Mars in bed together and trapped them with a golden net he had made in his forge. He called the other gods to come and laugh at them:

“Father Jove,” he cried, “and all you other blessed gods … come here and see the ridiculous and disgraceful sight that I will show you. Jove’s daughter Venus is always dishonouring me because I am lame. She is in love with Mars, who is handsome and clean built, whereas I am a cripple … Come and see the pair together asleep on my bed. It makes me furious to look at them. They are very fond of one another, but I do not think they will lie there longer than they can help, nor do I think that they will sleep much; there, however, they shall stay till her father has repaid me the sum I gave him for his baggage of a daughter, who is fair but not honest.” (Source)

The gods did come and laugh, and Mars eventually compensated Vulcan for the transgression (please, don’t get me started on that).

Though Mars is often cast as Venus’s opposite, in a way they were very alike in their self-possession, sensuality and extraversion. And though I believe that Venus and Vulcan are quite opposite in some respects, both seem to draw their sense of self-worth from their association with beauty. Venus is lucky in this regard while Vulcan is not.

In a way, Venus and Vulcan are the original Beauty and the Beast, the archetype of projection itself. Venus can’t own or abide ugliness in herself or the world, yet she is compelled to marry it. She has to contend with its existence in the world. Even the goddess of beauty cannot live on beauty alone.

For his part, Vulcan can’t stand the beautiful, because he doesn’t see it reflected in the mirror, but he persists in making it, capturing it and controlling it. If he cannot be it, he will have it. But because he cannot own his own beauty, his encounter with it in the world only deepens his self-hatred.

Each one resents and despises the other for the things they cannot own in themselves.

Owning your own beauty and your own ugliness is essential to the balance for which Libra is renowned. Reclaiming your projections — your sense that beauty is out there, not within — from beauty magazines, from people you envy, from your own sense of inadequacy — is the hard work of Libra.

Owning your own ugliness is no small feat, either. When relationship conflicts occur, we tend to claim beauty for ourselves and shove ugly off onto the other. Our defensiveness or resistance to compromise won’t allow us to admit our wrongdoing. We stay trapped in Vulcan’s net until some debt is paid off.

What’s the debt? Admitting you were wrong sometimes. Acknowledging your jealousy, or your impatience, or that you really hate being reminded to fold the laundry when you were planning on doing it anyway. Honesty: Yes, sometimes honesty in the manner of Mars can be ugly. But it tends to feel a lot better than the brewing resentment of Vulcan.

If we can stand in our own ugliness and our own beauty, if we can acknowledge that we all carry both beauty and beast within ourselves, then maybe we can forge a new way of relating. We can admit to being dismayed not only with the other but with ourselves as well. And when it’s time to make up, we can let go of guilt and take enormous pleasure in the beauty of both the other and the self.

And that’s what ultimately disarms the most genuine of suitors.

Thanks to my 2007 self, who originally explored these themes here, and to Kathleen Burt for her exploration of Vulcan in her book Archetypes of the Zodiac.

Dammit! The Price of Good Citizenship

Kathy — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:35:44 +0000

I’ve come across two dead crows on my morning walks recently in the Los Angeles foothills. In years past I’d just shudder a bit, step aside and let the faint whiff of flying-rodent death wisp away on the breeze.

But first, these crows didn’t showcase the bloodletting and bodily trauma normally associated with accidental encounters with cars. And second, Alan had informed-slash-reminded me that mysteriously deceased birds in these parts could be indicators of West Nile Virus.

So I regretfully interrupted the obsessive ruminating I love to do on my walks and, instead, repeated to myself, for the last 10 minutes of my walk, the address where lay this morning’s particular dead bird. Neatly decapitated, if you want to know the truth. As if a polite coyote had removed the lid from the tureen to see what kind of soup was inside, then gone on his way when he saw what it was.

When I got home, I Googled, then telephoned, the state’s vector control hotline. The kind lady on the other end took my name, address and phone number, then asked the location of the dead bird, its color, its size, how long it had been there. I could hear the clickety-clack of fingertips on keyboard as I gave her all the information.

Then she said, in a foreboding yet lilting voice, “Would you be willing — ”

And I knew what she was going to say. And I wished I’d given her a different name, address, phone number so I couldn’t be reached when I hung up the phone quickly.

Which I didn’t do. I let her keep talking. ” — to take a double plastic bag — ”

No, no, no, no, no. Dammit. I knew it. It’s not that I’d never seen death before; in fact, Alan once gently reprimanded me for bringing home a dead snake from a walk. It was flat. I thought the patterns were pretty.

” — and return to the location to pick it up?”

I thought, I could say no. What were they going to do?

But I didn’t, because I am a Good Citizen. I got a certificate in sixth grade that said so.

“Ummm…sure,” I said. She gave me further instructions, and I wrote them down, even though my mind was already back at the streetside, the bird — mysteriously — in much gorier condition than when I’d left it.

When I got off the phone, I gathered a rake, a dustpan, thick rubber gloves and — not a double plastic bag, not a triple plastic bag, but, yes, a quadruple plastic bag. I threw my provisions in the back of the truck and drove the half-mile to the bird.

I left the car running and the driver’s side door open because, you know, I might have to make a quick getaway from the dead bird. I worked quickly and quietly, all business. I threw away the rubber gloves when I got home and washed my hands three times in near-scalding water.

And then I went to look at my horoscope. Because that’s what astrologers do: Feeling depressed? What’s up with Saturn in my chart? Feeling confused? What’s got my Neptune? Dead bird on the porch? Check out the 8th house!

Of course, it’s never so simple as all that.

My collaboration with today’s transits (Aries Moon transiting my 8th House in exact opposition to Uranus, sextile Mars in Aquarius in my 6th and semi-sextile Saturn on the MC) might have been less institutional, more impetuous, had I not that looming specter of Saturn perched high atop my natal chart like — well, like a crow screeching from a treetop. Were it not for that Saturn, and a couple other things like, I don’t know, my solid upbringing, I might actually have hung up on the hotline when I had the chance. Or I might have just plucked it up with my bare hands on the spot, tossed it into the nearest trash can and forgotten about it.

What I love about astrology, yet what makes it so frustrating for people who want it to be simple — A plus B must always equal winning the lottery — is that it has room for complexity, diversity and that fearsome wild beast called free will. A Moon-Mars-Uranus ambivalence figure (as the Hubers call it when an opposition, sextile and trine form a triangle) might manifest one way for me, another way for you depending on transits, progressions, other factors in the chart and things like upbringing, environment and beliefs about the self. Which, of course, are all reflected in the chart as well.

So although picking up the dead, possibly virus-infested, bird grossed me out beyond belief, I’m glad — now — that I didn’t hang up on the hotline. When Saturn gets out of balance, it’s so easy to crawl under a rock and give into fear or a sense of inadequacy. And I’ve certainly done that plenty in my life. But Saturn also comes with conscience, and with an awareness of the consequences of one’s actions.

The incidence of West Nile in L.A. County is way up from last year. There are kids in these parts, and other vulnerable folk, who just can’t put up a winning fight against it. I had to figure out a way to do what I had to do to support my conscience, distasteful as it was, instead of my disgust.

Saturn, in the Greek tradition, was called Kronos. That “Kr” element is enough to remember me to karma. Say what you will about nature taking its course — it’s just not good karma to let deadly viruses fester in your neighborhood.

And so there I was, this morning, with the rubber gloves, the quadruple plastic bag and the excessive hand-washing.

Ah! Saturn lives.

Photo credits: Crow, Flag, Telescope