“Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed at war. . . . We have wasted, I think, $3 trillion on military spending. China has not wasted a single penny on war and that’s why they’re ahead of us. In almost every way.”
Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump, April 13, 2019
President Carter unwittingly summed up the essence of both Mars and Neptune in the above quote. It’s difficult to separate these two planets because they work hand in hand with Mercury to produce the most challenging aspect of the American psyche. We’ll take them one at a time in an attempt to identify their archetypal energies, then look at their relationship to parse out their complex, entangled significance.
Let’s begin with Mars. Like every planet Mars operates on a spectrum from optimally functional to dangerously dysfunctional. There’s a lot of interest in Mars right now. Films, documentaries, novels and NASA are exploring Mars, and, coincidentally, as I write, Mars has just begun a new two-year cycle – perhaps the most significant two years in human history.
That sounds pretty dramatic, but it is definitely not melodramatic. I do not say this to arouse emotion. Fear is the very last thing we need now. Fear is the lowest vibration of Mars energy and it is the source of all the violence on our planet. Mars in mythology is the god of war. He is depicted as a fully garbed Greek warrior brandishing a sword. Swords were dangerous enough back in the day, but our contemporary “swords” have the power to destroy the planet.
At his finest, Mars is a hero, defending the realm, protecting the women and children, standing up for justice. This, of course, requires an enemy – someone to be afraid of, someone who threatens our safety – a stranger, an outsider.
So while Mars is our hero, he is also the source of our perceived danger. Mars has two sides. On the one hand he represents the power of the masculine energy. It is outward-directed. Mars steps out into the world and takes it on. He has initiative, motivation, courage, assertiveness. He stands up for virtue. He defends. He is the very process of developing a strong will, one that gets the job done. Mars prompted us to leave our caves, explore the world, learn how to create. Without Mars there would be no civilization. We’d still be back in the garden picking flowers and blissing out. Mars makes heroes of us all.
But Mars can get us into trouble when we embody his dysfunctional qualities. Mars is defensive, touchy, irritable, insensitive to others, obsessed with his own agenda. He can carry a big chip on his shoulder, harbor dangerous anger, become aggressive, abusive, cruel and sadistic. Mars can get us into war.
To complicate this two-sided hero, Mars in the USA chart is in Gemini, the twins – similar to our good and bad angels. More emphasis on duality. He lies in the 7th house – the house of relationship. Mars in the 7th house indicates an aggressive attitude toward others. He sits 33 degrees away from Mercury in Cancer. We’ve talked about Mercury before and its opposition to Pluto. Mercury in Cancer is worried about safety. He wants to build protective walls, like a crab’s shell. See how these two planets collaborate? Add Neptune in Virgo, at its lowest vibration – illusion, delusion and disillusion. We’ll get to Neptune next week, but the point is that Mercury under the influence of negative Neptune conjures up fearful fantasies that trigger Mars to defend. Mars energy operating at a low vibration leads to aggression which is justified in Mercury’s mind by the delusions of Neptune.
Pretty vicious circle! You can recognize it everywhere. Someone says something. Someone else takes offense. Words start to fly. Then fists. Movies depict this all the time and the message we get is that this is the way it is, has always been and ever shall be. Enter Mercury under the spell of Neptune: “This is human nature,” he declares.
NO! This is NOT human nature. This is the distorted mind living in the fantasy of a hostile world and justifying aggression, justifying violence, justifying the invasion of another country, the assassination of their leader, the death of countless citizens, kidnapping and torturing the “enemy,” ransacking their resources and leaving their nation ravaged. And by the way, making a big profit.
We justify our aggressive behavior with entitlement. We will examine this collective delusion when we explore Neptune in depth, but for now we need to stick with the duality of Mars. This is where we have the power. This is where we can begin to practice the future. Do we want to live in a fearful world? Do we want to feel hostility all the time? Do we want to hurt others? Do we want to live our whole lives on the defensive? Do we want endless war?
We claim we want peace. Not as much as we did right after World War II when America felt cleansed and reborn, filled with dreams of the future. Peace was a big thing because the whole world had experienced the nightmare of war. War is not glamorous. There is nothing noble about it. It’s dirty business and everyone suffers – aggressor and victim alike.
The shocking truth about our country is that we have been at war 225 years out of 243 since 1776! That’s 93% of the years our nation has been in existence. There have only been 21 years in our entire history that we have not been at war! There is not a single president in our history who has filled his term of office without a war! Let’s just stop and let that in. Is this how we want to continue? What could be the only possible outcome given the sophistication and ungodly power of our weapons?
9/11 traumatized our nation. We have always been bellicose, but the terrorist attack on New York City raised our collective fear to a new level. Under the current administration our fear has been further enflamed. Mars has responded with paranoia and hostility. We are scapegoating foreigners, immigrants, Muslims, people of color, people with different life-style preferences. Our list of enemies is growing as we alienate our allies, demonize oil-rich nations like Iraq and Iran, and shift allegiance to totalitarian dictators. A tidal wave of hate is breaking over our nation. What can we do about it?
Once again, the answer lies within you and me. We can’t take on the whole world and decree peace. Peace begins in our own hearts and we attain it by becoming more conscious of our Martian energies. We need to see the way our own minds work. We need to explode the bubbles of illusion that encapsulate our reality and hold us in rage and terror. We need to wake up and stop listening to the horror stories in our minds. We need to conquer our paranoia, be willing to see through the veils of illusion, harness that nasty inner twin who whispers hostile thoughts, and resist the impulse to strike out.
Like dualistic Gemini there are two parts to this process. One is to become conscious of and release the negative qualities of Mars. The other is to cultivate the positive qualities: to strengthen our hold on virtue; to summon up our inner courage; to commit to seeing reality more clearly and standing up for what we believe is right. Bottom line – we all came here at this time in the flow of consciousness to play a role in this extraordinary human drama. Believe that. Believe you have a purpose, that you are part of creating something new, a different way of being, a new world in which we learn how to live and love and work together for the health and happiness of all. It is not too much to ask.
I recently heard an old adage, “If we don’t stand for something, we will fall for anything.” It has been attributed to various individuals from Alexander Hamilton down to Irene Dunne. Whoever said it expressed the Mars vs Neptune dynamic and it has never been more appropriate than now.
What do you stand for? Explore that question. It’s important. If you aren’t standing for something, what are you falling for instead? Question your beliefs. Summon your courage to face the truth. It’s imperative. We have enough spectators at the moment. We’re in need of more heroes. Be the hero/heroine of your life. Stand up for something worthwhile.
Next time we will swim in the etheric waters of Neptune. We won’t be able to grasp this archetype, but we will get a mystical feel for it.
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