The Nourisher - Editor’s Blog

You do not have to be a student of Astrology to understand this article

Mars and Venus, are, of course, the archetypal Lovers of the Zodiac and we all, men and women alike, have a Mars and a Venus within us. Venus and Mars are indeed opposites - Venus the Goddess of Love and Mars the God of War and, in myth, it was only she who could quell his raw energy by making mad passionate love to him.

Venus is the female archetype and Mars the male therefore it is easier for women to be in touch with their Venus and for men to be in touch with their Mars. However, to be whole and happy, men and women alike, need to embrace both of these energies within their psyches.

Venus rules Taurus and Libra and represents the beauty, the vamp, the enjoyer and the attraction principle within us, the one who knows she deserves to have the absolute best and is worthy of getting what she wants. In myth Venus (Aphrodite) used her feminine wiles to charm and seduce men. In fact she went to incredible lengths and villainy to get what she wanted.

I don’t advocate that type of behaviour but when you see Venus the Bitch in action you will know what I mean. It comes out in competition with other females (or males) - the belief that someone is more beautiful, more desirable, more talented than you which sets up a sense of unworthiness and insecurity which may play out with vengeful tactics being played out or outright war being declared against the other woman (or man) in a battle for the man (or woman).

War and battle are part of the dominion of Mars - the ruler of Aries and old ruler of Scorpio and who, in myth, as the God of War, is largely driven by anger and rather thoughtless and impulsive . So you see one archetype activates the other. On this earth plane it seems that everything works on the principle of polarities and mirror reflection.

During the years of working on myself and working with others in therapy sessions and teaching astrology, I have observed that most people don’t have a functional relationship with their Venus and Mars. And frankly, that translates into - Most People don’t have Functional Relationships. So how does this play out?

When you are out of touch with your Venus you will consider other people before yourself, you don’t see beauty in yourself - you see it in others. You will put off the trip to the hairdresser, or put off the time for enjoying yourself or buying yourself something that your want and the worst transgression of all - you will put off doing the best thing for yourself such as eating healthy food, exercising - in short showing yourself that you love yourself.

You see our society in the past has championed the hard worker and scorned anyone who dares to enjoy themselves too much or pays themself too much attention. In fact, many people feel guilty about taking time for themselves and having a lot of fun and frivolity and indeed, a lot of people need to be inebriated or under the influence of something to let themselves go to have fun. And then they’ll wake up feeling terrible the next morning and beat themselves up for being so stupid or making a fool of themselves or whatever. The beating up is a Mars function - turning the anger in on the self.

So most people spend their lives looking after other people and their feelings rather than
paying attention to their own needs and feelings. We are led to believe that this is how we get people to love us - by not loving ourselves!! A bit mad isn’t it? You see people will take your cue - if you don’t pay yourself any attention and don’t give yourself what you need, neither will they. So through years of disowning your own Venus and looking for love by looking after others and not loving yourself, there builds inside the being a great resentment - “What about me?” “No-one cares what I want”! “No-one listens to me”!

The resentment eventually grows into rage and no-one wants to come near a person with so much rage running underneath the pleasing exterior. It feels very dangerous indeed. And of course resentment and rage are the dominion of Mars - the God of War. So once again the disowning of one of the “Lovers” will bring up the dysfunction of the other “Lover”.

I say dysfunction because when Mars isn’t cleanly played out - as in clean assertion of your rights, asking for what you want, or positive action and goal setting for the self, he will come out dysfunctionally and covertly.. This will play out in people’s lives as constantly being late or just not showing up, being unfaithful, spitting asides at people, road rage (all of these have “To hell with you, nobody cares about me so I don’t care about anybody else” running underneath the action)

Other ways to play out a dysfunctional Mars are by creating harm to yourself - cuts, bruises, accidents. And the classic - being surrounded by angry people - “I’m so nice why are people so angry at me?” The reason - if you are disowning your Mars you will project it onto other people and they will do it for you. They are trying to show you how to express it - maybe not in a functional way but most people aren’t that conscious.

Of course one day you crack and there’s crockery all over the place, shocked and amazed people declaring that they didn’t know what they did to deserve that. Well, they probably didn’t deserve it - it had been building up for years - more than likely since you were a toddler. Mars has a 2 year cycle and when we are 2 years old we experience our first Mars Return - that is Mars returns to the position it was at when you were born and suddenly little people get a will and they want to do what they want to do and of course they are quite mobile by this stage of their lives so things can feel quite chaotic for parents and they feel like they are in battle with their child and always saying “No”.

So, often the child learns that the will is going to be thwarted so there’s no point in having one and that it gets loved by being good and doing what it is told to do. This results in pleasing and peace-making behaviour which is the dominion of a dysfunctional Venus (another polarity). So this resentment about not getting what we want (and anger is almost always about what we can’t get) has been brewing for a long time and grows horns. The little demons inside each of us niggle away, leaping out at inappropriate moments, besmirching the, otherwise, “good behaviour” mask.. Can you see how we get out of touch with ourtrue Venus and Mars energy in our beings?

So when someone comes along and activates our frustration or anger - instead of suppressing it we should be able to deal with it. Not at that person - it doesn’t belong to them - they’ve just done you the favour of unearthing this entity that is going to kill you with some sort of disease - cancer or heart disease being the main ones - if it remains bottled up. So you need to punch pillows, a punching bag, car scream and if this is too scary, which often it is, you need to seek professional help to give you the safe space in which to release this pent up energy. It is so freeing and empowering to release in this way. Using the breath is important when releasing feelings as it heals you at the same time..

I have noticed with a few of my clients who have suffered from immune deficiency problems that their Mars energy has been suppressed. It makes sense that if Mars represents “the fighter” in the psyche and it is suppressed that it could then transpose into the body as the immune system being suppressed as it is “the fighter” in the body. The sign, house placement and aspects of the Mars would be important here as it will not play out the same in every person.

A suppressed or ‘castrated’ Mars will mean that your energy is suppressed as Mars represents that raw energy that we need for getting things activated in our lives. This will manifest as low vitality, low sex drive, depression, inability to sleep, tiredness, to name a few. You see it takes a lot of energy to hold down years of bottled up frustration and anger and this is energy that is no longer available to you for positive action and enjoyment of life.

When Mars is dysfunctional it can also try to fight off depression and the facing of true feelings by working compulsively - compulsive sex, losing the self in television, drugs or alcohol. A functional way to use Mars energy could be to bravely face the issues that need to be addressed and deal with them. This would be the way of the true warrior.

Another way that Venus and Mars play out in relationships is when the relationship breaks up. Usually there is a sense with both parties that they aren’t getting what they want, hence the reason for breaking up. So the sense of not being valued (Venus) comes up and an urge to fight for what we want (Mars) comes with that. Usually it is over possessions which are the outer trappings of how we show our value of ourselves. And how many relationships do you know that finished up in the courts fighting (Mars) over the house, money and possessions (Venus). The people are finding an avenue to play out their previously unexpressed aggression (Mars) trying to prove what they deserve to have (Venus).

So people if you want to be freer, happier and more whole beings conducting functional relationships in your lives try getting in touch with Venus and Mars in your psyche. Some guidelines………..

Accessing Venus

• Get to know yourself - What do you want? What do you enjoy? Quite often people are so out of touch with their Venus that they no longer know what they want.
• Look after yourself before you look after others - Be a full well from which you can truly give.
• Treat yourself as you would have others treat you. People will take your cue, therefore if you don’t care about you - they won’t.
• Love yourself, Pleasure yourself. Give yourself what you need. The Universe will follow that.
• Create beauty in your life and Home, Burn candles and incense, Play Music, Dance, Sing, Bathe in oils, look after your body.
• Eat healthy food and create delicious meals.
• Value Yourself - Don’t wait for others to value you. Look after yourself.
• Buy Yourself Gifts - CDs, Flowers, Clothes, have your hair done, legs waxed etc.
• Take those dancing lessons, music lessons etc. that you’ve been meaning to take for ever.
• Create - be creative - do what you’ve always wanted to do and stopped yourself.
• Allow yourself to attract and receive - this usually requires a major surrender of negative thoughts, inferiority feelings, agitation, worry, anxiety and the idea that we don’t deserve whatever it is.
• Open to Love - Remember Venus was often depicted naked so we need to strip the defences off our Venus - to truly love without fear of loss or of not getting what we want.

Love means not having to be responsible for anyone else’s feelings except your own.

Activating Mars

• Ask for what you want and need.
• Don’t expect people to know or guess.
• Be clear.
• Express what you don’t want. You have a right to say ‘NO’
• Set Goals and go for what you want
• Write lists of what you want to do or be and take positive action in that direction.
• Be Assertive . This is different from aggressive. You don’t have to depend on other people’s approval.
• Take Action. It’s OK to be first
• Confront situations, You have a right to express opinions and values instead of avoiding or running away.
• Vent anger and aggression in a Therapeutic Way . Breathwork Sessions (Rebirthing), Emotional Release : Car Screaming, Punching Pillows or a Punching Bag, Chop Wood, Draw or Write out your feelings.

A healthy mars gets on with what it wants and let’s others do the same.

About the Author...

By Carole Star For further information or to make appointments for Astrological Chart or Breathwork Sessions call Carole on (07) 5534 1504