Mars Direct: Be Strong and of Good Courage
Donning the Martial spirit. . .
“Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!” Psalm 31:24.
Mars stationed direct at the beginning of the week at around 20-25 degrees Gemini. We might begin to feel that areas that once felt stuck, sedentary, exhausted, or delayed might suddenly spring forward. Things might be happening fast, like the momentum of a sling shot that has been pulled back - fully feeling that tension and pressure - and then suddenly snapped free! I sense that much of this will result in sudden loss or purging in one’s life, whether painfully or with relief - or both! I also see indications of chores or duties accumulating and demanding to be completed immediately and without further delay. However, this jolting momentum will be short lived as we approach both a Mercury and Venus retrograde in March, which will cause further delays and calls to reflection and rest.1 Furthermore, Mars will be transiting Cancer again through April and May. This is an afflicted dignity for Mars, making him sluggish and ruthful.2
As I mentioned previously, the retrograde cycle happens within the pattern of threes. With Mars stationing direct, this will be the third transit as he comes back through the path of his retrograde motion. So, whatever themes, patterns, or events that you have noticed and/or experienced since October 2024 when Mars first entered its retrograde shadow, will be manifesting themselves again. Depending on how you have been approaching these events, you will either be gaining insights and abilities to overcome or encountering fresh frustrations that could cause continued strife. In either case, I have some thoughts of hope to share.
I have been thinking about Mars and Mars transits a lot lately, as Mars is my most troublesome planet within my chart, e.g. the most malefic - even more so than Saturn. This Mars retrograde cycle has effected me deeply, and I have felt a strange, almost oppressive hush within the heavens - like a quiet before a storm - each time Mars has stationed. I also know this Mars transits has been very difficult for everyone. Just one example would be the recent fires in southern California and their utter devastation, which has been likened to the aftermath of an atomic bomb. I believe this grieving and terrifying event describes perfectly the donegality of this Mars transit/retrograde. He is angry, restless, and deeply wounded, and entering an air sign gave his wrath a drying and explosive kind of heat.3
So, all of this has been on my mind as I have been observing this transit. Of course, when I am mediating on the donegality of the planets, I always go back to Michael Ward’s Planet Narnia, which is not only a profound thesis on The Chronicles of Narnia, but a powerful astrological resource. I believe Ward’s insights that he draws out on each of the planets through C.S. Lewis’ work and own understanding of the planets, gives a deeper, more synthesized understanding of how the planets are actually expressing themselves in the sky and perhaps giving us insight into the eternal things.
“. . .makes there his camp
And flies his flag; flaunts laughingly
The graceless beauty, grey-eyed and keen,
Blond insolence – of his blithe visage
Which is hard and happy.”
Mars, from The Planets by C.S. Lewis.
In my Scorpio reflections, I expanded on the duality of Mars’ nature and meditated on what that could mean for us. He isn’t always expressing himself through a masculine, violent, and martial force, but has a venereal, feminine, and life-giving aspect - which turns out might be his truest nature. Today, though, I do want to focus on his hard, war-like nature, and how that could give us a better understanding of Mars transits, and how to approach the areas of our lives where Mars is located in our charts. For there is a gallantry and bravery to Mars’ warrior spirit. Not that we should diminish the evil and brutality of war - whether figuratively or in reality - but instead of “stripping the knight of his armor,” what if we were to put on his armor instead? Where we are able to gain “imaginative access to the discipline and the freedom from anxiety” that the Martial spirit could embolden us with? (Ward pg. 93).
“Put on the full armor of God. . .”
I know many of us struggle with fears and anxieties over a good many things. I’ve written in the past about my own journey with anxiety and chronic illness, and how that sent me down a spiral of fear and mental and emotional anguish a few years back. With Mars in my 6th House4, this is unsurprising that this is how he has manifested. All my life I have struggled with fears surrounding the relationship to my body, and this usually resulted in a sudden and debilitating sickness. In many ways I am still processing and healing from that grief and sickness (part of which has been through exercising and gaining weight, muscle, and physical endurance - the positive aspect of Mars in the 6th!), and this current Mars transit has carried these age old themes in my life to another kind of fruition where I feel like I have gained some clarity regarding my chronic illness and relationship to anxiety. I am seeing fruit and a potential for more fruit to come out of this transit - which has been hitting my 1st and 12th Houses respectively. (Phew!)
I was thinking that instead of being resentful by my Mars placement and the fact that it is so malefic for me, what if I were to see it as exactly the area where God is asking me to be courageous? That the martial armor that makes Mars so iron hard, could be my hardness, my armor? Iron sharpens iron. . . And it is the kind of courageous spirit that is both “hard and happy?” The joy of the Lord is our strength. Michael Ward draws a particularly apt donegality from Lewis’ Prince Caspian that exemplifies this kind of happy hardness. It is a scene where after twice failing to receive the Martial spirit, Lucy Pevensie is finally and suddenly transformed - hardened (strengthened) to complete a hard task - through an encounter with Aslan:
“Lucy buried her face in his [Aslan’s] mane to hide from his face. But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up.
“I’m sorry, Aslan,” she said. “I’m ready now.”
“Now you are a lioness,” said Aslan. “And now all Narnia will be renewed.”
Prince Caspian “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis.
“Now you are lioness. . .” I just love that line, followed by “. . . all of Narnia will be renewed.” The Martial spirit can be a way of modeling for us the kind of glorifying strength available to us, helping us to let go of anxiety and fear in order to be made into a lion or lioness of God. And this would not be just to get us through a hard or difficult season of trial and suffering in our lives, but more than this, so much more than this, there’s a promise too - a promise of renewal - “Behold, I make all things new. . .”
Be strong and courageous. . .
When the aging Moses and the people of Israel stood outside the Land of Promise once more, with the young, gallant, and faithful Joshua at their side - God again commanded that Israel go forth and take the Promised Land from the people and nations that resided there. The first time this happened the people of Israel became fearful and dismayed, balking at the prospect of entering a land filled with such great and fearsome peoples. Through rebelliousness and unbelief, God’s holy people disobeyed His command, doubting His trustworthiness and love, and wandered in the wilderness for forty years as a result. Now, with a new generation and Joshua now their noble leader, Moses declares: “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” Be strong and courageous. . .for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. This is the basis and foundation of our being able to take courage: to know and believe that it is the Lord who goes with us - even before us - and He will never leave or forsake us. The Martial spirit - or what Ward calls the “Martial Logos”5 - is operating here in this story, in this passage, and in the Words of God. The story involves literal battles, but the literal is hidden within the symbolic, for “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
So, then, like Joshua and the people of Israel taking hold of the Promised Land for their inheritance, so we too can take hold of these areas of our lives - places of weakness, fear, trauma, chronic pain, and affliction - in order to overcome them and be made whole as a result. That we might be able to say with the Psalmist, “It is good for me that I was afflicted. . .” - afflicted by our Mars placements, by these Mars transits - for through them we can discover opportunities of God’s immeasurable grace. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. . .
My hope and intention is for you, my readers, to feel emboldened by mediating on the donegality of Mars, that it would lead us ultimately to the only true Source of our strength: the One who formed Mars and his attributes, the One from whom the Martial logos is patterned, the One who in the end of days will embody the greatest Martial Image - the cumulation of all things that make up the Martial image - riding on a white horse with a robe dipped in blood, the armies of heaven following Him as He rules the nations of the world with a rod of iron.
With this in mind, may we strengthen our feeble arms and weak knees this day, for the times are growing short and their evil will only be increasing.
“Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:7–8
Of course, this is all in preparation for one of the biggest astrological events of this year that has gotten the whole astrological community in a tizzy (with good reason) - the solar eclipse and planetary stellium in Pisces! I hope to be able to write about this event in the next few weeks!
As I mentioned in my previous post, Retrogrades and Scorpions, each planet has dignities within the signs, where they will either manifest strongly and powerfully or become weakened and/or dulled. Mars rules both Scorpio and Aries, these are the signs that he will express himself to his fullest martial potential. Mars is exalted in Capricorn, so he does well in this sign, but is in exile in Libra and Taurus, and is in fall in Cancer.
This has been especially heightened by the Uranus transit. The outer planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, are fascinating transits within themselves, but needless to say, Uranus has most definitely been adding to the aggressiveness and turmoil of this current astrological weather, especially within the political and cultural sphere.
The 6th House, known as the House of Bad Fortune - since it has no aspect at all to the 1st House and therefore is a weakened Cadent House - governs everything that would afflict the health of the body, whether through injuries, disease, and other physical ailments. It is a house of drudgery, misery, labor, and toil, and Mars has its joy in this house. Meaning that Mars is able to operate very strongly in this area of one’s life, which makes sense for the hard, martial planet to be connected to the physical body and the toiling affliction of this house.
“Logos” referring to the Greek word for “word,” specifically when referencing the Word of God, e.g. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:1-3.
Late in life, the great English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, reflecting on 75 years of living, wrote:
“Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo jumbo … the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable. This, of course, is what the Cross signifies. And it is the Cross, more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ.”
Love this! Will share more thoughts on Sunday!