As Mars moves into Aries for the next 6 months and prepares to square off with Saturn, we are all collectively meditating on what that means, on what the true nature of this transit could be. And, as usual, there is a myth to illuminate exactly that.
Ares, contrary to what one might think, was an excellent father. He imbued all his many children with his fighting spirit and enjoyed watching them grow into independent adults. In particular, he doted on his daughters. He understood that the world was a harsh place for a young woman, and he made a special effort to raise them all to be able to fend for themselves against the villains of the world. Even so, he kept an eye on his daughters just in case something awful were to happen.
And one day, something awful did.
As his daughter, Alkippe, was walking through the forest, going about her daily routine, when she was suddenly attacked. Halirrhothios, son of Poseidon, had got it in his mind to rape what he imagined to be a defenseless young woman. But, being a daughter of Ares, she was hardly defenseless.
She fought like a wildcat. She slashed and clawed and shrieked to the very heavens. But Halirrhothios, also the child of the gods, was an even match. Just as he was about to overtake her, her screams reached her warlike father in Olympus. He looked down and saw what was happening, and like a lightning bolt, he was upon them. Without hesitation, he drove his spear into Halirrhothios and put an end to the horrible ordeal.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. All this occurred in Athens, which had a sophisticated legal system. Not even a god could slay someone on Athenian soil and not answer for their crimes. So Ares, God of War, squared off against Saturn in the form of the court system.
The trial drew crowds from all over the land, watching with bated breath as a god (a god!) was put on trial. At first it didn’t look good for Ares. At the time, rape was seen as a property crime, and the death penalty was not typically applied. But then Ares, impatient with the proceedings, stood up.
“What does it matter what laws you humans have created? What does it matter how you would categorize it? I stand for what is right! My actions were just. I officially cleanse this blood from my hands and turn back to war, which is my proper domain.”
And, despite all precedent to the contrary, Ares was acquitted. For what he had done was, indeed, right.
As we mull these energies over the coming months, try not to get lost in the fear of the square from the Capricorn conjunction. Yes, the heavy-hitters of the zodiac will be facing off against Mars, who simply can’t win. Saturn beats Mars every time.
But it isn’t that simple. Mars in Aries fights for a reason. And if what you fight for is right, then Saturn, the cosmic judge, will support you. Every time. So as we move through the next six months, ask yourself, what is worth fighting for?
What will you fight for? Where is Mars transiting your chart?
This was beautiful storytelling and empowering to read.
Got a couple of great causes to fight for.
Mars will be in my 6th house so I’ll be trying to fight regularly and make it a lifelong habit.
This is a post I need to attend to. Mars transits my 3rd and then 4th House, then he retrogrades that 4th House and back into the 3rd (around November 13th) before he finishes up in Aries. My first grandchild is due to be born around November 20th. My 73rd birthday is November 16th.
What will I fight for? I will fight to be heard (3rd House of communication). The Capricorn stellium is in my 1st House of Identity (Who am I? as an old woman; a grandmother) squared Mars that’s a really good question. To be a voice of ‘just action’ so my grandson will have a legacy of quality is what I’ve long been fighting for.
The second half of Mars’s transit is through my 4th House of Family and Home. I will fight for the right to have a home that feels safe. My Natal North Node is in Taurus (5th House) after Mars has fought the ‘good fight’ I’d love to have a place/home/Earth to share with the next generation based on a foundation of authentic warrior actions and belief in justice for the long oppressed.
Plenty to mull over. Great grist for the mill.
Mars in Aries is transiting in my 11th house and will eventually reach my 12th.
I’m fighting for the spirit of friendship and real-life community. Nothing against online communities like this one, but things like video chat and social distancing have done damage to these concepts in society as a whole. Video chat is a cheap substitute which I’m not willing to participate in for the purpose of finding community. And that is a hill I’m willing to die on. Even if that means isolation, it’s an empowered isolation with the goal of spiritual surrender and renewal, to eventually rejoin a future I can hope for and believe in. I just can’t accept the present situation as an acceptable model for the future, despite outside pressure. I can delay, dive deep into the delay, but I can’t accept this “new normal” as the ultimate outcome, and if that leads me into a long-term life as a hermit (aside from the few close friends/family I do see in real life), so be it.
Unfortunately as long as the world continues to destroy the environment, trade, breed and kill wildlife and intensively rear livestock on huge industrial ‘farms’, risks of another pandemic (worse than the current one) are high. Until these issues of how humans relate to animals are changed, we are all vulnerable to serious viruses.
I hear ya. I’ve been vegetarian for over 8 years and have been making efforts toward veganism.
Judging by what is happening to protestors.. fighting for what’s right doesn’t always mean you’re not screwed
I don’t know what’s weakened me or made me passive, but it needs to stop..
The earth is in a serious situation and children and young men are being killed or separated from their families.. people must be crazy to let that happen.. or let people have to educate their sons to restrict themselves because they could be killed by the police.
My strength is down. Also I have an Aries NN so I am working toward independence and vision and a fighting spirit.. my FOMO these days is crippling me as well.. fighting doesn’t come easy to me and I am scared of being backslapped to hell with this configuration.. fuck being scared
I watched some clip about a woman named Rose Valland who was undercover for the French resistance. That put a little fuel in my tank
I am watching two parents dote and watch over a little girl who looks like me. Children seem to be allowed to be independent these days. They’re watching and smiling and cooing as she drinks juice. I know there will be a time that she finds this attention weird. And I know what she needs is freedom and boundaries. An Aries method of bringing up a child can sometimes confound me but it creates a stronger person. I think overzealous parenting also quashes creativity. No one is talking about this.
I was listening to a podcast about the movie Klaus. There were some parts where the character Jesper reminded me of myself. Lax and unsure about how to improve.. just kind of sitting there. And Sergio Pablos was saying that the character was supposed to be unsympathetic in the beginning and the hosts agreed that he was a spoiled brat that the audience wanted to see punished. All I saw it as was forced character growth.
I watch children who are brought up in an Aries way, as well as dogs. They scamper around without a leash and stick close. They are respected but not romanticized or infantilized. They also don’t come up to strangers for pets but only come up close and look like theyre about to. It’s also confusing when children aren’t infantilized or given the affection I’ve come to expect parents and grandparents to give.
Jesper gets his hero’s journey. He’s put in a difficult environment and he doesn’t give up or lay down and die, he thrives. This is the game I’m losing.
I hope the little girl who looks like me finds a mentor that tests her and teaches her how to build a fire and shit, that holds her to a high standard. With parents like that she’s gonna grow up to be a boneless fish like me. I don’t know the situation and judging families is stupid, just the fallout of coddling a child lasts long.
Aries affection is strange.
Apparently I haven’t even gone into the cave to slay my dragon 🙁
Mars is transiting my 10th house where natal Jupiter resides at ? 13 degrees Aries. I’ve had luck with career and positions facing the public. I have a shy Moon in Virgo. As a child at 7 looking up around the birthday table I was suddenly mortified that the children guests, my friends, were staring at me in anticipation of me blowing out my candles. My mother had to come to my rescue and stand beside me and do it with me.
Doing my education degree and a course in child development and exceptionalities I learned that some children’s sense of themselves as ‘seen’ becomes a sensitivity.
This fascinates me in terms of 10th house reputation. I see that this influence supports and increases my ambitions.
I am working on the issue of homelessness. Some people with 10th house emphasis may yearn to show off their homes as proof of success, that might be a manifestation.
I do want to be taken seriously hopeful I can add my shoulder to good efforts to make change.
At the same time perhaps Virgo moon cautions me to watch for ego.
? Another consideration Sabian meaning of 13 Aries: an unexplored ? bomb.
I have a Sun/Chiron/Lilith in the 5th and I think as a kid I felt something prurient and weird in it. But it’s also that this girl isn’t free to run around or given the trust to do things herself. I don’t know whether there’s a developmental reason, but Dara McAnulty is proof that autistic children can be raised beautifully. There’s a lot to say for not coddling children and giving them the tools to be independent adults. But an occasional cuddle isn’t remiss.
Also I think that women seeing themselves as seen aka the ‘male gaze’ also produces sensitivity. I was really enjoying wearing a mask cause I was tired of feeling it.
This is a very helpful post. Thanks 🙂
I wonder if Mars in Aries, along with all the other planetary configurations now and for the next year, might bring to the surface my suppressed anger in a more violent way. With tension rising everywhere, I wonder if I should continue fighting and be prepared to use (gun-free) violence, risk going to prison, serious injury, or death, or should I adopt a non-violent approach in all confrontations?
My Aries sun, Aquarius rising prevents me from being a passive bystander, but my Taurus stellium makes me want to hide out in my garden or the forest and pray that I reincarnate into a butterfly, bee, raven, or duck. Every day I pray that I don’t return as a human to this planet, if that’s how the universe works.
I have been reading about non-violence and trying to understand its effectiveness. I still believe that non-violence doesn’t work against bullies. Maybe if I lived in a society with ongoing war, I would fully support non-violence because I would see, first-hand, how violence simply begets more violence and doesn’t get us anywhere. I would be sick of violence and my contrarian personality (Aquarius rising) would naturally oppose it.
Maybe if I feared death, I might fully support non-violence. But I don’t fear my death. I welcome it. One less human polluting the Earth. Maybe if I hadn’t grown up in a violent home, I wouldn’t be such a fighter. I’m Aries sun. As a white, child-free woman, I feel I can take certain risks when confronting abusers. White men are less inclined to punch a woman in the face when she calls him out on his abuse. So far.
When a racist white man was harassing a black man walking his young daughter to school one day, I intervened very aggressively and succeeded in turning the racist’s homophobic vitriol my way instead. If I gave the racist kindness and compassion, he would have dismissed me as a weak flake and his violence against the black man may have escalated. I don’t have the time or patience to negotiate with middle-aged racist, homophobic, white men. I get too emotional and aggressive when confronted with oppression and injustice, and I’m not verbally articulate (mercury, moon, venus, saturn are all conjunct in my natal chart). I fear the next confrontation will lead to me strangling the white supremacist with his own noose.
Based on my limited experience, bullies and abusers need to be threatened with aggression and violence in order to fend them off. Confronting them with love and compassion might subdue them in the short term, ‘convert’ them over the long term, but that’s a long shot, and a risk I’m not prepared to take in certain volatile situations. Most people seem stuck in their fear, insecurity, and tribalism. I hear stories of KKK members, gay bashers, rapists, and such, being converted in their ways, which gives me a sliver of hope. But that hope too often eludes me.
An eye for an eye? A taste of their own medicine? Doesn’t this world need more warriors willing to fight bullies, racists, rapists, homophobes, and other marginalized peoples? Or do we have to act as good, peaceful, dignified, stoic, fearless, articulate, compassionate, loving role models, and not stoop so low to the belligerence of the oppressors’ hateful ways? The wiser voice in my head tells me the non-violent way is the best way to fight and achieve true justice in the long term. Only time will tell.
‘bullies and abusers need to be threatened with aggression and violence in order to fend them off’
Seems like it.. or pinched where they fear it the most.. like their money or power.. they are white supremacists and they hold the purse strings
I’m on the same wavelength as you. Seems like one good thing is to protest and harass the shit out of officials. And document cruelty. The news cycle wants to drown the many instances of the police killing black teenagers and young people. Fuck that. I stand for anyone under 18 and over that too. Anyway.. what we can do is to link up with other people and take an effective stand. It’s not nonviolent or sweet and peaceful.. it’s facing up to power with power. Look at fucking lobbyists and how they have our most powerful by the balls. They need not to be able to ignore us.
Tr Mars is in my intercepted Aries 2H and it will be squaring the Capricorn stellium in my 12H. In addition to being mindful of my finances (Taurus-ruled 2H), I think my overall value system will be challenged.
I’m seeing myself fight for a home of my own, that works for ME. I need to build a sense of domestic stability.
When Uranus in Aries was passing through my 4th house, and Mars was passing through there as well in 2015, my late husband and I changed apartments in our complex, and took our roommate with us. His live-in caregiver got his own apartment in the same building. The move freed us all, in a way.
You’ve got to question if you are in the right battle if you are losing.
There is that book, who moved my cheese. If your motivation is to fight is to restore order and structure that has been crumbling, your going to get buried alive.
The way to work with the square is to put your energy into making lemonade out of lemons. Bitching that all you have is lemons, being in denial about only having lemons, fighting with people that it’s your right to have oranges, all a waste of time and energy.
Know what, this is just a continual question for me. I’m not sure. I am constantly working myself up to fight.