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Mars:
The instinct to act

Mars says: Claim your courage to act. Mars promotes a clear yes or no. Mars is the sword of the will, the arrow of intention that seeks to carry out a particular plan that will give you energy if you fulfill the plan, and drain your energy if you do not. The purest instinct of Mars is to do. Whereas Venus fertilizes, Mars forges.

Within your inner family, Mars is the high testosterone leader, choosing activities that will give you energy, get-up-and-go. As you live in your village, Mars is the policeman directing traffic with firm gestures at the intersection, signaling stop, turn, and go. Mars is the neighborhood bully who needs to domi- nate, as well as the skater skillfully weaving around a crowd of people, a clear destination in his mind.

Mars is also in charge of your survival as you discover your wholehearted no. If someone steps on your foot, you say, "Stop!" Without your instinct for self-defense, you cannot survive. Mars rules anger and, as a consequence, your ability to be assertive, to say, "Don't ever do that to me again!"

Mars is the warrior designed to protect and defend your center - your Sun. But Mars is also your wholehearted yes, as you recognize what you want and the need to ask for it.

Mars at its most elegant is about living fully and thriving. Mars reflects your will to follow through on your deepest intentions and achieve your goals.

Mars is also directly connected to your libido; what turns you on. This planet's energy gets you quickly to yes! Considered to be yang (outer-directed), the glyph for Mars looks much like a phallus; indeed, Mars reflects where you are fertile and ready to seed something in a proactive way.

Mars is will in motion.

Find Mars at work in your life by completing this sentence:

I always have energy to __________________.

To further define your Mars, answer these questions:

What drives me?

What turns me on, makes me love life, brings a clear yes to my lips?

When I am attracted to someone, what is my strategy of approach? Do I contact this person? Wait to be contacted? Default on the desire? Plant a seed mentally that I will have an opportunity to get to know him or her better?

What makes me mad, brings a clear no to my lips? What is my style of combat when I am angry? Am I passive/aggressive? Direct? Explosive? What trips my trigger in anger?

When my energetic gas tank runs low, the thought of doing what particular activity instantly gives me energy?

When my energy is running low, the thought of doing what particular activity exhausts me even more?

Intuitive assignment:

Imagine yourself before birth as an arrow in a bow, about to be launched. With your birth this arrow is released. You soar, you fly, you do not fall. You are free will, and as that free will you are on a mission. What is your target? Your bull's-eye? How does it feel to trust your free will to explore something in particular?

Your Mars knows the answers to these questions.

Jupiter:
The instinct to philosophize, to sum it all up

Jupiter is the ultimate optimist, aware that everything is interconnected. Within your inner family, Jupiter is the student of life in search of the Big Picture. As Jupiter finds it, he sums it all up into a cosmology that becomes an inner map of permission, a formula for renewing faith because you believe.

As you move out into your village, Jupiter is the generous professor eager to share his large library with you. Jupiter is the expansive, funny woman who is wiser than you yet treats you like a peer. She leads trips around the world, has made a lot of contacts, is about to go again, and says "Come on! You come, too! Enjoy my connections with me!"

Jupiter may also be the venture capitalist in your community, the risk-taker making wise bets that produce abundance and the desire to reinvest in that abundance. For that reason, Jupiter is considered to be the ruling planet of capitalism and perpetual economic growth. Jupiter is the biggest, most gravitationally influential planet in the solar system.

Copyright © 2003 by Elizabeth Rose Campbell.

Tags: Astrology

About the Author

Graduated form the University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill with a degree in journalist. Though she initially worked as a writer for a literary magazine, The Sun: A Magazine of Ideas, Elizabeth was quickly drawn to the human potential movement and became a program coordinator for the Omega Institute of holistic Studies in 1982. Based on earlier astrological studies with Steve Forrest, she began giving informal astrological consultations to Omega staff and faculty. Elizabeth became the first astrologer invited to offer consultations to participants in their Wellness Center.