Archetypal Processes VI: Mars – CREDO CII

   
Always remembering that the gods are the concretization of invisible archetypal verbs, Mars embodies action. The interesting and possible hint to a holographic solar system is that the planet Mars exists, and not only that, reveals – as do all the other planets – how any individual is likely to act! Not only is “As above, so below,” but I would add, “As within, so without!” All of this happens synchronistically, mind you, not through fateful causality. It is just a plain fact that where, say, Mars (or any other planet) is, one can tell how the individual is likely to express the process psychologically. In most cases this is unconscious, but the choice is given us to become more conscious. Jung knew this, and, despite the ridicule that still exists among most scientists (though not all!), where Mars is placed by sign, aspect, and house in a person’s chart, clues are evident to the way a person is likely to act.

The reason for the skepticism goes back to the “Age of Reason” when science lost its sense of the sacred and the sacred lost its proof! Theoretical physics is now moving to heal the split. David Bohm, whom I met, Fritjof Capra, Stan Grof, whom I co-taught with, and the scientist and mystic Gerald L. Schroeder, author of The Hidden Face of God, come to mind. There are many others. So, please try always to keep an open mind and a good crap detector! They balance each other.

Mars, in the body rules the muscles, the penis, and the nose; the throat is ruled by Venus, as ruler of Taurus ( throat) and Libra, while Mars rules Aries (head) and Scorpio, the lovely land of Genitalia. When a boy matures, his voice changes; when a man is hanged, he has an erection. When a woman has a high piping voice, she may be out of touch with her lower two chakras, the sexual area, so rightly important to Freud. (Swami Rama of the Himalayan Institute pointed out that Adler was the psychologist of the third chakra, Manipura, the center of the power principle, and Jung of the fourth or heart chakra, the first above the abdominal cavity, and, I suspect, on up].

The process of Mars is positive, yang, as opposed to that of Venus, which is receptive and yin. The glyphs of each are reversals of each other. Yes, it takes two to tango. Thus as the psychological inner feminine or anima is to a man, the internalized masculine of a woman is Mars expressed in her animus. If you have heard of a woman with a “negative animus” or an “animus ridden” woman, this is what Jung meant. I confess that with my Mars in my Twelfth House, I suffered the former, as I found out in analysis. I just wouldn’t fight, except for principles since it is placed in Aquarius. Physically, I am basically a coward. As a handicapped woman of 87, I suppose, I now have an excuse.

Mr. Milquetoast, of cartoon fame, and Dickens’s Uriah Heep are male examples of a weak Mars, but all the splendid heroes, every one, mythic, human, or imagined, is Mars personified, and all the heroic women, likewise have a positive animus to thank. From Britannia to Brunhilde, to the martyred saints and wartime journalists of the present, all express Martian characteristics as well as the soldier, the Crusader, the athlete, the knight, and also the passionate lover.

If you think about it, the penis and the revolver have the same shape and function!
One shoots life and the other shoots death. So the glyph of Mars can be seen as a shield and a spear or a penis. I love to point out that Mars in Libra, ruled by Venus, produces the Sword Dance of the Scots, or the elegance of fencing. I knew a man who had Mars in Libra who engraved wedding invitations (Libra) on copper (Venus) with a metal burin point (Mars)! The archetypal god Vulcan personifies Mars in Capricorn, homo faber, man the maker.

The negative is also paramount – the Villain! The negative archetype of Mars as ruler of Aries would be the tyrant, bully, reckless adventurer, etc. As ruler of Scorpio, the sadist, the murderer, the spy, the traitor .Remember please, this is not a description of any individual but of the archetype!

The importance of action as a process collectively cannot be overstated. Without it, nothing would ever get done. Just yesterday, a man friend told me that at a workshop he learned that men always ask what the other guy does. Men act. This results in all competitions from wars to sports to initiating progress throughout the world. As Heraclitus observed, War is the great accelerator. It certainly rules testosterone!

The chart of the USA has Mars in Gemini, which rules children, and we are a Cancer nation, ruled by the Moon or Mom, so there is a preponderance of puers, the psychological equivalent of men who are eternal boys. They are still under the spell of Mom. My friend Robert Bly, with whom I taught decades ago in his summer seminars, addressed the many puers who attended them with humor, telling them they were still flower children who wanted to be carpenters and play the guitar! He then wrote a guidebook for them called Iron John. It became a best seller. Philip Wylie wrote a book on Momism, pointing out the power wielded by mothers in our country, their icon being apple pie.

I cannot resist repeating the true story of buying a box of cereal that contained a decal of a Mars-red “Million Dollar Man” knocking falling boulders off his shoulder, and when I bought another box, the decal was of a blonde woman in electric blue jumping over a wire fence. On the back of each was printed DO NOT APPLY WHERE MOM WOULD NOT APPROVE! Now, cereal is named for the archetypal Mother Goddess Ceres. The box is an enclosure (Moon), as is the womb or a house. The chart of the USA has Mars in Gemini (see above) and our Moon is in Aquarius, but the country is ruled by Cancer (July 4, 1776), so the Sun is in the sign ruled by the Moon. I photocopied them and sent the originals to the Jungian analyst Dr. Edinger. You can see what fun it is to think symbolically. I am 87 and almost housebound at this point, but I am never ever bored!

lovingly.
ao