Mars is a planet which has taken on renewed importance in the world. It is the brother of Eris, the newly discovered dwarf planet. Mars recently went retrograde by secondary progression in the U.S. horoscope for the first time in the nation’s history. When the Iraq War started, transiting Saturn was hitting the U.S. Mars. In 2008, the powerful transiting opposition of Saturn and Uranus will square the U.S. Mars.

Mars takes about two years to orbit the Sun. It spends about 1 1/2 months in each sign except for about six months when it lingers in one sign by slowing motion and going retrograde.

Mars spent about six months in Taurus—part of which time it was retrograde—at the end of 2005 and early 2006, and stubbornness prevailed in world conflicts. Starting in October, 2007, and lasting for about six months, Mars will move into Cancer (it will briefly retrograde back into Gemini during that time). Mars is said to be debilitated, at its weakest, in Cancer. Throughout its lengthier sojourn through Cancer, Mars' assertive energy will be turned inward--to protect oneself, the home, and homeland.

Mars, the traditional ruler of both Scorpio and Aries, is in mundane astrology the planet of the military and of aggression. It also represents the following:

 

·                     anger

·                     individuality

·                     confidence

·                     courage

·                     impatience

·                     impulsiveness

·                     vitality

·                     stamina

·                     enthusiasm

·                     competition

·                     desires

 

In individual—as well as national—horoscopes, Mars’ house placement and aspects with other planets greatly modify, inhibit, energize, or enhance the power of the red planet.

 

Recent pictures which have been sent from the Mars explorer robot show a desolate, rust-colored landscape with wispy, orange-tinted ice clouds. It looks like an iconic battlefield, an earth laid waste. Perhaps these scenes are the metaphoric effects of an unbridled Mars. As Mark Antony prophesizes about Rome in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, a very martial play,

"Blood and destruction shall be so in use/ And dreadful objects so familiar/ That mothers shall but smile when they behold/ Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;/ All pity choked with custom of fell deeds…"

(I am citing this passage not as a contemporary forecast, but just to show the horrific extremes of martial aggression).

 

William Lilly, the great 17^th Century astrologer, relates Mars to furnaces and places where bricks or charcoal are burned.

Rightly employed, Mars is spiritual. Lilly says that Mars is associated with the color ochre, the color one sees in the recent robot pictures of the Martian landscape. Ochre is the color of renunciation, in which desires have been burned in the fire of meditation and God-realization. The Bhagavid Gita is set on a battlefield--an extended metaphor for the battle to defeat delusion and achieve oneness with God--upon which a reluctant Arjuna is counselled by Krishna to be a warrior and fight.

 

                                 Mars in the U.S. Horoscope

In the U.S. horoscope, Mars squares Neptune. This lends the following character traits to the national psyche:

 

·                     championing the underdog

·                     addiction to drugs and alcohol (national obsessions, as brought out in the movie, Traffic, and the current cable television show, Weeds).

·                     lack of clarity prompting an aggressive response (i.e., Iraq, the U.S. invasion of which took place while Saturn conjoined the U.S. Mars and squared its Neptune)

·                     passive-aggressive behavior (Iran, North Korea)

·                     anticipating collective fashion—the U.S. has always been at the forefront of world fashion in many areas.

At the start of the Iraq War, transiting Saturn was conjunct the U.S. Mars (and thus squaring Neptune). All three of these planets—Mars, Saturn, and Neptune—were therefore active at the inception of the Iraq War.

Another recent astrological trigger of martial energy has been transiting Pluto’s opposition to the U.S. Mars.

Mars has gone retrograde by secondary progression in the U.S. horoscope for the first time in the nation’s history. (Secondary progression advances the birth planets by one day per year of the actual calendar). The U.S. Mars will remain progressed retrograde for eighty years. Progressed Mars retrograde does not happen that often, occurring only once every two years in the regular calendar.

There have been several theories about what this might symbolize for the United States. According to Christine Shaw in her book, Predictive Astrology, a retrograde planet acts somewhat like a planet in Capricorn. For Mars retrograde, that would mean executing the moves that might enable it to outlast everyone else. The U.S. Mars has turned progressed retrograde in Libra, the sign of Mars’ detriment. A planet is weakened in its detriment and must find other ways to express its nature.

The outcome of events in Iraq will be the key to understanding what a progressed retrograde Mars really means for the U.S because Iraq is where the nation’s military power is currently projected. One possible interpretation of the progressed retrograde Mars is that U.S. military power could decline, although I do not think that a retrograde planet indicates a diminution of strength. It is more indicative of a change of direction. Will we start to withdraw from overseas military bases, to not have such a big “footprint”? Will we go for a leaner, more mobile military, as Secretary Rumsfeld tried to initiate?

Or will the nation enter into an 80 year period of inner-directed aggression—against ourselves in the form of more policing, tighter security, greater citizen vigilance, tighter border security? The latter is a distinct possibility, supported by Pluto’s entry into Capricorn in 2008.

 

                                     Mars and the 2008 U.S. Election

On the date of the 2008 presidential election, Saturn and Uranus will form an exact opposition. This opposition will square the U.S. Mars (with Saturn hitting the U.S. Neptune, releasing energies with which we are all too familiar from the recent Saturn-Neptune opposition).

 

The Mars-Neptune square is an important aspect in the U.S. horoscope. It will become even more important in 2008 when the Saturn-Uranus opposition (a partial planetary replay of the sixties, minus Pluto) takes place. This powerful opposition will hit the U.S. Mars and square the U.S. Neptune, thus activating the Mars-Neptune square. We will feel it.

The Saturn-Uranus opposition will be exact on election day, 2008.

The U.S. Mars in Gemini is representative of the following national character traits: a passion for ideas, mental activity, nervous energy, interested in many things but have difficulty focusing on one thing for very long, love the new thing, superficial, information is strength, looks at pieces rather than the whole, data gathering, argumentative, “put your foot in your mouth,” teaching, instructing others, highly sociable, high-strung, burn-out, versatile, and adaptable.

Here’s what astrologer Charles Carter has to say about mundane Mars: “Mars rules the armed forces and also all trades that minister to these…It is also related (when coupled with Saturn) to fires. Associated with Uranus it may cause explosions, both physical and emotional, and has relation with revolutions...” When Saturn hit the U.S. Mars in March,2003—and simultaneously squared the U.S. Neptune—we sent armed forces into Baghdad for what was supposed to be a “cakewalk.”

I recently cited in my blog a book called The Degrees of the Zodiac Symbolized, in which two 19th Century astrologers with angelic names—Charubel and Sepharial—gave symbolic interpretations of each degree in the zodiac. (Today, however, most astrologers use Dane Rudhyar’s Astrological Mandala of Sabian symbols). Charubel was a clairvoyant, as well as an astrologer.

I mis-quoted Chaubel last time I wrote about the U.S. Mars, one of the hazards of writing a blog. Actually, I quoted the wrong degree symbol. What happened is that I had finished that particular blog at a computer which was not my own and therefore did not have my chart software (or the book) to double check when I was proof-reading my blog. I have been looking for a way to set right my mistake. So here is the correct symbol which Charubel gives for the degree of the U.S. Mars (where one always rounds up to the next degree—there is no reading for 0 degrees in degree symbols or Sabian symbols):

“I see the Sun rising in his brightness. It is on the horizon, but all the other part of the sky is covered with dark clouds, over which hang the shades of a lingering night.”

Charubel goes on to comment about this symbol: “His [the native's]grand schemes prove failures. His sun sets under a cloud while it is yet but morning.”

Since Mars was hit by transiting Saturn (which thus triggered the Mars-Neptune square) at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, these words sound almost…well, clairvoyant.

At the time of the 2008 election, the Saturn-Uranus opposition will square the U.S. Mars, bringing to the forefront the energies of Mars and its square with Neptune.