Yesterday I analysed a map where Mars was clearly an accidental benefic, working in favor of the native. Today I’m checking a chart where the exact opposite happens, with Mars doing what he does best: destroying.
I. Scorpio Rising
The native is born with Scorpio rising, a feminine and fixed sign, of centripetal nature, which indicates a constitution oriented towards emotional needs and towards their permanent satisfaction as a condition of vital security. Since there are no planets in the 1st, Mars, the ruler of Scorpio, is clearly the most important planet in the chart for the native’s incarnation.
Mars is in the 8th, a succedent house, in Gemini, mutable air. The 8th is the house of losses, death, anxiety, and dependencies, and in mutable air these themes are displaced to the mental plane, to rumination and restlessness. Remember that, in the Tarot, Mars in Gemini corresponds to the 9 of Swords, precisely the card of endless rumination and thought loops.
Mars is hot and dry, made to cut and to act upon resistant matter. In Gemini, he has nothing on which to apply his nature in a constructive way. He acts like a swordsman fighting windmills. Being succedent, he has strength to act, but this strength becomes here a capacity to sabotage the very attempts at emotional security. As he also rules the 6th in Aries, he comes to signify as well servile work, servants, co-workers, wear and tear, and minor illnesses, which become mixed with the themes of loss and anxiety of the 8th. Indeed, not a good Mars.
II. Venus, Triplicity, and the 4th House
The other rulers of the triplicity of Water are Venus and the Moon. Venus is angular in the 4th, in Aquarius, in separating trine to Mars and in square to the Ascendant. The square is of martial nature and forces action. This Venus also partakes in the native’s primary needs and, as she rules the 7th in Taurus, she signifies partners related to themes of household, family, patrimony, and inheritances, having a saturnine tone, even though in Aquarius there is a desire for freedom of thought and movement.
Being in the 4th, an angular house, it is certain that these figures repeatedly enter the native’s life with force. As Venus also rules the 12th in Libra, these same figures may be associated with isolation, hidden enemies, processes of sabotage, or hospitalisations. The structural problem is that Venus is disposed by Saturn, and Saturn also is in the 8th in Gemini, without dignity, but with full capacity for negative manifestation, dragging the matters of the 4th and the 7th into the house of losses and death. And Saturn likes to end things forever, so in the 8th he can act viciously.
Also, since Saturn is only five degrees away from the South Node, also in the 8th in Gemini, and since Cauda Draconis is structurally malefic and associated with Saturn and Mars, acting as a vortex of loss, the nature of these losses is amplified.
III. The Moon and the Saturnine Weight
The Moon, the third ruler of the triplicity, is in detriment in Capricorn, likewise disposed by Saturn in the 8th. Even being in her joyous house, the 3rd, she is strongly conditioned by the saturnine dispositorship. Saturn constrains, limits, ages, and corrodes slowly, and he does so here in a house of anxiety, fear, and mentalised loss. Both Venus and the Moon, two feminine planets and here significators of needs and of relational life, are subjected to a malefic and badly placed Saturn in the 8th. In addition, the Moon has her fall in Scorpio, the very Ascendant, which further weakens the capacity to sustain emotional life. The Moon also has no applying aspects, which reinforces a sense of blockage and structural inertia in important parts of the life narrative.
IV. Jupiter as Balm
Since Mars is the lord and almuten of the 1st, the only true way of compensation comes from the separating trine of Jupiter to the Ascendant and, above all, from his essential condition. Jupiter is in the 5th in Pisces, in domicile, with enormous power of manifestation, even though he is opposite to his joyous house in the 11th. Mercury is conjunct Jupiter in application, at about two degrees, which places the intellect, reason, mental abilities and the capacity for mediation at the service of a Jupiterian, idealistic, symbolic, creative, mystical, and imaginal principle.
As Jupiter rules the 2nd in Sagittarius, this configuration directly connects creativity (5th) to wealth and resources (2nd). The capacity to generate money from symbolic and creative production is really strong. By his mutability, Mercury becomes here a second functional benefic, translating the Jupiterian ideas and visions into communicable and usable forms to the public. And, because Mercury disposes both malefics in the 8th in Gemini, the themes of loss, death, and anxiety end up being processed, mediated, and reworked through this Jupiterian–creative Mercury in the 5th. It’s a digestive Mercury, an artist who can translate loss into art.
V. The Sun and Career
The Sun is also in the 5th in Pisces, and as he rules the 10th in Leo he creates a clear axis between identity, creation, and career. The artist has a stage waiting for him in his fate (10th in Leo). The native’s affirmation is made through the Jupiterian way of the 5th, and not through the Venusian way of relationships burdened by Saturn and by the 8th.
Nevertheless, this path won’t ever be light. Two malefics in the 8th, without dignities, indicate a life marked by losses, debts, anxieties, and symbolic proximity to death, often activated through love partners and/or marriages, since Venus rules the 7th and is under Saturn in Aquarius. Saturn himself also applies by square to the Sun, pressing directly upon the vital solar principle in the 5th, ensuring that even the creative and life-affirming axis is lived under strain, erosion, limitation.
In profections, the native will always have four difficult years. Year 1 (the Ascendant) and year 6 (Aries) are both ruled by Mars in Gemini, which can imply sudden destructions, accidents, losses, and debts associated either with the native’s own body and talents (1st house) or, in the case of the 6th, with servants, employees, or pets. Years 3 (Capricorn) and 4 (Aquarius) will also be difficult, since they are ruled by Saturn, who operates from the 8th in Gemini, bringing processes of continuous erosion affecting neighbours, siblings, family matters, and immovable property.
The native is currently concluding the final two months of profection year 4. It was for this reason, because of losses clearly visible in the chart, that he contacted me. Fortunately for him, the natal year that now begins in March is year 5, precisely the place where the golden chest of the chart is located.
That’s what prevents this chart from collapsing, the very strong Jupiter–Mercury–Sun axis in Pisces. That is where the path of practical salvation lies. Creation, meaning, symbolic production, turning grief into art, and its concrete translation into value and career. Everything else, especially on the relational plane, is a field of attrition.
Kύριε ελέησον