anger

Mars Musings: The continuum of rage

Mars square PlutoMars is squaring Pluto today, completing a cycle of the past week or so in which Mars linked Saturn and Pluto by forming a square first to Saturn last week, and now Pluto.  Mars is the planet of aggression and warfare, and when conflicting with Pluto, which represents death and destruction resulting in regeneration and transformation, you can see where things get a bit intense.

I thought this would be a good time to discuss what I like to call the continuum of rage.  In my practice, I have traced “Mars problems” to all kinds of issues from depression to immune disorders.  Mars is the energy that fuels and motivates us – Mars feeds our desires and provides us with ample physical energy to get through the day as well as the courage to tackle high aspirations.  When Mars is weak or blocked in the natal chart, it becomes more difficult to find any motivation or inspiration and we can feel hopeless and defeated.  Over time the lack of energy turns into chronic crushing fatigue and  other health problems. So you can see that Mars is very important in our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.

When Mars squares or is in a difficult aspect to Pluto or Saturn in the natal chart there was often, but not always, some kind of violence in the individual’s life – difficult or traumatic experiences which led to that individual being fearful to express their needs or assert themselves in interpersonal situations.  Sometimes individuals have a great deal of fire and a strong Mars in their natal charts, but that fire is dampened by an abundance of water such as Cancer and Pisces, or perhaps sublimated into Virgo which is more […]

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By |2019-11-05T06:48:29-05:00November 5th, 2019|Health & Healing|0 Comments

Finding the power in anger: A Mars story co-starring Black Moon Lilith

Black Moon LilithI recently came across this article about female rage.  As many of you know, the power of anger as expressed through Mars in the natal chart is a speciality of mine, probably because my own Mars is conjunct the little planet Chiron which deals with soul wounds, so I’ve had to do a lot of healing around this myself.  Mars is of course named after the Roman God of War (Ares in Greek), and the astrological Mars presides over what I like to call the “continuum of anger.”  Mars experiences include desire and/or need, motivation, inspiration, frustration, anger, rage – all of which have a place in this continuum.

This article includes a photo of the Oxford English Dictionary with 36 entries describing the continuum of anger, from “annoyed” and “displeased” to “livid and choleric.”  Anger is not just one emotion – it’s a spectrum of reactions to the simple fact that our desires and needs have been ignored.

Anger takes several steps to evolve:

  • First we have a desire and experience motivation and inspiration to obtain that desire, or a need that has been ignored or criticized.
  • If our desire or our needs are thwarted, we experience frustration.
  • If our desires and needs are continually thwarted, we become angry.
  • At a certain point that anger will boil into rage, and for some people this rage becomes a constant reaction point.

From the article:

All over the US, and around the world, women are becoming more intimate with the layers of their anger. We’re becoming more articulate and expressive of it. More studied in the ways it knits together the personal, professional, and political. And more conscious of the immense, historic, paradigm-shifting power of it.

This has all […]

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By |2019-02-03T08:40:56-05:00January 26th, 2019|Favorite posts, Life|2 Comments

Anger and heart disease

mars retrogradeConnections between anger and heart disease are nothing new, and a recent New York Times article announces that anger can set off a heart attack.

Researchers combined data from nine studies of anger outbursts among patients who had had heart attacks, strokes and related problems. Most of the studies used a widely accepted anger assessment scale; one depended on a questionnaire administered to patients.

They found that in the two hours after an outburst of anger, the relative risk of angina and heart attack increased by nearly five times, while the risk of ischemic stroke and cardiac arrhythmia increased by more than three times. The findings appeared in The European Heart Journal.

One might read this and decide that squelching one’s anger is the best way to ward off heart disease, and that concerns me.  I have a bit of a specialty in healing what I call “Mars problems” – issues in the astrological chart where Mars, the planet of desire and need, is afflicted in some way and unable to find its best expression.  What I have seen (and I have to add a big disclaimer here that I have no medical training and this is not to be construed as medical advice) is that when people have Mars problems in the chart they are often more prone to medical events.  (See this article for more information on that subject.)

All emotions hold energy – whether that emotion is fear or grief, or the continuum of Mars emotions which begins with frustration, moves through anger and eventually becomes rage.  When we try to avoid feeling an emotion that begins within us, the energy of that emotion lacks an outlet […]

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By |2022-09-01T14:47:32-04:00March 19th, 2014|Health & Healing|6 Comments

Exercise can moderate anger: the Mars factor

exercise and marsA recent article in the New York Times reports that a study which evaluated the responses of 16 young men with “high trait anger” (short fuse reactions) after exercising on a stationary bike for 30 minutes.

[T]he results of the study suggest  that “exercise, even a single bout of it, can have a robust prophylactic effect” against the buildup of anger, said Nathaniel Thom, a stress physiologist who was the study’s lead researcher.“It’s like taking aspirin to combat heart disease,” he said. “You reduce your risk.”

When the men did not exercise, they had considerable difficulty controlling their racing emotion. But after exercise, they handled what they saw with more aplomb. Their moods were under firmer control.

This will not be news to anyone who has ever been an exercise junkie, but astrologically we can connect this phenomenon with the planet Mars in the birthchart.   This will be old hat to my clients and many of my readers and listeners who have heard me recommend vigorous exercise for anyone with what I call “Mars problems” in the natal chart.
Mars represents desire and the individual will – it describes how we go about getting what we want, and how we defend what we have.  Anger occurs when our desires are thwarted, and if it is left to simmer for too long it erupts into rage.  Unexpressed anger or rage, or what I call “unexpressed Mars,” can be associated with many chronic health problems.
I recommend exercise for people who have a stressed Mars in their chart because exercise helps to put us in touch with that fiery energy that lives in the solar plexus and masquerades as […]
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By |2022-09-01T14:48:15-04:00August 21st, 2010|Health & Healing|2 Comments

A challenging planetary week ahead

Mercury is the planet that rules over communication, the transmission of information and the operation of small machinery, and for the next week or so it will be under stress, potentially causing disruptions in the way we communicate with others and the smooth operation of business.

Mercury is in its own sign of Virgo where it is usually practical and logical, good with details and effective in creating order out of the routine of day-to-day life. It is approaching a conjunction to Saturn which will encourage us to take a more serious approach to the everyday workings of our life. This is a time to knuckle down and honor responsibilities rather than seek the freedom of our individuality.

Mars is the planet that stimulates desire and passion, and it is in Mercury’s other sign of Gemini. A heightened intensity in communication is one of the hallmarks of Mars in Gemini and we are certainly seeing this with the fervor exhibited in the Town Hall meetings over health care that began last week when Mars (aggression) made a square to Saturn (authority figures)..

Mars in Gemini also seeks new experiences and does not like to be tied down, and as Mercury gets closer to the conjunction (a challenging aspect) to Saturn it will also square Mars which will exacerbate the heightened passions that we are seeing and perhaps feeling as well.

Mars is raw energy, and offers the potential to harness that energy and utilize it to accomplish our goals. However, these are challenging aspects that make it necessary to use a conscious application of WIll in order to focus this energy in a specific direction and mobilize our intentions.

The exact square from Mercury to Mars will occur on August 27, so this tension is likely to prevail until then and […]

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By |2009-08-14T09:34:41-04:00August 14th, 2009|Life, Planetary cycles|Comments Off on A challenging planetary week ahead