The fourth planet from the Sun, Mars is a dynamic planet with ice caps, canyons and volcanoes and ancient lake beds. Mars is half the size of Earth, but has nearly the same area as Earth’s dry land. There is water on Mars today, located just under the surface in the polar ice cap regions. If melted, the volume of water would be sufficient to cover the entire planetary surface to a depth of 36 feet.
The ancient Romans named Mars for their god of war because his reddish color, caused by the oxidation of iron minerals, was reminiscent of blood. Other civilizations also named the planet for this attribute. Even today, he is frequently called the “Red Planet”, although he is actually many colors at the surface, such as brown, gold and tan.
Mars has the largest dust storms in the Solar System, reaching speeds of over 100 mph. These can vary from a storm over a small area, to gigantic storms that cover the entire planet. They tend to occur when Mars is closest to the Sun.
Mars completes one rotation on his own axis every 24.6 hours, which is very similar to one day on Earth (23.9 hours). Martian days are called sols—short for “solar day.” A year on Mars lasts 669.6 sols, or 687 Earth days. In other words, it takes Mars about 1 3/4 earth years to travel around the zodiac once.
Another similarity with Earth is Mars’ axial tilt, which is 25 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit around the Sun; Earth’s axial tilt is 23.4 degrees. The axial tilt creates the seasons. Mars has distinct seasons that last longer than Earth’s, because Mars takes longer to orbit the Sun (it’s farther away). And while Earth seasons are evenly spread over the year, lasting 3 months (or one quarter of a year), because of its elliptical orbit, Martian seasons vary in length. For example, Northern winter on Mars is 154 sols, and Southern winter is 178 sols.
Mars has no rings, but it has 2 small moons that are among the smallest in the solar system. They are named Phobos (fear/panic) and Deimos (dread/terror) for the mythological sons of Ares, the Greek god of war. They’re potato-shaped because they have too little mass for gravity to make them spherical. Phobos is a bit larger than Deimos, and is the only moon in the solar system that orbits so closely to its planet. He whips around Mars three times a day, while the more distant Deimos takes 30 hours for each orbit.
Mars travels about ¾ degree a day, more slowly than the Sun, and spends approximately 6 weeks in a sign when he is moving at his fastest pace. Mars stations retrograde approximately once every 22 to 24 months, moving backwards for about 70 days. That said, his retrograde cycle is the least concise of all our planets. Mars can go retrograde for five weeks or a few months.
As one of the most explored bodies in our solar system, Mars is the only planet where we’ve sent rovers to roam his landscape. NASA currently has three spacecraft in orbit, one rover (Curiosity) and one lander (InSight), on the surface, and another rover (Perseverance) that launched in July 2020.
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars was called the god of war, but he was also known as an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was the son of Jupiter and he was considered the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army. Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, and was a ‘father’ (pater) of the Roman people. Rome was a patriarchal society, and it would have been impossible to consider Mars anything but a man’s man. His earthy roots became less focal as he grew more identified with the “great warrior,” when in fact mythology tells us he had another origin, which turns out to be most significant.
Mars is usually considered to be the son of Jupiter and Juno. However, in a version of his birth given by Ovid, he was the son of Juno alone. Jupiter had usurped the mother’s function when he gave birth to Minerva directly from his forehead (or mind) without help from a woman. In an effort to restore the balance, Juno sought the advice of the goddess Flora on how to give birth without a man. Flora obtained a magic flower, touched Juno’s belly, and impregnated her. Mars, therefore, was born of Juno and a flower. He is and always has been of the Earth. As an agricultural guardian, he directs his energies toward creating conditions that allow crops to grow and make for a more comfortable physical experience.
According to Wikipedia, in the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus, who laid out the founding city wall of Rome. Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who “founded” Rome several generations before Romulus and Remus. Mars’ love affair with Venus was created to symbolically reconcile the two different traditions of Rome’s founding. This relationship between Venus and Mars was at best contrived to make sense out of a patriarchal reality, but the connection between the two is not about a love affair. Venus and Mars, dispositors of heart and body, co-dispose the feminine domain. The Divine Feminine cannot be everything it’s meant to be if the two do not work in cooperation with each other.
Virility as a kind of life force or virtue is an essential characteristic of Mars. He is the dynamic expression of the Divine Feminine. For Mars to be effective in his purpose, he must work in tandem, in alignment with the Feminine (heart) principle. Action born of the heart is Right Action, and that has always been the Truth of the Mars archetype.
3D is the physical realm. Mars is so similar to the Earth, it makes sense that he is so powerfully connected to our physicality. The physical realm is made of duality. It has to be, because physicality is based on separation. There can be no physicality without each of us and everything else here being separate and individual. Physicality brings birth and death (more appropriately, transition) into being. It creates the illusion of me and you. Mars’ themes can be anything from an upsurge of anger or passion, to a physical issue that you can’t ignore, to the very conscious alignment of the actions you take.
Mars rules the physical body, and that means YOUR body, and also your physical realm: Your home, your office, the land you live on, the city, the town, the country, the planet. The universe. All of this is your physical world.
In 3D we can get ‘sick’ and require healing. In 5D we know that we are always whole, and any physical issue is a clearing, which is necessary to help us remember our natural state. Pain needs attention, and so does anything in the world that displays a lack of wholeness. The only kind of attention that works on anything in this new world is Love. We call that ‘wholing’ in 5D.
Mars’ retrograde is typically a major exercise in learning to tend to the body and the physical world in all new ways. It gives us the chance to review the actions we’ve taken toward this end, and to revise or renew our focus regarding the care of our bodies. As we live in a physical world first and foremost, and there is no way to get to the higher realm without beginning here, we must learn to get ‘right’ with our bodies and our physical environment. The retrograde cycle can offer the best opportunity to do so.
Mars is a personal planet, and he has domain over the physical in the lower four body system. By extension, he expresses his archetype through all your energy and action. The physical experience is EARTHY, and the earth element is always unequivocally feminine. Mars is the white dot in the black side of the yin yang symbol. He is that little bit of male (drive) that is part of the female Self.
Mars has long been known as the Great Activator. What IS new about Mars is his new status as a male counterpart/co-dispositor of the divine feminine Self. This process that has begun is, very simply put, the beginning of a massive collective act of surrender that delivers us to a new kind of unconditional Love. It will inform our actions from here on in.
An archetype is a collective consciousness. It doesn’t matter what you understand or know about it intellectually. If the collective holds Mars to be THE male archetype, even if it isn’t the truth, the world will do all it can to mold that misguided energy to fit the mistake. It is important to note that Aries is the affinity sign, the mirrored image, of Virgo, representing THE Divine Feminine essence.
Mars has been misinterpreted for thousands of years. He is reclaiming his righteous power, the power to act from the heart. This new expression of Mars’ energy will make for the possibility of a truer, more empowered balance within the feminine Self. When the male energy returns home to the feminine, unity is restored. The duality that has permeated this world for thousands of years will be no more once this is achieved. Mars is learning to switch from the warrior identity to the much more peaceful heart-felt mode of Right Action.
Faith is a huge component of Right Action. Trust in your own heart, and in the perfection of the Universe, is essential. Now that Mars has taken up his full archetypal position as co-dispositor of the divine Feminine, we can never again take action with full integrity without coming from the heart and allowing the heart to move us.
Like Mars, Mercury has been misrepresented. From the beginning, Mercury has been collectively believed to be androgynous. While this may be a little closer to the Truth, (because EVERYTHING is ultimately androgynous), Mercury has ALWAYS had domain over the mind, and the mind HAS ALWAYS been the realm of the masculine. Mercury is the Masculine archetype in the new consciousness.
Mercury and Mars have switched places, Mercury becoming the true male archetype, clearing up eons of confusion about what male energy actually is. Mercury and Mars represent the new mind/body alignment. It’s a new world and it’s in our best interest to become accustomed to it.
Mars disposes Aries, the sign of the divine spark of creation. Mars is foreign in Libra, thriving in Capricorn, and on the Master Path in Cancer. Mars is also known as the Great Energizer, the great activator, the divine spark, the trigger and most recently, Right Action.
Once related to the great warrior within you, Mars has more recently become the honorable keeper of the physical experience. He was connected to war and fighting for so long because the separation that happens when you take a physical form generates the fear that produces the survival instinct. With Love and peace becoming the more significant focus, Mars now grounds you in your physical being, allowing for the full expression of your individuality. With the arrival of our super technology, in the form of the rover Curiosity, on Mars a few years ago, you now have access to a much more super-sensory experience of your physicality. There is no telling what these multidimensional eyes, ears and fingers will reveal in the years ahead, but you are living at the most amazing time to be in a physical body.
C2020 Stephanie Azaria and Shelly Leal www.TheCosmicPath.com