*** About the astrological MARS ***
During the more recent past (of the long existence of this our Science), the astrological ergie represented by planet Mars has been often connected to the term and notion of "power" – with a tendency of moving toward a trend of this getting accustomed as the way we generally perceive, and speak about, Mars.
In our current cultural framework, it has become habitualized to perceive the meaning of the word *power* as something that indicates an activity or process of over-powering, or over-whelming, or dominating something; this notion includes, at its root, a specifically *competitive* mutual relating, a struggle/strife, between a given two sides, and with an either-or in it as a necessary quality of conditions.
Yet, *power* as such is not this - this is solely one of manifold possible ways how that which, in Nature, is *power* can manifest.
Power, in simplest terms, is the *vital movement of energy* itself - it is akin to a river current; it's the very *how* of the Being of the space-time continuum; it's not something that can be contained-within or represented-with only one or another definite, specific form. Every form, and every planetary ergie, is just an expression, a “subset”, of this -- the Vital stream of Energy as such. The Earth itself is one expression of it, the Sun, or any star, is another kind of expression of it, etc - everything that is or can be is simply one manifestation or expression of it.
We can not use one single planet to, in a wholesome way, actually fully and accurately represent this. - If we'd somehow *have* to do that, the closest we could get is to attribute it to Uranus, from the perspective of prioritizing the "current" quality of it (the streaming, akin, say, to the river-streaming phenomenon, or the electricity-streaming, or the Kundalini within our human systems).
But this, in truth, is not adequate - none of the specific forms, not any one single-among-the-many this or that particular expressions of this Stream-of-Energy itself, or a single astrological planet, can be a representative of it in a wholesome and defining manner.
So, there really isn't such a thing as "power needs" within the human psyche.
Power doesn't "look for" to in some way "win-over", or "overtake" something or other, nor to "achieve" anything in specific; it simply *is*; without it none of us would at all in any way be!; and it is not something that one can "have", as a "possession", nor something that one can "have more of it or less of"; to talk about a person's "power needs" is akin to speaking about their "sky-needs", or "water-needs", and the like!
If we want to define or speak about astrological Mars, with orientation toward understanding, and the desire for accuracy in this, we can, rather, talk about practical directed-energy needs, or physical-activity needs, etc ( - and, in pathological expressions, this can turn into *domination-over*, or *overcoming* of something/someone from environment, and so forth).
In simplest terms, Mars is about specific, particularized channels of the energy moving, so that it moves with intensity and in a definite manner (look at the planet's glyph!); and it's fundamentally connected to practical immediacy of the physical realm, and making changes within it.
If a single sentence describing concisely the nature of this planet is to be used, we could say it is:
FOCUSED APPLICATION OF ENERGY, and such that it introduces-changes-to/affects the physical realm.
Each of us has this tendency as an "ergie" within own psyche/system, and for each it is uniquely different how it "works"/operates, so we look at the peculiar position and configurations of natal Mars, for these "details" about it.
Whether it will tend to manifest in a pathological (damaging for individual and their environment) or a healthy manner is *not* defined by the Natal Mars aspects or its zodiac position!
It is primarily defined by the overall cultural conditions, and the how (quality) of the collective-patterns for the energy-movement; for, each of our individual activity-patterns (the "channels", the energy-pathways created through action itself, and through experience, and habitualized/established as "normal" through repetition) exists within the context of the given person's environment.
Mars itself, as it is, or this capacity-for-focused-application-of-energy in practical sense, is entirely *neutral* - it is neither "good" nor "bad"; as with each of the planetary ergies, it is simply a phenomenon of Nature. But with Mars in specific, given its unique quality as an ergie, it is easy to -- by observing the consequences of actions, or observing the results or such-and-such peculiar channel-patterns (energy-application-pathways) -- practically determine the "good" and the "bad", and to in a specifically emphasized manner perceive these aspects of the phenomenon represented by this planetary principle.
Before there is the outward, physical expression (via activity/movement of body), there is an internal initial movement of this directed-application-of-energy: this is what we generally know by the term/notion of *choice*; when the choice is perceived within the realm of one's conscious operations/processes, that's the Choice proper; when it is initiated from the subconscious level, and from within the deeper psycho-biological layers, that's what we generally don’t perceive as a “choice” and instead, call *compulsion* (or otherwise, a necessity).
But in both cases, it is about the pathways, the channels-established via *application-of-energy* (the focused-movement of it), whose particular quality will determine whether the further movement of energy (from the more basic, primal, primordial levels/layers, into the surface-expressions of it) comes out as that which we call "a choice" or as that which is "a compulsion", or as that which we can definitely determine as "good" or as "bad".
Unlike *power* as such, which is unlimited, what is represented by astrological Mars necessarily contains in it the existence of *limitation*: the focused-movement/application of energy happens, as process, within some environment, and it is this context that makes it possible for there to at all be such a peculiar phenomenon as this! --- So there are choices/compulsory-tendencies, and peculiar channels which get formed by actions taken (directed/focused-energy motion itself) , and specific consequences of this (in accordance to its quality) - with the either-or, and the mutually-conflicting duality aspects, of it: *physically*, one can be at one place at one given time, and not simultaneously at more than one places; one can apply the energy streaming through one's system during a given life-time in one way or in another; at each moment of time-space continuum, while existing as a human on Earth, we abide within this either-or context. And Mars is specifically the ergie of directing, applying the energy *within* this context.
So, Mars in one's chart, its peculiar position and configurations, describes one's individual, unique overall *doing-qualities* -- the peculiar "colors" and "flavors" of it, and the how-exactly-it's-connected to the rest of the chart. But whether these qualities, the peculiar composition-and-coloring of it, will tend toward the "good" or the "bad", toward the pathological, or the healthy (the harmonious or harmful - and so in a smaller or wider context of environmental-operations) we can not somehow determine-in-advance *solely* from the astrological chart itself --- the full practical context, the cultural conditions and actualities of one's existence, provide the specific framework, within which a given natal-Mars, with its unique configurations, will get to develop and be expressed.
And in the so-called "esoteric" tradition which has been vitally existing alongside Astrology itself for ages, it is Mars – not Jupiter! not Saturn! – which has been connected to the principle of JUSTICE.
This, of course, is not coincidental, and we can get a better understanding of this now through the approach to, and observation of, the Mars ergie devoid from the misplaced attachment of the notion of "power" to it:
The consequences of every action, every instance of the focused-application, the directed-movement, of energy, are in their quality *precisely* adequate to the action itself.
( - we can see the record of human deeper awareness of this, reflectively formulated, and kept as collective-knowledge throughout time, in the folk-wisdom-sayings such as "what you sow is what you reap", "by their fruits shall ye know them", etc. …)
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~ Know Thyself! ~
