Mars, bloodthirsty and brave

Nocturnal, irregular, a wanderer of the heavens, masculine, maleficent, hot, has an affinity with that which is public, be it prostitution, carnage; impulsiveness hanging on to war and infections. In the body, it rules especially the head.

In the natal chart, if it occupies an angle, or looks to the ascendant or has to do to key points like the Lot of Fortune, or if it is in its exaltation or domicile, it can add a positive point to counteract its evil: it confers the ability to react and fight, not surrender or conform if the native is in an adverse situation.

As the Brazilian song goes: evil can be good and good can be cruelty.

Even in fall, if his mundane situation is angular, in spite of immense fears, the native is led to react and not to conform. This I have seen in my experience.

There is hardly a good thing to be heard about Mars, a true malefic that comes to break and destroy abruptly whatever it may be, whether it is exalted or in regency, in fall or detriment, whether in mundane or personal affairs.

But sometimes it is the only one responsible for making crucial and fast decisions.

It occurred to me these days, when Mars sailed for Scorpio, to watch a series of rather painful films, where people were locked up and abused for years, to an unbearable point. Even freed from gags and handcuffs, the will was broken and they do not escape. Other characters, in equally scary movies, in an act of courage, even accepting the loss of a member, were freed from the bonds.

I should probably watch lighter movies, which would require me less courage to go to the end. I agree, but Mars transits Scorpio, his nocturnal sign, and no doubt there was a synastry.

Even the fact that I am writing now on the subject is not a random fact and is related to this passage.

I went to the Astrodatabank © list of charts that I own and had used the filter of abducted people who suffered violence.

But I soon realized that in order to find Mars in an important position, I should look for examples of courage rather than victimization.

I found thousands of charts, of which I selected two, for no particularly important reason. The native’s stories were one of courage and I thought they would serve the purpose.

We will see these charts and I expect that the delineation will give us greater clarification on the role of Mars.

This is the first chart:

François Achille Bazaine (February 13, 1811 – September 23, 1888) was an officer of the French army.

Rising from a position for decades of service (including 35 years in campaigns, under Louis-Philippe and then Napoleon III, held all positions in the army.

He became known for his determination of leadership, for his impassive bearing under fire and for his personal bravery, getting to be bruised, which resulted in injuries on several occasions and had his horse shot from under him twice.

From 1863 he became a Marshal of France, and it was in this role that he delivered the last French army organized to Prussia during the Franco-Prussian War, during the siege of Metz.

They gave him an impossible task: to defeat a powerful enemy force, without support or supplies. He was able to engage them for 54 days, resulting in thier surrender.

He was sentenced to death by the government of the Third Republic, which declared that he yielded hastily and without due honor. He was tried by the Martial Court and sentenced to death.

But the president commuted his sentence to 20 years in prison in exile, from which he escaped.

He finally settled in Spain, where he died at 77 years old, alone and impoverished.

For the Foreign Legion he remained a hero and to this day is honored as one of its bravest soldiers.

Notice now that the astrological chart shows no angular planet.

If we did not use the Lot of Fortune as a second ascendant, the chart would be totally puzzling, a real enigma.

But, from the Lot of Fortune in House 9, using it now as House 1, Mars occupies the 10th House in relation to Fortune.

We can see that the domiciled Mars generated the profession of the native and his destiny. The ruler of Fortune is Jupiter in house 12, and it rules Saturn in the 7th house, the declared enemies, that is, the heavy sentence to which the native was submitted by his peers, the Martial Court.

Interestingly, exile, being away from home, in another country, from where he escaped, has a connection to house 9, where Fortuna is located.

But returning to Mars, domiciliated and below the sky in a daytime nativity, in haym, is squaring the Sun, the source of life in a daytime birth. That is why even Mars in good condition fails to do evil, soon or later.

The Sun ruler of sect lies in its joy, in the 9th house, but it is in its detriment, so in bad celestial condition, besides being afflicted by Mars.

By analyzing the chart we may see beforehand that something would go wrong. This hero was not only a hero, he killed many people even in the name of the motherland.

And when Mars is so prominent its sword is double-edged.

The second hero I will introduce is Jacques Lusseyran.

He was a fighter of the French resistance.
He was an active and happy child that became blind at the age of eight, on May 3, 1932, after accidentally hitting his head on a table.

He made school and college in Braille in Paris, maintaining his love for life and inner joy. He decided to study German when he sensed Hitler’s threat.

In 1943, as a teenager, he joined a group of young people, leading them to the Resistance Movement. Soon he joined a larger network and had his own newspaper, the Defense of France.

The edition of July 14, 1943, was printed in 250,000 copies (he also wrote the editorial). The transmission passed from the door-to-door distribution system to the open transmission, the exit of the churches or even to the subway.

Despite his disability, he quickly played an important role in the movement. During the first few months, he was responsible for controlling the recruitment of new members, using an inner sense, developed since he became blind, which allowed him to detect false pretensions in unknown interlocutors.

Betrayed, he was delivered to the Nazis, being arrested on July 19, 1943, being moved to a concentration camp. Among 2000 French in the same condition he was one of 30 who survived.

His survival is due, on the one hand, to the fact that he was involved as an interpreter by the Nazi camp administration, not having to suffer the terribly hard work of the “kommandos” of the work, but he was also helped daily by other prisoners because of his blindness.

Finally, according to what he reports in his books “The World Begins Today” and “The Light in the Dark” he felt supported by his spiritual strength which he claims to be present at all times.

His knowledge of German allowed him to understand and decrypt the information transmitted by the SS on the field loudspeakers. On August 26, 1944, he was certain that Paris had been released, although this was obviously not explicit.

On April 9, 1945, the US Army of General Patton arrived in the Weimar area. On the 10th, when the SS gave him the choice between staying at the camp or going out with them, he decided to stay. After a day of uncertainty, the field was released.
On April 18, 1945, he emigrated to the US and worked as a university professor in America, married and had four children.

He died in a car accident along with his third wife Marie, in France on July 27, 1971.

Analyzing the chart from the point of view of the contribution of Mars, we see that it is set to the South Node, which represents a great bad fortune in everything that concerns Mars. In addition, Mars squares the Ascendant and is angular if we use whole signs.

This man was wounded in the head and suffered a severe injury that in his childhood made him blind.

Now see: Mars has dignity in the ascendant, who receives Mars in his house as regent. It is worth quoting Masha’allah in his book On Reception: “When the ruler of life receives the ruler of Death there is death” Mars is not the ruler of the house of death but is a malefic. What happened is that the native did not revolt with his blindness: he accepted the designs of Mars and moved on.

Mercury provided a fruitful intellectuality and ability to express himself well, to learn and to write. A prodigious mind is revealed by Mercury occupying the house of the Good Spirit, far from the Sun and joined to the true MC: he was a writer and not a warrior.

What I found interesting in this chart is that we do not find bloody heroism, but the native’s acceptance of fate. In the end, the damage from Mars saved him effort and perhaps his life, because if he could see, he could have been killed in the concentration camp. A lord received in his own home is well treated, or the best possible. But we have to consider that receiving Mars in his own home is to receive a troublemaker and a thug.

In fact, our native died in an automobile disaster, a typically martial event.

What we see is that the maleficent Mars can be of assistance to tasks that require courage and they go beyond the war. But, Mars will always leave its mark of blood, like a fierce and hungry carnivore.

May we know how to use the beast that the cosmos has placed in our chart, may us try to understand it, and finally may us know that in the end we are not able to domesticate it once and for all.

Clélia Romano,DMA                 February 2018