The Deeper Meaning of Mars in Libra

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today, we are going to take a look at the entrance of Mars into the sign of Libra. I will tell you about the timeline of this transit, and then we're going to take a look at my Planets in Profile Series talk on Mars in Libra today as a kind of a flashback.

I like to do this when Mercury, Mars, or Venus transit into new signs. This is a great kind of evergreen series that I did a while back that many new viewers are not aware of, and I'm trying to make sure that people know that that series is there. Also, as you guys know, over the summer, I have been gradually working on a Planets in Profile Series for the moon, and that will be launching in the next couple of weeks. I'm very close to getting that new series off the ground. It's taken me a little bit; this summer has been really busy and sort of choppy with some travel that we had.

So the Planets in Profile series on the moon through the signs is coming up. I hope that you will enjoy this look at the Mars into Libra talk that I did as a part of the Planets in Profile series a couple of years ago. Today, as a way of refreshing the archetypal meaning of Mars into Libra. So that's our agenda for today.

Before we get into it, as always, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your comments and thoughts, especially if you're a Mars in Libra native; it would be lovely to hear from you. You can find a transcript of today's talk on the website nightlight astrology.com. If you have any questions about the courses or readings that you find on the website, be sure to email us info at nightlightastrology.com.

Well, let's take a look at the real time clock before we rewind and look at the Planets in Profile Series episode today. We are looking here at the entrance of Mars into Libra coming through over the weekend. So this will come through on Sunday, August 27, and then let's take a look at how long it lasts. So here's Mars in the sign of Libra right there, and let's take a look at how long Mars will be in the sign of Libra.

So Mars spends quite a bit of time in Libra here; this is at the very end of August. We're going to see Mars slowly move its way through Libra, and it won't fully, or it won't fully, enter Scorpio until about October 12. We're talking about late August through about mid-October that we now have Mars in the sign of Libra. As it works its way through the sign of Libra, there are some interesting aspects.

But notably, it is in aversion to both Pisces and Taurus and so Neptune and Uranus will not be active in terms of, you know, hard aspects from Mars, which is kind of nice. I feel like Mars' outer planetary transits can be a little bit rough. But at the very end, we will see Mars at the very end of its transit go through a square to Pluto, and that's around, you know, early to mid-October.

So that's why I think it's about October 8 here; from what I can tell, October 8 or 9. So that is one major aspect that we have during this time. I think it's interesting that throughout this entire period, Venus will still be moving through Leo. So Mars is in Venus's sign. Well, Venus is in Leo, and the two have a sextile with one another, which means you have some nice Venus-Mars cooperation. I like that because that means that the Yin and Yang are sort of balancing each other out over the next month and a half year.

At any rate, the other transit to have our eye on is the fact that Mars will cross the south node of the moon, and that's happening right around the same time that Mars culminates and shifts into Scorpio, and then right afterward, we get a Solar Eclipse in Libra in mid-October.

So it's interesting because that's a South Node Solar Eclipse in Libra happening right after Mars crosses that South node. So mid-October is there's something really interesting about that period of time, in terms of what's happening and how the past is reappearing somehow, in a very dramatic way, and the encounters that we have with, you know, Mars, South Node transits can be especially in Libra can be like a kind of karmic reckoning moment where the scales are being balanced somehow.

So Mars is important work at the very end with the south node, the square to Pluto, and then the Eclipse coming in mid-October makes this Mars transit more intense at the very end. So that's how I'm looking at this as of right now. Anyway, that's the preview of what Mars is up to in the next couple of months here. It's like a month and a half at least, and so what I'd like to do now is just rewind this episode, where I do a nice deep dive into the archetypal meaning of Mars and Libra from the Planets in Profile series.

Don't forget, in the next, I'd say, week or two weeks, we're going to be starting the Planets in Profile Series for the moon, and then every couple of weeks, I'll be updating with a new moon in the sign of so we start with Aries, and we go through all 12 signs and talk about the archetypal meaning of the moon in those signs. So that'll fill out the next part of the series, and then hopefully, that will serve as, you know, some nice evergreen content for people who ever want to just take a look at the different meanings of the planets in their birth chart through the signs.

Anyway, this has been a little bit of a long introduction today, but I hope that you will enjoy this exploration of Mars in the sign of Libra. All right, take it easy, everyone.

Hi, everybody. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and this is another episode of Planets in Profile. In this episode, I'm looking at Mars in the sign of Libra, which is traditionally the sign of Mars's exile or detriment. Now, if you're just tuning into this series for the first time, you can check out the archives on my YouTube channel and listen to all the previous episodes that I've done on Mars and Venus through the signs.

Right now, I'm up to Libra in the series on Mars, and Venus has already finished. So, after the series on Mars is finished, I'll also be doing Planets in Profile episodes on the rest of the planet slowly, just to build up some of that evergreen content people can listen to. So hopefully you'll enjoy this. So we're going to take a look at Mars today, and this is really good for people who want to know, you know, what's it? What's this planet like if I have it in in my chart, or what is this planet like you know if I'm dealing with this planet every day in my life, or if I have a friend who has it or a lover or even just understanding how to read it in a birth chart.

As I'm giving this talk, we're in November of 2019 right now, and so this talk is also happening as Mars is transiting through the late degrees of Libra right now. So, if you're watching this fresh right now, then you know that we've been in a Mars and Libra season lately. Well, what does that mean?

Let's take a look. So you will notice right away the picture of Tonya Harding. She is going to come up in our conversation today if you know who Tonya Harding is. So we're looking at Mars in the sign of Libra. Libra is the warm, moist, masculine air sign of Venus. In ancient astrology, all of the planets have two different domiciles: a masculine domicile and a feminine domicile or home. These are like temples. They have this kind of deep bond with the planet, really in ancient astrology.

Today, we talk about Libra; we talk about a list of psychological descriptions that you might explain to somebody if they told you that their son was in the sign of Libra when the Sun was in the sign of Libra at the time that they were born. But actually, in ancient astrology, the simplest way to understand any sign was by virtue of what planet resided in that sign naturally in an archetypal level.

So, to understand Libra, really, you begin with understanding Venus, and then secondarily, you understand that this is the masculine Venus, and this is the masculine air temple of Venus, and that air is warm and moist. You put all that together, and then you're qualifying what type of Venus it is because not all Venus' are the same and Venus has two positions in which it is most she is; you could say she is most like herself and in Libra and in Taurus. Okay, so that's a first layer of information.

The second layer is that you have to understand that any planet that is moving through any sign, first and foremost, wants to act and behave like itself. So when Mars is moving around the Zodiac, no matter what sign it is in, Mars wants to do things like cut, fight, exert power, strength, will, and muscle. Mars wants to assert itself; Mars wants to hunt; Mars has desire and the need to go and compete and try to get that desire through action and will enforce. Mars is also related to explosiveness and to things like murder and, you know, strife.

In ancient astrology, the joy of Mars was the sixth house, which was a house of accident, illness, injury, misfortune, military fighting, conflict, and enemies. Now, I'll just give you an aside that there is more to the sixth house than just this. But this is why the sixth house was called The Joy of Mars. So you have to know that Mars behaves like Mars and that now you're putting Mars into Venus's home sign of Libra.

So, in ancient astrology, there was also something called a system of dignities. Now, we call it that; it wasn't called the system of dignities originally; in fact, we don't know if it really had a name at all. Basically, ancient astrologers had a deep philosophical matrix of ideas about what happened when planets were in different signs, and so this is part and parcel of the language of astrology.

People may try to say, Oh, well, you know, today, we've evolved, or we've grown beyond that, and I always I'm always amused when people try to say, you know, why don't we reinvent the structure of ancient astrology when they don't know what to begin with. So I always tell people before you start uttering things like that, try to understand the ancient system first, and what you find out is it's actually extremely intelligent.

It's not a structure that was coming merely from some time in place long ago; it's actually coming from the transcendental sphere of knowledge and wisdom itself, as so many wisdom traditions are like Yoda; I mean Yoga, Yoda definitely comes from the transcendental, the spirit, the transcendental plane, as does all Star Wars, by the way.

But yeah, if you understand others, so many other traditions come from timeless sources of wisdom, right? So, for people to think that ancient astrology is time bound is really problematic. But that doesn't mean we can invent new things, either. My point is to get off on my little soapbox here. My point is that you need to understand the language of dignities because it is such a beautiful and simple way to understand how planets act and behave when they're in each other's signs.

Now I say all that also to pump you up because what I'm about to say is that Mars in Libra is traditionally considered to be in its detriment or its exile. What does that mean, though? Well, what it means is that the planet is in a sign that is opposite to its own archetypal nature. So, what is the opposite sign of Libra? It is Aries, which is the home sign of Mars.

So if you take Mars and you put it into the opposite sign of Libra, it's said to be in its detriment or its exile. It's like going to a country where you know you don't really belong or you're not; you don't know the language, you don't know your way around. Or it's like going to some environments, it's really contrary to your own nature, take someone who doesn't like to shop and make them hang out in a mall for a day. You know what I mean? So Mars and Venus both are in exile, and each other signs.

Now, there are some really interesting ways in which oppositions in ancient astrology between signs and places may also result in interesting creative synthesis. So it's not as though Mars and Venus don't have a very interesting and creative way of synthesizing their qualities as well, but the tension between them is how that synthesis happens.

Synthesis in ancient astrology is the result of tension. It's like birth doesn't come unless there's, you know, the, in the, I guess, natural sense, people can get pregnant these days in a lot of different ways. But it doesn't come in this sort of natural sense without the friction, and the tension and the desire and the stress really, of sexuality; of human sexuality.

So that similarly, the idea for ancient astrologers that tension was you had to understand its place within the creative flow and unfolding of life, and for this reason, certain planets, when they're in the signs that are, you know, all the planets when they're in the sign that is opposite to their own. It's tense, it's intense, but it can be creative as well. So we don't need to say so much about why Mars and Venus are opposites, but in brief, Venus is peace. Mars is war. Venus is love. Mars is conflict. Venus is hot, harmonizes Mars severs or cuts. Right. So, these are simple archetypal principles.

Now, when Mars is in the sign of Libra, we're also saying that Mars is in a sign that traditionally has to do with careful judgment, the judgment; remember, the Sun is entering the underworld at this time of the symbolic, zodiacal year and so as the Sun enters the underworld, you get into the, originally, of course, the Libra was considered to be the clause, the clause of the, of the Scorpion, but it has its own autonomy as, as the scales as the tradition develops, and we have really the idea of a sign that has a lot to do with judgment, a sign that has a lot to do with idealism, and beauty and fairness and truth and justice, but at the core resides the archetype of judgment.

This is why Saturn is exalted in Libra traditionally, and also why Venus, though she has this traditional relationship with everything beautiful and sensual, was also the goddess in a general sense was also related to justice because the just for, for ancient astrologers, you have to remember that the just the true, the good, they were also beautiful. The cosmos, in its justice, its inherent truth, and its inherent order, was also considered beautiful.

So the place where the inherent structure and laws of reality, as well as the beauty of reality, combined in the sign of Libra, it's also a sign it has a lot to do with wise judgment and learning something so that you can truly understand something and when you do so you're able to articulate it from a place that is both beautiful, wise grave all at once you've ever seen someone articulate, you know, like a professor you've ever had, or a teacher you've ever had, who knew something very deeply, and they could communicate it with great seriousness and great wisdom. But also, you know, they could make it fun, light, and beautiful.

That's what Libras like, that's the combination of Venus and Saturn in Libra. Mars just doesn't do well in the sign. You know, Mars doesn't quite have the patience or the tact. Sometimes Mars is more easily angered or frustrated than this sign tends to be in terms of the combination of the Venus-Saturn themes that happen here. Mars is not the diplomat that Libra often is or that Venus often is. Mars also tends to lack the objectivity that Saturn, as the exalted ruler of Libra, suggests, and so for this reason, there can be all sorts of really challenging dynamics for Mars in the sign.

However, sometimes the union of Mars and Mars' qualities, with the qualities that we're describing of Venus and Saturn in Libra, can have this tremendously creative and very intelligent, if not sometimes irreverent effect. Irreverent or conflicted, you know, so it's, you're going to see in the list of people we're going to look at now, how interesting this list of characters are, and the complex themes that they displayed around Mars and Venus in their life.

Okay, so let's just go through some of them together, and actually, quick note, before I do this if you want to interpret the presence of Mars in Libra in your chart, hopefully, this list will give you some ideas about how to do that, and maybe I'll say a few things about that after I go through this list as well, just so I keep your attention, in case you're like, Alright, great, but how do I, how do I interpret it in my chart?

So let's start with Elvis Presley. So here's, I'm gonna make these really simple because you could do, you know, we could do a whole class on any of these characters, probably in their whole birth charts and everything like that. So, I'm just kind of keeping it really simple. Elvis Presley. He is a provocative artist. He's provocative, specifically because his music was more overtly sexual than most people were comfortable with, especially his stage presence. So here's this artist, this very popular musical artist who had this very conflicted, tense dynamic between Mars, the provocateur, right, the one who wants to provoke conflict, and the one who promotes beauty harmony, something sensual, something, you know, balanced, something classic.

So Elvis is this funny character because he's sort of like this classic, good looking charming sort of has the feeling almost like a country star, you know, but then he's got this real like, he's got the hip shake thing going on, etc. Now, of course, the other thing that my opinion is really controversial about Elvis, even though I grew up hearing his music and you know, it's it rings that familiar joy bell in my brain, is that, of course, Elvis Presley also reportedly stole or, you know, kind of mimicked without maybe necessarily giving the greatest credit to a lot of African American musicians as well.

Like, I'm trying to remember what the guy was like, Chuck Berry, or I don't remember who it was. But the point is that he, I've seen numerous documentaries about the history of rock'n'roll, right? Because it's kind of, at one point, it was more of a hobby of mine, not so much into anymore. But in these documentaries, one of the things that came up a lot was, you know, Elvis is great, and we should really give credit where credit is due.

That's a little bit of a conflicted Mars in Venus sign type thing. Of course, he also struggled with being enabled through people that he was close with, to who enabled him with a drug habit, and so also just the conflicted nature of relationships. That's a whole nother story with Elvis.

How about Freddie Mercury? Freddie Mercury, here's another guy who's really quite provocative. He's, you know, one of the, I guess I would say the, he's one of the great like pioneers of like sexual rock, like he basically gives a place for like gay rockers. You could say, on the rock'n'roll scene. He's not the only one. But yeah, I mean there and also controversial because of his battle with HIV. So I believe it was HIV that he died of someone correct me if I'm wrong about that.

So there's another one where the theme of like music and art of Venus theme and relationships Venus it also has conflict in it that's really pronounced and a tense part of how the person is both uniquely expressive, in this case with music, but also potentially received some of the more challenging elements of that transit and, you know, or is known for conflict surrounding that archetypal tension between Mars and Venus.

How about Eminem? The same basic idea. Here's a guy who's basically a pioneer of sorts as a white rapper, not certainly the first, but he's a guy who's also like, he's controversial in a lot of what he says and does just in his lyrics and his language, and he's sort of beloved, but also, is this guy in a-hole? Is he a jerk? Is he like, you know what I mean? Or is he a pioneer? Is he brilliant, real conflicted themes around his art and music.

John Lennon was very similar in terms of just being someone who was like the said that it was said that he hated pretentiousness of any kind. He didn't like bullies of any kind. He stuck up for the underdog, he fought for peace, and yet he himself could be really vain and incredibly pretentious and bullying, and also, I won't say more, because I could talk about John Lennon for a while too because I've done a class on him before. But the simple point being that John Lennon actually also died because of a crazed fan. Right? So there's that conflict again, the Mars theme that's so potent in the life of a famous artist.

Whitney Houston is similar. I can't remember who it was that she was married to; there was so much controversy around that marriage, and I'm trying to remember that she had a problem at one point with her voice. If I remember correctly, was it vocal cancer she got or something like that? I'm trying to remember a bunch of really challenging themes around her life as an artist.

Now, it's not as though every single artist in the world is going to have Mars in a Venus sign or Venus and Mars sign. But these are really good examples of people who have had such complicated dynamics between Mars and Venus and have been prominent artists. Giselle Bundchen, I don't know if that's how you say her last name correctly or not. Most people know her as she's a very famous model and also famously married to Tom Brady, who is maybe the all-time greatest quarterback of the New England Patriots. The reason that she's interesting is because she's actually played the role of an ambassador, and I can't remember if it's to the UN or some kind of global environmental board or something like that.

So she has the interesting role of diplomatic advocate, guardian, and political social elite. So that Mars in Libra often shows up also, in the charts of diplomats, John Lennon is sort of similar in terms of like the Bed-In, or being anti-Vietnam or there's sometimes there's it doesn't necessarily have to be good, or I'm not saying it's good or bad either. So you'll just often see that people are embroiled in some kind of political cause, and it's oftentimes like I'm fighting for something that I believe is good, but it involves fighting, and so it's tense. Also, just a famous marriage to an athlete, where Venus is hanging out with Mars. It's like she's literally part of the big story of her life, which is that she's married to an incredibly powerful athlete, or an incredibly powerful athlete is married to her. Either way.

Abraham Lincoln, of course, was one of our great presidents who basically, you know, gets to deal with the Civil War. How's that for a real Venus-Mars complicate mission, right? So he's trying to fight for peace, again a civil war president. Edgar Allan Poe. Here's someone who is an incredible artist of the macabre. The dark, the underworld, the subterranean, the demonic, the shadow, the, you know, he's from Baltimore right up the road from where I live. So, here's another, of course, again, someone who struggled with drugs. But someone who's so well known for somehow making the horrible and horrifying Mars was really a God of horrors in ancient astrology along with Saturn, as well as things like bravery and courage that have a spectrum, but Edgar Allan Poe makes that stuff beautiful.

He also, you know, he writes often about this kind of sense of like that was it, Annabel Lee, I think there was a poem that he wrote this a sense of tragic beauty that is surrounding a lot of his work. So if you ever have seen that kind of that sense of like, like a beautiful model of some kind, like, you know, walking through a graveyard and some kind of shroud, it's like beautiful and dark like Edgar Allan Poe, man, he's, you know, one of the pioneers of that kind of stuff in terms of the American art world.

Alfred Hitchcock same idea, right? He is a master of suspense, horror, and terrifying drama, and Mars is again in Venus sign. Now, there are some that are really pretty dark like R.Kelly, need, we say more, I will just leave you to think about that one and then we can go on to people like Sarah Silverman, who's a comedian, but of course, is someone who, whose career has oftentimes gone through, I guess I would call them like scandal periods, or real controversies. That's the word because she's irreverent and often makes jokes that are kind of; I don't want to judge her or anything because I really don't know much of her material. But I just know, from what I've read in some of the stuff, I've heard that she's just she's irreverent, and it's like South Park, or whatever, you know, like anyone is fair game, anything is fair game as a racist joke, sexist jokes, et cetera.

But a lot of the times, there's really kind of a, she's oftentimes said that she tries to enlighten people about ignorance. So, let my humor be a demonstration of what people are really ignorant about, and sometimes people confuse that with ignorance itself, as though her humor about ignorance is ignorant. That's a Mars in Venus assigned kind of ordeal. Especially Libra, which tends to be more intellectual. It's a totally different Mars when you're in Taurus, which we've already gone through in this series.

How about a Anais Nin? Now, if you know much about this author, again, just a provocative author with often this really deep kind of erotic themes that came out, and this is one of the things that she's known for is having this really deep access to erotic, complicated, dark qualities of human relationships. Noel Gallagher. Here's one of the frontman of Oasis; what was he known for? Well, great music, but also a huge conflict with his brother that, you know, I think, basically led to the breakup of that band.

Seth Rogen, another guy who likes to make irreverent, but really like well-liked humorous movies and yet, like, he also went through a big controversial political scandal with, I don't remember what it was, I think it was a movie about like North Korea or something like that, and then it got pulled and didn't get released. The Dictator it was called, I don't remember, but something like that. But he's had some content share of controversy, too.

How about Cat Stevens? Here's a musical artist. I believe he really had his moment in the '60s; maybe it was the early '70s. I think it was the mid to late '60s, and I love Cat Stevens's music of some of the first stuff I figured out how to play on guitar because it wasn't too complicated. Cat Stevens, though, became a really controversial figure because he sort of gave up music, and I believe it happened after he almost drowned or something, and then he realized he wanted to give his life to God, and I think it was a Muslim or a Sufi that he became.

Anyway, Cat Stevens again, then I think it later he returned to music, if I remember correctly, I think he I don't know if he's still alive and I think he is still doing music. But the point is that there was this really complicated theme around music and art and, like, divinity, and this moment where he was like, you know, I want to live, I want to devote my life to God, and I want to get away from like the rock and roll scene and like, you know, so he had this conflicted relationship with art and music you could say, which is characteristic of, you know, that decade in some ways, but also it was, you know, it's a unique thing to like almost die and then give up your art.

Anyway, finally, last but not least, I saved our friend Tonya Harding. You know, again, the point of looking at these people, the who are people, not just, you know, icons to talk about as though they aren't real souls. But it's also because their lives are very public, and they illustrate something for us. Tonya Harding, obviously, we don't have to say her relationship with the first of all, skating is a very Mars-Venus kind of thing because it's about beauty and look at the costume, the pageantry, the artfulness, the eloquence, the grace, right? It's a very feminine sport in that regard, but it's still a Mars-ruled sport.

Even that alone, you can get out of Mars and Libra, or even to a lesser extent, probably not as much with Venus in Aries, but any combination of Mars and Venus has signs of Venus and Mars, as signs will often show up. For example, my wife has Venus in Aries, in her 10th house of career yoga studio owner. Yoga is not exactly like it's a sport, right? It's in a sense today I'm not talking about, like, the spiritual path of Yoga as much as I am talking about the physical practice of Yoga. Going to a yoga studio for a lot of people is not necessarily a spiritual thing, even though we wish it was. But people go oftentimes just to chill out, relax, whatever, but it's also like an alternative to going to the gym. That's my point, Venus in Aries.

Similarly, Tonya Harding's career with Mars in Venus's sign is just as a figure skater if you know someone who did that for a living. That's enough to speak of the controversy that she ended up getting stuck in the middle of due to the assault that was made on her kind of opponent rival slash colleague, Nancy Kerrigan. I remember when that was, I think, the early 90s.

So they made a movie about her life too and like her upbringing, and the way that skating was, like, sort of pushed on her is also very, Mars and Venus assign any story where someone's like, forced to be a ballerina with like bloody toes could be Mars in Libra as well.

Anyway, these are just some of the qualities that you'll see embodied in people's lives. It's, it's about conflict and intelligence and art and beauty. It's about trying to do something that's provocative but sometimes very beautiful and intelligent at the same time. It's also about the complex, dark themes involved in something that's seemingly beautiful, like Edgar Allan Poe, or it's about downright controversy and scandal sometimes, and so you get this really interesting blend, and oftentimes that people are like, well, how do I know it's going to be in my chart, look at the house position, because the house position says a lot, look at positive aspects coming from Jupiter or Venus, look at any kind of special connection to Venus and hope it's a healthy Venus in a good house and a lot of the times, you get a much more constructive version of the Mars in Libra.

Another way of thinking about essential dignities is like this. When Mars is in Libra, you don't get the best Mars; you get a compromised Mars. Now, the compromise expressive of creative tension can lead to a synthesis that's really interesting. On the other hand, every person's ability, with their own free will, to embody that tension in positive or healthy ways.

At the end of the day, it comes down to our free will and whether or not we're cultivating our consciousness in relationship to that archetypal field, so to speak. So I hope that this was interesting for you; I hope you've gotten something out of this. Remember that the language of astrology is here to help us; it's not saying, Oh, you are this way because of Mars in Libra.

Or, you are this way because you have some planet in that sign, or that house, or whatever. The planets are just mirrors. They're just saying, this is a description of how you are, like, you know, someone; if we want to understand how we are, we say Mars, and Libra tells us how you are, then it's up to us to figure out how to deal with that in constructive ways how to dovetail the elements of our birth chart into the path of spiritual life.

So that's on us. We always have to do that work. Hopefully, in seeing this array of characters with, you know, Mars in Libra, you've got some good things to think about you can take away and apply them to your own chart. So the next, I think, week or two, if you're tuning in to this now, in November of 2019, we're going to see Mars culminating in Libra, which means also those the potential for that just conflicted, difficult dynamics around relationships between the Venus-Mars qualities can be challenging. So watch for those over the next week or so as Mars is culminating. At least it's out of the square to Pluto now, so we do have that to be thankful for. Okay, that's all I've got for you guys. Take care. See you next time. Bye.