One synastry reading after the other lately has centered around one theme…the old chestnut of men who will not commit and women who are struggling to keep them, or to move things to the ‘next level,’ whatever that may be. Of course, when you do synastry readings for a living, this topic is bound to come up again and again, and there are different perspectives on each situation according to the natal charts and the progressions and the developmental lessons each person is learning at the time. There is no set answer for what is the right move in these situations, and I certainly don’t take sides. In fact, I may err in the other direction at times, sympathizing with the point of view of the person who is not in the room, to allow him a voice in the proceedings.
However, there seems to be a process in male development that is more of a hurdle to overcome because of the contrasting nature of the two planets involved in the expression of male sexual maturity: Mars and Saturn. Sexual maturity is a goal for both sexes. But each sex has a different process it must go through to get there, and it isn’t always an obvious route. The feminine side of the journey, the journey between the Moon and Venus and back again, seems, at least at the beginning, like an easier ride. I’m going to start off this article, which may tick some people off (especially the ones who like to split hairs when they know we are discussing general patterns), by saying that we are taking a new approach here. We are used to talking about the integration between the male and female halves of the psyche–this is the Jungian concept we base our synastry on. We will see that the steps between the two male and two female elements within one psyche may cause their own issues and lack of progress.
The other thing I want to say is that the Mars/Saturn element in the male psyche is the one of the things I love most about men.
When a man cares for you, even as a friend, he will look after you. He will walk ten blocks out out of his way in the opposite direction to make sure you get to the bus stop safely, and he will stay there with you even if it means he may miss his last train. He will make sure that you have cab fare in your bag if you’re traveling, and he will fix the leaky faucet while he is feeding your cat. If he isn’t practically inclined, he will do small things for you that enrich your life and make you feel cared for. There’s a watchful quality about men–they keep their eye on you even though they try not to let you know about it. And it’s wonderful and much appreciated by those of us who do recognize it.
But Mars/Saturn doesn’t always work in sync, and exploring when it doesn’t is what this article is about. If you’ve read my series on the M.C. and I.C. and Saturn as a relationship planet, you may understand these concepts a bit better. But let’s start with the cardinal cross.
If you look at the cardinal cross, you will see that it consists of two sets of traditional relationship planets. The first angle, Asc/Desc, relates to Aries/Libra and Mars/Venus, which rule them. It’s the ultimate marriage of ‘Self’ and ‘Other.’ The ‘I’ and the ‘Not I.’ Our second set of relationship planets, the Moon and Saturn, indicate, in an obvious way, “Mother” and “Father”. However, this pairing actually represents, not only literal parenthood, but the generating side of life that relates to material expression, creation, and experience. In astrological terms, this is represented by the dance between the progressed Moon and transiting Saturn, which work in partnership to join the inner world (represented by the I.C.) with the outer (represented by the M.C.) In fact, the I.C. contains the consciousness roots of the psyche which must be mined by the M.C. in order for there to be a creative flow between ‘in here’ and ‘out there.’ We can only create with the material within us, and the I.C. is representative of that material. Where do you think the word ‘matter’ comes from, or ‘mother,’ (for that matter)? No wonder Cancer is happy there. But there is no doubt that Mars and Saturn are two different worlds entirely. Mars is instinct and inspiration, and Saturn is practical and ambitious, with an urge towards completion. One remains in the land of infinite possibilities, and the other is only concerned with what is real (at least, in soul terms).
I think astrological symbolism can be quite poetic sometimes. The two relationship functions, both having their spiritual and material sides, bi-sect one another in order to create the cross of matter which is our imprint on the infinite, represented by the circle. In other words, the two relationship axes create the space in which we live our lives, defining the infinite potential of the chart.
And this concept of ‘infinite’ potential is where we find ourselves coming back to the Mars/Saturn issue. Because, if you think about it in cardinal terms, we begin the initiation into matter with the inspirational Aries, but we must end with Saturn, and with a concrete world. Aries has the entire chart in front of it, and is shackled by nothing. Where Saturn has gathered up what is come of concrete experience and not only builds with it, but forms it, supervises it, looks after it, and, in his more spiritual guise, declares it sacred. This is a big leap, from the 1st house to the 10th. And this is the masculine journey, bookended by the two planets involved.
I must say, right off the bat, that we all must come to terms with this journey, male or female. We all must take our inspiration and make something real of it, and in a woman this could be said to be, in simple terms, the function of the animus. To do, to act, rather than just receive and react and/or seduce. But men are more directly in touch with their masculine planets, as women are more easily in touch with the Moon and Venus. We are those things, we don’t need to project them to understand them. We experience them directly, without filters or representatives, and we express ourselves through them. Any mother of both boys and girls will tell you that the two are completely different in the way they relate to the world. (I remember my brother once taking my niece Layla to a birthday party when she was about 3 or 4. He said there was so much negotiating and analyzing and compromising going on that he was exhausted just watching it.)
I’m not denigrating female experience when I say that the leap between Mars and Saturn is a larger and longer one than the leap between the Moon and Venus. (The female journey is complex in its own way, which I will explore in the second half of this series.) First of all, we all start in childhood as representatives of the unconscious and instinctive Moon. Our sense of ourselves as a separate consciousness begins at what they used to call ‘the age of reason,’ which in many cultures begins at around age 7, or the first quarter of the progressed Moon or transiting Saturn. At this age we begin or orient ourselves via the I.C./M.C. experience to ‘me in here’ versus ‘you out there.’ We become more aware that there are families we belong to and individual duties and functions that must be performed, and institutions that we are required to pay heed to. (Also, this phase relates to the ‘girls/boys are yucky’ stage.)
At age 14, which coincides with the double whammy of the progressed lunar full Moon and the first Saturn opposition to itself (does anyone pass age 14 without scars?), we move forward to the Asc/Desc axis again, and relationships are pretty much the only thing on our minds at this time, whether we admit it or not. At 21 the focus becomes finding a place for ourselves in the world (although, of course, we haven’t left relationships behind), and the very pressured tone of this time has to do with the squeeze of both the third Saturn quarter and a waning lunar square–it feels ‘now or never’ whether it is or not. And at 28, we begin the precarious cycle all over again.
And this is where it gets difficult, because this is where we can drop the pieces of our psychic wholeness, and we most likely won’t turn around to pick them up again until our Uranus oppositions 14 years later. I have written before about the cardinal cycle and the way we have a tendency to identify with our own sexual planets and ignore or project the ‘other’ halves of our psyche, with men having a tendency to relegate a part of Moon and Venus to girlfriends and wives and women doing the same with Mars and Saturn, projecting rather than owning those energies. (How large a part is a cultural matter and dependent on individual experience.) At age 14, we are very much aware of the differences between the sexes, often splitting up into sexually divided tribes at this time. By 28, we may feel that we are fully formed and have all the answers according to our sexual development. And we would be wrong.
At 28, we begin (or should begin) our first, tentative steps towards integrating our masculine and feminine halves. Many of us do it half-heartedly, hoping a relationship will come our way so that we don’t have to do the messy work involved. But something else is at work which is just as important. This is the time we need to start growing into the more mature expression of our own sexual divide.
We can do it the ‘easy’ way by becoming fathers and mothers. This fulfills a certain part of the psyche’s need for growth. Many men take on mature Saturn for the first time as fathers; they also can taste it in the working world if the career leans towards taking more and more responsibility. And this is where it can get complicated. This is where the boat can tip.
I have said it often and I will say it again: Saturn is a grown up Mars. And our relationships, as well as our lives, would be a lot less complicated if we took that idea on board.
Alas, Saturn is most often seen in this culture as the anti-Mars, the thing that gets in the way. Want to do something, anything? Saturn will be there to stop you, or at least give you a good argument about why you shouldn’t go there. Not exactly Mr. Enthusiasm, is our Saturn. At the worst (least mature) end of the spectrum, Saturn is about repression of the genuine Self, being ‘good’ and doing the responsible, cultural (i.e. ‘boring) thing. It’s the difference between ‘want’ to do (Mars is all about want) and ‘have’ to do, and when the ‘have to’s win out, Saturn is there. He’s the anti-individual. Alas, Saturn’s true face is one of mastery and inner authority, of genuine action stemming from soul desire, but we tend not to look at him that way here. And so his magic is lost and he becomes a burden we try to avoid or shed.
Mars is about our impulses and our desires, sexual and otherwise. Mars uses the body as a playground. Mars instinctively knows what it craves and runs after it, damn the consequences. Mars is our great motivator, and is the reason we move forward in great leaps and bounds, rather than in the careful, monitored steps that Saturn recommends. With Mars, we take risks, and laugh at perils. With Mars we reach out, and we can be innocently unaware of any inappropriate behavior on our part. We all, male and female, have Mars in a greater or lesser degree–how much we understand of his behaviour and his needs is a great mark of maturity. When we are young, we’re all impulse, and when we’re older, we know better. He wants freedom, but not freedom for its own sake, like Uranus. He wants the freedom to act, and to act on his instincts. However, Mars conveniently looks away from the consequences of his actions–it’s not his job. Mars eats the entire pepperoni pizza, and its Saturn who gets the indigestion. As I mentioned, these two react against one another, even when there is no aspect between them. If you have a strong Saturn and a strong Mars in your chart, you know what I mean.
Mars in aspect to Saturn may be one of the most complicated aspects to sort out in synastry or within a single chart. The reason is that Saturn has desires, too. He has his own agenda to carry out, and he will manipulate you to do it his way if he has to. He will seduce and desire and chase after you (or something he wants) with all the heat of an ‘inflamed Mars’ (Liz Green’s words) if he decides he needs you. You will be mesmerized and seduced, until Saturn gets what it wants and then you get dropped like a hot potato, waking up dazed with your behind on the cold ground and no one to help you up. Did I mention he is the manipulator extraordinaire? Both Saturn and Mars can be bad boys…very bad boys…
So when they get together, the worst case scenario is the tug of war that goes nowhere. “Want to’ fights “have to.” This is often what happens when the conjunction is involved, especially by progression. If your Mars and your Saturn line up by progression, you are in for several years of major frustration where everything on Earth seems to be falling in the path of your progress. Saturn is trying to get Mars to go along with the programme, especially if Mars has been a bit ‘out there’ and willful and uncooperative–in which case Saturn now has him cornered and won’t let go. However, if Saturn is the chart heavyweight here, and has always won out over instinct and impulse, Mars might just fight back. And maybe it’s the thing Saturn needs, to be infused with a little excitement again and persuaded to come out from under that cloak of fear. Even under the best circumstances, under a trine or a sextile, Mars and Saturn will be arguing the agenda–but they will find it easier to eventually come to a path of action. Mars will always chafe at the restriction, and Saturn always feels it knows better what needs to be done, until they can agree on a mutual goal.
In relationships, the difficulties come when life circumstances cause a wake up call and this kind of agreement needs to happen between the two. These two archetypes need to come to terms with one another. However, their first instinct is to fight, and this is why the lines of the brokenhearted find their way to my door.
When there is fallout from the actions of Mars, from desire, Saturn awakens. Saturn pulls back from the initial impulse to gain clarity. Sometimes the awakening is a sobering one, “My god, what have I done?” Sometimes, there is pleasure in what was gained, but the additional responsibility for the actions involved is enough to engender fear. Fear of what? Fear of losing what’s been gained. If we’re ripe for a relationship to occur, the fear factor is often made worse, not better. But if I lose what I’ve gained because I turn away from it, then how is that any better than losing it? No one said this was logical.
Women tend to embrace relationships (of all kinds) often without thinking about the consequences of them. The Moon/Venus aspect of the female psyche makes her receptive and inclusive. Because of the Mars/Saturn aspect governing the male psyche, the consequences of relationship are very much at the forefront, and its possible to experience an internal tug of war between the pure desire impulse of Mars and the added responsibility whispered by Saturn. Not that men don’t give themselves over to relationship–they do, all the time. There is no love without surrender, and defenses come down. But it seems, for the guarded male psyche, it’s a much more frightening fall. As Jung pointed out, there is also a ruthlessness to the male psyche that the female is often unaware of, and I attribute this astrologically to the tug of war between Mars and Saturn.
The consequences of this Mars/Saturn split is that there is a huge grey area before commitment, where in the female psyche this area is a mere blip in the landscape and usually plastered over with fantasies about how things will be. A man who has experienced too much Saturn in his life and has been denied the chance to explore his Martian side may be opened by relationship to a whole new aspect of himself, a place where Mars rules and Saturn’s voice is quashed, or at least quieted temporarily. Another man who has been too much involved in the Mars side of his psyche will be opened to the more responsible side of his personality by relationship, and at once fear and desire it. These are the ‘I don’t want to lose your friendship” types [when this is not being used as an outright substitute for ‘I don’t want to get involved with you.’] The endless potential of the current status of relationship is much more seductive than being faced with the out and out failure of losing the one thing that is emotionally sustaining.
Needless to say, a man’s relationship to his own father, and to any authority figures, has a lot to say about the way Saturn works in the relationship stakes and whether Mars and Saturn become integrated. The parental marriage is a model of the psyche, and if it has been particularly challenging, there may be a deep desire to avoid the whole thing. If a man has been put into the role of being responsible for ‘mother,’ there are also Saturn issues at stake (needless to say, this pops up with Moon/Saturn/Mars especially).
When Mars and Saturn learn to work together, it is a beautiful thing. Desire and responsibility work hand in hand towards shared goals, and the result can be especially attractive to the opposite sex. Saturn no longer has to hide, and can shed its crust of fear and restriction and learn to establish it’s genuine authority and authenticity via the excitement of the Mars energy working at full speed towards a goal. Sometimes, with Mars/Saturn the issue is really about focus. A few well-placed questions to the soul about what is ultimately wanted and needed from life can do wonders.
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Synastry: Mars Saturn and the Male Psyche Part One
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