As we are in Aries season and are blogging a bit about the planets, this week I will take a look at the ruler of Aries, Mars. The fourth planet from the Sun takes 687 Earth days to orbit the Sun with one day on Mars being a little over 24 hours. It is approximately 139 million kilometres away from the Sun and takes sunbeam about 12.5 minutes to reach Mars.
Mars is known as the red planet as the main minerals in the soil are composed of iron. Iron minerals oxidise (a chemical process akin to burning) to form iron oxide giving the planet its red appearance. It also cannot sustain carbon-based life forms like those found on Earth, yet missions are in progress by our earthly space agencies to see if we can colonise this planet in the future.
Mars has two moons named Phobos and Deimos, both named after the Greek god, Ares', twin boys. Ares is the god of war. As the son of Zeus and Hera, he embodies anything to do with battles and conflict. In astrology, he is named after the Roman god equivalent, Mars.
In astrology, Mars represents war, battles, and conflicts. In our charts, he shows us how we handle conflicts and how we resolve them. He embodies the passion and the masculinity in all of us (independent of gender and how one identifies).
When Mars is retrograde, he represents a period of frustration. Conflicts may arise during a Mars retrograde period. What fascinates me is that he also rules surgeons and surgeries. So when you are scheduling an operation, make sure Mars is not retrograde so your surgeon is in optimal shape energetically and the surgery will have greater success.
In terms of signs, Mars rules Aries and is the traditional ruler of Scorpio. This is quite apt in that Aries are known to be fiery and Scorpios are quite passionate as well. So as you can see, there is a theme in this blog series about the planets. Each planet is named after an ancient deity that embodies what the zodiac sign and planet represent.
It all works and fits in quite well, doesn’t it?