"Yours is the way of the spiritual warrior"

This is another astrology saying that pops up in a lot: "spiritual warrior." Its meaning is actually something like "possible asshole." "Warrior," when you find it mentioned, is code for Mars, and "spiritual" means that it's placed somewhere that it's hard to control, so the best way to use it properly is sacrificially, or working for something larger than normal human concerns, like hunting and gathering. This usually means that Mars is placed with Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, on one of the nodes (which are highly-energized points that are hard to control), in the 12th house, or sometimes having Mars retrograde in a birth chart, which is an inversion of Mars energy. All of these are indicators that if Mars gets activated, so too does some deeply unconscious programming that just *reacts.*

Why would this be a problem? Well, let's think about what sets Mars off:

• loud noises

• obnoxious people

• aggressive people

• bears

• sexual arousal

• competition

So trigger + response = end of interaction… when you've got a Mars that is unbothered by an outer planet. If someone's a dick to you, you punch them, and it's over. If you have a Mars that's a "spiritual warrior," these interactions don't end there, and it's a bit of a Goldilocks situation: too big, too small, too loud, not loud enough, becoming mad at yourself for being mad at someone else, dreaming about punching people, attempting to pass legislation to make loud noises illegal, filing constant freedom of information act requests because you're mad about some other area of your life that's out of control (😉)...I can go on.

If you have a troublesome Mars, you're aware of it, because you either know you can't reliably harness your energy, or you've found yourself in a thousand embarrassing situations where you've just reacted and now you feel like a total asshole and are tired of the apology tours. So this is where the *spiritual* part comes in: having enough self-awareness to detect when you're getting heated so that you can remove yourself from a situation that's about to go from zero to a thousand. That's it. It's that simple. Icing on the cake is knowing yourself well enough to detect situations that might set you off in advance so that you see the warning signs early. If you want to get extra credit with using your energy for higher purposes, I have thoughts below.

Aforementioned Mars placements:

Mars-Uranus: spastic anger, random anger, rage that comes from nowhere and goes back to nowhere just as quickly but is stunning to onlookers. It adds Mars energy to Uranus, which is mental, so it can be deciding to murder someone and then thoughts going a mile a minute on how you'd do it.

The way of the spiritual warrior: understanding that your aggression is mental first, and using this to align your actions with your ideals, instead of reacting precipitously when someone has violated your values (which like 75% of the time results in you saying some dumb shit you later regret). Like Mars, Uranus is a selfish planet, so recognizing the me-first inclinations and again, channeling them into something that can benefit more than just you. Hint: if you're reacting really fast, this is probably not happening.

Mars-Neptune/Mars in the 12th: These aren't exactly the same thing, but they are similar. Mars has subconscious AND emotional inclinations, and both psychic abilities and dreams can be super-energized (...or you can't sleep). Sometimes Mars energy is present and accounted for, and other times Mars has gone off wandering into another dimension, which is not helpful when the rest of you has plans to play basketball (not appearing today: hand-eye coordination!). Mars is deeply in its feelings here, so if you have butthurt, it can be everlasting or re-energized by the mildest hint of the original offense.

The way of the spiritual warrior: understanding that you probably have a couple of intuitive gifts about how to act based on what other people need at the moment, but also that you're a psychic sponge for free-floating anger in the atmosphere, so that highly contentious board meeting doesn't end just because you've left the room. If you don't get the emotions off, they can stay with you for days, which means you can unintentionally radiate anger without realizing that's what you're doing. So what do you do with this? First: some kind of regular physical practice of movement regardless of whether or not you feel you need it, because you're a poor judge of your Mars energy in real time (this is one of those placements that, after a run, exclaims how much better they feel and didn't realize they needed to go for a run). Second: some kind of introspection process is necessary for you to reflect on sources of aggression and anger when they occur, and know that you are not likely to be immediately aware of your own anger or frustration, but you can learn to detect warning signs. I have one of these, and one of my exes pointed out that I always listened to a certain kind of music when I was mad or frustrated (he’d walk in and hear it and go “oh no, what happened?”), and now I know if I have a hankering for my Led Zeppelin playlist, there’s trouble. Third: do stuff that's bigger than yourself, but don't do stuff that no one asked for. Altruistic work that's in demand, in other words. It can be anything that people truly appreciate, but do NOT make yourself a martyr. Hint: if you are the only person you deem capable of doing the work you're doing and no one else can help you, and you have no free time because you're so busy, you have become a martyr and need to take a long vacation.

Mars-Pluto (Mars in the 8th house to a lesser extent): once again, Mars has subconscious motivations, but these are psychological and occasionally diabolical. The difference between Mars-Neptune and Mars-Pluto is the Pluto crowd is the Energizer bunny, and if you piss these people off, they will keep coming at you. One person with this energy combination told me he's gotten so angry he has blacked out, and the next thing he remembers is screaming and kicking someone's car as they drove away from him (he's hardly alone; it's just a recent example). Pluto likes to destroy things (in its unhealthy form) but it also likes to transform things, and has plenty of energy to put to work in so doing. Importantly, this transformation had better be in the best interests of everyone involved, and Mars-Pluto people in their less mature state can make some unilateral decisions on necessary actions and go rogue. Also, sexual hangups can abound but I'm not touching that here.

The way of the spiritual warrior: 1. Understanding your motivations are psychological, and learning what stimulus provokes what response first and foremost, either by yourself or with the help of a therapist. Coming to terms with the fact that you most likely have some rage issues. 2. Finding a good outlet for all of that energy. 3. Putting it to good use in a way that builds yourself and others up instead of tearing yourself/them down. (There's books about Mars-Pluto aspects, so this is hardly comprehensive.) The car-kicker mentioned above spends a lot of his energy helping people who are near death, which is a great expression of Plutonian energy, which can both kill things and bring them back to life.

Mars-Nodes: depends highly on what sign and which node, but Mars is energized when past patterns you might have forgotten about come up, and there are...overreactions.

The way of the spiritual warrior: figure out whether you're inclined to always take immediate action or never take any action at all, and think about whether your behaviors are healthy. Again, this deeply depends on your entire chart, but there's either too much reacting or not enough reacting, and becoming self-aware enough to see whether anger is warranted in a given situation.

Mars retrograde: in my experience of these people, Mars is not in sync with the outer world, so they get frustrated and not sure what they should do in a given situation, and then Mars energy festers on the inside, and sometimes they do something spastic either to relieve the pressure or because action was long overdue. This can lead to flexing on people and in situations where it's not warranted, just so you can relieve some the pressure.

The way of the spiritual warrior: Resolve to not let things fester, and learn to speak up for yourself at the first sign of getting heated, before everything goes sideways. Have some kind of practice of physical activity. Journaling or some kind of personal accountability tracing common sources of anger or triggers and figuring out new ways to react to those triggers (even if it's just leaving the room) can help. Learn not to be hard on yourself when things aren't going your way.

Yours in Hulk Smash,J