Excerpt:

“We humans serve the… Self – not the other way around, and in this service we may discover our essential humanness, our history and our value beyond the personal limits of our own experience. One way to do this serving is through imagination….”- Gregory Max Vogt, Return to Father

Masculine Symbols in Astrology

There are two astrological symbols generally accepted as primary for the Masculine or the yang force within the astrological framework: Mars and the Sun. While Mars is clearly the main symbol for Masculinity itself and is thus the focus of this essay (see “Mars” section, below), the Sun as Masculine symbol requires attention.

The astrological Sun represents the unfocused qualities of ever-present activity and aliveneness in that activity. Traditional astrology continues to promote the Sun alternately as: an individual’s basic identity; the main symbol for one’s Masculine nature; the co-symbol with Saturn for the Father archetype; and the Moon’s partner as the primary Masculine symbol.  Though accepted and widely in use, these assignments do not address the actual dynamic of the Sun itself.

The astrological Sun infuses into everything with which it is involved its vital current of outward-moving energy (prana or chi). It is indiscriminate aliveness. For the human being, the Sun is the quality of his/her raw current of life-force. It should not be seen as that which gives rise to an individual’s quintessential and base nature, but as that which provides the energy for it. We express as or through our Sun sign in a visible, light-ed and recognizable way. In this way, the Sun can be seen as the “universal additive” for the collective or as a “personal battery” for an individual. The Sun is Masculine for two reasons: it provides us with the energy to be alive, to be seen, and thus to be an individual, and secondly because its energy is outward-moving. Therefore, to understand an individual’s full Masculine embodiment, one need begin with the natal Mars Story (see Appendix D) and then include the other relevant symbols such as the Sun. Building one’s self-identity or classifying another exclusively as their Sun sign is either lazy or fallacious.

Mars

The most direct symbol for the Masculine principle is without doubt Mars. Examining the planet’s physical progression through the space of our solar system symbolizes the archetypal development of Masculinity through the vessel of human consciousness, both individually and collectively. As an archetype, Mars represents the pre-conscious will to live, how we enact our Desire, and how we individualize ourselves. It signifies a portion of the nature of our instinctual selves. Mars is also our sexual drives, our experience of our power, and our proclivity for impatience, anger or violence. Its archetypal energy is characterized by inconsistency, aggressiveness, intense focus on the goal, outward-movingness, curiosity, directness, and erraticness.

The celestial path of Mars precisely mirrors the universal qualities of Masculinity. Mars tracks an inconsistent and at times extremely variable path through the solar system. “Mars’ succession of phenomena and rhythms of movement are most difficult to comprehend. Its motions, whether considered spatially or temporally, show irregularities and variations to a degree not found for any other planet.”¹⁸ This trait is in direct contrast to Venus’ ongoing regularity – see Figure 2.

Figure 2- The Venus pattern shows a regular, nearly exact progression of archetypal intents over long periods
of time (the pentacle shape), while the Mars pattern shows an irregular pattern both short- and long-term.
For each, the intersections of inner lines with the circle’s circumference indicate the beginning of a new Cycle.