Mars comes close

I’m sharing this personal channel on the topic of Mars and power pretty much exactly “as it came to me” in case it resonates with anyone who happens to find it. If you don’t have a strong relationship with Mars or relate to what it feels like to have danced with narcissist energy in an unhealthy relationship dynamic (topic of a post I just shared on my health blog yesterday, if this interests you) then none of this will make quite as much sense, although I am putting it out there for anyone interested in negotiating a healthier relationship with power, not least their own. So, for all those who, for one reason or another, might get something from it, I share this short revery, which is as universal as it is personal in the dynamic it plays with:

The sheer intensity as Mars approached this week (at just 62.07 million km from earth; the last time it got this near was in Aug 2003, about the time I pluckily invited my partner of 17 years out on our first date, the next close-up not until 2035) has been palpable, like a full moon energy with knobs on. Rudi, my dog, has felt it intensely, leaping up, pacing around, going in and out of the house, and repeat, as soon as it’s visible in the evening sky. Is he amplifying my sensory awareness of it or feeling his own? Why me? Why do I ALWAYS feel Mars when it is doing something interesting in close proximity? Perhaps because Mars is “big” in my birth chart and why wouldn’t it be. I am my mother’s daughter. She was a formidable woman, some would say frightening at times, though she was really all heart and I am a chip off her block. Mars can be your boldness, your gutsiness, courage, assertiveness, the sheer passion and verve to get things going and I have spade-loads of those when I allow them to the surface (more on why some of us empaths don’t always do that below). So, blood flowing, blood boiling…its a very thin line, a tightrope for us sensitive types.

The correlation of this close encounter with Mars with all the old “narcissist” stories coming up in me this week while I follow Lee Harris’ course, “Empaths vs Narcissists” (you will have to see my other post for more on that but the power of it is that I am, finally, looking in the eye all those deepest-darkest wounds that I buried well out of sight a long time ago) has been undeniable. I was able to see Mars and its pinky glow clearly from my window last night, even before I zoomed with a lens; and being able to see what you are dealing with, especially that which is normally out of sight, is a powerful upgrade in any situation. In that other post, I ask why was I magnetised to narcissist energy, and it to me, all my life, questions stirred by the course that I have been on for the last week? Because there is a match. A match of Mars energy with something in me, and Mars carries the narcissist brand, or, its potential. In our crazy messed-up world as it has been for the longest time, narcissism and Mars energy, as the energy of conflict and power, have become close allies. They are sometimes very hard to distinguish from one another, sharing some of the same ruthlessness, lack of remorse; and we see examples of this ever more overtly this year as themes that have long been covert come to the surface of our world. However, this is a distortion, and Mars does not have to be all about the way its energy has been hijacked to be (so dark) for the longest time. As with all things, there is another side to the story, and those two sides are about to get back into more balance.

So, Mars energy could go either way; to become uber-positive strength of a self-empowering, courageous kind, or it could come out as the distorted narcissist trait. I have spade loads of that strength, but I have come to fear it, even in myself, as a trait that could come out “wrong” and distorted, could harm someone else and so, ultimately me. Hint: though we all have our narcissist moments, this is a clue I am not a true narcissist because to hurt another is the deepest pain to me, capable of destroying me or inducing me to destroy myself by elected dismantling of all I am lest I do it again…a true empath response to hatefulness if every I saw one. This programming inside of an empath is what makes us such fun to a true narcissist as they can watch us squirm at the meerest hint we have become like them. Yes, Mars can be an unsettling energy for a lot of people but, perhaps, never more so than for an empath because we remember all too well, too personally, all the pain and destruction that can spin off from a mars-type situation.

So, I fear my own capacity to turn my strength and power to sarcasm, to wounding withering attacks and annihilation energy, the slam in the face. Like I sometimes turned on a particular friend, years ago when I was living with a narcissist, when to have sat her down and told her why she aggrieved me so would have been a kinder way to defend my boundaries, yet I hardly realised at the time that it was the way she mirrored my least favourable traits that got to me. And oh how the narcissist in my life used to love to encourage me in this. He would love to wind me up and set me in motion in the hateful direction he preferred, and I would do it at times when I was drunk enough or desperate enough to keep on side with him. As happened, once, with my childhood narcissist bully who, on one occasion only, induced me to pick on another girl with her; which I did out of fear of repercussions if I didn’t but oh how I destroyed myself with self-loathing afterwards.

These rare but memorable unconscious moments were to go contrary to myself and felt like the deepest abandonment of self as they negated the heart. I quite literally hated myself when I did this, and I didn’t need the lesson many times to ensure I have continued to fear what I could do to others with fury and hatefulness if I unleashed my full strength, and so I have hidden much of my power away, especially since I have become a parent, lest I hurt anyone. Including my husband.

How many times have I said to him that he doesn’t seem to like it when I get stronger, more forthright (like his ex wife), even the kind of strength that is called for to make a leap in recovery from all my health issues, yes, but not in a destructive way…but because forthrightness and strength are called for in that moment… yet sometimes he looks at me, then, like he doesn’t know me and the glint of fear in his eyes makes me recoil into shame and abandonment. Abort mission to revive strength, it only pushes people I love away. Like every month when my period happened, I would have this upsurge of the kind of power that would be so forthright and ready for anything, cutting through crap with determination and clear vision, yet it would cause unsettled energies in my family because who was this person; who was I, with so much drive and determination? The same during the full moon; my most manifest self would make the air crackle. Nobody knew this version of me, let alone myself. So I would turn that fire inward and it would make me hot and bothered, unable to settle or sleep well. Which is why these few days of the Red Planet’s approach has felt premenstrual to me…so much heat, so little sleep, so much fidget and like something is ready to burst out of me, break all my seams wide open…

So why are narcissists attracted to certain individuals, usually empathic, sensitive ones? Because we bury our mars-like qualities deep inside, lest we hurt anyone. Their fun is to try to despoil us, to prove we are only human after all and that we can be turned to our own destruction, cannot sustain our ivory tower overview long term but will inevitably succumb to deep-down-and-dirty at their bidding, if they toy with us for long enough, like a cat with a mouse. Their fun game is to dig it out to the surface, this Mars aspect we fear so very much; to induce us to reveal this energy and then unleash on ourselves all the self-destructive shame and remorse at having done so. They don’t have to do their own dirty work, they can play with getting us to destroy ourselves. But when we suddenly bring that strength up in a different way, as power of the most enlightened variety, they are flummoxed…as when my ex-narc stared at me in bewilderment one night, not long after I had instigated divorce proceedings and was radiating a new kind of power from every pore in my being, and uttered out loud “you’ve really found yourself” (it was one of the last things he ever said to me). Yes I had. I had re-found my Mars and reattached it, to who I really am. Top tip, reclaiming boundaries is an essential task in recovery from a narcissist and you’re going to need to summon that daunting Mars energy in order to do that.

How many of us empaths and sensitives detach from power for fear that power is wrong?? Because of the way we see it demonstrated in the messed-up world, we decide we want nothing to do with it…forgetting there is a choice how power can be used, that there is not only one way, the broken way, but another way that makes us more whole and connected with heart energy, and with each other. So, last night when Mars’ shining pink form (not nearly as scary as I had tended to imagined way back when…there is a theme forming around this topic) was clearly visible from my bedroom window, I shouted over “can we get onto a more healthy footing from now on, a more mature relationship please, let’s work together in the highest ways…” It must have been acknowledged as I had a far better night and feel quite renewed and determined this morning. Dare I say it, my strength is coming back.

For more on this transformation theme, read today’s Spaceweather bulletin to hear how some backyard viewers were also able to look Fear and Dread (Mars’ usually invisable satellites) in the eye last night…you couldn’t make this stuff up!