This month we have an unusually long conjunction between Venus and Mars that lasts into early April and covers two signs. It started in Capricorn when Venus stationed direct at the end of January, and will enter Aquarius in March. Venus and Mars will form two exact conjunctions, one in February and one in March, but they’re holding hands for two months and remain conjunct as they move forward.
The first Venus Mars conjunction happens at 16° Capricorn on 16th February just before the Full Moon in Leo. With Mars exulted in Capricorn and trine Uranus, you should be able to make practical, creative, or even radical changes to this part of your life, depending on the house position of the transit. It’s a great time for doing creative work or reorganising your finances and relationships.
Meanwhile, Venus is still fresh from her visit to the underworld and processing whatever she discovered during her retrograde. And she’s due to meet up with Pluto again in early March. There’s a triple conjunction of Venus, Mars and Pluto at 27° Capricorn on 3rd March which coincides with the Pluto return in the US chart.
The second exact conjunction happens at 0° Aquarius on 6th March, with Mars entering Aquarius first and pulling Venus along behind him a few minutes later. Once in Aquarius, Venus and Mars will square Uranus in Taurus, and end the month with a conjunction to Saturn. With the shift into Aquarius the energy becomes more idealistic and abstract with an emphasis on friendship and a meeting of minds.
The Venus Mars conjunction ends on 5th April when Venus slips away from her lover and enters her exultation in Pisces – to much rejoicing! Mars joins her in Pisces in mid-April causing no end of problems in getting stuff done. Then in early May, Venus enters Aries and the two are in mutual reception, with Venus in Aries and Mars in Pisces, so neither are happy. Happiness returns by the end of May when they finally enter their own signs, with Venus in Taurus and Mars in Aries – again to much rejoicing!
It should be an interesting couple of months.
How this plays out for you depends on how you relate to Venus and Mars in your own chart. At best, it’s great for creativity and for balancing the feminine and masculine sides of yourself. Venus is the feminine, yin, passive side of attraction, and represents what you value. Mars is the masculine, yang, active side of repulsion or separation, and represents how you assert yourself to get what you want or value.
In The Inner Planets, Liz Greene says the combination of Venus and Mars in the horoscope increases the “drive toward pleasure and self-gratification.” These people know how to get what they want and will charm your socks off to do it. She goes on:
“if you think about the fact that with any Venus Mars aspect, one’s personal values combine with one’s aggressive instincts, you will realise that this delightful charm masks the proverbial iron fist in the velvet glove.”
It’s a potent combination but it can manifest in contradictory ways, charming one minute and fighting the next. This is more likely to happen if you side too much with one planet than the other which triggers a backlash from the repressed planet. It’s not just Mars overruling Venus, but:
“Venus can emasculate Mars, just like in the famous painting, and then Mars sits and seethes in the basement.”
I’m not sure which painting she means – there’s quite a few, and many of them show Mars sleeping or relaxed without his sword and definitely in no mood to fight. Here’s the Botticelli showing Mars completely zonked surrounded by satyrs playing with his helmet and lance, while Venus looks on...
In mythology, Aphrodite is the goddess of love, fertility and beauty, and she’s notorious for causing problems via love and/or war. In fact, Aphrodite/Venus is as much of a troublemaker as Ares/Mars, and few can resist her charms – Ares is no exception.
In one tale, Aphrodite is married off to Hephaestus, the lame god, because he won her in a bargain with Zeus. Hephaestus made a gold throne for Hera, his mother, who became trapped when she sat in it, and he agreed to free her in exchange for Aphrodite. The goddess wasn’t pleased with this arrangement and cheated on her husband whenever she could. Hephaestus may have been partly to blame for this because he made the magic girdle that made Aphrodite more irresistible to men.
In the Odyssey, Homer tells the tale of how Hephaestus got his revenge. The epic poem is about the adventures of Odysseus on his journey home after the Trojan War, which was triggered in part by Aphrodite. In Book 8, the bard Demodocus sings about the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite during the war. The story goes that Helios, the sun god, saw Aphrodite and Ares together and told Hephaestus, who was upset – although he shouldn’t have been surprised.
He slunk off to his anvil and made a magical net that would entrap the lovers the next time they met – which is what happened. Hephaestus then gathered the other gods to watch and they all had a good laugh, while Hephaestus moaned and felt sorry for himself:
“…how Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, scorns me for that I am lame and loves destructive Ares because he is comely and strong of limb, whereas I was born misshapen. Yet for this is none other to blame but my two parents – would they had never begotten me!”
Some of the gods were sympathetic to Ares (all the ones who had been with Aphrodite too), and Poseidon paid for his release. Aphrodite was humiliated and ran off to Cyprus to recover with the Graces.
In the Iliad, Homer tells a different story and Aphrodite is consort to Ares but isn’t married, while Hephaestus is married to someone else. Hesiod also said Aphrodite was unmarried – which frankly matches her nature better.
Either way, Aphrodite and Ares had several children, including Phobos (fear and panic) and Deimos (terror), showing the dark potential for Venus Mars combinations. But also Harmonia (obvious!) and Eros, the winged god associated with love and sex – showing the creative potential for these energies when used wisely.
So make the most of the coming months and check for magical nets before getting up to mischief...!
Image: Botticelli
