Liz Greene is the cofounder of the Centre for Psychological Astrology in London and a contributor to the most respected astrology site on the web: www.astro.com, as well as a regular contributor to Astrodientst.com. She is the author of Astrology for Lovers and Relating: An Astrological Guide to Living with Others on a Small Planet. Greene currently resides in Zurich, Switzerland

CHAPTER 1

The Astrology and Psychology of Aggression

At origin, aggressiveness is almost synonymous with activity.

D.W. Winnicott

The Two Faces of Aggression

One of my fit astrology teachers, Isabel Hickey in Boston, compared the energyof Mars to a burning fie. If employed in the right way and in the right places,it is wonderful and helpful, giving light, heat, warmth and power; but if usedin the wrong places or in the wrong way, it means disaster. It's the differencebetween fire burning the floor boards in the middle of your sitting room floor,as opposed to where it is better contained—in the fireplace. The fire itselfisn't good or evil. Likewise, Mars in itself is not good or evil, but it maybecome evil if it is misused.

Isabel was bringing out an important point: that all natural energies areneutral. Piero Femcci, in his book What We May Be, makes a similar point. Thenatural energies of the wind, the sun, of an atom or a river—these can eitherbring about disasters or prevent them. A river provides water, power andirrigation and yet it can flood and drown. Natural energies can either kill orthey can sustain. If you take an atom and split it, the power unleashed could beused to blow us all up or could be directed productively and creatively.

Similarly, aggressive energy is a natural energy. Mars is the most obviousastrological significator for aggression and everyone is born with Mars in hisor her chart. We are all born with Mars somewhere—we are all born with innateaggressive urges. In today's seminar, I want to explore both the positive andnegative faces of aggression as they relate to the astrological chart.

Aggression is an inborn component of our biological make-up, just as the sexualdrive is an essential part of our human instinctive equipment. Sex serves a veryobvious positive purpose to humanity: we wouldn't be here without it. So whyshouldn't aggression, which is also a natural part of our biologicalinheritance, likewise serve an important evolutionary purpose? It's interestingthat Mars has traditionally been associated with both sex and aggression.Astrologers have always known this, but it was only more recently that scienceshowed the close connection between sex and aggression. Do you remember thefamous Kinsey Report that was published in the 1950's? Kinsey found a closephysiological correlation between a person in an angry state and a person in astate of sexual arousal. In fact, his study found fourteen physiological changeswhich were common to both sexual arousal and aggression, and only four whichwere different. It's fairly common that a fight with your lover can end up inan orgasm; or you can be in the middle of sex and it turns into a fight.American psychologist Clara Thomp son sums up aggression nicely:

Aggression is not necessarily destructive at all. It springs from an innatetendency to grow and master life which seems to be characteristic of all livingmatter. Only when this life force is obstructed in its development doingredients of anger, rage or hate become connected with it.

While we should try to reduce negative expressions of aggressive energy, itseems ridiculous and even unwise to try to rid ourselves entirely of a part ofour nature which is innate and wants to master life. It's true, we see theuglier forms of aggression all around us in everyday life—people are murdered,tortured and subjected to various forms of psychological cruelty. Mars canreally get out of hand. Or aggression is turned inward, attacking the self andthe body, and becomes a contributing factor in heart disease, skin problems,stomach ailments, or sexual dysfunctions. While we detest these negative formsof aggression, we must bear in mind and honour the other face of aggression—ourhealthy, natural root aggression—which is laudable, and which we must not disownif we are to survive.

So what does Mars give us? It endows us with the will to unfold more of what weare or can become. When this desire to grow, progress, and move forward isblocked (either by other parts of our own nature or by other people) it turnsangry. We want to move forward and we are frustrated if this is prevented. Angercan be understood as blocked movement.

Healthy aggression is also the positive impulse to comprehend and master theexternal world; it is a force deep down inside which provides the impetus tolearn new skills. Because of aggression in you, you can choose to attend aclass, read a book, or say "no" or "yes." If you didn't have Mars in your chartyou wouldn't be able to learn a new language, master a complicated recipe orsolve a tricky mathematical problem. Even our language indicates this: we attacka problem, we master a difficulty, we grapple with an issue, and we are awardeda master's degree. You could have a very inspired artistic imagination, but ifyou didn't have Mars in your chart you wouldn't be able to do anything aboutordering the canvases or get around to picking up the paintbrushes. Mars getsyou going—or as Dane Rudhyar once expressed it, "Mars is the force which propelsthe seed to germinate." Wherever Mars is operating in your chart is where thisform of healthy aggression can exert itself.

Early in my study of astrology, I remember watching the transits of Mars in mychart. Sometimes Mars would bring up wild behaviour, frustration, anger, bad"spots," or headaches. But at other times, Mars transits would correspond withthose days when I felt the most alive and vital, a kind of "juicy" ready-for-anythingfeeling. I remember sitting on the subway or MTA in Boston the day Marswas passing over my MC, and having a kind of peak experience—everything wasamplified, vivid, toned up and vibrant. I felt like Mars incarnate. My body wasrippling with pleasurable rushes of sensation—what in bioenergetics is called"streaming." I was pulsing; I was excited about being and doing, ready for whatcould happen next.

So you see, the whole principle of Mars is highly paradoxical. Mars impels us toact in ways which affirm our identity and purpose and yet may give rise to uglyforms of behaviour. This contrasting expression of aggressive energy is shownquite clearly in mythology when you analyse how differently the god Mars wasportrayed in Greek and Roman myth.

The Greek Ares

In Greek mythology, the god of war is called Ares. The Greeks thought verylittle of the mighty Ares. In fact, they hated him. Looked upon with a mixtureof pity, terror and scorn, his role was very limited—he was simply the god ofwar and not much else. Equated with blind courage, bloody rage and carnage, hewas considered a bully and very brutish. And yet for all his blood thirstyviolence, he was generally depicted as losing most of the battles he fought, andshown limping away defeated and humiliated from the battlefield. Poor Ares, heis constantly tripping over his...