A chapter of this book:
Transits of Mars (but even Mars in the Houses of the Solar or the Lunar Return):

TRANSITS OF MARS

You should never underestimate them. One reason is that they can last for entire weeks or months. Another reason is that they can be responsible for real calamities, if they add to more intense transits. Their action is mostly maleficent. In fact, Ancient – who didn’t know the meaning of the world demagogy – called this planet the little malefic, in comparison with Saturn who was considered the great malefic. Similarly to the fever, which is always present in virtually all the diseases of the human being, Mars and Saturn stand out in virtually all the tragedies of the human being – in my opinion this says a lot about the maleficence of this planet. Therefore you had better have no illusions about it: when Mars passes over your head, at best you can exclaim, “Thanks God, I didn’t hurt myself!” But it’s a quite rare event. Try and test it! For in the overwhelming majority of cases the rule is: you have always to give something to Mars, the ruler of Aries and Scorpio. Usually, it would be wounds, tears, rifts, lacerations, blood and so on. The nature of Mars is clearly of a destructive kind, and this is exactly how it behaves. Only in extremely rare cases it may play a constructive role. Usually this happens in those situations that require determined will, and with those natives who lack of willpower. Only in these circumstances, when Mars transits over the native’s Sun or Ascendant or Moon, it is possible – and only in few rare events – that the subject may become the protagonist of a leap in which he/she takes a brave decision and becomes able to get rid of years of stagnations and slothfulness. Otherwise, Mars usually acts provoking tears, wreckage, destruction, wounds, and bleeding. There’s nothing left other than testing what I’ve just written down.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with the Sun

When Mars creates a disharmonic angle with the Sun – including conjunction – at a theoretical level you should face a positive surplus of energy that you can spend just the way you prefer. Say that you can rely on a credit of energy and that you feel as strong as never before, whishing to employ this benefit somehow. So you leave home and you see a poor man lying on the street under his own motor bicycle. He’s unable to stand up, so you may help him. By doing so, not only you would do your daily good deed, as any member of the Junior Woodchucks should do – you would also make a good use of that bonus on which you can rely. With a less imaginative example, say that you can rely on it for bearing – better than usual – the whims of your chief clerk early in the morning. You may even dare to give him/her a sharp answer, and then prepare for enjoying the usual calm for the rest of the day. On the other hand, if this transit of Mars adds to other dissonant positions in your natal chart and it also forms part of a bad Solar Return and Lunar Return, you run the risk of getting involved in an explosive situation with a final ‘deflagration’. In the given example, the final explosion may be a very bad quarrel with your chief clerk, or with a colleague or with any other collaborator in your job; or perhaps with the policeman giving you a fine, and so on. In other words, on a day like today there’s a special temperature in the air floating around you. You may get in serious troubles with the law, or with any other thing connected with what I call the ‘officially stamped paper’, including being in bad terms with your partner or with your mother-in-law. Furthermore you may also hurt yourself. This can be in a real physical meaning of the term, i.e. you may cut while shaving; you may wound while dismounting a flat tyre; you may be run over on a pedestrian crossing; or when trying to open a carton box with inappropriate cutting tools.

It is the least apt moment for urging a rise in salary. It is not the moment for trying to win over a superior, trying to behave friendly with him or her. On the contrary, you should try and exorcize this transit by performing hard but not dangerous tasks. For example it may be a very good idea to chop wood; to move pieces of furniture from one floor to another; to empty shelves and arrange the books into carton boxes; to rearrange things in your attic or in your cupboard; to arrange the folders at office… It is also a very good day for making sports, provided that it is not something dangerous. For example jogging, trekking, marathons on the ground and on the water... Also going to the dentist would suit, as well as any other sort of operation such as incisions, removal of cysts, birthmarks, tonsils, etc. If you have to undergo a clinical examination under effort, such as certain heart exams, this is the best day to do so. At most, I may say that any surgical operation is welcome during this transit, provided that you obey all the other rules given in my volume Astrologia applicata by ed. Armenia. The most important of those rules says that you should never undergo an intervention when the Moon is in the sign corresponding to the organ to be operated. For example, do not have your throat operated when the Moon is in Taurus. This day – or these days – may also be apt for a good quarrel, provided that you cannot avoid it anyway. For example, it is very apt to give somebody a piece of your mind under the square Mars-Sun. If this Mars transiting in a bad aspect with the Sun also creates any angle with Saturn, it is also a good moment for making tattoos, piercing and so on, or for having them made on your skin.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with the Moon

In the previous section we faced an objective situation. I mean, the source of conflict given by Mars-Sun may or might produce a real laceration, such as for example the wreck of a car in a traffic accident; a bone fracture; a black eye caused by a punch; and so on. While in the case of the transits Mars-Moon we are dealing, I may say, with a more ethereal dimension. It’s still a form of ‘belligerence’, but such ‘belligerence’ may remain at a stage of temper: e.g. you may nurse a grudge against somebody or you may be in a bad mood, but you may not express it, or perhaps you would express it but in the least apt forms. Sometimes you feel your blood boiling, your heart quivering with indignation, fury, and anger. You would like to declare war to the entire world and you feel ready to burst out for nothing. The great Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Young claimed that the subjective reality corresponds to the objective reality. This means that if you have war inside you, you meet war also outside you. Under this logic, at least it is convenient to invent real battles against anybody. If you wish to avoid war coming and visit you, you had better start war against somebody. It may be a neighbour, a colleague at work, a public organization, somebody who opposes our ideas, and so on. This simply means acting according to the Latin motto similia similibus curantur: like cures like, the fundamental healing principle of homeopathy. You’ll surely feel like having more ‘caffeine’ and everybody around you feels that you are ready to jump for nothing. Now, this is exactly the bottom line: do you wish to throw such an important energetic potential out of the window, or do you want to make good use of such energy by deploying it for anything that can be extremely productive for you? You cannot always rely on such an interesting determination. Therefore it is worth to try and look for the correct way to invest this stamina. Before anything else, you should direct your ‘belligerence’ against a female figure, or against any situation connected with the house (for example, quarrels with the neighbours). It is also a good period if you to get a load off your chest and preach your daughter, your sister, your mother… If you have to solve a situation by phone, you had better start your conversation like this: “I’m warning you, this is not a friendly call…” In other words, there’s no use in wearing mantles of false pacifism if your blood is boiling with indignation. So blow the trumpets and roll the drums. And if you have to shoot, shoot… There’s moment for construction and a moment for destruction. Well, this is the moment for destruction, so behave consequently. If you can, you may also carry out heavy duties at home, such as chopping wood, moving pieces of furniture, fixing the roof and so on.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with Mercury

Here we deal with two different notions: on the one hand, the idea of effort (Mars) and on the other hand, the idea of communication (travel, telecommunication, etc.). It is possible that you should start for a journey against your own will, if you wish to exorcize this transit. You might cover a long-long distance while you really wished to stay at home. Sometimes travelling is a pleasure, with a brand new and comfortable car, and with a nice weather. But if your car is old, if it doesn’t work fine; or if the bad weather conditions (say, cold and lack of visibility) make the route uneven, then your journey may become rather uncomfortable and this may be the case when you make a sacrifice for the sake of the exorcization of this transit. So this is a good thing to do during this transit. Furthermore, according to the principles detailed in this volume the more you suffer in travelling, the more you ‘discharge’ this symbol. The negativity of the journey may also be connected with the reason of your moving around: for example, you may have to take a close relative to undergo a serious surgery; and in this case, in my opinion, no further explanation is needed. Often the objective aversion towards the journey may be caused by a specific reason which makes the travel harder or even unbearable: for example, you may have to travel together with your tiresome and haunting mother-in-law. In other cases this transit may imply the repair of your car or any other vehicle: this is another good way to exorcize this transit properly. At another level, your journey may be only a virtual one. From this point of view, it may be connected with communication or telecommunication rather than a physical displacement of your body. For example, it is pleasant to browse the Internet searching for relaxing or – even better – for something to play with: but it may be less amusing to navigate on the WWW in order to carry out a precise assignment, perhaps something boring in which you can not use your creativeness, such as a repetitive job in which you may have – just to give an example – to delete a sequel of items from a list, one by one. At a similar level you may try to exorcize this transit by making efforts of fixing up your printer, your mobile phone, or your satellite receiver by yourself, without even calling a technician. You may play the technician yourself by installing a satellite dish on the roof of your house. You can also invest your strength in compliance with the symbols Mars-Mercury by dealing with a brother, a sister, a cousin, a brother-in-law… You may have to take care of one of them, for example. You’d attain the utmost from this transit if you took one of these relatives to run an errand a few hundred miles far from your own place. Last but not least, a clever trick to leave this transit may be to embark on a huge sacrifice and try to quit smoking; or withdrawing into a lonely room in order to write down a report, or to study for an important exam.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with Venus

The best way to exorcize a transit of Mars dissonant to Venus is to have se, much sex – you might ‘gorge yourself’ with sex. Mars is the synonym for strength and Venus stands for love. Hence the best way to constellate these symbols is to have much, healthy sex. This is valid regardless of the kind of transit, i.e. opposition or conjunction or square, it’s the same. It is also important ‘how’ you make love. Each pair has his own fashion of making love, but he symbolism of Mars-Venus recalls a style of making love which may be considered a little bit ‘violent’ or ‘virile’. According to this, during this transit it may a good thing to insert certain variation in your way of making love. Also quantity is important – hence it would be a useful thing to have more frequent sexual intercourses until this transit lasts. Another way in which you can exorcize, or constellate, this transit is to manage – provided that you are able to do so – the creeping tension with your partner in love. This implies having a tense relationship, but not so tense as to provoke a real crisis. When you act following the logic of exorcising transits, the most important thing is to keep always a good sense of humour, which above all allow you to consider thing ‘from the outside’, without feeling too much involved. If you follow this rule events would hardly overcome you; if you don’t, you run the risk of becoming yourself a victim of your own ploys. If during these days you were able to handle a fairly argumentative relationship, this would not harm to your love affair – on the contrary, it would precisely benefit it. Another way of constellating this transit may consist in helping your partner in carrying out heavy tasks. For example, say that your wife has to empty a whole case at office in order to allocate the files into another archive or in two-three cases. So you had better summon all your patience and go and help your wife even if this implies spending a couple of week-ends for this purpose. Or vice-versa: if you have to arrange or rearrange your tools in the garage, she should help you to do so. In a similar attempt of keeping the situation (i.e. this transit) under control, you may exaggerate and indulge in some sort of pleasure. For example you may have a special dinner with your friend, say for example a stag party, where you can indulge in intemperance and debauchery, overeating, and so on. This way you’d act perfectly according with the transit. Or, once in a lifetime, you may indulge in poker or any other gambling game – but remember to set a limit before, and then leave the game as soon as you reach the limit you had imposed to yourself. And now for something completely different: you may do your utmost for helping or giving assistance to a sister, a female cousin, or a young female friend of yours – and this has nothing to do with play and games, of course.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with Mars 

You can only ‘discharge’ this transit making use of your own brute force. You can not mistake: you should chop wood, move pieces of furniture from one room to another, perform heavy physical tasks, sweating, sweating, and sweating over and over again. Any attempt of coming to terms with the symbology of this transit is doomed to failure. Under this transit you are bound to suffering at a physical level, so the more you suffer the better. Let me be even more drastic and put it this way: if you don’t sweat, you bleed. In fact, this transit may correspond to a period in which you find yourself laying on the dentist’s armchair, who – with a drill in his hand – gives to the flaming ruler of Aries and Scorpio all that it wants. This is the aptest transit for being scalpelled, drilled, flayed, bled, and so on. You should have no doubt about it. The only thing that you should be concerned with is the ancient yet very good rule by Ptolemy: already in the second century before Christ, he suggested that you should never undergo any operation when the Moon is in the sign corresponding to the portion of body that you should heal – Taurus corresponding to the throat, Virgo the bowels, and so on. If you find no heavy tasks to carry out and no lesser or major interventions to undergo (this would sound weird, after all), you may try to exaggerate a little bit and start quarrelling with your neighbour, with your fellow creatures, even if you don’t know them personally. For example, with an ill-mannered deliveryman; an unpleasant telephone operator; the impolite assistant of a medical doctor, and so on. Instead of the heavy tasks, you may perform mechanical tasks or work with electricity, water tubes, motors, and so on. Another way of exorcising this transit is facing up situations: i.e. acting so that truth will out. Say that you feel a creeping friction in your relationship with somebody, but so far you haven’t felt like facing up this unpleasant situation with him/her because if you did so, you would have an unfriendly and disagreeable confrontation, while your nature is of a pacifist kind. But you know: there’s a time for peace and there’s a time for war – and this transit marks undoubtedly a time for war.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with Jupiter 

In this period you tend to hypertrophy and you suffer from a scarce critical sense. Your superficiality would grow consequently and you underestimate the difficulties that you have to face. Under these circumstances, prudent people would remain alone at home, doing their best to do… nothing at all. But if you did so, what would you give to Mars? Similarly to other cases, also in this case making sports may help. For example, archery would show you – and not only figuratively – how many times you can hit the bull’s eye. Under this transit something interesting happened to a friend of mine. It was during our mid-August holidays, and the event took place in one of those tourist villages in which they just organized a swimming competition. My friend took a deep breath, jumped into the water and started swimming. He was convinced to be the first but when he eventually emerged and opened his eyes, he sadly realized that everybody was before him, and that he was actually behind everybody else. This is exactly what may happen to everybody during this transit – and also losing your face in a sporting competition may help you exorcise the symbol of the transit. Otherwise you can pamper yourself with a period of controlled intemperance, such as overeating with friends, yet without ever exceeding beyond the limits imposed by decency and by rational logic. You may also indulge in little crazy expenses; for example you may resolve to buy some new garment, and in this case you’d reduce the risk to the chance of paying 100 what really costs 70. In these days you may also donate your blood: it would be a wise and socially useful thing to do. And by doing so, you’d know if your blood is OK or perhaps something may be wrong in it, especially in connection with the liver, and do something to avoid further troubles. And last, you may renounce to a little but fix amount of your budget and devote it to losing it in gambling games.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with Saturn

During these days or months you feel nastier and perhaps you really are nastier, in so far that you natal chart allows you to be a bad boy or a bad girl. During this transit you should take those decisions that you normally are unable, or refuse to take. For example you may resolve to take your aged mother to a retirement home or to an old people’s home, although this is something that anybody would hate. Yet it is something that you have to do under certain circumstances. Nonetheless this is life: there are days for enjoying and there are days for suffering. And there are days of gathering consent and other days in which people consider you to be a fierce torturer. And this is exactly the case of this transit. So if there isn’t any other possible solution, you should sacrifice this sort of lamb on the altar of Mars-Saturn: taking one of your dear old ones to the old people’s home; parting from a dog cub or a pussy cat that you could not keep at home so that you have got to give it away; taking your dear suffering pet to the vet to have it suppressed – an act of mercy that, in my opinion, should also be allowed for those men and women who are suffering in the terminal stages of their illness. That cold SS torturer who sleeps within each individual – more or less depending on each natal chart – comes out during this transit and reclaims his right to existence. Hence, this period is apt for certain particularly delicate surgical operations, such as acting yourself as a doctor and give rescue to somebody who needs help because, say, his or her leg is broken, while you are waiting for a professional assistance to arrive. On the altar of this transit you may also wish to offer a surgical intervention on your own body: it may be the meniscus, the knees in general, orthopaedic surgery, and above all – the dentist. Dentist-related suffering, their curing on the base of drilling, the laceration of the gums, their stitching up: all they are operations typically connected with the dissonance Mars-Saturn. The same can be told for demolitions. For example, if you have to demolish anything build without a planning permission, an unsteady external wall, or a former shelter for your dog and so on; but it also refers to the scrapping of cars and motor bicycles. And last if you have something unpleasant to tell to anybody, for example an unfriendly telephone call, declaring any sort of war etc. this is the right moment to do so.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with Uranus

This transit implies a sort of destructive or radically proactive energy tending to solve problems. Spurts of adrenaline seem to make all of your action ‘sparkle’. You feel absolutely unsatisfied before anything that takes a longer time to evolve or develop. In fact during this transit you may become impatient, particularly with people who ‘work’ slower than you, or who don’t understand what you say. You tend to go straight to the core of any situation; during these days you are as loyal, sincere, and genuine as ever. You had better take advantage of this situation and bang the table with your fist: for if there are days for mediating, it is also true that there are other days for making war. Everybody has got situations that need to be removed radically, without any wavering, after sought, or weakness. This transit marks exactly this kind of ‘bus stop’ in your life. So you had better summon all your bravery and make a clean-up. So get rid of old and useless ‘friends’ and any sort of dead weight, including your own mental ballast. Hold your nose and wear brand new garments. Get rid of your old taboos, obsessive manias, little fears of your being ‘a very little man’, and take a deep breath of fresh air even if this might cause you wounds. You’ll have time to put in stitches to your lacerations later on. So the best way to discharge this sort of transit is to humour your nature of these days. And your nature of these days is, more or less, coherent with your basic nature. During these days or weeks you should make efforts to be as natural as possible, even in those occasions in which being natural means being brave. At any cost you should avoid any activity usually considered dangerous, such as riding bicycles and motor bicycles; skating; skiing; driving at high speed; climbing mountains; diving from high cliffs, and so on. Nonetheless, we have to give something to Mars and Uranus. So you also had better try to go in for brave yet not really dangerous sport such as the kitesurfing. This is also a good moment if you have to undergo a little surgical operation with minimal sedation or anxiolysis. You will be also attracted by techniques and informatics; you may take advantage of this by opening the case of your desktop computer – although the successful result may not be guaranteed. This transit is also good if you have, for example, to support a relative of yours in a ‘quarrel’, for example against his/her neighbours.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with Neptune

During the transit of Mars on a dissonant angle with Neptune (including conjunction) you feel a sort of ‘mental blindness’. This means that you tend to exaggerate a notion, an ideal, a point of view, a professional practice. The dangerousness of the transit we are talking about is totally inscribed in this sort of ‘altered state of consciousness’. This leads you to behave in a way that you usually wouldn’t do – unless you have already got this aspect in your very natal chart. Those who are in a leading position of nations, countries, armies, mass movements and so on, they should be careful not to take any important decision during this transit, because otherwise their highly subjective decisions might provoke some sort of ‘holy war’, or ‘one-way fanaticism’. So this transit is not something that can be solved with some Valium or valeriana or any other anxiolytics to be taken in homeopathic doses. So what I am suggesting you to exorcize this transit is to find out some specific situation in which you may behave so blindly without being too harmful to yourself and to the others. There you could take those unique, final, extreme decisions – just like if it were the last thing you would do. For example, you may declare your resolution of quitting smoking; you may lie in bed with sedating infusions to detoxify from morphine; or you may resolve seriously to embark on a slimming cure – under the spur of this transit, all these things would lead you to exceptional results. The same if you are a victim of alcoholism or drug. At another level, you may resolve to run ten miles a day; to join a gym; to do a minimum daily quantity of push-ups. In a word, this is the season of the statements of compromise, in which you are also able to fulfil them. All of your proposals of the kind “from today onwards…” taken during this transit are bound to lead to firm and constructive actions. During these days no one can stop you: so you had better take advantage of this and jump over any sort of gap – geographical, social, or political ones. If your heart quivers with indignation for anything, for example, you may resolve to join a political party or a mass movement. Take part in environmental campaigns, for example you may join a group of volunteers cleaning up the parks and the hills of your town; or you may even take part in some ‘extreme’ actions performed y environmentalists, green activists and so on. For example you may have yourself enchained to the gates of the embassy of a country in which experimental nuclear explosions are carried out. If you have an important surgical intervention to do, or even a mere extraction of the wisdom tooth, well this is the right time to be brave and undergo any sort of torture. And if you feel so brave to take the consequences of this transit to the extremes, you may try to walk barefoot on burning coals, like certain fakirs do. And last, this is a good period for studying astrology, esotericism, parapsychology, Eastern cultures, yoga and so on.

Mars in a dissonant aspect with Pluto

When the worst and deepest energies inside you tend to emerge to the surface, you should try to channel them and keep them under strict control. I can imagine that even psychology would agree with astrology in suggesting you to go to the cinema and watch some film like Death Wish. I’m sure that it has happened to you too, to find yourself in a metro coach in the presence of a gang, a group of hooligans, drifters behaving in a clearly criminal way. You know, those dropouts that start singing in chorus obscene songs; but they go further and beat the passengers, spit on them, perhaps they even rob them. In moments like this, the civilized part of you (the Dr. Jekyll) feels uncomfortable, but at most it switches on the mobile phone and calls the police. But during a dissonant transit of Mars with Pluto – including conjunction – the other half of you, the Mr. Hyde emerges and you’d like to shoot with a Magnum or any other gun, just like the cops in the American films. This is why I suggest you to go to the cinema and watch that film with Charles Bronson shooting at the head of hooligans. This is certainly not a masterpiece of culture, but by watching this sort of films you could sublimate all of your destructive strength. It would be him, the killing vigilante who does the real thing – not you. So you’d be happy that the crime rate is dropping and that somebody is doing something about crime, but you won’t pay the consequences of your imaginary self-made justice. Somebody, of those who love demagogy, would claim that violence is violence in any case, and that violence produces violence. But I don’t believe in allopathy, I prefer homeopathy – similia similibus curantur: like cures like. On the other hand I am suggesting this to adult people who are supposed to be perfectly able to discriminate between reality and invention while watching films like Pulp Fiction. During this transit also your sexual impulse might improve not only in quantity but also in quality; and you may be led to do something ‘weird’, strange, morbid. And if you partner agreed, you’d be able to have unusual experiences in this field. Since this transit also implies a wave of wrath, you may channel it to spoil the friendship between you and somebody that you don’t like anymore; or to give a sharp answer to your boss; perhaps to resign after a quarrel. There are days for constructions and days for destruction: these are the days for demolition.

Transit Mars in the First House

This transit takes place approximately every two years. It usually last a couple of months. Keep in mind though, that if the planet becomes retrograde and then it reverts to direct motion again, this transit might last five or six months. This transit gives you an extraordinary stamina; you can behave like if you had taken dozens of cups of coffee; you feel like moving without gravity, like if you were walking on the Moon. Of course such a surplus of energy must be channelled carefully; otherwise it can provoke real disasters. Those who generally lack of a strong willpower may feel the thrill of being able to take brave decisions on the spur of the moment. On the contrary, those whose basic nature is strong and volitional should make use of particular tactics. My first suggestion is to go to the dentist. I am confident that Mars would appreciate those nightmare-like drilling, scalpelling, root lapping, and bleeding that the dentist’s care might imply. Given that everybody has to visit the dentist on a regular basis, you had better go there when Mars is transiting in your 1^st, 6^th, or 12^th House. In those periods you should also concentrate, if possible, any other lesser or major surgical intervention: such as incisions, haemorrhoids, removal of cysts, birthmarks, tonsils, etc. If you really have nothing to offer from this point of view, then you had better devote yourself to a massive sporting activity. The more you go in for sport in this period the better you discharge this transit, and the safer you can feel. If you don’t feel like going in for sport, or if you aren’t accustomed to carry out physical efforts, then proceed gradually, starting with jogging in the woods or on the shore early in the morning. You may also devote some time to the gym. If you are really lazy you may avoid joining a gym club and do it at home. You may buy a rowing machine or a stationary bicycle, or you may simply do push-ups on the carpet. As Woody Allen would say, you may also ‘sweat in the sheets’: i.e. an increased sexual activity would discharge this transit very, very well. And if you have got to move pieces of furniture; to empty shelves and rearrange your book collection; to carry out any sort of huge, heavy tasks – well this is the perfect time to do so. Don’t you have any heavy task to carry out? Then create them, or help you friends and relatives who are just moving; or help them rearrange the garage or the attic or any other thing like this. Of course you should avoid the most dangerous tasks such as cutting or sawing wood, otherwise you may run the risk of wounding yourself.

Transit Mars in the Second House

During this transit you stand the chance of having a little but intense haemorrhage of money. In this case it may not be enough to suggest you to be generically careful, to keep alert. You had better try and rule over the symbol, i.e. ‘exorcise’ it at your best, channelling it in a way that may be even advantageous to you. To do so you should do your utmost to increase the income of your own personal finance or of the family budget. If possible, accept a second job. This may be a temporary activity and it may last only until this transit lasts. Depending on your field of expertise, you should try to make extra money from giving consultancies, private classes, working as a freelance translator, and so on. So buy the local papers of classified ads and something useful will surely occur to you. For example, you might also earn from selling an old piece of furniture. If there’s a chance to work overtime in your company, do so as much as you can during this transit. Perhaps you have never considered getting into high finance and you simply spare your money by leaving it sleeping in a current account? Well, during this transit you might study for days, for weeks, trying a solution for earning more by investing your money in something more productive yet safe; for example you may buy a state bond or transfer your money to another account granting a higher rate of interest. Or on the contrary, if you have to make expenses and you cannot avoid it, then spend your money exactly during this transit. Buy anything – tools, garment, whatever – provided that meets somehow the symbols implied in this transit. Remember that if you don’t do so, you run the risk of losing that money anyway – for example you might be robbed. At another level you had better enhance your physical aspect: so go to the hairstylist, to the barber, to cosmetologists, beauticians, tailors, and whomever can help you improve your looking. Another valid way of exorcising this symbol may be having a little incision made on your body: e.g. to remove a birthmark or a cyst or any other blemish on your skin. You may also invest more time than usual in visiting shops in search for better pieces of garment. This can also apply to any tools connected with the notion of ‘image’. Thus you may learn to use a complex software of CAD; study photography; buy a larger monitor, and so on.

Transit Mars in the Third House

During this transit it is a wise thing to become a commuter, or if you already are, increase your daily commuting. This may be connected with an actual need or a changed situation, such as taking your kids to a farther school or your assignment to another branch of your company - but you might also be able to create such a situation of commuting deliberately. In the latter case you may grasp many different occasions. for example you may resolve to assist a course on Shiatsu at the other end of the town; join a gym club far from home; meet a group of friends after work; and so on. The bottom line is: let it be a larger commuting, a longer way to pass every day. The same if you make it by foot or by car or tramway or train. Each symbol should be ‘weighed’ in comparison with the individual who wish to constellate it: therefore the distances involved may depend on the natal chart of he, or she, to whom the transit refers. For example, for a native Cancer who spends a lot of time at home, it may be enough a distance of a few blocks; while for an extremely mobile Gemini the distance should involve dozens, if not thousands of miles. During this period it would be useful to spend also resources, energy, and money to take care of your car from the technical, mechanical and esthetical point of view: So go and visit more often your carwash, your tyre repairer; your auto-body repairer; your mechanic… And if you are so smart to be able to put your own hands in your car, even better! Roll up your sleeves and spend several hours of Saturdays and Sundays with a wrench. At another lever, the transit may be efficiently discharged by diving yourself into a deep study, for leisure or necessity. In the latter case you may get ready for a contest or an exam at university. In both cases the transit gives you the required energy. You may also try and invest your passion in learning a new software programme; studying o reading a book of your favourite author; you may also take benefit in assisting courses, lessons, seminars, lectures. Moreover, you had better intensify your communication – especially the written ones – via Internet or telephone, although you may run the risk of getting quite high bills if you don’t pay a flat fee. If you are engaged at a cultural level, grasp the chance and write some important chapter for your next book; or the text of an article, a lecture, an essay... If you had to swallow a bitter pill because of your brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law during this transit you have the chance of getting it out off your chest and giving them a piece of your mind. Last, you may take a strong compromise and quit smoking, if you are a smoker.

Transit Mars in the Fourth House

During this transit you have certainly to carry out some work at home. You may do it yourself or have it done by an expert. You may rearrange the whole house or simply have your bathroom repainted. In any case you should spend efforts, compromise and suffering. The discomforts caused by coming home and finding dust and sand everywhere, up into your sheets; or finding a lime of scuttle left on your best armchair, they should be enough to discharge this symbol properly. If you are smart enough in doing-it-yourself you may spend all of the week-ends of this transit in painting walls and mounting shelves. The bottom line is that you should channel as much stamina and money as you can in this sort of things. These weeks or months are a favourable span of time for you to have a new heating system mounted; or new tiles in your bathroom; or any other lesser or major fixing or renovating or refurbishing job that your place may need from time to time. The same may also refer to you office, your workshop, your atelier, your shop, your laboratory, your working space whatever it is. The notion of making efforts aimed at your home or house may also refer to a different layout of the furniture, which may be achieved by physical tasks; or simply mounting news curtains, which is a much lighter job. Gardening may also attain to the symbology we are talking about. You may constellate it also by applying for a mortgage loan and start paying instalments for the purchase of a flat. More precisely speaking, this implies all those direct and indirect expenses relevant to your house or flat, including insurance or the payment of inheritance tax which you may deliberately try to postpone or anticipate so that it takes places exactly during this transit. Furthermore it would be a good thing to deal more with your parents, to take more care for them: go and visit them more often; take them with you on holiday; assist them in a therapy; take them to hospital if they need it, and so on. I can say that this transit can be discharged quite fairly by upgrading the hard-disk of your personal computer. This seems to be an easy task, but it may be difficult even for an expert technician and it often implies days of reinstalling your favourite software, applications, drivers etc. one by one. But if you do so you may avoid the bad surprise of having your computer infected by a virus, which in certain cases can be solved only by reformatting all of your drives.

Transit Mars in the Fifth House

The ideal would be to sport – to sport very much. If you are already a sportsman or a sportswoman you may simply intensify your activity. If you are not, you had better move somehow: play tennis, dive, swim, and run, make gymnastic at home or in a gym club. Sports are surely the right activity to discharge this transit in the best way. Yet the Fifth House also refers to anything that may be defined playful and recreational – so dance may be suitable as wall, since it is a sort of ‘sport’ that one can perform at any age, it is only good for blood circulation, provided that you don’t exaggerate – and by the way, exaggerating hurts whatever you do. The 5^th House of the natal chart also refers to love. So in order to tame the transiting Mart claiming for its rights, you can also have a more intense sexual activity, or simply meet you partner more frequently. And remember: if you don’t discharge this transit you run the risk of falling into temptation and start frequenting quire dangerous places such as casinos, where the harmful suggestions of the rules of Aries and Scorpio might lead you to spend and losse quite consistent amounts of money. While if you guide this Mars at your best, it may lead you to learn a new sporting activity, such as bridge or chess – you can sweat and loose weight also by playing bridge or chess. These months favour also the practice of teaching. So if you are a teacher or if you are asked to do a seminar, you should try and concentrate it during this transit. You should also make more efforts in connection with your beloved ones, your partner, you kids: for example, for their medicines, for their spirit. Try and demonstrate in a tangible way how much you care for them. This is also a good time for going to holiday in one of those resorts where the animators don’t leave you in peace but make you work even harder than you normally do at work.

Transit Mars in the Sixth House

With this transit, it’s a matter of warding off a stronger blow. Whether it expresses itself in your job (i.e. in your relationship within your working environment) or in your health, this is a rather treacherous transit. In the first case, you had better give it vent by giving a piece of your mind to, say, a colleague whom you can’t stand any longer. If you have to quarrel, this is the aptest moment. Certain interpersonal rapports in your working environment can last up to certain point – not forever. At most, during these days you can try and accept harder physical tasks: for example, reallocate the files from one case to another; move huge bulks of heavy folders; do-it-yourself and move pieces of furniture even if those tasks do not fall within your competence. As far as health is concerned, the dentist is always the best solution: as much ‘drilling’ as possible and you’ll avoid more serious troubles. So visit the dentist as often as possible and ask him to undergo a deep cleaning of your teeth, implying the cutting of your gum and a profound removal of the tartar (this technique is called root lapping). If you are a woman, you may find benefit in an extra visit to the gynaecologist, who might find out some little wound to be cicatrized with an electrosurgical knife. Everybody would find benefit also in chiropractic: hands up those who haven’t got any little pain in the bones… Nonetheless, with a transit like this – which in certain cases may last up to several months – one cannot underestimate the problem. So it would be a wise thing to put into effect all those things that I have gathered under the term of ‘a prosthetic technique’ in another section of this volume. In other words, during this transit it would not be enough to simply act according to the homeopathic principle similia similibus curantur – before anything else you should prevent, and only then combat using certain opposites. I give a few examples. Those who suffer from chronic gastric diseases know it very well: at any change of season their acid secretion grows; and as a consequence, also their disturbances also grow, making it possible the risk of gastric ulcer. So, as this transit approaches – I mean, already when Mars gets closer to the cusp of the 6^th House – you should ask your doctor to prescribe you ranitidine or other similar compounds; stop drinking coffee; stop taking any other substance that may hurt your stomach, such as orange or lemon juice, spirits, and so on. Similarly, those who suffer from cervical arthrosis would start going out wearing a wooden scarf and a hat; sleeping with an electric heating-pad in their pillow; adopting all those precautions that any patient like them knows very well. In other words, you have to defend rather than attack, for this is a really bad transit and if it happens together with other bad transits, it may imply a very critical period for you. So if you don’t want to become its victim, avoid the underestimation of this transit and take all the required steps against it. Above all, remember that during these weeks you’ll get all the relapses of the troubles from which you suffer periodically. Of course, if you have to undergo surgery, this is the time to do so, always keeping in due consideration the general astrological rules that refer to any operation; namely, that you shall not undergo an operation when the Moon is in the sign connected with the organ to be operated. Furthermore you should not forget that when Mars passes through your 1^st, 6^th, or 12^th House as well as in any other particularly negative situation, if possible it is a good thing to observe a total, therapeutic fast. If you cannot, a partial fast also may suit. Eat as little as possible – a small cup of hot clear soup; a few chestnut to fill your stomach; very little bread and cheese, or fresh fruit. Through total fast or a frugal diet it is possible to overcome safely a good part of the aggressions of Mars. This is also valid in general, so you can follow this behavioural direction also in presence of other ‘malefic’ celestials.

Transit Mars in the Seventh House

Unlike the previous situation, here you have absolutely to attack: the harder you attack the less you’ll be attacked. So you should do your best to develop many little battles – or one single war, but be an important one. This may or may not imply legal stuff, i.e. your war may also take place before a court, but it may also have absolutely nothing to do with lawyers, attorneys, or judges. For example you might pick up the phone and call your neighbour to complain against his doggy making poo-poo just before your own door. You may also join a residents’ meeting and start fighting for your rights before each of them. If somebody owes you money, you may also ask for legal assistance to have your money back. And if you really think that you’ve got nothing to quarrel with anybody (in which case I dare say that you… live on Mars), you can always create or invent occasions of battling: for example you may take part – at least during these weeks – to actions of environmental activists, animal welfare, and so on. Also having yourself enchained to the gates of the embassy of a country in which experimental nuclear explosions are carried out may be quite useful to discharge this transit. You may also invent or hype a dispute with a newspaper or a magazine, by writing tons of letters to them showing your indignation for one or another subject. So join meetings, protest rallies, public debates, any sort of popular happening. If you are so shy to be unable to speak in public, you may always ask a legal representative to act for you. The golden rule is: the more you produce war, the less damage you suffer from this transit. Ironically, sports may help you. So join a club and make karate or boxing. By giving kicks and punches to an opponent – either for hunger or for sport – you’ll be able to discharge this symbol partly or completely. In my experience I have noticed that I have explained these things several times to those who asked for my counselling, yet very few of them took me at my word. An honest and respected professional, a very good man, did not start any sort of battle or struggle or quarrel against anybody during this transit. One day two young men waited for him before his consulting room; when they saw him they simply asked for a confirmation of his identity; then they assaulted him with kicks and punches. The professional never understood who ordered them to do so. Remember that during this transit you may have your driving licence confiscated; you may undergo the control of a custom officer; you may be interrogated by a judge; you may suffer from little or serious legal troubles. So the only way, let me stress it once again, is to invent wars, and attack, attack, and attack once again. The more you attack the less you’ll be victim of attacks. In this case, this rule proves true and works very well.

Transit Mars in the Eighth House

Before anything else, you have to administrate a series of controlled expenses. Since you cannot avoid expenses during this transit, the idea of not spending anything is not really advisable. It is much better starting with anticipation, say when Mars is still in the 7^th House: then you should start scheduling your future expenses so that you spend the money exactly when Mars is in the 8^th House. In other terms, it is really advisable to postpone, if possible, your expenses when Mars is in the 6^th and 7^th House, and then, when it enters the 8^th House, you can buy all the things you had programmed. This way you produce that outgoing flow of money that this transit requires. Willing or not, you’ll have to spend during this transit, so the clever action consists in spending well. What you have to avoid and ban at any cost is any sort of speculations and games. If you usually play, you had better spend more money for your house or for a holiday rather than wasting money in lotteries or bingos. In other words, if you really wish to ward off the sinister blows that the celestials may bring to you during this transit, you should learn to programme – and to programme with due anticipation. If during the year you have to have something fixed at home; if you have to buy some electrical household appliance or a new car – you simply have to postpone the event until Mars reaches your natal 8^th House. In other words, concentrate your expenses in those weeks or months. The same applies if you have to pay certain bills, such as the dentist’s bill, or the psychologist’s bill, or the bill for the lessons of piano for your son. In a word: spend, spend and spend once again. But – only spend for useful things, for things that you cannot avoid. Furthermore, it is possible that during these months you may have to face legal controversies in connection with disputed inheritance or taxes, with the assistance of a lawyer or your bookkeeper. If this didn’t happen in a natural way, but you judge that it may happen, you had better provoke such a situation. At another level, you may increase your sexual activity; considering the symbols involved in this transit, this should happen quite naturally.

Transit Mars in the Ninth House

The time has arrived for you to make that journey that you have postponed so far, because you do not see it as a holiday. It may be a displacement for job, for study or to undergo a therapy – so be strong and resolve to leave at least. The longer and more tiring is the travel, the better you discharge this Mars in the 9^th House. According to the notion of exorcism of symbols, the deal would be to go very far away to undergo surgery, incision, perhaps an aesthetical operation. I know people that don’t trust Italian dentists and they travel periodically to Switzerland to be cured there; they also claim to spend less then here in Italy. And this is exactly what you should do in order to oppose safely this transit. On the other hand, this transit usually takes place every second year and it would be a little bit to wait for this transit to happen until your next visit to a foreign dentist. So what you could do instead is covering a distance of two-three hundred miles to run a particularly annoying errand: for example, visiting some bureaucratic machine in the capital. Or you may travel in order to visit and/or take care of a relative who lives far away. Or you may resolve to take a plane and struggle with the chief officer of your company in order to attain better working conditions. The bottom line is that you should move against your own will, or in order to perform actions that you dislike. Mars in the 9^th House might also be discharged by going in for sports – yet in this case you had better beware of possible accidents, so only go in for the least dangerous sports such as swimming or gymnastic. At a mental level, the ideal would be to learn a new language, or improving your skill in a language that you already know. This may also refer to programming languages. Hence you may also spend these weeks or months in learning how to use and make profit from a new software package. It would also be a wise thing to channel this particular sort of libido into the so-called ‘superior’ studies, meaning in this case all the disciplines that go far beyond your daily life: history of religions, Eastern cultures, Zen, yoga, astrology, parapsychology, esotericism, philosophy, analytic psychology and so on. And last, also dealing much (or more than usual) with animals (possibly your own pets) would also be useful to discharge this transit.

Transit Mars in the Tenth House

Under this transit it’s a matter of upgrading, i.e. enhancing your social and/or professional position, or more generally speaking – achieving a better emancipation. If you are a young woman you may insist and have your boyfriend engage and eventually make arrangements for your marriage; if you are a clerk you may relentlessly apply for better positions; if you are a teenager you may ask your parents the permission of going out with friends and coming back home later at night. You may also engage a sort of competition with yourself as well. So you may study harder; learn something new; get more expert and proficient in your job; computerize your activity; produce more; or enlarge the area in which your product is sold. In any case you’d have to work harder for your prestige, particularly at a social and professional level. For example you may pick up the phone and call twenty different persons asking for their vote in a local election in which you are a candidate. Only be careful not to mix up job or prestige with money: they are two completely different worlds. Cutting your umbilical cord may be another way of expressing the spirit of the efforts required to you by this transit. You may get rid of your chains also by quitting smoking; stopping and resolving a long-lasting therapy of deep analysis; making efforts and channel energies to stop taking a pill that you might consider unavoidable, while it only causes you harm with its collateral effects. A good way to exorcise Mars in your 10^th House may also consist in working until late. Do not forget that the natal 10^th House also refer to your mother; so if you wish to avoid quarrels and troubles with her, you had better do your utmost for her during this transit. For example go and visit her more often; take her to the doctor; take her to the blood test; simply devote more time to her. In other words, show her in practice how much you care; she who has spent a whole life in making sacrifices for you deserves that you make sacrifices for her form time to time.

Transit Mars in the Eleventh House

It is very easy to discharge this transit if you are a musician: simply play and play. If you usually play much, well – play more then. If you don’t play any instrument you may start learning, although it is clear that not everyone can afford such an ambitious project, also considering that this transit takes place every second year. So you must do something else. The most logical thing to do during this transit is to deal more with your friends; devote more time to them; spend energy for them; give them your help and support; show them that friendship is not merely a nice word for you. Since transits never arrive by chance, you can be sure that during these months one of your friends will surely need your help: so just give him (or her) a hand if you only can. Otherwise, at the very least you should expect that this transit will cause hostilities from your friends. Mars transiting in the 11^th House may also imply many efforts in making projects, and this doesn’t mean wasting time in staring at the infinite, lost in fancies. No, making projects means, for example, taking steps to change your job; write and send resumes; preparing a list of recipients to whom you’ll send the catalogue of your products or services... At the same time you may also trying to obtain the assistance or support or sponsor of important individuals who might give you a hand. While Mars is in you 11^th House you should knock at as many doors as possible. You have to understand that those doors won’t open as easy as when Jupiter passes through your 11^th House; so you know that you’ll have to knock stronger and louder, if you wish to achieve your goals. Last but not least, you may also live this transit by making practical efforts to make friends with new people; for example you may volunteer in cleaning up the parks of your town, or join the Red Cross, or Caritas.

Transit Mars in the Twelfth House

This transit implies a scenario similar to that of the passage through the 1^st and the 6^th House. So you should behave keeping in mind that you have to give as much as possible to the planet of war, wounds, and troubles in general. The more you give of your own free will, the less you run the risk of Mars choosing the brick falling onto your head. Be clear that you may have this transit forty times during your entire life, and not always happens anything serious. But if this transit takes places together with other negative transits of the slower planets such as Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto – and if the whole scenario involves an overall negative situation – then you really can run serious risks. So, in the majority of cases you’ll simply have to do with less importance events; nonetheless they might keep you concerned for weeks, and you might be able to overcome or avoid them if you only succeeded in discharging this transit well enough. As I always do in these cases, once again I suggest you to be visited by a dentist or a surgeon: more than anybody else, it’s them who might exorcise this transit at best. On the other hand, you may not really need surgical help during these few months. So if you really wish to act accordingly to the symbol implied in this House, you should be hostile with your ‘pseudo-hidden’ enemies. I say ‘pseudo’ hidden ones, because if they were really hidden you wouldn’t even know about them. No, I mean those people who bury their head in the sand after having done something evil against you, so that you can easily understand who did it. Unlike their way of behaving, you had better act directly, bravely and openly against them. In this period, facing directly those who hate you may help discharge this transit. So speak aloud if you need, and let them know that it is not your intention to suffer passively any longer. At another level you may enhance your concentration of strength and energy and channel them in esoteric researches, or in search of anything that is – somehow and in the broadest meaning of this term – hidden. For example, if you suspect that your beloved one betrays you, this is the best moment to investigate: you may do it yourself or charge a private eye who will be able to do it more professionally by placing electronic bugs or shadowing your partner. If you belong to that group of people who love helping the mankind, you might also join associations of volunteers who give assistance to those in the need.