It seems like many men are having a hard time figuring out who they are these days, and some are reverting to an old patriarchal pattern of domination, ego-centricity, and bullying, which really isn’t viable anymore. Men are getting angry that they’ve lost themselves and their power, and they’re looking for a way to find it again. Unfortunately, the more unconscious men are looking for scapegoats to carry their anger instead of looking at themselves clearly.
Some men are feeling left behind because women, who are the most abused, demeaned, and disparaged part of the human race, finally decided to find our freedom from patriarchy and its values. When you’ve been enslaved and considered irrelevant for millennia, freedom is the goal, and finding your own unique voice is the outcome.
However, women finding our freedom and our voice never meant men couldn’t find their own freedom from patriarchy. Yet, since they were part of a system where they were entitled to be on top of the hierarchy, many of them feel belittled and betrayed. They feel they’ve lost their agency as men by giving into women’s expectations of equality and shared power. Instead of finding their own freedom, they remain entrenched in patriarchy, and continue to exhibit traits of the toxic masculine.
We see this happening today with young men. They are listening to male leaders who feel they have to dominate, humiliate, and force weaker men and women into submission to feel empowered. They think ambition and money will make them strong and secure. They think it’s okay to be a misogynist, and that women should be put back in their place — in the home.
Men are no longer encouraged to become providers, respected leaders, or community pillars; instead they want to follow in the footsteps of greedy, self-absorbed tech bros, which will be a disaster for our society. Masculine power, without the power of the heart, is cruel and destructive, as we have seen throughout the ages.
Astrological Mars
The planet Mars symbolizes men and the assertive, aggressive, protecting, seeking, focused, logos/creative masculine energies of life in both men and women. We need these energies to survive and thrive. The trouble with the old patriarchal paradigm is it refuses to give precedence to the feminine energies that sustain life. And so, as you may have you noticed, we create death all around us.
Mars just turned to direct motion on February 23, 2025 after being retrograde in Cancer since December 6, 2024. This energy had us diving deeply into our original intention for incarnating here on Earth. Now that Mars is moving forward again, we can begin to act on our new/old story. Why are we here in this time of global change? What do we have to offer to the world? The divine masculine energizes our actions, while the divine feminine embodies our being.
Mars is considered the ruler of the sign of Aries. This means the energies of spring, and the fire that promotes coming back to life, are part of Mars’ purpose, as opposed to the unconscious, warlike, death culture that dominator Mars energy creates.
0° Aries is called the world point or axis, and marks the beginning of spring (in the northern hemisphere), as well as all new beginnings, new actions, new initiatives. Aries symbolizes the primal fires of life itself — the wildfires, spouting volcanoes, lightning.
And yet, while Aries and Mars are both fiery, the Sabian symbol for this 0° point is watery and feminine: A woman just risen from the sea; a seal is embracing her. The Sabian symbols are a unique set 360 images corresponding to each degree of the zodiac. The zodiac begins with this image of the new feminine rising up form the Piscean waters of the collective unconscious, and she wants to meet the new masculine, who is her mate and partner.
It’s time to leave behind dominator relationships, and enter a time of equality and balance in relationships as partners.
Over the next few months, the Sun and four planets will move over this zero point multiple times, moving back and forth from Pisces’ omega point to the Aries’ alpha point. Endings and beginnings.
Watch what you’re envisioning and creating during this summer with Saturn and Neptune in Aries. It will be the foundation of what each of us, our country and the world, will end up creating in the years ahead.
Two other planets will be crossing the omega/alpha point this year and next. On March 30, 2025, Neptune moves into Aries for the first time since February, 1862, and Saturn will move across the Aries point on May 25, 2025. They will both retrograde back into Pisces in the fall of 2025, and finally enter Aries for good in early 2026.
These two big energies won’t actually conjunct until February 20, 2026, but they come close and flirt with each other. So, watch what you’re envisioning and creating during the summer while they’re both still in Aries. It will be the foundation of what each of us, our country and the world, will end up creating in the years ahead.
Hopefully, the highest hopes and wishes of humanity will flow into these new beginnings. When Neptune, the planet of spirituality and the creative imagination, meets up with Saturn, the planet of structure and 3D reality, we can either give form to our dreams or repress them. What dreams may come into being out of this meeting? That’s up to how we each use this Mars energy to change ourselves and change the world. We can create a better world when Mars is functioning at its highest good.
The Return Of The Divine Masculine
In many ancient cultures, men were the protectors of women, children and nature. Because they honored the feminine powers of life, they followed a set of values that shaped their behaviors.
Unlike other countries where people have lived on the land for millennia, people in the United States were uprooted from an old world, and our roots sunk into the soil of the Industrial Revolution. Without these deep cultural roots, our modern society has left most of us lost in ourselves and our personal desires, set adrift from our tribes and communities.
What virtues and values do men strive for today? Our greatest need is for men to develop empathy, for themselves, for others and for our world. So many young fathers are learning this as they care for their children.
There is a story of the new masculine from a book that was very popular in the 60s when I was growing up. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein is about a man from Mars.
The story begins with the first manned expedition to Mars, including four couples. They all die except for a child born there. The Martians, who are very advanced both mentally and spiritually, raise him until another expedition arrives on Mars decades later, and the Martians let the humans take him back to Earth.
As you can imagine, a being brought up in a very psychically attuned and balanced society experiences some culture shock on Earth. Valentine Michael Smith has to learn to acclimate to a human way of being. He’s so attuned to others’ feelings it overwhelms him at first. He tries to understand who human beings essentially are, and when he senses someone is evil, he just makes them disappear. Death holds no fear for him. In fact, on Mars it is a celebration of the evolution of the soul.
As Michael becomes more human, he groks life here, meaning “to drink,” or more figuratively, “to love” and “to be one with. It means having empathy. With his amazing powers of telekinesis and mental telepathy, he opens a church to teach humans a new way of being. He helps them develop into what visionary Jean Houston calls “the possible human,” which honors the divine feminine and expresses the divine masculine. He protects his people, then leaves them with a new belief about life — empathy for all life.
What makes a man isn’t very different from what makes a woman. Once we remember we are spiritual beings having a human experience, then it’s up to us to live our values and be equal partners in this life here on our Mother Earth.
Cathy Pagano is a Jungian psychotherapist, archetypal astrologer, transformational soul coach, and author of two books on the return of the goddess: Wisdom’s Daughters: How Women Can Change the World and Aphrodite: Our Inner Venus.
Find holistic Counseling and Therapy in the Spirit of Change online Alternative Health Directory.
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