Excerpt from ‘The Moon & You: Interpreting the Moon in the Natal Chart’

Frederic William Burton,
‘Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs’, 1864
{{PD}}

A small excerpt from my soon to be released book on Luna:

Another person’s Mars in contact with your Moon may cause conflict, even with the most positive of aspects—after all, that Martian energy can feel like an assault even if the Mars person never lays a hand on you. You were just sharing your feelings, and they get . . . angry, or maybe they immediately think your feelings are about them (the ‘I Am’ function of Mars). Here much may depend on the Mars individual’s own relationship to their Martian energies—and of course, there are positives to this pairing, too. The Mars person may get aggressive when you get emotional, but it may also be that expressing your feelings spurs the Mars individual into action; they may defend your right to your feelings, and may take steps to support your emotional health—and this could make for an unusual team-up: the Mars person may supply the action urge or leadership, while the Moon person uses the intuition and feeling nature to guide a mutual project or goal, and in doing so also guides the Mars person’s choices.

The Moon and Mars can be especially difficult in mate relationships. If the Moon is the man’s and Mars the woman’s (or, read this as the animus dominant and anima dominant in place of man and woman, respectively), she may become unreasonably aggressive when he shows emotion, as she may feel she is being forced to carry his masculine energies—that is, to be the assertive, reserved, emotionless ‘strong’ one—or, his emotional vulnerability may read as appealingly sexy to her, stimulating her interest and prompting her to approach. Her reaction depends greatly on her relationship to her own emotional make-up, especially the Mars function as it relates to sexual assertiveness; generally, the more assertive the woman is inclined to be, the less comfortable she may be with a ‘soft’, sensitive man, if she doesn’t want to be the sexual aggressor herself—that is, she may assert herself but in the end hope to meet an equal assertion, or an even more assertive force, from her partner.

Should the Moon belong to the woman and Mars to the man, we can see much the same situation flipped, with the man stimulated by the vulnerability or emotional display of the woman, or he may feel threatened by sharing of emotions (automatically believing he’ll be expected to share his feelings, too) and respond badly, becoming angry or aggressive. There is also another potential with woman’s Moon/ man’s Mars, wherein the man (animus individual) finds his sexual impetus dampened by what he perceives as a maternal vibe in the anima partner. This isn’t entirely unpalatable for him, if he is comfortable with nurturing as a part of sexuality—but if he associates it only with Mom, a sexual relationship is likely untenable, and likewise, a woman may find a man unappealing if he seems to offer nurture (when the Moon is his, and Mars is hers) rather than complementary sexual energy—it may feel to her as if, when she gets sexual, he treats her like his child!

Keep an eye out–should be ready soon!