Mars in detriment is a Mars that does not treat anger as a service performed for those who don’t deserve it.

Anger is such a vulnerable emotion. Anger is about everything that you care about and want to protect. When people see your anger, they see a plea that asks them to not harm anymore. This plea is often disguised as an attack. Anger often shows up in conflict but not always.

Conflict is a type of service that is performed to create change. Conflict does not always work because we are often bad at listening to conflict. Conflict is exhausting and starting conflict is an immense act of labor. Starting conflict leaves people vulnerable.

Mars in domicile is prepared to start conflict. Mars in domicile is a naive Mars and, in being naive, it expects the world to change for it. It is a hopeful Mars—a Mars that can imagine a world that is different.

Detriment Mars is a little different. Detriment Mars is not naive and it does not hope. Detriment Mars does not perform conflict for the benefit of an institution that thrives on so called intellectual debate. Detriment Mars keeps things to themselves and detriment Mars absolutely hates it when anyone knows that there is a way to get to them.

Taurus Mars is a master at withholding. This is not a Mars that simply tells you when it is angry at you because it cannot, for whatever reason, get rid of the assumption that you would not listen to them even if they told you what was going on. Libra Mars is a sidestepping Mars. Libra Mars tests the waters. It is perfectly capable of starting small conflicts but it is terrified of addressing the main issue.

For Taurus Mars, anger is a wall. It is a barrier and it becomes immovable except through transformation. For Libra Mars, anger is a mirror. It is held up and used to show you what it is that you most fear.

The reason that detriment Mars is actually good at conflict is because detriment Mars recognizes that starting conflict with those who have power over us usually does not end with change. Detriment Mars is a cynical Mars. Detriment Mars avoids conflicts that it knows it cannot win because it is a Mars that wants to build together, love together, and create together in opposition to violence.

This is a Mars placement that recognizes that conflicts are never resolved. Conflicts are not fights for detriment Mars. Conflict is the state, an occupation, and a social agreement. Conflicts do not erupt but are slowly maintained. Only a detriment Mars has the patience for understanding that conflict, sometimes, cannot be solved.

So, detriment shows up for you when other Mars placements fail to. Detriment Mars is capable of an immense thing, which is holding onto their anger, their care, and their love for years and years. Their anger doesn’t disappear. They do not have to be triggered into anger. Their anger is latent, powerful, and held inside their knowing bodies.

And detriment Mars does not forgive. Mars in detriment, instead, expects that anger will transform into love once violence is addressed. Mars in detriment does not expect their anger to go away as long as oppression still exists.

As long as oppression is still an ongoing project, detriment Mars expects that anger, just like all the great emotions, will be a language through which people come together and hold one another. This is a Mars that is ruled by Venus, which means that conflict is a part of how they expect relationships to flow. It means that, when a detriment Mars loves you, they love you while holding onto tension.