Mars in Libra is slippery.

There’s this assumption that people sometimes make about Mars being in its debilitation, because the signs of its debilitation tend to be warm and nurturing and wet signs, that a debilitated Mars is too nice or peaceful to have any Mars characteristics. Sometimes we hope that Mars in Libra has more to do with peace and harmony than destruction or aggression. This is not the case. Mars in Libra is still Mars.

What Mars does when it is in Libra, when it is in a sign where its characteristics are not welcome and have never been welcome, is it hides. It thwarts. It obfuscates.

You have to keep in mind that a debilitated planet is often a point of pain. What is it like to become a person whose anger is not welcome? A person whose rage exists invisible and truncated? Imagine such a person and then consider the Mars in Libra individual.

There are a lot of strategies that Mars in Libra might use to hide a conflict. If a conflict feels far too huge to bring to the surface, Mars in Libra might focus on the smaller issues and pick relentlessly at those situations without even realizing why those things seem so irritating. Mars in Libra might habitually make itself appear to be much weaker than it actually is because it has learned that the only way to survive a fight is to feign defeat. Mars in Libra might present itself to be much pickier than they actually are because they would like to have some sort of control over things when they inevitably go wrong. Other times, it can even appear as though Mars in Libra is attracted to conflict in some way because it will go where the drama is, smiling and either hoping or dreading to be put in the position of peacekeeper.

So, no—Mars in Libra is not usually a stand-on-the-table-and-scream-until-your-heart-gives-out kind of Mars. Usually. It can be but it doesn’t identify with the person they are when they become like this. It doesn’t particularly like itself when it gets like this. Mars in Libra is not one to lose control but it is one to fear losing control. Mars feels disliked when in Libra. A person with Mars in Libra may fear that being angry will mean that they lose the ability to be themselves.

Usually, Mars in Libra shows up more noticeably as anxiety than anything else. Anxiety is an emotion that does not speak clearly and this is why Mars in Libra is known to be one of those sullen Mars placements who does not cut hot but cold.

You see, Mars in Libra refuses dominance. It just doesn’t see aggression as dominant. It treats aggression as pathetic and somewhat pitiful.

You will know that Mars in Libra is angry when it suddenly goes cold, when it becomes a statue, or when it lets you go. Mars in Libra is not about to offer up its heart’s contents right away. It will become unreadable first—a stone. You might be intimidated by Mars in Libra’s chill. You will notice because it is noticeable even though it is built so that there exists an avenue for never discussing the anger at all. You know when you are iced out but you may not know what to do about it. The impetus to name the conflict, to react in anger, is on you. Mars in Libra knows that when two people are fighting and one person is red hot while another is cool to be bone, the cool one will usually appear to be the victor because they appear to have control.

Inside Mars in Libra, things are not so icy. Mars in Libra can be crowded with anxiety on the inside while still maintaining the perfect veneer of civility. They experience their own drawing away not as a sudden chill but as a tormented recoiling.

It takes an incredible amount of turmoil for a Mars in Libra to simply tell you when it is angry. When this happens, it is important to treat the admission of anger as the precious thing that it is. When Mars in Libra lets you know about their anger, they are also giving up some of the control that the rageful parts in them believe to be holding themselves together. They are letting you know that it hurts.

It isn’t easy for a Mars in Libra to let you know that something hurts. It is much easier for a Mars in Aries to do this because they will howl with pain upon receiving a wound. Mars in Libra is used to becoming an impenetrable surface and relying on the secret places that they have carved out to place all of their ugly feelings.

This is where we discover the power of Mars in Libra. Their power is the power of a Mars that only has half of its strength. It is well used to operating with its strength cut in half and it has discovered that there is plenty of life that keeps going on when one does not maintain some facile show of power.

What makes Mars in Libra so powerful is that it will only engage in conflict as a choice and never as an impulse. It will always understand that it can step away. No one can hold a Mars in Libra hostage using its anger.

There’s something powerful that happens when we understand that there is choice in conflict. What happens is that we allow ourselves time to grow. Mars in Libra understands that self disclosure does not automatically create empathy and it knows, with experience, that duking things that doesn’t usually end up with a giant group hug. It entertains no fairy tales around conflict.

When you fight with a Mars in Libra, you always learn something. There’s often this feeling of fighting with someone who is very old or mature or experienced beyond their years. Mars in Libra is experienced in conflict. They are not naive and know that things go wrong. This is because they know that space around conflict gives everyone involved the chance to grow up while the conflict is happening. They teach maturity to you by expecting it from you. They have grown up a great deal right alongside many conflicts which are both unavoidable and unresolvable.

That’s the power of Mars in Libra. They allow conflicts to age. They allow them to ferment until they’ve shown their true flavor. By then, they will have learned a thing or two about being themselves. Mars in Libra chooses to outgrow conflict instead of resolving them. The power of time is on their side.