In this aspect Venus acquires Mars impulsiveness, strength, ability of separation and of fighting for one’s own destiny, as well as the need of affirmation that passes through a relationship and love.
Mars tries to enter into the life of a person through this archetype and love changes like charm in passion and a wish to possess; so the impulsive part can take superiority and the conquest need can exceed that of including and accepting another. Here love is pure, instinctive and also a little rough, without too much mediation, although it has difficulty in carrying things ahead for long time, because the dimension of the speed and the transitory nature of things, along with impetuosity, are very strong weapons that also join to Venus.
love is meant like something that burns a lot of energy, but still also needs great assurances: it is a love that is often insecure, nothing is enough to put it in question and to create panic, as well as anger. It wants things completely or not at all and this makes it overwhelming or extremely destructive; it is used to express the strength of I, even if in fact it is in search of a direction, a goal and a reason to give meaning to life.
It is an adventurous love, which feeds on rushes, extraordinariness; nothing destroys it more than repetitiveness and routine, mediocrity and boredom. Therefore it cyclically needs big crises in which the binomials “love and war” – “anger and sex” keep the energy tonality high. There is a fear of getting lost in the other, the fear that, allowing itself to go too much, risks making independence disappear; nevertheless, at the same time, there is also strong need for emotions, and challenges that arise from the relationship. Seen from the outside this love has something magnetic and at times of threatening, accompanied by losing one’s head and overwhelming emotional storms.
The reason is that of leading one outside the symbiosis, fighting and finding a way towards a greater sense of individuality and of separation. Love will therefore hamper any fusion, even if there is a desire for it, almost a regret: it still will not allow Mars and will strike any state of denial of one’s own identity with his sword.
With Venus-Mars there is a need to learn to love by differing and parting from one other, and fully living the tension and the desire that drives us to the union. It is a subtle game of approach - removing what will culminate in a kind of balance between two oppositions.
There is always a great dose of pride that merges with irrationality and impulsiveness, as in Dido whom Aeneas leaves because her own destiny is called upon to complete the task of carrying out the commitment made some time previously, and kills herself after having thrown a curse at him. The dichotomy is a love – war one: it is powerful emotions that can result in sharp and excessive gestures, which are generally aimed at emotional storms and anger that cannot be managed and that are used for concluding the symbiosis phase. Everything is extreme, and in fact, passion becomes the most important thing for this way to love, which nevertheless will be instantly followed by need of get out of a condition of union and quiet, creating a new distance.
Aphrodite and Ares give way to their passion from time to time and in fact they are captured by a stratagem of her husband's: this indicates that, when loving yourself with Venus-Mars, the risk and the challenge for the world is a part of the way of referring. The subdual for the passion is intense, even if temporary; but when it hampers almost all experiences of other things, it is exclusive and total.
Mars has superiority over the ethical and rigorous part of Venus and also in regard to rational choice, leading it into a purely instinctive sphere that often involves a fast passage of love to anger, which can also become aggressiveness and brutality as well as destruction. The same anger can be aimed at those who try to “to invade the loving territory”. I would like to underline, however, the difference between this anger and that of Pluto that for example we will see in Medea's archetype: here in fact is the impetus of the anger of the moment, which is uncontrollable, in which the idea becomes acknowledged that it is better to die rather than live without the other person, it is only the exclusiveness and blinding of the Fire but there is no any strategy or revenge as in the Scorpion Medea. Everything here burns and must be worn-out; everything is fast, in of grow and in ending.
This love is equivalent to the need to assert one’s individuality, of trying it and facing it with or against the other. This love likes to fight. The aspect of challenge must be present in each relationship: a simple and linear relationship cannot interest those who possesses this aspect, because their personality is outlined defined by fighting, agreeing a truce, fighting again, and agreeing a truce again, so that the energy can perpetuate itself.
The negativity of this archetype is impulsiveness and impatience along with irrationality, as well as the tendency to experience aggressiveness in the loving dimension. The unpredictable side can make any reaction paradoxical: excessive susceptibility and too much pride, which is easily hurt.