Mars in Cancer: Grieving a Mother Wound
Back in New Jersey, I sought acupuncture treatment to help manage my addiction-level sugar cravings, which I inherited from my mother. So I wasn't nervous to reach out to a traditional Chinese medicine college in my local area that had a low-cost clinic. I was particularly interested in finding out more about my 5-element makeup as I have heard that some TCM practitioners can link your body's elemental associations without looking at your Chinese birth chart, which is reflective of the same.
Instead, I received more of what I more deeply needed. Mars is the ruler of sharp objects, such as needles, and today being Tuesday means that it is his day so it was appropriate I had an appointment for a needle-associated health treatment. Currently, he's in the beginning of an extended transit in Cancer, which is the Moon's sign of mothers and mothering. That's how I found myself surrounded by a 5-element specialized doctor who held my hand and looked deep into my eyes as she spoke to me, her intern who was also from New Jersey, and two student observers who were all very gentle and sweet as they treated my weak neck, which also comes from my maternal line.
From smelling my abdomen, the doctor determined I had a metal element, which often struggles with grief. My holistic treatment thus also involved attending to my grief, which she let me know may fluctuate this week.
As you may guess by now, I have a deep mother wound. However, I seem to be going about a broad way of tending to it. Recently my mother and I started doing better relationshipwise starting when I sent her birthday present this year a little early. This led to an hour-long catch up conversation where I was surprised to learn that she had my number saved under my chosen name instead of my birth name. She also corrected herself when she broke away from our call to converse with someone, referring to me as her child instead of her daughter. Perhaps most unexpected, she wanted to help me process my recent break up with A, which she thinks was just a best friend break up.
I always grew up feeling like I was never what my mother wanted, and not always in the way that other people may expect. My mother is defined by her athleticism and, while she's unaware of this, my transness likely comes from her family line given we share hormonal oddities. Her gender, if she could see gender beyond the binary, would probably be "tomboy" rather than woman. Her natal final depositor is a malefic in her 5th house of children while she has a Cancer Ascendant. So she is an involved mother where she can be, but also can be aloof and inconsistent, leading to complications for my brother and I. As a neurodivergent klutz with no aptitude for sports, a delayed ability to connect socially with others, and a penchant for black clothing, I was not someone she anticipated to raise.
As a result, I exist with the default sense that my true selfhood is not "correct" or "enough" for other people and that my struggles with mental health give the impression that I need help "healing." So I am easily led astray by others' attitudes that I should try to be someone else.
I do believe that at first my ex A loved me for who I am and still loves me. But she has the bad habit of mothering everyone around her, including me, instead of fostering reciprocal mature relationships. I, of course, originally loved this mothering because my own mother did not approve of my living 3000 miles away from her and didn't want to emotionally support my journey of adapting to my new home. However, seeing another person as a mother figure does not set up a healthy dynamic for friendship and later on a partnership. Instead of being equal with A, I ended up chasing her approval.
When the two of us met, we had room to grow as human beings in ways that were compatible with one another's. However, in the last few months before our break up, I could see now that A was sometimes manipulative and trying to change core parts of who I was. For months, I fretted over her pointing out that I had walls up when it came to other people and I should work on taking them down. It took 5 minutes with my autistic trans therapist, who asked me, "Do you want to take the walls down?" to realize that actually, I did not.
A would also tell me I had a tendency to "close doors" and encouraged me to open more, which was admittedly sometimes fruitful. However, it also caused me additional stress wondering if I was shutting the door on opportunities I "should" keep open. It didn't occur to me until afterward that I didn't have to worry about this; I'm frequently out and about my city, meeting new people, attending new events, and finding what works for me. As an introvert with particular taste, I have no need to open every door if my intuition tells me that I have no interest in what's behind them.
This is the difference between what Western astrology calls "benefic" and "malefic" a term usually associated with the split between Venus/Jupiter and Mars/Saturn. It's somewhat of a binary where Venus and Jupiter oversee openness, friendliness, and growth while Mars and Saturn oversee limitation, standards, and separation or shutting down. But while the associations with the benefics are seen are more positive, we need all of those planets and their expressions in order to have a diverse world. My pleasurable experience at the acupuncture clinic—even though Mars is malefic and traditionally considered "in fall" when in Cancer—proves that there are countless ways the planets can show up in the signs. Needles may bring pain, but with that pain comes necessary nourishment.
Like my parents before her—because natal/lifelong patterns are so fun—my ex did not understand nor respect that I function well with and enjoy my malefic features. She had an idea that what was "good" and "happy" was being an extrovert, having a very open sexuality, and accepting people's viewpoints without second guessing them as long as they weren't overtly harmful. My temperament ran up against what she wanted for herself and her polycule—I am an introvert, I do not like to hook up with strangers or want to date outside of the girl I am seeing, and thought A's taste in media too often was authored by white status quo materialists who celebrated colonialist ideas. Apparently, this made me "too critical." But instead of realizing I didn't fit into what she needed for her polycule, A tried to get me to change to be more like her.
Gina Devine, my former manager at the shop in NJ where I once performed divination readings, had this to say this week:
Another reason why self awareness is important: when you know yourself and you hold yourself accountable to your standards, it is much easier to know when external people, places and things actually ARE the issue...
When you are aware of your own traits and understand your own tolerance for bullshit... you can sense when it's not you, it's the environment.
When I made some space between myself and my mother, I was able to finally see that my neurodivergence was not the problem, it was the lack of tolerance for it my entire life. That while she may still see me as having terrible social skills, I know I have worked hard to refine and improve them with my own approach. My mother's image of me is not who I am.
Now, having made space between myself and A, I can embrace my sharper edges again. My critical abilities are a strength and a benefit to me. The walls I keep up allow me to recognize who I feel replenished spending time with. I can refocus my efforts toward my transition instead of having to cater to her insecurities that I am not spending enough time with her. A's image of me is not who I am.
It is from this place of reinstated selfhood that I can find true healing in both my relationship with my mother as well as my relationships with everyone else in my life. As Mars transits Cancer and then retrogrades back through the second half of the sign later this year, I pray for their help in cutting away from my environment people and ways of connecting that are toxic to me.
