Meadim / Mars |
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Traditional Meaning: Energy, force, will, desire, passion. Initiative, assertion, aggression.
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Formative Meaning: Adam immersed in the waters of existence, consciousness drowning in the
flow of life. The future as defined by our resistance/response (Dallet) to an adaptive or developmental
context. Duality: Wise-Foolish.
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In the arbitrary, "associative" language of traditional astrology, "Mars" is variously interpreted as
initiative, energy, aggression, activity and male sexuality.
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Mars is the indicator of how you express your energy or anger. It points out how you take action
and assert yourself to satisfy your inner needs as dictated by your sun-sign. This planet also has
rulership over your sexual expression and represents the type of physical man women are attracted to.
Wherever Mars is located in your chart highlights where there is the most activity in your life.
Zodiac House
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Mars represents the physical side of the native's life, and is an index of his energy, endurance,
and so on -- of his ability to carry projects through, and of the active side of his temperament.
Fred Gettings, Arkana Dictionary of Astrology, Penguin, 1990
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Mars, in its indication of initiative, provides the basic approach for any understanding,
through the horoscope, of man's day-by-day efficiency. The passing and shifting thresholds
of choice or decisions are his objective means for an impersonal disjunction of life's relations
as he encounters them. This process of an opportunistic self-act, when seen as pure convienience,
is little more than efficiency in affirmation or negation, in commencement or refusal to begin.
Neither vitality nor motivation are involved ...
... The familiar ruddy planet charts the way in which a native starts things, or the pattern of
expediency under which he releases, directs and applies force or energy of a tangible sort
in the world about him.
Mark Edmund Jones, Astrology, How and Why It Works, Aurora, 1993
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Note Jones' interesting denial of vitality and motivation, two qualities often attributed to Mars
and his focus on an adaptive initiative in the face of life's choices
("efficiency in affirmation or negation"). Contrast Rudhyar who imputes a centrifugal force and
"all forms of outwardly directed activity" to Mars.
Mars:
Function: Outer expression
Process: Emergence
Purpose: Externalization
Traditional Meaning: The principles of energy, force, will, desire and passion ... initiative, assertion
and aggression.
Humanistic Meaning:
The centrifugal forces active within experience. All forms of outwardly directed activity.
Dane Rudhyar, A Handbook for the Humanistic Astrologer, Anchor, 1974
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It seems that "Mars" has something to do with outward activity, initiative, desire and passion,
endurance and force and will and accomplishment and sexual expression and physical energy according
to the experts.
It is clear that one problem with astrology is its arbitrary associative semantics.
The planet "Mars" is a
different word
in different languages and has varying folkloric/popular
meanings in different cultures and according to different authorities. We are left with a semantic
spread so wide it has little utility for precise thought.
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What would a non-arbitrary and non-associative (where the signifier isn't free to slip over the signified)
language look like? In the language of the Qabala and the formative astrology of the Sepher Yetsira,
Mars/Meadim speaks for itself as an exquisitely eloquent example. First the letters:
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Autiot:
In Hebrew, Mars is Meadim ,
spelled
Mem-
Aleph-
Dallet-
Yod-
Mem, 40-1-4-10-40.
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It should be clear from the definitions of the individual letters that we are dealing with precisely
formulated, recursively-structured, basic abstract formative energies. Of 22 available, 4 are
used here, Aleph and Yod, Dallet and Mem, in a succinct equation that encompasses Man and his
psychological state and developmental future.
Aleph: infinite, intemporal, creative energy.
Dallet: archetypal, active, resistance.
Yod: definite, temporal, existence.
Mem: the biological matrix of passive, life-supporting, resistance.
At the level of the word, each individually-meaningful letter contributes an intrinsic energetic/structural or
formative significance (which is in turn defined by the alphabetic spelling of the individual letter: Aleph: Aleph-Lammed-Phay)
to the semantic structure of the whole. Each word has its own, often vast (as in the case of Adam) depth,
determined both by its inner structure and its related semantic linkages. With Meadim we see
the linking of: intemporal consciousness, resistance to life, man, temporal existence, the waters of life
and the east, the future and the perfection of man.
Is this an accident?
Qedem TWOT - 1988a
Phonetic Spelling Parts of Speech
keh'-dem
Definition: n m: east, antiquity, front, that which is before, aforetime
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In Meadim we find simultaneously: Adam immersed in the waters of existence
(Adam, Aleph-Dallet-Mem inside Mayim, Mem-Yod-Mem), the definition of man himself
as the biological structure capable of resisting/embodying Aleph and the future in a
psychological East defined as the perfection (Aleph becomes Qof) of Man. This
theme will be elaborated on every level in Meadim: Man, Adam, carries Aleph, intemporal
consciousness in his blood, Dam. His predicament, the conflict between the intemporal
Aleph and the temporal Yod of duration, is symbolized by his immersion in the waters
(Mayim) of biological existence. The only qualities that he can bring to the situation
of his onrushing future are wisdom and foolishness, characterized as
resistance or acceptance of possibility.
Thallet-Dallet (4) form Meadim which expresses in its two signs, Scorpio and Aries, man undergoing
and realizing, or not, his mutation.
Meadim ... brings the extraordinary pattern of the whole of human existence. In it the Aleph
(of Adam) is seen still immersed in the waters (between two Mem) which engender him. There
Aleph, who now appears in the Zodiac, is held back, blocked, entangled in a thick resistant
network in Aries and acquires intelligence and wisdom in Scorpio.
Suares, The Sepher Yetsira (Yetzirah), p.157,159
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Tarot Autiot:
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Sephirot: Mars/Meadmim is formed by Dallet (Resistance) at the 7th Sephira (indeterminate future).
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Seal: the 7th and 8th Sephirot are sealed by Hay-Yod-Waw and Hay-Waw-Yod, the axis of Life (Hay/5)
which flows from future to past.
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Formative: Dallet/Thallet (active, archetypal resistance) forms Mars/Meadim and leaves its stamp in the
center of the equation: Mem-Aleph-Dallet-Yod-Mem.
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Planet: Mars/Meadim: Adam (Aleph in Dam/blood) in the Waters (Mayim): Aleph and Yod in opposition (Dallet).
When Aleph is perfected as Qof, Adam faces his future in Qedem, the East in East of Eden and projects as
Adam Qadmon
into cosmic indetermination (Waw-Noun-final). This is a remarkable schema. The developmental future of man
is already in man, waiting to be found.
3. Your total individuality is your soul. It abides in the indeterminate plurality of universes.
Because it is alive, it is evolving. Because it is outside of time, its evolution is only the time
that you need to permit it to find you.
The Third Proposition: Chapter 29 of The Second Coming of Reb YHSHWH, by Carlo Suares, Weiser, 1994 (Carlo Suarès)
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Primary Triad: Saturn/Shabatai, Jupiter/Tsedeq and Mars/Meadim constitute the primary triad of the outer
planets. They are formed respectivly by 2/Bayt, 3/Ghimel and 4/Dallet, all single-digit archetypal-level numbers.
The first two, Bayt and Ghimel form opposite poles of the axis of existence (sealed by Yod) and could be called embodied
identity. The indeterminate future of this identity is described by the point of the triad, Dallet/Resistance,
one pole of the Hay/Life axis. Together, they are unrealized states, in contrast to the other four planets and
describe the individual's developmental course or unfolding pattern (found in astrological natal positions).
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Binomial: Mars/Meadim and Sun/Hamah: this double equation describes energy flowing from the indeterminate
(7th Sephira) to the indefinite (8th Sephira). Mars is formed by Dallet/4, an archetypal number, but the Sun is formed
by Kaf/20, an existential-level letter-number which provides the physical supports and material existence for
the life (future/past) axis.
See Planetary Binomials in the Cube of Space
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Direction: East/future: paired with its binomial West/past, receives the 7 of its Sephira
and brings it into life. Zayn/7 in Mizrah and Ayn/70 in Ma'arav reflect the flow of energy we
know as time: an indeterminate future acting on unstructured and undifferentiated energy and
a realized past of conscious and unconscious structure/containment of experience.
In the East (the future) the 7 is an archetype, in the West (the past) 70 is a reality. The East acts on 8,
the undifferentiated the West on 2, the house.
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Subjective Direction:
The stake in the game of life is represented by the principle of indetermination under the
signs of Zayn, Ayn and Noun final, which allows life to be all that it can be on every level --
archetypal, actual, cosmic -- and by the blessing of the Sabbath. That blessing was confered by the Sheen of
Shabatai at the 5th Sephirot
of Life, where it lives in the realized freedom of Ayn/70, formative of Capricorn/Ghedi, the new birth.
Cosmic indetermination is implicit in Shabatai and Rom. It becomes explicit in the freedom (Ayn)
that produces the second movement of Lama'alah, and then becomes the subject/object of the axis of Life,
East/Mizrah and West/Ma'arav where biological structures (Mem) are conditioned with a future and a past
defined in terms of the possible (Zayn/7) future evolution of consciousness (Hayt/8) at the Seventh Sephira and
the realizations (Ayn/70) that build the house (2) of our (unconscious) past at the Eighth. Note that archtypal
resistance, Dallet/4 forms the 7th, indeterminate Sephira, while realized actions (Kaf/20) contain
the energies of the unstructured 8th. See the
physical and psychological faces.
With the anatomical equations, we return to the fates of the unstructured energies, and find
Phani/Face and Hhani/Behind, complementing the realizations and achievements of the 7 and 70
of East and West with the unstructured possibilities and sum of actual probabilities of the 8 and 80
of face and behind.
We "face" our future, where possibilities (Zayn/7) interact with a pool of actual probabilites (80)
to produce, explicitly for the first time since the Reshit/Acharit of the first and second
Sephirot, the Yod/10 of existence, factual in the future and part of the unstructured energy of
the universe in the past.
In terms of the interplay of 7/70 and 8/80, in East/Face we find archetypal indetermination and
definite probability; in West/Behind we see realized possibility and unstructured potential.
The two Yod of Phani/Hhani will appear again in the next set of pairs, as existence is actually
formed in the Yamin of the Ninth Sephira (Yesod) and energy completes the circuit in the Tenth
as the existence (10) of Shem-El.
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Contrary Qualities: Hhokmah/Olet: Wisdom and Folly. The apparent choices that we make
in life can be characterized as wise or foolish. This is basically a quality of resistance/acceptance
(as Mark Edmund Jones points out above) in relation to life's possibilities, which is practically
a transliteration of the seventh sephira being sealed with Hay.
See Planetary Contraries
for issues of semantic coherency between sephira, planet and contrary quality.
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Zodiacal Environment: Toleh/Aries and 'Aqarav/Scorpio are the diurnal and noctural rulerships
of Mars. Life begins when Aries/Toleh is formed by Hay/5 (archetypal life) and it is consumated when it is formed by
Noun/50 (existential/factual life) in Scorpio. Once again, the activity of Mars/Meadim is defined by and defines life.
The zodiacal signs are passive environments for the active energies of the planets and their structures
are linked to their ruling planets as the natural homes for those energies.
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It should be clear by now that all of these words/equations exist in a complex ecology of linked categories
and related structural-energetic terms. Their structure is not arbitrary and neither is their semantic
relationship to neighboring terms (Aleph, blood, man, existence, waters of life, East, future, perfection).
The energy they are describing is one, and they are one with that energy in their exact differentiations
and interrelationships. The words and letters are obviously recursive and their relationship to larger
semantic structures appears hologrammatic when gone into in depth.
Others have placed the Sun and Venus at the 7th Sephira, in place of Mars/Meadim.
These and other variants may be analyzed for semantic integration and coherence
in the related categories.
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See:
Astrological Language in the Sepher Yetsirah for more
on Meadim.
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