Become Active in Your Life: Mars Magic, Desire, and the Power to Act | The Seven, Episode 23
In Episode 23 of The Seven: Living with the Planets, Lucy Baldwin explores Mars magic, desire, action, discipline, anger, ambition, and the spiritual danger of becoming passive in your own life.
Mars is often rejected in spiritual spaces.
It can be associated with domination, aggression, conflict, productivity obsession, force, and violence.
But those are distorted expressions of Mars.
Healthy Mars is something else.
Healthy Mars is desire in motion.
The sword that cuts through avoidance.
The fire that gets you up.
The arrow pointed toward what you want.
The force that helps you act, pursue, protect, initiate, and keep going.
Mars magic helps you become active in your life.
Not by tying your worth to productivity.
Not by bypassing your emotions.
Not by becoming harsh or domineering.
But by reclaiming the clean, direct, fiery part of you that can want, move, fight, choose, and act.
Watch or listen to Episode 23 of The Seven here:
Key Takeaways
In this episode, Lucy explores:
Mars magic as desire in motion
why many spiritual people reject Mars
the difference between healthy Mars and distorted Mars
how passivity can become spiritualized
why intense desire, anger, ambition, and lust are not inherently bad
Mars as the sword that cuts through avoidance and confusion
the relationship between desire, discipline, and action
how Mars helps you stop spiraling and start moving
why your worth is not based on productivity
the importance of non-negotiable daily actions
exercise, movement, and physical challenge as Mars practices
how Mars builds capacity, resilience, and anti-fragility
Mars Is Desire in Motion
Mars burns with desire.
Not polite preference.
Not vague wishing.
Not “maybe someday.”
Mars wants.
Mars moves.
Mars pursues.
Mars points the sword toward something and goes.
This is one of the reasons Mars can feel uncomfortable. Desire is intense. Desire can feel dangerous. Desire can bring up fear of greed, selfishness, conflict, rejection, domination, or failure.
But without desire, nothing moves.
Mars is the force that turns wanting into action.
It is not enough to know what you want.
At some point, you have to move toward it.
Why Spiritual People Reject Mars
A lot of spiritual people are uncomfortable with Mars.
Peace, love, compassion, surrender, softness, receptivity, and emotional healing are often treated as more spiritual than action, anger, ambition, discipline, or conflict.
There is good reason to be wary of distorted Mars.
Domination is real.
Abuse is real.
Productivity culture is real.
Violence is real.
But rejecting Mars entirely does not create peace.
It often creates passivity, resentment, confusion, impotence, and the inability to act on behalf of what you actually care about.
A life without Mars can become a life where desire has no legs.
Distorted Mars vs Healthy Mars
Distorted Mars is domination.
Abuse.
Impulse.
Destruction.
Reactivity.
Cruelty.
Productivity as self-worth.
Conflict for its own sake.
Healthy Mars is different.
Healthy Mars is clean.
Clear.
Direct.
Protective.
Focused.
Courageous.
Alive.
Healthy Mars knows what it wants and moves toward it.
Healthy Mars sets boundaries.
Healthy Mars fights for what matters.
Healthy Mars acts without needing to destroy.
Mars is not the problem.
Unintegrated Mars is the problem.
Mars Cuts Through the Bullshit
Mars is the sword.
Sometimes you need a sword.
You need something that cuts through the fog, the excuses, the loops, the overthinking, and the self-protective stories.
Mars says:
Get up.
Do the thing.
Take the step.
Make the call.
Say the truth.
Move your body.
Stop waiting for perfect clarity.
There is a place for feeling.
There is a place for analysis.
There is a place for tenderness.
But if you never act, nothing changes.
Mars gives the force to begin.
Desire Gives You an Arrow
Desire is not a moral failure.
Desire is an organizing principle.
It gives your energy somewhere to go.
It gives you an arrow.
When you are disconnected from desire, life can become murky.
You may think endlessly.
Feel endlessly.
Analyze endlessly.
But without a clear want, the energy diffuses.
Mars helps you ask:
What do I want?
What am I fighting for?
What direction is my energy moving?
What do I care enough to pursue?
That clarity is powerful.
Mars and Boundaries
Mars is deeply connected to boundaries.
A boundary is not only a soft inner preference.
Sometimes a boundary has teeth.
Sometimes a boundary requires saying no.
Sometimes it requires leaving.
Sometimes it requires naming what is happening.
Sometimes it requires protecting your time, body, family, work, energy, or mission.
Mars helps you stop confusing love with self-erasure.
A healthy Mars can say:
This is mine.
This is not acceptable.
This is what I want.
This is what I will do.
This is where I stand.
Mars and Productivity Culture
Mars becomes distorted when productivity is tied to worth.
Your value does not come from how much you do.
Your value does not come from how much money you make.
Your value does not come from beauty, generosity, spirituality, usefulness, discipline, or achievement.
Your value is intrinsic.
You are worthy because you exist.
This matters because once worth is decoupled from productivity, action becomes cleaner.
You can act because you desire.
You can act because you care.
You can act because you have a mission.
Not because you are trying to earn the right to exist.
The Spiritual Trap of Passivity
Sometimes passivity wears spiritual clothing.
It can sound like surrender.
Flow.
Trust.
Compassion.
Non-attachment.
But sometimes what we call surrender is actually fear.
Sometimes what we call flow is avoidance.
Sometimes what we call peace is conflict avoidance.
Sometimes what we call receptivity is helplessness.
Mars helps restore discernment.
There is a time to surrender.
And there is a time to act.
There is a time to receive.
And there is a time to pursue.
There is a time to feel.
And there is a time to move.
Mars Helps You Stop Spiraling
Mars can be medicine for mental and emotional spirals.
When you are caught in overthinking, self-pity, anxiety, grief, confusion, or looping analysis, action can break the spell.
Not because feelings do not matter.
They do.
Not because you should bypass pain.
You should not.
But sometimes doing the thing reminds you:
I can.
I can move.
I can show up.
I can keep going.
I am not only this feeling.
I am not only this thought loop.
Mars gives you proof through action.
Feel Your Feelings and Do Your Duty
A balanced Mars does not say:
Ignore your emotions.
It says:
Feel your emotions, and do not let them rule your entire life.
There is wisdom in honoring grief, anger, sadness, fear, and exhaustion.
There is also wisdom in showing up anyway.
Doing the non-negotiable thing.
Taking care of the body.
Going for the walk.
Making the meal.
Sending the email.
Keeping the promise.
You do not have to feel perfect before you act.
Sometimes action is what helps you return to yourself.
Non-Negotiables as Mars Practice
Mars loves non-negotiables.
Not because you are worthless if you miss them.
Because non-negotiables build power.
They create a spine.
They cut through the argument.
Instead of deciding every day whether you feel like doing the thing, you decide once.
Every day I walk.
Every day I stretch.
Every day I write.
Every day I move my body.
Every day I take the next step toward my mission.
A non-negotiable is a Mars container.
It gives the fire somewhere to go.
Mars and Capacity
Mars builds capacity.
The capacity to keep going.
The capacity to act while uncomfortable.
The capacity to hold your center.
The capacity to take the next step while sad, scared, tired, or uncertain.
This is not about becoming numb.
It is about becoming less fragile.
Mars teaches anti-fragility.
You discover that you are not destroyed by effort.
You are not destroyed by discomfort.
You are not destroyed by action.
You can experience intensity and still move.
Mars and the Body
A very simple way to work with Mars is through the body.
Exercise.
Walk.
Run.
Lift.
Dance.
Stretch.
Train.
Sweat.
Take a cold shower.
Do something physical that asks you to engage your will.
Mars is not interested in endless analysis about the body.
Mars wants movement.
Physical action helps awaken the Mars current because it brings heat, force, discipline, and immediacy into your field.
You do not need to overdo it.
You do not need to punish yourself.
You can simply move a little more than you usually do, and dedicate the action to Mars.
Mars and the Mission
Mars asks:
What is your mission?
What are you here to do?
What are you fighting for?
What are you protecting?
What are you pursuing?
The answer does not have to be grand.
Your mission might be raising your children.
Keeping your job.
Building your body.
Protecting your peace.
Creating your work.
Finding your mission.
Getting through this season with dignity.
Mars does not require your life to look impressive.
Mars asks you to be active in it.
Mars and Healthy Masculine Energy
Mars is traditionally masculine, though everyone has access to Mars.
Healthy masculine energy is not domination.
It is not abuse.
It is not emotional suppression.
It is clean.
Clear.
Direct.
Supportive.
Protective.
Purposeful.
It knows how to act.
It knows how to hold a line.
It knows how to bring force without cruelty.
Reclaiming Mars can be especially healing if you have rejected the masculine because you have only seen distorted versions of it.
Healthy Mars is not the enemy of spirituality.
It is part of spiritual wholeness.
A Simple Mars Magic Practice
Choose one small physical action.
Something safe.
Something appropriate for your body.
Something that asks slightly more from you than your current baseline.
A walk.
A stretch.
A short workout.
A cold rinse.
A cleaned counter.
A phone call.
A difficult but necessary message.
Before you begin, say:
“Mars, I offer this action to you. Help me move clearly toward what I want.”
Then do the thing.
Do not overthink it.
Do not make it dramatic.
Move.
Afterward, notice how you feel.
Not only emotionally.
Energetically.
Physically.
Spiritually.
That is Mars.
The Gift of Mars
Mars gives action.
Desire.
Direction.
Boundaries.
Courage.
Heat.
Capacity.
Mission.
Movement.
Without Mars, desire can stay trapped in fantasy.
Insight can stay trapped in analysis.
Emotion can stay trapped in loops.
Mars brings the fire that lets life move.
You do not need to become harsh.
You do not need to worship productivity.
You do not need to dominate anyone.
You need a clean relationship with your own desire, will, and power.
That is Mars magic.
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Lucy Baldwin (00:08.141)
Okay, one second.
Lucy Baldwin (00:22.126)
Hello, welcome to another episode of The Seven Living with the Planets. For a minute I was like, what podcast is this? This is The Seven. This is where we talk about planetary magic. And today I'm talking about Mars and desire and how we kind of, like a lot of spiritual people become a little bit impotent in our lives because
we shun the Mars archetype. And so I want to talk today about what that looks like, what we can do with it, how Mars can actually serve you in a major way and why it behooves you to connect with Mars. There's just a lot of, I think, anti-Mars sentiment in the spiritual world because Mars is that sort of drill master. know, it kind of...
A lot of the stuff in our culture that I think a lot of us are pretty tired of, pretty over it. This idea that like productivity is what gives you your worth and your value. That's sort of a distortion of Mars though. So I just, want to say that it's also wanting, wanting. Mars wants, Mars burns with desire. Mars is hot with desire. Mars is just...
The desire is what drives Mars to go out and get, go out and do, go out and fight for what it wants, for what he wants. And so there's a lot of, we can become really passive. And I think that with everything, as I'm always preaching on this podcast and everywhere all the time, it's all about balance and discernment. And I'm all about that middle path. How can we take the boons?
from the Mars archetype and use them to our advantage without getting it twisted, without getting too tied up in productivity as value, without getting too tied up in having to like do everything for ourselves and always having to be in conflict. So yeah, I mean, the thing is that...
Lucy Baldwin (02:44.288)
If you find that it's like hard for you to kind of initiate things, make things happen, like if you spend a lot of time thinking about things and have a hard time just like getting things done, Mars can be extremely helpful. Mars can be a really, really helpful archetype to work with. You know, there is like that drill sergeant side of Mars.
that sometimes we need that. Sometimes we need that drill sergeant to be like, up off your butt, do the thing that you said you were going to do, and let's do it. Let's get it done. Mars is the sword. It's the sword of slicing away the bullshit sometimes because if you don't ever take action, nothing ever happens. So letting desire fuel us into motion, right? It's like the desire fuels the motion.
And so we often have this fear of like intense desire. We have this fear of like lust and ambition and anger. You know, there's anger in Mars and we want to shun anger, right? We're taught like the spiritual sort of like world right now is very much like about peace and love. And those are beautiful things, but...
that can turn into passivity and resentment and confusion and this sort of like impotence, right? Mars is not impotent. An impotent person is out of alignment with Mars, right? There's an imbalance there. And so Mars has intense desire. Mars is in motion. Mars pursues, right? You're in pursuit of what it is that you want. There's always something that you want. The sword is pointed at something.
You know, with Venus, Venus like receives and you're just sort of open and you're surrendered. It's a surrendered posture. To receive is to be surrendered to taking things as they come. Right? But in Mars it's about penetrating, penetrating the world with our desire. And so we we fear aggression, we fear domination, right? Domination, that's the word. That's what it is that we're afraid of.
Lucy Baldwin (05:04.449)
We don't want to be dominated and we don't want to dominate others. But I will say that that is not a balanced Mars. Domination is not a healthy emanation of Mars, right? That destructive, domineering, abusive, impulsive, like that is not the Mars that we're trying to build a relationship with.
So the medicine of Mars is to be really clear in our boundaries, to be really clear in our desires, to seek our desires, to move in the direction of our desire, and to follow that and let it lead us and guide us, and allow it to be like an organizing principle in our lives. And that doesn't make us selfish, it doesn't make us greedy, it just gives us an arrow.
a place to direct our focus, our ambition, our energy, right? Directing our energy toward something and having clarity around it. So I just think that the Mars archetype is a really beautiful one and I think it's a really helpful one. You know, I think that I am naturally a very like Mars oriented person. So
I like to have set really high expectations and there's a lot of willpower that goes into Mars. And I'm totally guilty of when I'm talking about Saturn, sort of saying like, all that stuff you're afraid of in Saturn, that's actually Mars. Mars is the bad guy here, not Saturn. And so now I need to just come back around and say that the disciplinarian is not bad, right? It's helpful.
it's actually really helpful to like whip you into shape, get her done, do what you want to do, create the life that you want to create, go out and do it, ask for what you want. So I recently did a Venus episode where I talked a lot about asking for what you want. And there's a way in which that's also a very like martial thing to do. But Mars doesn't just ask, right? Mars...
Lucy Baldwin (07:26.411)
goes and seeks. Mars goes out and gets. Mars takes action, directed action, strategic action to create the worlds that Mars wants to create. So I think that we do want to be really conscientious of not making it that we have to be productive. We have to be a drill sergeant. We have to be
X, or Z. We never want to tie our value as humans is intrinsic. It exists no matter what happens, no matter what we do, no matter what. We have value by virtue of existing. We are living beings. We are each a universe unto ourselves. And we deserve, you know, rights. We deserve our humanity. We deserve
you know, the things that we need to survive, we deserve love just by virtue of existing, we deserve love, period. As soon as we tie our value or our sense of worth into something external, whatever it is, we lose, you know, we set ourselves up for failure, right? We set ourselves up for, because then as soon as that thing comes into question, now it's not just
questioning that thing, becomes about us. It becomes about what we are, who we are. Things can hit us in really deep, hard ways when we think like, I'm only worthwhile so long as I support my family financially, or my value is in my beauty, or my value is in my productivity. My value is in how much I give to others.
No, right? Your value is in your existence. And so we have to decouple that. And when we decouple that, we can play much more cleanly in the sphere of action. So I talk about this because it's just prevalent in our culture and it gets very twisted for us spiritual people because we tend to really...
Lucy Baldwin (09:52.078)
think that giving is what makes us valuable and our compassion and our empathy and our love and our, you know, even like our connection to source, our spirituality is what makes us worthy. And it's none of that. It's just our existence. It's our pure raw essence that makes us worthy. And, you know, in a way Mars is pure raw.
essence. Mars is seeking. It's the seeking spirit. It is like the fire in your soul. Because there is a spark within all of us. There is a spark of desire. It's almost like we come into existence with a mission. And sometimes we get disconnected from that. We get in this murky sort of space of
disillusion and disconnection and confusion and thinking in the hall of mirrors and like thought loops and we lose touch with our bodies. And Mars doesn't spend a lot of time analyzing. Mars is not analyzing our feelings, okay? Mars is not really even feeling the body so much. Mars is exercising the body.
Mars is like, let's get up and move. Let's get up and dance. Let's run. Let's walk. Let's like, you know, go to the gym. Eat healthy, diet well, take care, right? Keep clean, maintain your space, be ready, be on guard, protect yourself. So it's very like animalistic. It's very earthy, but not in like...
not even it's not that it's disembodied, but we're not even on the spectrum of embodiment or disembodiment with with Mars. I mean, Mars is masculine, so it is going to naturally lend itself towards like the mental realms, right? But it's like, we're just doing we're just doing with Mars. And we're not overthinking. And we're not analyzing and we're not getting like swept up in our emotions and letting that
Lucy Baldwin (12:17.768)
rule the day. And a lot of us need that guidance. We need the discipline because sometimes we allow our emotional state or our mental state or our psychological state to derail us from our mission. And sometimes that's necessary. Sometimes we have to take care of ourselves. And so, but it's all about finding the balance, coming into discernment of
having certain things that are non-negotiable. Like, no, I am going to show up for myself in this way, unquestionably. And what happens when we do that, when we let Mars sort of give us that framework, and there's a structure to it, right? It's like, this is non-negotiable. It's happening every day. Every single day I'm going to go for a walk or every single day I'm going to take a cold shower or every single day I'm going to...
do this thing and it's usually for your body or for your health or for your mission, then what happens is it actually can take you out of the spiral. It can actually support those things that feel like they have to take over and take center stage and everything has to kind of like fall away. Like we kind of sometimes, I think that, you know.
Emotions are so important. Of course they are. We have to feel them. We have to let ourselves go there and feel them. And we cannot let them rule our lives. There is great wisdom in understanding that, yes, we feel them. Yes, we honor them. And no, we're not going to bypass or gaslight ourselves. And at the same time,
we also have to show up and do our duty anyway. You know, we have to, and sometimes that is what can carry us is if we do like force ourselves to just do the thing, because that gets, it breaks us out of the, like that state of I can't and you know, like it helps us get perspective. Okay. It gives us both perspective because it's like, no, I can,
Lucy Baldwin (14:29.908)
I can. I can, right? I can do it. Even if I'm hurt, even if I'm sad, even if I'm down, even if I'm in this loop, I can know. It's like, okay, we focus and we do the thing. And so that can actually be really helpful. Now, on the other side of that, if you take it too far, that's a problem, right? You can't always just force yourself to go, go, go, go, go. So it's the balance. It's the balance of the two.
Feel your feelings and still work, still function, still do what needs to be done. Activate your Dharma, go after your passion, fight for what you care about, fight for your mission. What's your mission? What's your duty? What's your Dharma? And maybe you don't even know. And so maybe the first mission is finding your mission, right? But maybe it's just, maybe it's so simple. Maybe it's like,
Keeping your job and taking care of yourself, supporting your family, and maybe supporting your family with your job, maybe supporting your family financially, maybe supporting your family by being a stay at home parent. I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way, there absolutely isn't. It's really just about showing up and...
trusting yourself, empowering yourself to be able to show up, that you are able, that you can do it, that you can push through, that you have the power, that your will is strong. And you can, that's how you build capacity, that's how you build power. So I think about Mars a lot with capacity. What I'm talking about is capacity, the capacity to show up anyway. They call it anti-fragile, right?
Mars teaches us to be anti-fragile so that we can experience things fully and still hold our center, still come back to ourselves and not get washed up on the shore of our emotional tantrum. And then we're a beached whale and we can't get back to the ocean and swim around with our friends anymore because we've
Lucy Baldwin (16:49.688)
been beached. So weird metaphor that came up, but I grew up on an island and every couple of years a whale would wash up on shore and is really sad because nobody wants to see a dead whale. It was really sad and people would always go and we'd like look at it and eventually start to smell really bad. I mean, the whole island would smell. You could smell it like just everywhere. my gosh. Anyway, sorry. Total digression. The point that I'm trying to make is that
you know.
You have the power to...
Hold yourself and keep going. so Mars gives you that. Mars helps you through. Mars is, you know, the arrow is pointed in the direction and you are taking steps and you're having the discipline and you're showing up anyway. And through showing up anyway, you are seeing both that you can do it, which is extremely empowering.
And also it breaks you out of your own kind of drama, your own self-pity, your own loops that you're in, your own pain, right? Because you can direct it into doing something, achieving something, and then you get the reward of having achieved something, which is an amazing reward that Mars gives us. So I want to really encourage you to, you know, dance, play with this Mars...
Lucy Baldwin (18:26.826)
archetype and especially if you're somebody who feels like it's not spiritual enough, especially if you're someone who has a tendency to reject the masculine because healthy masculine is extremely supportive. Healthy masculine is clean and clear and direct. I hope that this has been helpful and I just want to encourage you to
A really great way to work with Mars is to exercise your body, in a new way. If you already exercise your body, you can just really feel like, Mars, I'm doing this for you. Yeah, stay safe, stay within the healthy bounds of what your body can handle. I have been known to exercise to the point of vomiting. do that.
Surprisingly often it's completely unnecessary. don't recommend it like really thinking about What's the next sort of like, you know, where are you now in terms of your activity and What's something you can do a little bit more? Maybe it's going for a walk. Maybe it's stretching. Maybe it's going to a yoga class Just letting yourself letting yourself do that and do it for Mars
Thank you so much for watching.
New to Lucy’s work?
Start with Lucy Baldwin’s complete overview of planetary magic here
This episode is part of The Seven: Living with the Planets, a podcast exploring planetary magic as a path of self-growth, ritual practice, desire, embodiment, intuition, language, action, and spiritual transformation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Mars magic?
Mars magic is planetary magic focused on desire, action, courage, boundaries, discipline, protection, conflict, heat, pursuit, and the power to move toward what you want.
Why do spiritual people reject Mars?
Mars is often associated with domination, aggression, conflict, and productivity culture. But those are distorted forms of Mars. Healthy Mars is clean action, courage, protection, boundaries, and desire in motion.
How can Mars help with passivity?
Mars helps you initiate, take action, stop overthinking, set boundaries, and move toward your desire instead of staying stuck in passivity, confusion, or resentment.
Is Mars magic the same as being aggressive?
No. Healthy Mars is not domination or abuse. It is directness, courage, movement, protection, and clear desire. Aggression becomes harmful when Mars is unconscious or distorted.
What is a simple Mars practice?
Choose one safe physical action, such as walking, stretching, exercising, cleaning, taking a cold shower, or sending a necessary message, and dedicate it to Mars as an act of movement and will.
Next Steps
If this episode resonated with you, continue exploring Lucy Baldwin’s work here:
You’ll find current offerings, free practices, podcast links, and ways to go deeper.
A good next step is the free guided Existential Kink practice available there, especially if you want to explore desire, shadow, power, anger, action, receiving, and radical approval in a more embodied way.