Saturn/Mars and Rahu/Ketu

Hi Ernst and all,

I don't know if this is covered in any of your advanced courses. I have some thoughts on Mars/Saturn as they relate to Rahu/Ketu that I'd like to share.

As someone with Mars and Saturn conjunct (albeit in Capricorn), I spend a lot of time contemplating how these two planets show up in my life.

Until not too long ago, I had been dealing with lots of sleep deprivation due to having a newborn. I've noticed that this sleep deprivation had a profoundly negative effect on my psyche. After reading about it, I found that I was not alone and there is research that indicates that a lack of sleep, especially over prolonged periods of time, can severely impair cognitive processes. From what I understand, it increases activity in the amygdala. This results in people being more emotionallly reactive and easier to trigger. It's a state that resembles anxiety.

What I find interesting about this is that from my understanding there is an impaired functioning of the flight or flight response in people with Mars/Saturn conjunct. These two are linked to Mars (fight) and Saturn (flight). Negative Mars and Saturn habits would be associated with strong emotional reactivity (fighting when it's not necessary or not fighting when it's necessary as well as not knowing when to run away when there is real danger or misidentifying danger and running away). They are sort of opposite sides of the same coin.

It then makes sense that a problematic Mars would keep us locked in our Ketu. Anyone who's been through conventional psychotherapy knows how difficult it is to change those habits. You might know something intellectually. But once you feel threatened (as you are wont to when dealing with Rahu), your brain chemistry will switch to amygdala activation or fight or flight and at that point you won't respond rationally. Instead, your problematic Mars will react according to a perceived threat that's based on some implicit memory (i. e. emotional memory from before your brain understood how to connect and construct a narrative). They'll try to protect against the perceived threat to their preconceived notion without challenging them, because their system is on (non-rational) autopilot.

Psychotherapists are now acknowledging that in that situation it's essentially impossible to reason with a person. What needs to happen is for their system to wind down. This can only happen by rest, sleep, or the like. A person's nervous system needs to be able to reset. In other words, they have to be able to do Saturn: just sit with it, be patient, let the negative emotions pass. But if a person has negative Saturn habits, they won't be able to do that. They won't be able to let their nervous system reset and will just make it worse, potentially compounding the problem. Meaning they can't sit with the feelings enough and reset their nervous system, so they can challenge their Ketu notions and assumptions and try doing Rahu. This should, of course, be worse if Saturn and Mars are conjunct and if they are both in very bad LAs.