
Do these variations change the meaning of the Mars symbol to you?
I’ve been trying to unpack the meaning of the astrological symbols on a more granular level. There’s a shared language of circles, crosses, and curves across the symbols, but the arrow always struck me as a little “clip art” coded on the Mars symbol (I’m aware this is the traditional way it was drawn, but see The Tiffany Problem). Sagittarius suffers from this problem as will imo, but as Sag literally represents a bow and arrow I’m more inclined to accept it as is.
I’m curious what y’all think about swapping the arrow for a lightning bolt. Does this change the core meaning of this symbol? Or does it effectively capture the same spirit. How much overlap is there on a Venn Diagram with Lightning Bolt on one side and Arrow on the other?
For that matter, does Mars need to be angled to the right? Or can it point straight up without changing meaning? Uranus is sometimes drawn this way (circle with dot in the center, with straight up arrow on top) but to me the point in the center of the circle is what differentiates Uranus and Mars more-so than the angle of the arrow.
Very curious to hear y’all’s thoughts on this.