I wonder if street smarts are the manifestation of a healthy, functioning Mars.

I was talking to my guy about this yesterday. We went into a bar yesterday for a drink. We were there for at least half an hour, no one  talked to us...we both clock everybody and everything (he's a double Scorpio and I've got Pluto-10th in aspect to Mars/Saturn and register everything, especially if I'm in a foreign city drinking alcohol out in public).

Well, I went to the can and when I came back lo and behold a guy was trying to make friends. It was kind of funny. He and his girlfriend were doing that back-and-forth thing, where people try to work you? Plus the guy was hiiiiiigh on coke (I guess it's my Neptune but I can smell drugs, and I'm not kidding or talking about weed--the whole energy field shifts).

I was like, whatever, do coke if that's your thing, but I wanted to just chat with my guy and have a drink. He's has Mars on his MC and is well-used to having trouble find him when he feels he's minding his own business, so he was like: "Let's go, I don't feel good about this bar." We left, and as we left, someone yelled, "Where you going, guys??" I just laughed and said "going home, have a nice night"--I'd been there how long, you're obviously clocking us, you approach us when we are split up (in a limp attempt to shift the dynamic), now you're worried I'm leaving?

Now, some people can and have called me paranoid, and perhaps I am but I stay out of trouble this way. I'm able to smell trouble and politley disengage, and the rare times I didn't do this, I had trouble. And I felt responsible for it because I ignored my gut. Another funny thing about this bar: we'd walked by it a few times before, and each time we did someone would holler 'Come on in!' and I joked to my dude--"Those drunks must be bored with each other, they're recruiting new drinking partners from the street."

I also think that with Uranus moving into Aries, it's a good topic: how to spot trouble and stay away from it.

Any thoughts on this?? Any stories of your own, a time when your street smarts were handy?

"street smarts" = mars/neptune = gritty intuition

Yep mars and neptune in Scorpio.  Stories yeah, bottom line they have kept me out of serious trouble more than once. It always amazed me that others did not see it coming.

I'll agree, and i wouldn't rule out a strong 8th house, either. There's a certain lack of traditional innocent associated and that missing naivete gives you a world of street smarts that don't occur to a lot of people naturally.

So interesting! Never thought of this as a possible bonus to Mars conjunct Neptune.

I've been able to "disappear" trouble. Once, I was walking down the sidewalk, behind a large van that had backed up onto the sidewalk near the building's wall, when I suddenly saw a guy block off my access out - he was standing real close, a foot or so away from me, and I was hidden from the street behind the van - and then noticed that there was another guy with him, circling round behind me. I was looking down, never looked up, just had what felt like a frozen expression on my face and kind of acted like they weren't there, never engaged with what was happening, and - if you can believe it - just kept walking without missing a beat. The menacing guy actually changed his mind and stepped aside, so that I kept my pace and made it to my building down the block. He didn't say a word.

It was traumatic for me, and I was in shock. But nothing happened. No idea what made the guy change his mind. And also, no idea what would have happened if he hadn't stepped aside. (I'd probably've killed him, haha.) Sure as hell didn't have a back-up plan. 

Oh, and I was young! A teenager. So that was lesson #1 in picking up some street-smarts. I absorbed that lesson real good, and knew better than to walk into a situation like that again. 

Neptune's all over my reaction that day. But so is Mars. 

Oh I think there is something there with the ability to go invisible/slip between zones of attention and Mars/Neptune stuff. yes. both I with mars/neptune square and friend with mars/neptune conjunct report stories like Sea. for a while--and on reflection it wasn't completely the best thing, I was able to see focal points where there wasn't attention and shift through.

& also seeing through scams. yes. once a friend and I went by her house, heard gunshots. her brother tells us come quick into the house, some guys had tried to rob the house and he'd chased them off. we listen, look at each other and go "no. this did not happen." cops come by cars are out racing down the road looking for a car. we are upstairs smoking a joint and his girlfriend calls & says they'd had a fight he tried to make a scene, anything weird there, and we go "oh yes. he is running this total fantasy by the cops to make himself out like he's a hero."

 I was surprised the cops didn't catch it, at least one of them.

I don't know if I have "street-smarts" but I will either have a good feeling about someone from the start or I don't.  

If I don't I have usually proven to be correct - (person is two-faced, etc.)

Scorpio Moon I guess is my radar. 

Mars in the 12th. I too sense tricky situations and do a disappearing act. Since it's libra it's often relationship related. I don't fall for social niceties if i feel they are going to trap me. People seem surprised/purplexed when I'm actively antisocial - like not responding to people trying to engage me on the street - yet not giving them a reason to keep it up - if they do then I pull out a social response like call out to someone as if I know them or they have been waiting for me. I was once being followed so ducked into a bright restaurant with a lot of people around and looked at the menu as if about to order. Stayed there until I saw them pass.. and then made sure to leave with people and get out of the area asap. Used people/social/street as decoy. It helps sometimes that I'm blonde etc. in that they expect me to react one way and then oops silly me I misunderstood.. now I have to go. I have mercury in scorpio so can see a lot of manipulative BS. Hard to get approached romantically though.. as I have a strong guard up.

Forgot about the 8th house thing.  My 8th house has saturn, mars and neptune in it, and people ask me all the time,  Are you psychic?  My thought bubble answers,  "Are you stupid,  how could you not see this shit coming?" I would just shrug my shoulders and blame it on my street smarts.

I always expect danger, because you never know where it can pop up...there are really no safe places, regardless of where you are.

But this topic brought up a memory of something that happened to me back in 1999 that I often think back upon with a certain awe.  Now, I have had many bouts of deja vu in my lifetime, and I often can get a sense of how far back (approximately) I might have received these episodes in a dream state prior to actual occurances...  I was working for an auto parts place as a delivery person during the first five months of 1999.  As I was coming out of a building one morning, after having dropped off an auto part, in a somewhat unsavory part of San Jose (off the 101 freeway several miles from the San Jose Airport) I saw a group of guys sitting around a trash-can eating some breakfast items they'd just bought from the roach-coach.  My mind instantly recalled an identical situation I'd dreamed about just days earlier, where these same guys (5 of them) didn't like me glancing at their 'breakfast club' and launched into me with a group attack that I had to fight for my life to get through, just to reach the delivery truck that I'd have to start--while they were still attacking me--and drive back to my work-place, if I was still capable of doing anything besides bleed all over the seats.  Seeing these guys, I said to myself:  "Oh shit, I'm not ready for this, man."  Instead of glancing at them, as the deja vu experience beckoned, I looked at the ground, walked past them, got to the truck and left.  Not so much as a threat, a catcall, nothing.  It started out as an exact scenario of deju vu, and I had the consciousness to turn it from a disaster into a passing coincidence.

If that's off the subject, I apologize, but (as I mentioned above) it came to mind as I read the previous posts on this thread...

huh.

mars/neptune square.

i don't know if i have street smarts, but i know when to get the heck out of dodge.  can't talk my way out of a paper bag, but i know when stuff is going hinky.

but it's taken me a long while to trust that instinct.  so i've been burned for not listening to it a couple times.

wyrdling, I have the same aspect and could have written the same comment verbatim. :)

Dorothy does your Scorpio Moon square your Mars? Your Mars in conjunct your MC too, right? 

interesting, notatirem, both my guy has Mars trine Neptune like me,--mine in Fire, his in Water.

and with 8th House Saturn- I totally relate to what luci and daisy said about 'can you not see that?' I was followed a lot on the street when I was younger--less so now, because I ride a bike everywhere.

I dress in black and don't use a light--friends give me shit because I'm not "visible". The last thing I want to be as a female out alone in the middle of the night is visible. I ride very, very defensively.

I have street-smarts, but I'm not cunning.  (Does that even make sense?)  I can pick up a vibe and know when/if shit is going down, and I'm quite good at the scope ingress/egress, know-the-layout and where the resident badass sits thing.  Personal manipulation, though?  Clue-fucking-less.  I'm an easy mark for a con.
Mars sextile Neptune (and conjunct Venus-Pluto and trine 8th-house moon and hits everything in my chart somehow).  I like to think my Mars functions well, though I know there are plenty of people out there who would disagree.

@Nutsy:
Exact same thing with the precognitive dreams / deja vu thing!  In 90% of the cases, my dreams warn me of when bad shit's going to happen so I can avoid or defuse; the remaining are warm-n-fuzzy.  I never remember 'em until a certain trigger -- a phrase, a look, walking into the situation.  It's weird yet fun.  *grins*

SaDiablo,

You said it...certainly gets the heart pumping!  I do like them, though.  Two things can get my adrenaline going instantly, but (in a twisted, primitive way) I do like them:  deju vu danger-situations and earthquakes.  

@crispito, nice catch.  I did some checking,  my scorpio mars conjuncts my cappy moon!

I also have mars trine neptune (in water) -- i think this makes me more a poet than anything (neptune in 3rd)--

I do sense bad people, creepy people, situations that feel off...i don't like having this 6th sense.

Sometimes i'll get off the train or change cars if i feel that i "should" --

To continue: I have a well aspected Mars in general: has a square to Jupiter but otherwise sexties and trines everything in chart except uranus.

I don't get followed and i wonder why. (Thinking of what chrispiti said abt following) Used to think it was my first house pluto. The other day i was waiting for a train and all these people did doubletakes. I'm starting to wonder if i look like a cop (plainclothed) --

I always wonder WTF kind of energy do i give off -- despite friends saying how "feminine" i am--

Officer MoonPluto, ma'am ;)

I have never been in a dangerous enough situation, but I can say that I know when someone is smarmy!..lol Step away from the creep!...and I too will cross the street if I am not sure. Wow those dreams would sure come in handy though Nutsy and SaD!

I've got 12th house Mars trine Neptune.  Libra Jupiter is in the middle sextiling both.  I have actually made more than one major life decision based on a coin flip.  Thats just how I roll.

I have been thinking about this for days - I don't think I have street smarts and then it hit it me - BOINK!

I am from the desert and we didn't have streets.

I did know as a young girl, if I took that "modeling job", I would wind up dead but I think that may be something else, like my gut talkin'.

"I am from the desert and we didn't have streets."

That totally made me crack up, dude!  LOL fo' realz.

Now, see, I'd take the "modelling job" (because I'm an easy mark), but probably walk out alive.  I consistently get into situations where there's a threat of violence and end up unscathed.

you have elsa'smarts!

I was randomly called by a guy when I was in my 20's saying he got my number from a friend and would I like to model. He said that he forgot the guys name but met him at a bar. I wanted to be a model at the time so this was REALLY wierd. But he said they were in some warehouse in Sf and that they were looking at portfolios. I had one but something told me "this is not a good situation. Pass!". I did and I am so glad!

Good for you, Dawn!       (That situation sounded shady as hell)

No kidding! I watch Law and Order!...lol Doesn't it sound just like an episode?

Yeah, it does.  I tell ya, people like that make me wish I was omnipotent just so I could make them combust and blow up.  There'd be a lot of popping people around this planet.

Mars opposite neptune

I have what I call a sixth sense on this stuff.  When I hang out in bars I can spot fights 10 minutes before they happen.  I can't count the number of times I have told bouncers and bartenders to 'watch out for that' only to have fists flying a few minutes later.  This is from across the bar with people I don't know.  I don't hang out so much anymore. The places where I frequented all knew me for this.

Then again, I can't spot people on drugs, especially coke.  If they are about to fight, yeah, I can spot that.  But I've been blindsided by other informing me about so and so being 'coked out of their mind'.