Mars

What Mars represents

Read psychologically, Mars is the capacity to assert oneself: to say no, to take the initiative, to hold firm against opposition. It describes a style of effort, in bursts or over the long haul, head-on or strategic. It also shows how anger moves, whether it flares up, smoulders or turns inwards. A Mars at ease brings courage and zest; a thwarted Mars may show up as impatience or aggression, or, on the contrary, as energy that finds no outlet.

Aries, a cardinal fire sign, is the sign Mars rules: there it is direct and quick off the mark. Tradition also gives it Scorpio, where it grows more intense and more tenacious. It is exalted in Capricorn, where energy is put to work for a goal and a discipline. It is in detriment in Libra and Taurus, where its drive has to reckon with the other person’s consent or with slowness, and in its fall in Cancer, where it acts mainly to protect and shies away from open confrontation.

Its rhythm in the sky

It takes Mars a little under two years to travel the whole zodiac. Outside a retrograde year, a sign holds it for anything from five to nine weeks, which makes it slower than Venus or Mercury but still quick enough to tell apart people born in the same year. Unlike them, it is not tied to the Sun: it can be anywhere in the sky in relation to it, and it shines brightest when it stands opposite the Sun, red and plainly visible at night.

Every two years and a few months, Mars appears to move backwards for two to two and a half months: this is its retrograde phase. In those years it can stay in the same sign for anywhere from almost six months to nearly eight. A retrograde Mars at birth is often read as energy that first turns inwards, anger that is thought over before it is voiced, desire that advances by detours. This is not a flaw: it is another, more indirect way of acting, better recognised than forced.

Mars in love

In a birth chart, Mars shows how a person desires and how they quarrel. The two are more closely linked than people tend to think: the same energy that draws someone towards another also makes them stand their ground against that person. Some love the chase; others need to be approached. Some settle a disagreement on the spot; others need to step away and cool down. In a couple, recognising these ways of doing things keeps both from mistaking a different tempo for indifference or hostility.

Mars is one of the main indicators of attraction in synastry. When one person’s Mars touches the other’s Venus, desire often finds an immediate spark. A contact with the Sun can stimulate as much as it sets up competition; a contact with the Moon can awaken tenderness or touchiness. Tense Mars contacts give a bond vitality, but also occasions for clashes. They do not say who will come out on top: they show where energy flows between two people.

To go further

• Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas, The Inner Planets (1993)