Mars in Astrology

Think of what gets you out of bed when you would rather stay in it. What makes you angry enough to act. What you want badly enough to work for. How you react when someone blocks your way. That is Mars in your chart: the part of you that moves, pushes, desires and defends.

Mars has a bad reputation in old astrology as the planet of war and accidents. Underneath the reputation is something every life needs: the energy to act on what matters.

What Mars stands for

Mars represents:

• Drive: the energy to act and to get things done.
• Desire: what you want, including physical and sexual desire.
• Courage: the willingness to face a challenge.
• Assertion and anger: how you stand up for yourself, and how you fight.
• Competition: how you meet rivals and obstacles.

Mars is the first planet beyond the Earth. It takes about two years to travel round the zodiac, spending roughly six weeks in each sign, and much longer in one sign when it turns retrograde, which happens about every two years.

Day Mars and night Mars

Here is something most horoscope pages never mention. Traditional astrology divided the planets into a day team and a night team. Mars, hot and dry, belonged to the night, where the cool of the night tempered its heat. In a night chart, with the Sun below the horizon at birth, Mars was thought to work more constructively. In a day chart, adding its heat to the Sun's, Mars was thought to be harder to handle.

This is called sect, and it is a simple, useful check. If you were born during the day and your Mars often feels like too much, you are in good company: astrologers noticed the same pattern two thousand years ago. The answer is the same as it was then: give Mars a worthy outlet.

Where is this planet in your chart?

Its sign says how it works, its house says where. See both, with the aspects that shape it.

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