What your Mars sign says
Mars is the planet astrologers associate with action. It describes how you start things, how you compete, what makes you angry and how you pursue what, and whom, you want. In relationship astrology it is read alongside Venus: Venus describes what attracts you, Mars how you go after it. Your Mars sign is often a different sign from your Sun, which is one reason people with the same Sun sign handle conflict so differently.
| Mars sign | How astrologers describe the drive |
|---|---|
| Aries | Fast, brave, competitive; quick to flare and quick to cool |
| Taurus | Steady, patient, strong; hard to push |
| Gemini | Mental energy, debate, many projects at once |
| Cancer | Protective, indirect, driven by feelings |
| Leo | Confident, creative, a natural lead |
| Virgo | Precise, skilled, hard-working |
| Libra | Strategic, diplomatic, fights for fairness |
| Scorpio | Focused, determined, deep and quiet anger |
| Sagittarius | Enthusiastic, adventurous, fights for causes |
| Capricorn | Disciplined, ambitious, the long climb |
| Aquarius | Independent, inventive, rebels against orders |
| Pisces | Intuitive, compassionate, avoids direct conflict |
With a birth time the calculator adds the house. Mars in the 10th house puts that drive into career and reputation; in the 4th, into home and family; in the 7th, into partnerships, where astrologers say it can bring both passion and friction.
Why Mars sometimes stays for months
From Earth, Mars usually spends six or seven weeks in each sign. Roughly every 26 months, as Earth overtakes it, Mars appears to stop and move backward for about ten weeks. Around those retrogrades it can linger in one sign for up to about eight months, and it can slip back into the previous sign before moving on. In 1990, for example, Mars reached Gemini at the end of August, turned back into Taurus in December and only returned to Gemini in January 1991.
The calculator shows the exact dates Mars entered and left your sign in your birth time zone, plus a table of every Mars sign in your birth year with any retrograde re-entries marked.
Your Mars return
Mars comes back to the degree it held at your birth about every two years, although the gap stretches when a retrograde falls near that degree. The calculator searches the next three years and gives the date of each return, with every pass when a retrograde loop makes Mars cross the degree three times. Astrologers read a Mars return as the start of a new two-year cycle of effort, a natural time to begin projects and set goals.
Mars on the map
Mars has four astrocartography lines: where it was rising, setting, overhead and underfoot when you were born. They are read as places of energy, courage and competition, and sometimes conflict. The Mars MC line is associated with drive in your career, the Mars ASC line with physical energy and boldness. Read each one in the Mars lines guide, compare them with the other lines for career, or open them on your astrocartography chart.
Beyond Mars
Mars is one piece of the chart. Your Venus sign completes the classic pair of desire and attraction, your birth chart shows how Mars aspects the other planets, and the transit chart shows when the slow planets touch your natal Mars in the year ahead.