Mars
Mars is the engine — how you pursue goals, handle conflict and respond to obstacles. If Venus describes what you want, Mars describes how you go and get it.
- Rules over
- Drive, desire, courage, anger
- Orbit
- About 687 days around the Sun
Finding It in Your Own Chart
Mars can sit anywhere relative to the Sun and moves slowly enough that a birth date normally pins it down, so you can know your Mars sign even without a birth time.
Its Home Sign
The Ten Planets
The Engine of Action
Mars represents drive, ambition, courage, desire and anger. It describes how you go after what you want and how you handle conflict.
It is the energy that gets you out of bed and into action.
In relationships, it shapes how you pursue and how you argue.
Free From the Sun
Unlike Mercury and Venus, Mars can sit anywhere relative to the Sun. It spends about six to seven weeks in a sign, sometimes much longer during a retrograde.
That means your birth date usually fixes your Mars sign even without a birth time.
Mars can therefore add a very different flavour to your chart.
Mars Through the Elements
Fire Mars acts quickly and directly. Earth Mars works steadily and persistently.
Air Mars acts through words and strategy. Water Mars acts through emotion and intuition, sometimes indirectly.
Your Mars sign shows how you assert yourself.
Mars Retrograde
Every two years or so, Mars appears to move backward for about ten weeks. Tradition advises changing strategy rather than pushing harder during these periods.
Being born with Mars retrograde is linked with energy that builds internally before being expressed.
It can describe someone who thinks carefully before acting.
Questions About Mars
Which signs does Mars rule? Aries, and traditionally Scorpio.
Is Mars a negative planet? No; it represents energy that can be used constructively or destructively.
How does Mars affect work? It shapes ambition, competitiveness and how you handle pressure.