Transit Mars Conjunct Natal Mars: The Mars Return and a New Cycle

Transit Mars conjunct natal Mars is known as the Mars return: Mars comes back to the place it occupied at birth and opens a new action cycle of roughly two years. The effect is noticeable from two or three days before exactness until a few days after; desires sharpen, and it becomes clearer what a person actually wants to go after.

What happens at a Mars return?

A Mars return is a small new year, built on will rather than the calendar. Setting a fitness goal, applying for a job or taking the first concrete step on a long-postponed project comes more easily now. Physical energy rises; sleep can shift and impatience climbs. Whatever is launched in these days is the seed that the squares and the opposition of the next two years will test.

Mars turns retrograde about every two years. If the retrograde falls on the return point, the conjunction can perfect three times and the process stretches over a few months; the start then becomes less a single push and more a sequence of trying, pulling back and launching again.

Which goal belongs to the new cycle?

The house where the return takes place shows where the energy wants to flow: the 10th house points to career, the 7th to partnership, the 6th to daily work and the rhythm of the body. The houses ruled by natal Mars, those with Aries and Scorpio on the cusp, are part of this new lap as well.

• Choose one measurable goal; Mars dislikes scattered intentions.
• Give surplus energy to regular movement.
• When anger flares, read it as information about which boundary was crossed.