Mars Return

marz ree-TURN

Definition

A Mars return is the moment Mars comes back to the exact zodiac position it held when you were born. Mars takes about 1.881 years — roughly 22 months — to complete this cycle. Because Mars turns retrograde during each appearance in the sky, it may cross its natal degree up to three times in a single return, and the last forward crossing is usually taken as the moment for the chart. The chart drawn for that moment is read as covering the two-year cycle ahead.

In Tradition

In the planetary-return technique, the chart cast for the moment a planet regains its birth position is read as a focused timing chart for the stretch until the next return, with that planet's themes weighted especially heavily. The idea belongs to the wider Hellenistic-Arabic notion of apokatastasis — the Greek term Greenbaum cites as "restoration, return to original place" — though the Mars return in particular is largely a modern revival, set beside the more classical Solar and Lunar returns.

In Practice

For a Mars return reading, an astrologer works out the moment Mars regains its birth degree in the year of interest, then casts the chart for where you currently are (whether to relocate it is debated). The return chart's Ascendant, the place of Mars within it, and the condition of the natal rulers of the chart's angles are read as the significators for energy, conflict, and themes of physical action over the next 22 months or so. This is best combined with Mars's condition in the birth chart — its sect, dignity, and aspects — for a fuller reading. The two-year rhythm makes the Mars return a useful fine-grained companion to the slower Saturn (29.5-year) and Jupiter (12-year) returns.

Historical Origin

The general doctrine of planetary returns rests on the Hellenistic idea of apokatastasis, which Greenbaum traces in Antiochus of Athens (cited via Beck, CCAG I, 163.15-23). The Solar Return — the revolution of the year — became a major Arabic-Persian and medieval Latin technique through Masha'allah, Abu Ma'shar, and Bonatti. The Mars return in particular is largely a 20th-century modern revival; it does not appear as a separate classical technique on a par with the Solar Return.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading