Almagest

The library · The aspects

Mars conjunct Mars

the transiting Mars's periodic return to conjunct its own natal place, or one person's Mars conjunct another's in synastry

What the tradition reads

A natal chart cannot show Mars conjunct itself, since no body can stand at an angle from its own degree; the within-chart version of this key belongs to transit, where Mars's own orbit, a little under two Earth years around the Sun, eventually carries it back around to conjunct its own natal place. Cafe Astrology's own transit page reads this specific pass as a peak of physical energy, enthusiasm running high and courage along with it. Between two charts, one person's Mars conjunct another's is read as a strong identification on the level of basic instincts and impulses, defense mechanisms and desire natures, the two people recognising in each other a drive built along strikingly similar lines.

The story

A conjunction sets two bodies at, or close to, the same degree, with no real angular distance between them; Ptolemy's own chapter on the mutual configuration of the signs measures the opposition, trine, square and sextile by the number of degrees separating two positions, yet Wikipedia's summary counts the conjunction among the five traditional major aspects sometimes called Ptolemaic, and reports that conjunctions are said to be the most powerful aspects, because they mutually intensify the effects of the involved planets. Mars carried more than one face among the Romans: Mars Gradivus, the Strider, is the war god in his marching, campaigning aspect, while Mars Quirinus names the same god as protector of citizens and guarantor of peace, a title also merged with the deified Romulus. Meeting himself, Mars meets the gap between these two offices, the one who marches to war and the one who guards the city he marches out from. Fused together, or, in transit, met by his own former place, the two faces act as one: the strider and the guardian speaking with a single voice, drive and its own defense sharing no daylight between them.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Mars:Mars:conjunction.