Almagest

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Mars opposite Mars

the transiting Mars's periodic pass opposite its own natal place, or one person's Mars opposite another's in synastry

What the tradition reads

A natal chart cannot show Mars opposite itself, since no body can stand at an angle from its own degree; the tradition reads this key through transit, at the point in Mars's own orbit roughly opposite its own natal place. Cafe Astrology's own transit page reads this pass, together with the square, as a likely sense of frustration, a feeling of being out of step with one's own natural rhythm. Between two charts, one person's Mars opposite another's is read as the least difficult of the pairing's harder contacts: sources describe the same inherent lack of understanding of one another's basic impulses named for the square, but note the opposition allows more awareness of why the conflict exists, and that a genuine give and take is possible where the square offers less room for it.

The story

An opposition is a hundred and eighty degrees, half the circle, the two bodies facing each other directly across it; Ptolemy's chapter on the mutual configuration of the signs groups it with the square as discordant, and Wikipedia's own summary of the aspect describes oppositions as prone to exaggeration, their dichotomous quality keeping whatever they touch in a real and often tense relation rather than letting it settle. 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. Facing his own former place directly, Mars meets a version of himself standing at the opposite office, the guardian across the field from the strider, each fully in command only while the other, for the moment, stands down.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Mars:Mars:opposition.