Almagest

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Mars trine Mars

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

What the tradition reads

A natal chart cannot show Mars trine 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 where its transiting place trines its natal one. Cafe Astrology's own transit page reads this pass, together with the sextile, as a time of excellent rhythm and timing, confidence, directness and ambition. Between two charts, one person's Mars trine another's is read, together with the sextile, as an instinctive understanding of one another's impulses, methods and desire nature, partners supportive of one another with inner rhythms in rapport.

The story

A trine is a hundred and twenty degrees, a third of the circle; Ptolemy's chapter on the mutual configuration of the signs calls it, together with the sextile, harmonious, since the signs it joins are of the same kind, all masculine or all feminine, and Wikipedia's own summary of the aspect calls the trine extremely beneficial, indicating harmony, ease and what is natural, one of the two aspects the tradition sets against the square and opposition's discord. 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. Set at this most flowing angle, the strider and the guardian need no effort to agree, drive finding its own defense built in from the start rather than added after the fact.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Mars:Mars:trine.