Mars has entered Capricorn, the sign of its traditional exaltation, a terrain it traverses through March 5th, scaling peaks and navigating valleys amidst a steady onward trot. Here, Mars’ all-out attack is endowed with the long game, aggression is given strategy, power is granted conservation. The ability to push forward has dimensional enthronement.

This is a different kind of strategy than, say with Mercury’s homes, the serial output or marksmanship of Mars in Gemini, the industriousness or precision of the hands Mars might express in Virgo. This is an enduring plod, an ability to hold energy, a desire for long-term ascent on earthly planes.

The linearity and forward-cutting dimensions of the Mars here are held, tempered in some ways and focused in others, giving depth of ascent and descent to any willful work.

And this is certainly a different flavor of energy than Mars in Sagittarius, a transit which just concluded. Spanning the stretch between its nocturnal home in Scorpio and exaltation in Capricorn, Mars in Sagittarius might for some evoke an extra ‘Mars-y Mars’ in Jupiter’s fiery diurnal temple.

Wouldn’t Mars be stronger in such an amplified place? Well, this is precisely one of the problems faced by Mars in Sagittarius, a forward-leaning spout of movement, verbiage and philosophical aggression; of belief, zealotry and potentially manic disillusionment if its ideals are not met.

While your past two months may not have leaned in such a direction, Mars in Sagittarius is at the least a hopeful placement — vehemently optimistic, even.

Mars’ transit through Sagittarius from December 13th until yesterday was ruled by Jupiter at home in Pisces since December 28th. There is a touch of bigness and dreaminess to the narrative that needs backed up by hard work, not just high aims and manifestation.

With thoughtful Mercury and amorous Venus both retrograde, our minds have drifted to past peaks and troughs in somewhat cool, objective ways. Yet idealism about what is on the horizon has abounded — and the shrouding reality of Saturn’s presence amidst the aquarian spread also strikes home.

There’s an obstacle or two amidst the field of elysian dreams, and Mars’ traverse through its traditional exaltation in Capricorn will teach us a thing or two about how to work through these points of integration. The red planet makes an early sextile to Jupiter in Pisces, an aspect somewhat diminished by Venus retrograde.  What past examples can we reflect on, in mining for wiser ways to scaffold at a Capricorn cadence?

“Astrology is just life happening” as Acyuta-bhava Das put it, and whether delineating a chart or decoding present skies, we are often feeling out layers of the entangled contradictions that make us up. Witnessing colors in a kaleidoscopic prism, not a sun sign prison.

These age-old symbol systems, rooted in earthly observation of astronomical cycles, bring a visceral engagement, living a life embodied and enmeshed with the cosmos at once.