Mars in Scorpio

Mars governs how you assert yourself — your instinct for going after what you want, and how you handle conflict. In Scorpio, that takes on a water temperament — intense and private, drawn to whatever's beneath the surface.

Scorpio is one of the signs Mars rules, so its drive runs closer to the surface here than almost anywhere else — direct, and rarely something you have to reach for.

Scorpio is an water sign — emotional and intuitive — energy that feels.

What Mars in Scorpio actually looks like

• In practice this shows up as being intense and private, drawn to whatever's beneath the surface.
• Under pressure it defaults to type: emotional and intuitive — energy that feels. That is the water reflex, for better and worse.
• Because Scorpio is fixed, it sustains — it holds a course once committed, hard to move off it, slow to begin and slow to let go.

Easy to misread as moodiness or over-sensitivity, when it is usually information arriving as a feeling before it is a thought.

Same water element as Mars in Cancer and Pisces, but where those lean cardinal and mutable, Scorpio is fixed: it sustains, holds a course once committed, hard to move off it, slow to begin and slow to let go.