In astrology, a key feature of prediction is creating a new chart when a natal planet returns to the position it held at the subject’s or event’s birth. These charts are called Return Charts, and they show the energy involved dealing with the issues raised by the return planet. Most common among return charts are Solar and Lunar Returns, but the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn also make returns.
I would like to focus on the Mars Return in the natal chart of the United States. Mars is located at 21 Gemini 22’44, and returnedon April 23, 2004 at 3:03 p.m. EDT. Every two years Mars returns to its home spot, promising a time of new energy, initiative and drive for the event or person in question. What does the upcoming Mars Return herald for the United States and its citizens? I use the Sibly (1) chart for the United States birth chart, which I have found to be the most accurate in terms of past transits to it.
In a Mars Return, as in any return chart, the most crucial factors to be considered are the ascendant for the chart, the position of the house Mars is located in and the aspects Mars makes to the surrounding planets.
In the U.S. Mars Return chart the ascendant is in Virgo, the sign of duty, service and giving of one’s self to others. The medieval image of Virgo is of a miller grinding corn, preparing for the harvest. Virgo resonates with the qualities of earth, its element, and mutability, its character. The earth is solid and stable, mutability changes as it needs to. Virgo champions the intellect, as its ruler is Mercury. Virgo, considered by some ancient traditions a very austere, ascetic sign, has been thought of as the birth sign of Jesus. Virgo also reverberates in my mind’s eye with the Jewish sect the Essenes, mentioned in the Dead Sea scrolls. The Essenes were known for their vegetarianism and simple, celibate, ascetic way of life.
A Return chart ascendant will echo the qualities of the sign on the first house throughout the life cycle of the chart. I think we can expect to see some of Virgoan traits expressed in the character of how the U.S. expresses itself for the next two years. How that will play out can be further ascertained by the other contacts Mars makes in the chart itself.
Mars is located in the tenth house, the midheaven. The tenth house is the house of how others see us, and the house of government and the presidency in a Mundane chart (2). Mars energy, heat and passion will be focused on tenth house issues. Therefore, the president himself is very connected to this impetuous, driving and warlike symbol, as he is head of government. Will other countries see us as primarily as an angry country, or one that wishes to spread ourselves out to benefit the human condition?
An aspect is a close connection one planet in a chart makes to another according to the degrees involved. In this return chart two of the closest aspects made by Mars are to the Moon and to Pluto. The Moon in an individual chart represents the emotions of the individual and in a Mundane chart the emotions of the population at large (2). The Moon in this chart is located in Gemini and conjunct Mars by one degree. Gemini rules communication and is an air sign. Gemini and Virgo share the same ruling planet, Mercury; thus, the intellect is defined and called into action in this chart. Mars conjunct the Moon can be an angry placement, a distilling of the emotional life through the filter of Mars, the red planet in folklore. Perhaps Mercury, the planet of the mind, will rally around this placement, encouraging people to try to imagine for themselves what the source of their anger is and where it comes from, encouraging, other, more creative solutions than “might makes right”.
Both these planets are opposed by Pluto in Sagittarius, a fire sign. Pluto rules nuclear energy and transformation on a dramatic scale. Coupled with Mars, it can also mean violent power struggles and acts of bloodshed. Pluto is located in the fourth house of home and family in this chart. Will an act of violence occur on American shores sufficient enough to engage the hearts and minds of the American people into fierce anger? Will our president channel those emotions of anger, perhaps leading to further foreign incursions?
The earth, the air, and fire. Communication and the intellect. Anger, war, fighting, terror. Harvesting, reaping and sowing. All this is written into the Mars Return chart of the U.S. Time will tell what direction we as a country take, in the years to come.

1)U.S. Sibly Chart, July 4, 1776; 5:10 p.m. LMT; Philadelphia, PA (39N57, 75W10); Nicholas Campion, Book of World Horoscopes (BWH) Cinnabar Books, 1996, Chart 370
2) Mundane astrology (from Latin mundus,world) is political astrology, the astrology of nations and political events; Michael Baigent, Nicholas Campion, and Charles Harvey, Mundane Astrology, 2d ed. London; Aquarius Press, 1992