Mars in your natal chart is about your will, desire, assertion, defense, and your “yes, please” and “no, thank you” responses to life and others. When it aspects Pluto, these themes are central to the empowerment journey your soul has set out for you in many lifetimes.
When they occur, these aspects are especially important to understand and integrate. As we never want to become the kinds of people who have hurt us – and Mars can indicate violence, abuse, and anger – those with Pluto-Mars aspects may have an especially difficult time knowing what they want, standing up for themselves in healthy ways, and participating in life in the ways that matter to them most.
Pluto Conjunct Mars
The best and worst experiences in many lifetimes for the person are intertwined with Martian behaviors, attitudes, and 
experiences. The person is learning over time how to become strong and confident through making self-assertive choices. He or she is in process of learning the right ways to use Mars, including learning to come out lifetimes of fear and pain when it comes to using Mars energy. It’s possible that he or she has felt forced to attack or defend the self (or family, religion, culture, nation, etc.) and now carries guilt, shame, and regret when it comes to using Mars energy in any way. The result can be someone overly aggressive (but who would like not to be), someone passive-aggressive, or someone with significant buried anger afraid to show or act upon it.
The point of this aspect is to learn to use Mars energy in healthy ways. To get there, you have to overcome fear, pain, guilt, shame, etc., sourced in unhealthy expressions from the past. You need to learn you don’t have to defend yourself, and you don’t have to pre-emptively take things to make sure they are not taken from you. Finally, Mars’ desire energy has been a source of difficulty in many lifetimes from both sides (when you have desired and been wounded as a result, and when you have been desired by others and been wounded as a result), and a grounded approach to healthy desire – both sexually and otherwise – needs to be explored so that you do not lose power if you do not get what you want and don’t feel powerful if you do.
Pluto Square Mars
Along the path to Plutonian empowerment, Mars people, situations, and issues have brought pressure and friction to you in many lifetimes. This signature is one that indicates power struggles, yet with various kinds of outcomes. In many lives you have been on both sides of what looks like winning and losing, and along the way have experienced a great deal of conflict with others who appear or threaten to have more power than you do. Some with this aspect have become conditioned to hide their will, desire, fire, and “yes/no” function, while others have become conditioned to be live with tension and anxiety, never really knowing if they are safe and can relax. Through war, bullying, intimidation, competition, and abuse of any kind, a person with this natal aspect has been through the ringer when it comes to fighting and defense, and is likely tired of the fight.
Resolution of the tension involves owning the power to say “yes, please” when you want something and “no, thank you” when you do not. This is basic (and likely seems too simplistic to provide anything of value), but it is critical that you reclaim the willingness to use Mars within you in its most basic expression. Along the way, you’ll have to heal and release fears of being overpowered or abused (or, even, killed). With this aspect you have seen in some lifetimes minor conflicts turn deadly, and you must now learn healthy conflict and to own the confidence that you have the right to choose as you desire. Saying “no” to someone does not have to mean a terrible outcome, and it’s time that you learn to own the power to do so.
Pluto Opposite Mars
With the planets opposing in your chart, it’s an indicator that Mars people, situations, and issues have blocked you from being or feeling able to pursue and achieve your empowerment in many lifetimes. Oppositions can challenge and confront us, making us aware of something about ourselves that leaves us feeling stripped bare and vulnerable. With these energies, you’re doing the thing that will give your life meaning and make you feel that you matter (Pluto) and finding resistance and challenges from strong-willed others willing to fight (Mars). The result can be that you expect a fight all the time, even when others are trying to help and support you. You might also buckle at the first sign of someone else’s desires competing with or being the opposite of yours. This is because you in many lifetimes have become exhausted through the struggle to make happen what matters to you most.
In some lives, you rise to the occasion and feel that you win against Martian sources. In others, you feel run down and lose life force energy in the process. Either way, it’s important now that you learn to discern not just what’s worth fighting for and why, but also if there is even any conflict in a given situation. You can overcome feeling that fiery others are adversaries and that you have to fight to prove that you and your cause are worthy, and this will require understanding that winning and losing are not the point of Plutonian empowerment. Instead, it’s all about self-knowledge and self-acceptance. When you see this, you can see others who bring Mars energy to you not as enemies and foils but as those who are in your life to pull out of you your deepest strength and sense of conviction.
Pluto Quincunx Mars
The quincunx can have a person feeling knocked off course, but also that he or she can’t be in the same room with the other energy. When it comes to Mars in quincunx to natal Pluto, aggressive, assertive, fiery people and situations have knocked the person off course in many lifetimes as he or she has worked on becoming strong, confident, and powerful. It is not that a dramatic situation occurs in every lifetime, but there are periodic occurrences that throw the person off course and the memories of these particularly awful experiences are present in the unconscious cache of Plutonian memories in all lifetimes (so that the person might carry a signature of Mars-related trauma out of all proportion to his or her biography in this life).
The result can be a person who is dissociated, aloof, and traumatized, perhaps immediately turned off by Mars-like people and situations. He or she might not have a clear concept of what he or she wants out of life because it has seemed in many lives that the thing most important to them is just going to get messed up by aggression, violence, and/or abuse. It’s possible that the person’s deep level of fear can attract people with Mars malfunctions into his or her life, feeling afraid or defensive toward them while not knowing how to deal with them, assert boundaries, or get rid of them. The remedy lies in unraveling trauma (whether from this life or other lives) while learning what true power is and isn’t (see the Notes on Pluto article).
Karmic Story Pages
Pluto
–Natal Pluto Houses
–Natal Pluto Signs
–Natal Pluto Aspects
Nodes of the Moon
SN Ruler by Sign