image: Kelsey Lu by Emmet Green for Crack Magazine
This year, the Mars Retrograde portal opens on 09/09/2020, and closes 11/13/2020.
As a planet, Mars governs our ability to assert ourselves, and our relationship to our primal nature. It is associated with the physical body, physical health, sexuality, wanting, conflict, war, resolution, and energetic output.
Whereas Venus is the receptive principle in Astrology, Mars is the active.
Where our Mars lies in our chart (sign and house) is the area in which we feel most inclined to assert ourselves, find our dominance and understand our own power, strength and limits.
The Warrior archetype associated with Mars demonstrates the way it impacts how we physically show up and fight for our values and what we believe.
A regression of the active principle means we think before we step, and we get to spend intimate time with our “why” instead of living so much in the mechanics of “how.”
Remember that a retrograde is simply an earthly perception- that planets don’t go backwards, but are just seen to do so from the vantage point here on earth.
Similar to the planet, you may feel during this time like you have regressed- that your old habits or frustrations are rising in certain areas and thus you must not have grown or evolved as far as you thought.
This is one perspective, a perspective that you’re free to choose, but don’t have to.
Another perspective is that you are in every moment of time and every experience for a reason. When old positions or feelings arise in your field, they do so to offer you resolution with who you are, and where you are. An opportunity to recognize that all states are transient and the more you grow, the less impact these states have on you, your life and your self-perception.
Your plight up until this point is both validated and challenged by this planetary moment.
You may realize you once experienced certain things with regularity, but don’t anymore. This means you are doing things differently and are getting different results, and that, my love, is the definition of progress.
Mars is the planet of embodiment and physicality, of force and sexuality. The lessons of this time have a deep impact on your body, but so will your resolutions.
This particular retrograde is also a powerful one because of Mars’ travel back through the sign it rules in traditional Astrology, Aries.
As the first sign of the zodiac, Aries does things without asking for help or permission.
Aries represents the spice of new leadership and the pain of using brute force to muscle through your obstacles.
Aries is also about want, need and choice. It is an explosive, messy, beautiful energy, full of life and possibility. It is both suffocating in its individuality and liberating for the same reasons.
Mars in Aries embodies the quality of infancy- the state of separation from being a part of a whole to being an individual.
Mars in Aries describes the primal nature of this occurance- the fact that being human means being part of a collective while being a wild, free, and singular body with our own desires and will all at once.
There is no real separation between you and your connection to all of creation, nor a separation between you and your current expression as one human body- both realities exist at once.
In a lot of ways, a Mars retrograde in Aries is a time for reflection on our very paths as human beings- our assignment of learning as individual spirits on this lush, abundant, living planet. A reflection on the ways we have separated ourselves from others, separated from ourselves, from our true nature.
Below I have given you some reflections questions to get you started with embracing and embodying the themes for this season. Pick a couple to journal on and come back to throughout the retrograde, and stay tuned for special Mars Rx events coming soon by adding yourself to my newsletter below.
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Reflection Questions:
What do I feel is my “true nature”?
What parts of my primal nature do I hide from the most?
What is my relationship to shame?
When was the first time I really wanted something?
What was that experience like?
What is my process for feeling, listening to and honoring my desires?
What is my process for maintaining my relationship to the things I acquire?
Why do I think I am meant to experience and express through my individuality?
What do I think I am meant to express through relationship with others?
All love,
Jaliessa