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As we are about to embark into another Mars Retrograde, I am both curious and anxious about what to expect.
Curious because this is the very nature of the sign Mars currently retrogrades in, Gemini, and since late August, Mars in this sign gets me spinning in all directions, mentally scattered. Drifting into so many interesting astrological topics and planetary cycles but is making my professional life and collaboration with Jessica quite difficult as I barely manage to keep a single deadline.
Curious because the last Mars retrograde had seen me exceed all my physical limits, forcing me to live with pain and fatigue for days, but also to experience absolute freedom during my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Physical pain that barely helped me to mask the emotional pain of my recent and last breakup, but helped me to evacuate its deep and brutal energy. Despite the desperate and relentless efforts of our little troop to escape the successive closure of the biggest cities on our last 400 km, a lacklustre arrival in Santiago under the leaden October sky and an ongoing Galician drizzle, a last frantic push to the ocean, we could not escape the constraint of having to confine ourselves and to spend four long months almost immobile and alone in lockdown.
From that retrograde Mars, I remember the pain and the laughter, the total freedom and the constant pressure, the chance to have been filled with the beauty of the world and unlimited immensities, the total forgetfulness of my ego and my pain to be at the service of and to listen to others. Leone and Vincent, their laughter, their encouragement, Anna and Luca, their fight and their faith. The end of a journey and a fight, the beginning of a new adventure and new collaborations.
Curious because the only Mars retrograde in Gemini that I had to go through in 1990, came the year after my resounding failure to pass the entry tests to various business colleges. Freshly landed at the university of economics, I had decided to develop a music and cinema fanzine with a group of friends quite heterogeneous but as passionate as me. Despite the numerous evenings spent preparing the project, writing dozens of articles, looking for more or less successful interviews with artists and bands performing in my small provincial town, designing several mock-ups, putting together fanciful market studies, and spending days canvassing advertisers, printers and necessary authorizations, the project suddenly stopped overnight. All the energy that had animated it until then and had motivated us for nights on end disappeared as if by magic. Looking back, I realize that this experience and its wide variety of subjects had opened up an appetite that I would spend the next twenty years exploring, first in media programming and later in advertising strategy.
Today, I remember that this event allowed me to forget and overcome what was for me a major and bitter failure. That it helped me realize how to combine some of my passions with the realization of my professional ambitions, the need to find mutually beneficial compromises and respect for other people’s ideas, that it allowed me to live some pretty exceptional and crazy experiences and to get to know better some friends that I still have today.
Anxious because as a passionate Scorpio, and all individuals rich in Scorpio or Aries placements, signs ruled by Mars, I am slightly more sensitive to the period than others.
Anxious because the 2018 retrograde rocked my world and I am still struggling to integrate its learning to this day, even though I try.
Anxious because this Mars retrograde occurs on the heels of a Solar eclipse in Scorpio highlighting the importance of the event and the very strong lunar eclipse in Taurus of Nov 8 that invites us to let go of some of our most entrenched attachments and habits so that we can truly tap into the transformative potential of the solar eclipse.
And because just like you, after 4 years of relentless changes, I just wonder when this will stop, even though I already know the answer, and I know it won’t, that from here it will only accelerate.
Anxious because despite my best attempts, I realise that the conscious and mindful changes I try to bring into my communication and ways of doing things are not enough and that I will need to experience the violence and ego traps of Mars for me to realize what really needs to change and that scares me. Because I love most of the people around me and I know that I will need to experience this process with them, and I hope this will not challenge and end any of the dear relationships of my life, even if I know that to be a possible output.
So Mars retrogrades in Gemini… This is usually a time of increased tension when many of our projects and our flame for things or people are being challenged by external events, some literally stopped in their track, others offered a reflective pause.
A Mars retro is not like a Jupiter or a Mercury retrograde (even if this very one will look like one on steroids). It does not happen very often so when it does, we clearly notice it. Simply because we are not “used” to it, it doesn’t regularly come back every year.
This retrograde starts on Oct 30 and ends on Jan 13, 2023.
For what a Mars retrograde looks like, its key dates and the energy of the moment please check our Corporate Conscious blog here. This blog continues with the core challenge of this retrograde.
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Mars is the energy that gets us to go after the things we want or have identified as important steps towards our objectives as defined by our mind (Mercury) and heart (Venus).
In Gemini, the sign of communication and studies, it points to the facts and the words.
The surrounding cosmic environment of this autumn points to issues related to our relationships and our security.
The first question that a Mars retrograde in Gemini might be asking is: how are you integrating the new facts and data we are being bombarded with these days with the way you act and make decisions every day?
We should be extremely careful with this first question as Jupiter is shifting in Pisces to help us reconnect with the greater world could also trigger panic and escapism when realising the stakes of our choices. Many might prefer to go deep into a delusional state rather than face the reality of their failed relationships.
Mars in Gemini invites us to share and communicate, explore alternative ideas and scenarios… until it hits the retrograde!
During the retrograde, too much energy and ego might be charged behind the presentation of an idea or the defence of a scenario. Communication could get heated, the thoughts and words come out of our mouth before we even get a chance to weigh and correct them, causing almost irretrievable damage.
The second question very often will not get to be asked but rather imposed on us.
What motivated those words?
Where is our ego getting too competitive and in the way of collaboration? What does speak, fear or love?
Eventually, it will all boil down to one question:
HOW ARE OUR ACTIONS AND EVERYDAY DECISIONS ALIGNED WITH OUR VALUES?
This goes back to things we turn a blind eye to for our own ease and comfort in the world. What we allow to go unseen and not challenged for fear of time, money, energy we may lose in the resolution. Can we continue to eat so much meat if we know that to destroy the world we live in? Can we continue to buy so many things online if we know that to kill local businesses and increase our carbon footprint? Can we continue to vote for leaders who have failed to prioritize the most important fight our species ever faced before it is too late? Can we continue to deny those problems a chance to be solved because 1% of the population owns 55% of the world’s wealth and all the means at their disposal to defend the status quo and a system that keeps on increasing the divide at all others’ expenses?
In other words, can we continue to support a system that feeds destructive wars, pitting humans against humans, instead of uniting them to heal the world’s imbalances?
Yeah, but what are the options? None of the current ones are truly inspiring, we all know this.
Thankfully, as you start reflecting on those important questions, the greater cosmic intelligence behind each of our interactions might offer us a chance to opt for an alternative road very soon.
There is very little doubt that a division will grow between those willing to bring the necessary change and those resisting it, continuing to live in denial. An alternative path is nonetheless about to emerge, one based on love and collaboration, built by citizen uniting around the world, aimed at preserving our nature, harmonizing and respecting our differences and giving future generations the chance to experience a world of beauty and diversity where humankind has learned to live in harmony with all other necessary ecosystems for life to bloom and support it.
With Mars in Gemini, we understand that this idea will require a noble fight, that this idea will be opposed, and we can no longer dream of a solution emerging from existing systems. That we will all need to become the champions of this cause, in every little act and decision we make. We now understand that this war will be won in our daily interactions, purchases, and habit changes.
With this retrograde, many will reclaim their chance and sovereignty to have a say into their future.
We are being given a chance to realign our individual drive with divine will so that the path becomes a little easier and our impact in the world a little more meaningful.
Of course, we will not just be challenged at a collective level, our personal lives will be shaken too.
Wherever this retrograde falls into your chart is where you will most feel the intense energy of Mars, but also where your goals, motivations and way of acting are all up for review.
Mars is not as simple as it seems.
For the Greeks, the god represented our primitive functions, our fundamental human instinct to survive against all odds, an intrinsic drive which is amoral and without social conscience.
With the Romans, who considered the god their father, we integrate its civilizing functions, our drive and passions are then understood as useful, functional and directed, involving some personal and social moral content.
Passion leads us into life; to lack passion is to lack the drive towards fulfilment. We tend to think of passion as related only to erotic pursuits, but it is also the essential component in conquest of any variety. The drive towards experience, the will to power and the ultimate acquisition of a goal.
Both are inherent potentials & periodically intertwined.
Mars retrogrades catalyze situations in life which bring those ‘uncivilized’ feelings to the surface (infantile lust or rage) offer opportunities to come to terms with them, often acting as a vehicle for allowing us to further transform those undesirable attributes into useful qualities.
Mars is in Gemini and the Full Moon in Aries was already pointing to unhealed wounds so the fight will be around ideas, knowledge, communication, our weapons and what hurts, our words, and what motivates our strong reactivity, sensitive memories, deep traumas, and mental injuries.
Mars will manifest itself where you genuinely need to grow, be less ego driven, more selflessly inspired and have an opportunity to regain or strengthen power.
There is something very subjective and unconscious about the way you act right now and an opportunity for you to realise this, adjust, balance and grow. As you do so, you access greater power and leadership. Of course, this will not occur without a challenge… or ten.
The wounded child in you will most likely hurt and want his way, being denied his toys, he will either go sulk alone after a harsh clash that will leave scars or rebel violently into an escalation of threats.
Mars is also the ambassador of the Sun, our greater potential. When this potential, our own and unique power is not properly asserted, externalized, expressed, and eventually recognized, feelings of jealousy and resentment, envy and rivalry start simmering and coming up to the surface.
Mars retrogrades are also the time when those disconnects burst to the surface and adjustments are required in the way we assert ourselves.
In Gemini, the way we can achieve a better assertion of our potential is by asking others about the usual way we go about getting what we want, realizing that we might not have communicated and exchanged on our particular modes as much as this was required for all to understand each other. The feedback can then help us to experiment with new ways and others getting their own way with us.
This will occur at all levels, individuals and collective, over the period.
This is also traditionally the time when the offender is forced to retreat quite significantly, and attacks absolutely not recommended as the necessary energy to see it completed would eventually be insufficient.
The last time we had a Mars retrograde in Gemini of that amplitude was at the end of 1943, a pivotal moment when the battleground advantage shifted on the Allies side and the Axis powers started to retreat on all fronts within the next six months.
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Please note that we give you more insight in another blog on what a Mars retrograde is, how this Mars retrograde will unfold over the course of the next two months as well as how to best adjust and harness the energy so that you emerge out of this challenging time more determined and emboldened than ever.
But for now…
I trust I will find the words, the courage, the faith to build the necessary bridges, source the necessary vulnerability and be open to the necessary changes.
And so should you!
In evolution
Geraud
