There is something pleasant about planets in retrograde motion. Who wouldn’t love it, or at least be curious, when Nature goes backwards. Go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall (or through the mirror).
The one that is happening this Summer (now in fact) is Mars. A few other planets are also going retrograde over this period, but let’s focus on the red planet. Mars retrogrades happen about every 26 months (and last roughly 10 – 12 weeks).
I think Mars is somewhat underestimated, being both a personal planet, and the “malefic” that we haven’t done so much to redeem. I think that is because it is personal, yet it is also the first step outside of the Earth’s orbit, and has a key part in the transformation of personal energy (which is one of our species stumbling blocks). This energy is basically what we get all our outward progress and hard work from, when it comes down to it, but we’d rather not know about it. Iron, its element, is a big part of our planet’s core, and the motion of the Earth’s core is what gives us a magnetic field, and stops us being frazzled to an irradiated crisp by solar radiation. It’s an energy we have no intention of doing without, but we’d rather it do its job and then we forget about it. Mars makes your bacon, saves your bacon, and is the drive behind a good deal of what we call civilization. And like every other impulse and energy, from nurturing to philosophical enquiry, it can be abused.
During retrograde periods we often say that the planet’s function has become internalized or turned inwards. Mars by nature is a quite outwardly projected energy, so the retrograde is interesting. This could be a fantastic opportunity for focussing within, because the drive is slowed down and in reverse, so things like self-examination and exploration, review and reflection are deeply powered here. The process goes slowly, and not as you’d usually expect. We see it going backwards when it is opposite to the Sun in the sky, “Full Mars” so to speak, at its most fully illuminated as seen from Earth.
Mars began its journey backwards on 17th April at 8° 54′ Sagittarius. It travels back into its own sign of Scorpio and turns around at 23° 3′ on 30th June 2016. It emerges from its retrograde “shadow” (the point in the sky at which it first started going backwards) on 22nd August.
If you know your natal chart and you have planets or sensitive points between about 22° of fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio Aquarius), and 10° of mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces), then the retrograde could be hitting on those things. But in any case, we can see what is happening in the sky during this retrograde period to see what story emerges for us.
Here is the beginning of it, with Mars stationary and ready to turn :
We can note that Mars starts off conjunct Saturn, held in check in Sagittarius:
We can also note that there is a nice grand trine in earth signs involving Jupiter, Mercury and Pluto.
That’s rich opportunity for healing, service and transformative use of resources; practical, fruitful and productive.
The other major pattern setting the stage at the start is a double T square involving Mars-Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune:
This could waste some of the healing and good service potential of a Virgo Jupiter, with the great grand trine in play, and get it stuck in the more toxic side of Neptune (negative mass feeling, delusion, defeatism, empty imaginings) compounded with Mars-Saturn (brakes on the car overheating, exhausted energy, aimlessness), a quite potentially nihilistic formation. There’s rather a lot to hold and work on at the start of the retrograde, but for significant stakes, if the positive potential is realized.
And lest we forget (because this will be relevant later on), we’re still in the Uranus-Pluto square here, with all the reality testing of “social change” that involves:
Mars turns backwards and retreats from Saturn, going on his own journey. By 17th May it is free of both Saturn and the T square.
He is doing his own thing, whatever the world might think about it. And the world is doing much the same as a month previously.
By 17th June, the world has one hell of a job on its hands though. With the grand trine disengaged, and grand cross forming:
Grand Crosses are often referred to as “make or break” formations, as they have challenges and tensions and projections every place you look, all adding to each others’ work, and meantime that Uranus-Pluto square is still holding. Jupiter is closely conjunct the North Node, where the growth is, so that is important to remember (which might not be easy to do). So this is a bit of a gridlock. Mercury needs Saturn’s testing of meaning in Sagittarius, and Saturn needs Mercury’s love of diverse data in Gemini; they need to actualize each other in themselves, rather than project onto an other. That way they would get an efficient machine for dealing with reality. Similarly with Jupiter and Neptune: Jupiter needs to actualize the vision and compassionate potential of Neptune in Pisces, and Neptune needs to actualize Jupiter’s benevolent capacity for work in Virgo, so as not to lose the opportunity to do good work. On top of that there are the squares (which are aspects of conflict and testing): Jupiter to Saturn and Mercury, Mercury to Neptune as well, and then Neptune to Saturn on top. Looked at another way, this time is characterised by a need to achieve realistic, efficient work and service that answers to real vision and large scale issues (such as collective suffering), which at the same time needs to be thorough and lasting, but dexterous in its capacity to source reliable, varied information. It’s a tall order because it requires four ways of functioning which either polarize with each other, or conflict with each other. Pluto is helping, but that Uranus-Pluto square is still grinding away.
Mars meanwhile has continued to go his own way into his own sign of Scorpio. The world grinds on, but Mars is slowly travelling inwards. There is however a yod or “finger of fate” formed to Mars by the Sun and Uranus. Mars has a key place here, at the tip of the yod, with awkward, adjusting aspects (quincunxes) to the Sun and Uranus. There’s an issue here, one that doesn’t get worked out all at once, because it takes individuals to rewrite the language to find the answer. But it involves the issues of selfhood, originality and drive. Whatever Mars is finding on his inward journey, it’s unique, and it won’t be stopped by the world.
By 29th June, just before Mars turns direct (it has just another minute of arc to go before it reaches stand still) it seems rather more relieved as a picture. Mars has just a quincunx to Uranus to maybe irritate or awaken it, while the grand cross is gone, and there is just a T square between Jupiter, Neptune and Saturn.
It almost seems easy by comparison, but you never know what the world has done with that grand cross in the meanwhile.
Speed forward to 1st August and Mars is just on the verge re-entering Sagittarius as it gains speed, while most of the major patterns have disappeared. But look! The other thing that has disappeared is the Uranus-Pluto square! In fact it disengaged on 6th July.
This is like the hum of an enormous machine that we’ve been hearing for the last six years falling silent. It will be back before the end of the year, but this is the beginning of the long end of a generation defining aspect.
Mars has taken the journey inwards, through all that crisis in the world, got touched by the yod formation, and then started its journey back, as the Uranus-Pluto square starts to fall apart.
The times they are a-changing.
On to 22nd August and Mars emerges from the retrograde shadow (four minutes of arc to go here):
Again, the sky is kinda clear, and still no Uranus-Pluto square. It actually is gone for a little while. It’s a new world.
And Mars is back where it started, in Sagittarius, conjoined with Saturn.
And both of them square to Neptune, which is a challenge, while Jupiter is trine to Pluto, as it helpfully has been all along.
I think Mars will have triggered something inwardly by then, but it will have taken us on a journey inward, irrespective of what the world thinks or demands or needs, to find a truth we need to live. And when it emerges it will be into a world that bears a few clues as to what we get left with after that Uranus-Pluto square is all done, in a few years time.
You don’t have to wait to live.
Wolves and Roses 
Reblogged this on Summer Thunder and commented:
Mars retrograde
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