Mars Retrograde

Mars Retrograde - No Pushing!

"You only ask for directions when you can't see you're in Heaven"

— Matt Kahn

There may well be a whole lot of rattled nerves this week. Mars stations to go retrograde on Wednesday just as we reach a Full Moon (9:52 PM PDT 6° Capricorn-Cancer) that is conjunct Saturn. With Mars retrograde, idealism runs headlong into reality and one way or another, adjustment is required. The increasing sense of responsibility may lead us to believe that we need to take direct action and impose our will on circumstances that are entirely beyond our control. The stationing of Mars requires that we step back from imposing our will or taking direct action and look for opportunities to increase our insight and simply experience the extraordinary spiritual growth that we are undergoing (enduring). This week's journey takes us from determined isolation to a possibly frantic attempt to establish new alliances — or renew old alliances. Initially, we may feel the need to stubbornly insulate ourselves — our ideas and ideals — from a rapidly changing landscape. However, once we move through the intensity of the Full Moon we begin to see the reality of our circumstances from an entirely new perspective. Certainly, feelings of loss and confusion are possible this week, especially during the extended periods when the Moon is VOC (Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday). However, by the end of the week we should begin to recognize that we have more capabilities and resources than we had realized. We can begin to adapt to our new perspective. Although we can't UN-see what we see this week, we can certainly begin to make the important adjustments that are required in order to rebuild within a much more stable framework.

Although we may try to follow a strategic path on Sunday, we will need to reassess the process at the end of the day and into Monday. We are likely to see significant stubbornness surface on Monday and the tendency is to seek self-sufficiency over compromise. However, prideful arrogance will only reveal our own insecurities and undercut our stability. It's important to be detached but stay with the process. Tuesday may have us spinning our wheels while trying to dodge shadows and uncertainty. We begin to hear the whispers that our ideals may not be in line with reality. By Wednesday's Full Moon, we feel ready to take responsible actions but we suddenly realize that the control levers for our will-power are not responding as we expect. Mars stations to go retrograde (until August 27th) and running on self-will becomes particularly unproductive. We gain back a bit of optimism on Thursday. Even though we may still feel strong ego-investment in our ideas, there is imaginative inspiration that begins to lead us towards working with others. Another long VOC Moon period on Friday could encourage us to follow our curiosity into some dead-ends. Nonetheless, by Saturday we gain increasing adaptability to begin a long-term realignment of our alliances and our ideals based upon a more realistic perspective.

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