Mars Retrograde in Aquarius 2018: a mini e-book

I’ve written a free mini e-book for you on the Mars retrograde transit that is characterizing our summer. I cover:

• What Mars retrograde means in general

• The dates of significant events during this cycle

• Mars in Aquarius

• The South Node of the Moon & Mars conjunct the South Node

• Uranus in Taurus

• Mars square Uranus in Taurus

• Ways you can creatively interact with this transit

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Preview:

Mars only retrogrades once every two years – within it we enter a kind of Martian twilight. To the unaware, it might simply be more irritations or bouts of anger than usual. But to one entering into this twilight consciously, it is a time to notice the evolution and complexity of the Mars archetype. From our perspective on Earth, the warrior planet Mars stops forging ahead and begins to slow, move backward, slow again, and move forward once again. Retrograding planets come into focus this way; and with a stalling and then shift in momentum in the planet, we too re-assess the archetype at hand.

Characteristically, Mars is a planet we associate with an urge toward uninhibited freedom: the capacity to just launch off according to one’s will without being thwarted. When Mars moves backwards (from the apparent perspective of Earth), that tension and momentum associated with Mars condenses and moves inward. For an individual, often this comes in the form of external circumstances not yielding the kind of result or freedom one would have wanted, and so one’s energy rebounds to the interior.

I know several Mars retrograde individuals who are athletes. Mars moving inward doesn’t mean one doesn’t move at all in outer world. What is unique about these friends of mine is that they have a really massive internal experience based on recursive reflection of their practices. All of these individuals who come to mind actually are capable of teaching others their sport (and they do). To teach it, they have to be aware of what they are doing and be able to transmit it to someone else. They have had to think about their actions, rather than just perform them. And their chosen sport (in their case we have a boxer, a street dancer and a yogi) is something they have internalized so deeply it’s a philosophy and a rich wellspring for all other kinds of life metaphors. These are individuals who I’ve seen put their all on the line. They ritualistically, continually train. And then they think about it, continuing to excavate riches from their practice in all terrains of defeat and victory and everywhere in between. And they repeat.

But okay – that’s their karma that they are living out from the moment of their birth. That retrograde is in their natal chart. That’s part of their theme. For anyone else, a Mars retrograde transit is an event, one that we can cooperate with just like we cooperate with the weather. Instead of it determining where we go for vacation and when or what clothes we wear, cosmic weather draws out parts of our many multilayered selves that are most adaptive to the situation at hand – or rather, what is being called out by the situation at hand to be developed and evolved.

I hope you enjoy!

With love,

Sabrina Monarch

(Top Image: Wiley Wallace)

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