Understanding Mars Retrograde and Its Hidden Lessons

Why do we find ourselves revisiting old relationships and projects just when we think we've moved on? Explore the intriguing world of Mars retrograde with me, Kait Leonard, on Pisces Moon Astrology as we unpack the celestial drama unfolding until next May. Mars, having escaped the watery clutches of Cancer, finds itself in the vibrant realm of Leo, promising an energetic shift in our lives. This episode digs into Mars' typical behavior of starting but not finishing, and how this retrograde interrupts that pattern, offering us a chance to reconsider and possibly redo past efforts.

Moving past the cosmic forecast, we tackle practical advice for navigating Mars retrograde, especially for those with Aries and Scorpio rising signs who may feel this planetary shift most intensely. Expect possible reconnections with past relationships and heed traditional wisdom—avoid starting battles or court cases, as you'll likely find yourself on the losing side. This episode is your guide to understanding the cosmic mechanics at play, ensuring you're prepared for the energetic waves Mars brings during its retrograde and beyond. Grab a pen and notebook as we journey through the stars together, offering insights that are bound to transform how you approach the weeks ahead.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Hello and welcome to Pisces Moon Astrology. I'm your astrologer, kate Leonard, and I'm excited to explore the stars with you. Hey, everyone, it may not come as a giant surprise to you, but we're going to be talking about Mars again, but this time in a different sort of way, because I want to outline this giant Mars retrograde that we're in the middle of sort of, and is only going to get more and more intense. All right, so we are talking about November 3rd through November 9th, and let's get into those details. Oh, and there are going to be a lot of details I want to give you all the dates connected with the retrograde, or at least most of them, so you may want to take notes. So, before I get into this because I know, like everybody's probably at this point, like Kate, please could we have something other than Mars? Right? I know, I know, and when I give you all of these dates, you're going to understand why I've been so fixated on the fiery planet, but I do want to let you know that, even though I'm going to focus on Mars today, like always, there's a ton of stuff going on in the sky, and so, just to give you a little teeny bit of it. There's going to be the Mars-Pluto opposition, which I talked about last week, so it's actually not what I'm talking about today. There's the Venus-Jupiter opposition, that's the lesser benefic and the greater benefic opposing each other. So it's a very weird energy and if I have time to do a second episode, I will on that one, because it's a big deal. I might at least post a short little thing on Instagram, so if you're not following me there, please go over and do that.

Speaker 1 1:52

We're going to have Mercury trine to the north node. So there's a lot of stuff. Mercury trine, the north node, is all about destined communication, changing our minds about things, but in ways that really put us on the right path so that we're moving forward in the way we're meant to be. Lots of stuff going on, and still I think it's most important that we talk about Mars. So, just hours after Mars opposes Pluto and that's this big old, gigantic warrior power struggle thing going on that I already talked about just hours later he takes off, he hits the high road, right, he's like all right, I did my major battle, I'm moving into Leo, and that is a very good thing, because Mars as I've said this whole time that we've been dealing with all these intense Mars things I've been saying. He doesn't like cancer, right. Fire does not like to be in the water, so that was not a good placement for Mars. And he's moving out into Leo fiery, fiery Leo where Mars does much better because he understands the terrain.

Speaker 1 3:14

So this is going to be a really good thing for about a minute, but before we get into all these crazy dates about Mars and this retrograde, I just want to remind you a little bit about what Mars usually does. So typically he goes into a sign where he stays for about 40 days, right, and that's a good thing, because Mars is a lot, right, the warrior god is a lot. He's intense, and think of him going into a sign and I use whole sign houses in the kind of astrology I do so each sign is a house. So he stays in a house, which is a sign, for about 40 days, and we do Mars work while he's there, right, we initiate things, we fight, we do all the hot, fiery, active things, we set things in motion, we take action, all of that stuff, right, but that's happening in a single house. We go through that for about 40 days. We get our project started or whatever it is, and then Mars goes to the next house, and we're always pretty grateful that he did First off.

Speaker 1 4:31

Mars is not good at finishing things, so him staying in a house just means he's starting a lot of fires. He's not like finishing any projects, right, we need Saturn for that. So he comes in, he gives us all of that action, that initiatory energy, and then he goes to work on the next house, and each house is kind of an area of our life, right? So he's in the first house, for example, and we're working on ourself, and then we get some stuff started and now, like I said, we need Saturn or some other planet to help us finish it, because Mars is no good at that. And then he goes into our second house, which is money and possessions, and he does his work there and gets us started there, and so forth and so on. Yeah, that's what normally happens. That's not what's happening this time. Okay, so before I get into him going into Leo, let me take you back, because Mars has been in cancer for quite a while and he's going to go back to cancer, so here's the time to get your notes app out or your paper and pencil. Do people still do that. Anyhow, get ready for some notes here, all right.

Speaker 1 5:48

So Mars entered Cancer on September 4th. That was first pass, first entry. Then he entered what's called his pre-shadow phase, still in Cancer, on October 3rd. The pre-shadow, it's those degrees that the planet is going to. He's moving forward, he's going to go forward, but eventually he's going to come back to those degrees, right? So that's the pre-shadow. Then it brings us to now. Now, of course, this whole time he's been doing stuff, right, he didn't just enter and then go into pre-shadow, but this is the like significant points in his cycle.

Speaker 1 6:32

Then he's entering Leo on November 3rd, as I've already said, right after that Pluto face-off. Then he's entering Leo. That's a good thing. But then on December 6th he's going to begin his retrograde back through Leo. We'll talk about what that's going to mean in just a minute, because that's the whole point of us doing this. Then he enters Cancer again on January 6th. He continues to retrograde through. He turns direct in Cancer on February 23rd. He re-enters Leo on April 17th. The post-shadow phase ends on May 2nd and then he leaves Leo on June 17th. So if you can't count this all up, he spends about six of eight months in cancer. Yeah, that's a lot. It's a lot. We're already feeling it right.

Speaker 1 7:40

I mean, I know, I know what I'm going through in my own life and, trust me, client calls and emails I know what y'all are going through and, yeah, it's going to be better for a little while. So let's focus on that, okay. Oh, and I always say this, I haven't figured out yet how to put the little house meaning cheat sheet in the show notes. I apologize for that. I just don't know how to do it and I'm working on it. But if you go over to my sub stack, where you should be anyway, it is there in this week's sub stack about the same topic. So sometimes it's useful to go over there and see the visuals, and also, I would just be super grateful if you were over there.

Speaker 1 8:20

So, moving right along, let's review a little bit about what Mars does, what his energy is all about. We know he's the warrior god, so we know he does things like anger, arguments, fighting for good causes and fighting just to fight. But he rules other things as well. He rules cutting and severing and that's things and relationships right. So he is literally like cutting with a knife, and that can include surgery, but also severing relationships of all kinds. He rules literal fire and all metaphorical kinds of fire, like passion, that very yang kind of passion. He's our will, he's initiation, he's action and he's activity, like sports and anything that takes again that sort of yang energy, that really active energy. So, as you can see, I mean, like all planets, they have good and bad qualities and they have qualities that can be either good or bad. You know the fact that he's cutting. I mean, sometimes we need surgery to save our lives and sometimes we cut ourselves while chopping carrots. You know they're very different things and one's better than the other. We end relationships that need to be ended and relationships end that break our hearts, right?

Mars Retrograde and Moving Forward

Speaker 1 9:51

So how Mars acts depends on a lot of things and not all of them can be covered in a general discussion like we have on a podcast, right? For some of those, you really need to look at these transits in relation to your natal chart. Look at these transits in relation to your natal chart. So how Mars will act depends on where he is and, as I said, going into Leo, it's going to be way, way better. But it also depends on what planets do we have in Leo, like if that happens to be where your Neptune is or where Saturn is. That would be a whole different ball game than if that's a house that doesn't have another planet, or where Venus or Jupiter might be right. So, depending on your natal placements, any transit can take on a whole different kind of meaning. All right, so we're going to do the best we can with general, but you really need to look at your natal chart for this.

Speaker 1 10:53

One thing we can count on now that Mars is out of the depths of the ocean, projects will start moving forward. We'll be able to actually initiate things and see some momentum build behind them. There will be some movement forward, some exciting developments in the things. We've been trying to get off the ground and feeling sort of like we're in quicksand because that's how Mars feels in the ocean kind of like he's going down for the third count, right, and so we've been feeling like really sort of weighed down with a lot of things and there's been a lot of frustration for a lot of people. There's also been a lot of passive, aggressive energy. Mars in Leo can say what he means, right. So if people have been behaving passive, aggressively to you or you've been feeling like you can't quite get the words out.

Speaker 1 11:52

And this is going to be a whole different game now that you know we've got Leo the king of the jungle, you know we've got this regal energy blending with that fire and passion of Mars, and we will be able to speak our minds and we will be able to do. That's just, that's the thing we will do and it will actually go right. So it's really really a good thing. But and you knew right, you knew I was going to say but you had to have known it I've been prepping we're going to have a retrograde, and I know we don't talk about Mars retrograde as often, because I think it happens about every couple of years, right, but we are way familiar with Mercury retrograde and they work kind of the same way. Right, it's different energy because Mercury and Mars are different. But that sense of having to go back over something yeah, that's just retrograde, and so get ready something yeah, that's just retrograde, and so get ready. So the things that you launch, now that we've got this forward momentum, just know that they're going to get revised. Mars is going to come back through Leo.

Speaker 1 13:06

You're going to go back over, you're going to rethink in some way or redo it's more likely, redo while Mars is retrograding during the Leo portion of that, things we've done might have to be redone. This is why people traditionally say don't schedule elective surgeries at this time. Mars rules surgery and you're going to have to redo. Mars rules surgery and you're going to have to redo. That is not a good thing. That is not a good thing. Of course, if you need surgery for health and life-saving and all of that kind of thing, of course you do that. And just a note here please don't do anything because a voice on a podcast tells you anything about surgery. Right, I'm just saying, traditionally we would tell people you know not to schedule anything unnecessary because of the possibility that you'll have to redo some aspect of it. And that's going to be true with whatever it is we're launching.

Speaker 1 14:04

If this is hitting your 10th house of career and you launch some big new project, you may be going back and redoing part of that Same thing with relationships, friendships, creative projects, whatever it is. Just expect to do and then redo. And then I think an interesting thing could happen when Mars re-enters Cancer, because during the time that he's been making his first pass, I've been hearing about a lot of breakups, all kinds of breakups. I'm talking relationships, jobs ending out of the blue, some of them just all kinds of separations. Right, I mean really a shocking number. I just have to say I think some of those are going to get back together. Now, are they going to stay together? I don't know, but Mars is going to come back over that territory and what that says to me is we're going to revisit that breakup, whatever it was, something about it.

Speaker 1 15:10

Now, of course, the thing about retrograde it passes forward, it comes back. That's the redoing, rethinking, rekindling, and then it's going to go forward again, and this time for good, right, this time we go through and whatever happens, you know, on that final pass is sort of the permanent state of things. Does that make sense? I know it's hard to talk about this stuff, but that's how it's going to be. So, for all of you who have been going through all of the endings during the cancer phase, it's not going to happen for all of us, but he is going to retrograde back and there will be some reconciliations, all right.

Speaker 1 15:52

Oh, and another traditional kind of warning that goes out during any kind of Mars retrograde period is do not initiate any battles, and that includes because, of course, this was ancient astrologers saying this right, but that includes court battles. For those of us in the modern world, the theory is or the ancient wisdom I guess that's the better way to put it. The ancient wisdom is that during a Mars retrograde phase, the person who initiates loses Okay. Person who initiates loses okay. So don't initiate any kind of court cases or battles or whatever that you don't absolutely have to. If someone initiates against you, then, of course, defend yourself. Mars is there for that Fight to the end, because you will likely be victorious. And again, I am not giving any legal advice.

Speaker 1 16:52

This is just a podcast for entertainment purposes only. So, given that this is such a long, long Mars process that we're going to be going through, I want to really give you kind of a heads up for who's going to be feeling it most strongly, and, of course, again, it depends on planets in your own chart, but in general, the signs ruled by Mars are probably going to take the biggest jolt on this. That's, of course, aries and Scorpio. When I talk about that, I'm talking about rising sign. So, aries and Scorpio, rising you guys are going to get hit with this stuff, with whatever it is that's coming up, depending on your house and all of that stuff, but you're going to be feeling this right.

Speaker 1 17:43

The next in line are people with their rising sign sun, moon or a stellium, which is a grouping of three or more planets in cancer. Those people are going to be feeling it intensely too, because the bulk of the time, like I said, mars is going to be in cancer, like from the beginning when he started in September. It's going to be like six out of eight months in cancer. So if that's a significant sign in your chart, then you're going to be feeling this. And the final group of people are people with cancer in one of the angular houses. That means if cancer is your first which we already talked about because that would be rising but if cancer is your first, fourth, seventh or tenth, those houses are kind of the spine of our chart right. That's self, home, partner, career. They are the main houses, the main categories in life, and if cancer is one of those houses, you're going to be feeling this pretty heavily too.

Speaker 1 18:55

Now, don't get me wrong. That doesn't mean this is happening to all of us and we're going to all feel it to some extent or another, but there are those particular placements that will just likely be right in the storm center. Right, storm center is not really the right metaphor, but honestly right now I can't think of a better one. So that's what we're going to just hang with. The other thing to remember is that right now, this week, I've been talking sort of about the whole Mars retrograde thing in general, but this week we've got forward momentum in Leo and we'll all be feeling this. But again, if Leo is your rising sign or your sun, moon, or you have a stellium there, you're going to be feeling this more positive Mars the most as well, which is a really brilliant, wonderful thing.

Speaker 1 19:51

So get ready for a week of forward momentum, positive actions. Forward momentum, positive actions, more energy oh, that's the other thing. I didn't even mention that before, but Mars in Cancer is just low energy, as Mars is sort of drowning in those Cancerian waters. This week we're going to start feeling like we've come back to life. Right. This week it's going to be like oh wow, I actually have the energy to get up and do things and you know I'm not dragging through everything, so that's super good and we're going to have this energy all week. Like I said, there are a lot of other things going on too, but this Mars Leo energy is going to be really good. We're going to have this until December 6th. That's when the retrograde starts. Mars is going to turn around.

Speaker 1 20:44

So take action, be bold, be brave, you will be anyway. There's going to be no way not to be sort of right, but just go with it, enjoy it. Don't overthink it, even though I'm about to tell you a reason why you might overthink it. But just know that there's going to be some redoing. All right, that's all there is to it. You're going to go back and redo some of what you said in motion, but that's fine. That doesn't mean we shouldn't grab this and really use it. Just know, you know, and that way, when you go back and you're like, oh, I have to revise this thing in some way, you know, it's just like yeah, I knew that was going to happen, we're all good, okay.

Speaker 1 21:35

So we've got forward momentum in Leo from the 3rd through December 6th, and I, for one, am super happy and I'm looking forward to, you know, just feeling more energetic. I hope that you're all feeling the same about that. I hope you're ready and excited to get going again. I'm pretty sure you are, and so that's it. Thank you so much. As always, I am just so grateful if you made it through the podcast and I would love it so much if you would share it. It matters more than I can tell you for a new channel if people will take a minute and share it and if you go leave a comment and do that kind of thing. It's just hugely important to me and I would be so grateful if you do it. But either way about it, I'm glad you're here and I'm just super happy that I get to talk to you every week. So that's it for me. Until next week, go out and seize the energies of the stars. This is my wish for you always Until next week. Bye.