On Friday, December 6th, 2024, Mars stationed retrograde at 6 degrees Leo. Mars has been here for a couple days and will sit at 6 degrees Leo for about another week before beginning to backtrack.
Mars makes the longest and least frequent retrogrades of all the personal planets.
He will get all the way back to 17 degrees Cancer, when on February 23rd, 2025, Mars will station direct. He (as we) will then REPEAT 17 degrees Cancer to 6 degrees Leo, moving forward this time, until April 18th, when Mars reaches 7 degrees Leo and this whole cycle is over.
People with planets and points near 0-6 degrees of the fixed signs and 17-29 degrees of the cardinal signs will feel this retrograde strongest, but all of us will be impacted.
Some people will have complete changes of heart and life changing re-directions of PURPOSE during this cycle.
We've talked about Mars in Cancer's lengthy part of this story HERE, HERE and HERE. Now, let's talk about Mars re-treat into LEO - the December chapter of the Mars retrograde story - and what this might look like.
Leo is the sign of the King/the ego, ruled by the Sun. The Sun is our life force/what keeps us ALIVE. Mars is about action, our passion, our anger, masculine energy. This retrograde is a big flipping deal. And starting exact on the North Node of Fate of the United States - fate is surely pulling the United States backward before we can move forward.
(the Leo portion of this retrograde runs back and forth over Biden's Pluto - very tight, Trump's Pluto, Vance's Sun, King Charles' ascendant, Israel's Moon)
As Mars backs into early Leo, he will get closer and closer to his REPEATING opposition to Pluto in Aquarius.
We had the first Mars opposite Pluto at the election here in the United States - they were at the end of Capricorn and in a gnarly T-square to Juno. The next opposition - likely, again, to show up as a POWER STRUGGLE - will be on January 3rd from Leo/Aquarius. Mars will be retrograde.
For now, Mars (as us) re-treats in some way.
For some people this might just show up as making different choices of action during the holiday season. More re-flection/nostalgia. Projects hitting roadblocks and delays and re-visions due to the upcoming holidays or other people's holiday plans, etc, seem almost par for the course this time of year. Some of the energy of Mars journey from Leo - our center stage/life force - to Cancer (home, roots), will be used in just doing the December holidays.
But there is a bigger story here, because Mars doesn't move from Leo into Cancer during a normal course of events. And, although this retrograde is more about the Mars in Cancer part (Mars is just getting started in Leo when he turns around and he will spend most of the retrograde in Cancer), there is a reason Mars gets into Leo. A reason he/we need to be pulling that Leo part of our life back into the Cancer part of our life.
The day after Mars stations retrograde, Neptune will station direct. Now Neptune is on a straight course from Pisces (where he has been since 2011) to Aries.
Neptune's time in Aries will be a sneak-peak of the new Neptune energy because Neptune will return to Pisces at some point, and with the 'sneak-peak' happening with Mars (the ruler of Aries) retrograde - there is almost certainly some kind of pull to the past with this one, too. Recycled imaginings. Recycled dreams. Recycled addictions and mental issues. Stay frosty. Don't over-invest in anything just yet. We have to be careful that the recycled thing-a-ma-jig is actually recycled into something else. Because, in the end, only the NEW stuff is going to survive this harsh winter. Maybe applying lessons we have learned in the past to current circumstances is the best use of these days, and not actually going back to something, if you see what I mean. People's situations and use of this energy will vary.
Mars' retrogrades always creates a certain degree of PRESSURE because Mars, at his best, wants to go-go-go and now there is some reason that he (as we) just can't. Try to build a little leeway into your December calendar.
Mars in Leo is about heart-centered action (royal action/we go after what we want) - the things we do that get us appreciation and attention and there is something about this 'way of action' that is wanting to be RE-INVENTED now. Leo is the sign of royalty. Kings go back to their roots. Kings go home. Kings turn around. Our Leo house AND our natal Sun placement is where we carry our own crown. The Sun/king doesn't go retrograde. The Sun/king doesn't get to turn around. Mars retrograde in Leo is the closest thing we ever get to a solar re-do.
Let's say, for example, you are a Leo rising (Leo is the sign on the cusp of your 1st house). This Mars retrograde journey has Mars travel through your 12th Cancer house - past life maternal stories, your maternal inheritance that sometimes you might be blind to because it is behind you/you can't see it, the reasons that are behind the way you mother others/nurture yourself, your story with food and sustenance. Then Mars goes into your first house - your physical body, your heart centered self/maybe your actual physical heart. Then Mars turns around and heads back into your 12th house Cancer - something here was MISSED.
I have a family member who is a Leo rising.
She is a Taurus Sun and when Jupiter met up with the Sun and Uranus in 2024 they were EXACT on her natal Sun and her MC (top of her chart). She had recently been voted President of her child's school's PTA after several years of being home with him - and having never served on the PTA before. She had also recently sold her parents' old house (her mother had died a couple years before) and received a sizeable inheritance - the house had not been selling. As soon as Jupiter entered Taurus (her Sun sign) a bunch of beneficial - if she stretched for them and she did - things started happening FOR HER. Things started lining up. Her Sun was preparing to meet Jupiter. This unexpected luck would be long-lasting, in some ways forever because 22 degrees Taurus would remain HOT for her (and all of us to a lesser extent), but, most strongly until Jupiter meets the Sun again which won't be until next summer (that one will not really be impacting her). So, she has this kind of 'protection' going on with her Sun for a good long time. So, summer comes and the transiting Sun enters Leo - goes into her first house of herself.
Now here is where I back up to say this woman was born with a hole in her heart (our hearts are ruled by the Sun/Leo). She did not know about this hole and found this out during the birth of her actual SON several years ago. The doctors told her the hole was too small to worry about and gave her medication to thin her blood (blood I would either give to Leo/Sun since Leo/the Sun rules the heart or Aries/Mars). But now, her SON is 7 years old and she had started to feel a bit more out-of-breath and her intuition (Pisces North Node) and concern for her child (she is an older mom and wants to, of course, be here as long as she possibly can, Cancer 12th house with her Leo Moon in that 12th house, so motherhood being a thing she does 'last/late' and having a connection to her heart - Leo) were pushing her to take greater 'action' - at this point Mars was in Gemini catching up with Jupiter. She found another doctor who would do surgery to close the hole in her heart.
To cut to the chase here - she has the surgery with Mars in Cancer (making his first pass, setting up the retrograde), the doctor is stunned to find the hole in her heart is more than double the size they were expecting it to be - the Jupiter- expansion/Sun-heart/Uranus-surprise from months before!
The surgery goes well and now she is dealing with the healing which has had its ups and downs. Mars in Leo - the first house of her physical self and her heart - turning around. So, now Mars (action/blood) is backtracking and her 'heart' story will, too, in some way. Revisions with meds, etc - as it moves back into her 12th house Cancer in 2025. Her SON healed the metaphysical 'hole in her heart' she came in with (that 12th house Cancer/12th house Moon in Leo - royal story around children/motherhood that brought her in with that hole in the first place) and now it is through the SUN's journey that the physical 'hole in her heart' gets healed. And, I will add she had a past royal life where she marries a wealthy man and his daughters - who are around her age - do not accept her. She also has two sisters in this life - and I should say her family is kind of a local 'royalty' now - who had daughters that she helped raise when she was younger. Life is crazy magic folks. We are always in the middle of things as we work and re-work very OLD STORIES.
Now, not everyone will have a chapter this tangible about the Leo to Cancer journey of late 2024 and early 2025, but we all have SOMETHING.
Many people will have something BIG.
I didn't get this up earlier in the week and I want to move onto writing the weekly today, so we will have to finish this up in Part II as we look at the collective and some other things I wanted to get to about this.
Let me get to the week ahead. Venus will move into an opposition with Mars this week, so stirring things up .... that post is next.
xo all
please excuse any typos or nonsense ..
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