Denial is pushing something out of your awareness. Anything you hide in the basement has a way of burrowing under the house and showing up on the front lawn.” – Howard Sasportas

This is one of my favourite quotes and it seems very apt right now, as joining Saturn in his retrograde motion we have Mars, who will be turning retrograde (seemingly moving backwards) this weekend.

Both planets are currently travelling through the sign of Sagittarius so what I am about to explain will affect the house(s) in your chart that are governed by the key Sagittarian degrees. More on this later..

In a minute, I’m going to tell you a story (how very Sagittarian) about a knight. This story is an attempt to convey the combined energy of these two planets travelling ‘seemingly backwards’ through Sagittarius.

Let’s set the energetic scene before we begin:

The Sun in our natal chart represents our innate vitality.

Mars, associated with The God of War, is what enables us to demonstrate that vitality outwards.

In short, Mars is all about ‘action’.

Mars retrogrades occur once every 2 years bringing us the opportunity for some internal contemplation  and to potentially uncover previously buried feelings that need to be acknowledged and released.

But to do this, we first have to slow down.

When Mars stations and turns retrograde we may suddenly feel as if something has suddenly stopped; be it a project, relationship or some other area of life; in Sagittarius this is probably related to where we are striving for growth.

Our motivation can appear to vanish and we may experience a loss of energy; potentially finding it hard to focus on what we were previously so enthusiastic about and feeling that its all just hard work.

Frustrations can occur around themes relative to the house where Mars is now travelling through within our personal natal charts.

Rather than see this time as a futile struggle, Mars and Saturn are calling for a reassessment.

If we listen to what is stirring; if we put in the effort at the key points within each cycle then we may just be able to align the foundations of our lives more accurately with our inner truth.

These retrogrades are not sent to delay us or frustrate us they are simply a nudge to put us on the right path, which may not have been the path upon which we were headed.

To ensure that we really do want to achieve the goals and ambitions that we think we do and to, potentially, show us other ways of getting there.

Here’s that story; a little anecdote if you like, to get the idea across to you.

Sir Sag (as in short for Sagittarius, not overweight and un-toned 😉 ) is standing looking out from the castle walls; surveying the landscape around him.

His mighty steed is being made ready down in the stables below, as Sir Sag is about to set off on a great journey.

As he looks at the surrounding hills and villages he wonders, with a glimmer of excitement (Sagittarians love an adventure), where this ‘journey’ will take him.

He pictures himself arriving battle-ready on the fields, joining his fellow knights in combat.

Strong and Steely; a hero.

A call comes up from the stable. The horse is ready.

Our hero sets off from the castle walls at a mighty pace with his Sagittarian boundless enthusiasm.

He travels for one whole day and half of the next night until finally (amazed at how awesome he is to have travelled so far in such a short space of time) he sits down for a rest.

The planet Saturn, currently retrograde in the sky, twinkles ever so slightly.

As he falls into a deep sleep he dreams of days of old. He dreams of the village where he grew up, of his parents and his siblings. He sees the green, rolling fields. He recalls the laughter, the sense of ease and the freedom of his youth.

He wakes feeling nostalgic and starving. For our Sagittarian Knight has a voracious appetite.

As his horse is drinking from a river close by, he sits down with his huge bowl of breakfast to contemplate the next phase of his journey.

He looks around him and can’t quite shake off that dream. A part of him wishes that things were different.

When his father died he took on the role of the family wage-earner. His mother was so proud when he announced he was going to ‘knight-school’ (I know, but hey, it’s funny 😉 ).

He’d graduated. He’d worked his way up and he’d done very well for himself. He had maidens waiting on the sound of his horse hoofs in every village and town and he’d travelled lots.

But, this wasn’t quite what he’d envisaged as a child.

He had loved his life to date.

Let’s face it, which knight wouldn’t love that kind of life, but he wanted more.

He wanted a family to adventure with. A wife equally as spontaneous as he and, although fighting was all very manly, he was a little bored of it.

He just wasn’t cut out for it. Not like Sir Aries seemed to be (Aries is the sign ruled by Mars – The God of War).

He had so much wisdom to share! He had dreams of teaching horse-riding skills; perhaps to apprentice knights.

Sir Sag takes a deep breath and as he does so, Mars, just turned retrograde, twinkles; ever so slightly.

He looks up at the sky (he navigates by the stars) intending to plan the next leg of his journey and suddenly, it hits him.

The full trip should have taken a whole day and 8 hours

He should have been there by now! Why is he not there? Where the blazers is he?!

Now he’s frustrated. In fact, he’s angry!

Why did his father have to die?! Why did his mother not discourage him and let him stay with her?! Where was his lost childhood?!

Why did he now have to travel another 300 miles to fight a battle that had nothing to do with him and that was just going to bore the armour off of him?

We’ll leave our knight here for now and catch up with him later in the cycle.

Lets now look at how Mars Retrograde may have an effect on you:

Mars retrograde motion usually asks that we slow down and we may find that external events or our own internal energy will push us to do this.

With Mars and Saturn currently retrograde in the sign of Sagittarius this will be a great time to ask whether what we ‘do’ is actually what we want to do.

Are we acting in our own best interests; aligned with the truth of who we are, or are we doing things from a place of fear and ‘shoulds’? Do we feel that we are free to be ourselves and to assert for what we want?

If we have been previously afraid to stand up for our beliefs or to express the truth of who we are we may now find that we are connecting with some resentment.

We may suddenly start to think over old hurts; realising that what we thought we were over or had dealt with, we had simply suppressed.

This can often be related to unresolved conflicts with others and it can take us by surprise; especially if we’re suddenly connecting with emotions related to old situations that we believed were in the past.

By bringing the, previously suppressed, energy into consciousness Mars retrograde gifts us the chance to acknowledge and to feel it.

From this space we can then make steps to heal whatever it is; perhaps by taking the appropriate Bush Flower Essence, seeing a counsellor or  through some other healing modality that we resonate with.

Sitting in nature and journaling can be a simple, yet powerful way to acknowledge our inner pain.

Often by giving acknowledgement to our ‘sore spots’ we give them a voice and allow them to be released. By bringing these potentially darker feelings out into the light we often realise that they aren’t such bad feelings after all and if we confide in a friend we may even find that they too have experienced such emotions.

When we deny certain aspects of our nature; often unconsciously, we tend to see it reflected back at us by others.

For example, if a child is constantly told that they must do for others and that doing anything for themselves is selfish then that child may grow into an adult who is prone to burn out.

Constantly helping others and feeling a nagging guilt about the deep need for personal nourishment that is screaming inside them.

The adult that this child becomes could then be prone to illness and may even experience an emotional breakdown if they allow such a behaviour pattern to run their life.

When we are able to acknowledge our sore spots and work through them we end up freeing the energy that was previously being used to keep what we may have deemed ‘selfish’ or ‘not nice’ locked away.

This freeing of energy can enable us to move forward unencumbered with renewed enthusiasm, but often we must first confront some potentially darker emotions; such as resentment, rage or frustration.

Mars stations-retrograde (April 17th at 10:14pm here in Brisbane (AEST)), (01:14pm in England (BST (GMT-1)))

Mars will traverse, seemingly backwards, between 8 degrees and 54 seconds of Sagittarius and 23 degrees and 3 seconds of Scorpio between 17^th April and 29^th June this year.

Anyone with planets between 23 to 30 degrees of Scorpio and 0 to 8 degrees of Sagittarius is likely to be strongly affected by this retrograde.

1. I’ll keep you updated as we move through this cycle and as Mars backtracks into Scorpio so you may want to ensure that you are catching these highlights. You can do this in a variety of ways – by subscribing to my blog, following me on facebook or by subscribing to my newsletters.

Related Posts:

Saturn Retrograde 2016