Mars Does the Backstep in Aries

 Not moving forward easily these days?  Join the club. Passion and purpose have left the building for many of us -- especially the creative types. Mars turned retrograde September 9th and will be doing its seemingly backwards dance until November 13th (dates may vary a tad depending on your global placement). All this takes place in the sign of Aries -- the first sign of the zodiac and the ruler of Mars.  So this is Mars on steroids so to speak. A very powerful Mars wanting to break out and "JUST DO SOMETHING" but stopped by our inner inability to move.  

We could assume that our lack of enthusiasm is hitched to the pandemic. That seems fairly obvious even as you look at our physically curtailed movement. Aries holds warrior energy and it is bottled up for now -- sometimes leaking out in shouting matches or violence.  Aries -- as a warrior -- is also a PROTECTOR, so in some sense it may be that our stagnate posture is a way that the Universe is protecting us -- or how we are protecting ourselves. There is no "good" or "bad" in self-protection. We need to do what we need to do.  If that means screaming out the window, then scream.  Well, don't make sounds like you are being attacked if you have neighbors close by *wink*.   We really need to take care of both ourselves and the others in our life. 

Mars doesn't exist in a vacuum of course. Other planets get to poke and prod and influence its energies.  Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto are all hanging out in Capricorn in a long time conference.  They will be making themselves heard more clearly -- and likely more loudly around the winter solstice (December 21st Pacific US time).  Meanwhile the powerful planets are still very much a part of the current climate.  

"Can't move forward, don't want to move back, and stuck in the no man's land of the middle".  That song plays a lot these days. We know we need to make some choices, have a plan, just DO something for goodness sake.  Many of us have given up some personal freedoms of late. We are cemented in our homes and neighborhoods as well as in our minds.  Opportunities seem limited if existing at all.

Astrology isn't a crystal ball, but the stars certainly suggest that there WILL be a shift in the coming months. That may be a shift in the real world out there -- or it may be a shift within ourselves.  Now is an excellent time to take stock, realizing that things DO change and we won't be mired in this miasma forever. For something new to unfold and be embraced we often have to give up our old ways.  Yes, it may be a struggle, most transitions are. Mars is giving us an introspective time out to ponder what we really want and how we might go about getting there -- once the time is right.