Mars Retrograde – Getting command of your energy.

As always, whenever we get into a retrograde period, it seems to draw a lot of attention. While they definitely bring us a challenge, I’d love to share with you why I know retrogrades can be one of the most fruitful times of our human journeys. 

 

The planets are always ‘in alignment’ if you choose to see the dynamics in the best possible light. If you understand the opportunity happening in a retrograde time, you’ll be feeling a kind of quiet excitement right now, as some of our planetary ‘power players’ take us in a direction that’s deeper, and it may not feel like forward movement, but it is.

I could just have easily called this post “It’s time to Walk your Talk”, or “Before Enlightenment, Chop Wood Carry Water, After Enlightenment, Chop Wood Carry Water” or “Be Courageous – Accept that Everything is Unfolding In Perfect Timing” or “Stop Trying to Get Things Moving, and Get Moving!”

It’s a really good thing, if you understand that a retrograde is all about our favourite ‘re-words’ – rework, renegotiate, reestablish, remember, rediscover. But there’s one particular re-word that’s lighting up for me right now, and it is guiding me forward in a steady, grooving way that is revealing to me the gift of this time.

Realignment.

 

This word has emerged in recent days from my own body’s innate wisdom as I just started to listen to it. 

Mars is all about assertiveness, courage, passionate action, raw energy. It’s our basic drive, our sexuality, our ‘body language’. We could say it’s about how our personal will, desire and energy manifest physically in the world, and our first and most obvious, intimate indicator of how we are doing that, is our own body. It’s well documented scientifically that stress has a huge impact on our health, and what is stress if not our own personal energy being out of alignment, being stuck in ‘pushing against’ mode? 

If we have a sensation that our personal will and desire is being held back or restrained, or in other words “what I really want is not yet realised”, it could manifest at this time as a clarity about what it is that matters most to us, a renewed commitment and determination, an undeniable desire to do what we can ‘no longer not do’. (You might find you now see clearly what is a distraction from your deepest hearts desires.) But as we’re in a kind of gestation/slowing down period, it’s not necessarily the right timing to actually get on with doing or birthing it, so on the other hand it could show up as perhaps even pure anger, or its insipid, much more annoying cousin, frustration.

If you’re being slowed down in contrast with your desire to move forward, you can either stand at that perceived ‘closed gate’ jiggling about frenetically while complaining about things not moving fast enough, or you can get command of your energy.

 

How do you do that? This is a fabulous question, one that I can’t answer for you, but here’s something I’m doing that’s really working for me.

 

I create conscious movement. My dance does not have a name. It’s a kind of yoga-breathwork-stretching-poi-belly dancing- taiko drumming- tai chi-floorwork-contemporary expressionist contact dance- thing.

 

It’s any form of movement I feel like doing from any source of body mind practice I have ever learnt or innately known. When I say ‘floorwork’, that’s pretty much rolling about on the floor or furniture like when you were 6. (Remember having that innate desire to move and play, without effort?) It’s any movement at all, or none, just standing still and breathing consciously. Mars is not the only archetype involved with this ‘dancing energy’, as Jupiter, the planet of expansion, is in Virgo, which for me is the sign of mind-body connection healing. Although Jupiter comes out of retrograde soon, it won’t shift signs again until September, so this conscious connection to our own body’s innate wisdom is a theme that continues. 

It is a potent opportunity for physical realignment. 

I have a couple of places in my body that hurt, that feel stuck, from old injuries and old thoughts, and I have energies and emotions in my self that are like ‘standing at that gateway frenetically jiggling’, that have also felt a bit stuck. I realise that they are related. So I listen to my body, and I move how it wants to. 

I move toward what feels good. I’m very aware that connecting my breathing to movement is incredibly calming for my whole nervous system, releases pent up energy, and my whole being feels different because of it. 

 

I can see the invitation to dramatise the intensity of this time, but I choose instead to embody containment of power. It is as if the Mars energy attains a higher octave, and goes….Plutonian. (Pluto is retrograde too, by the way, so it’s only going to take us deeper and deeper.) Instead of jiggling and being frustrated, the synchronising of movement with deep breaths stoke the fire in my belly. I am like the warrior, practicing my sword skills, but with a feather. It’s a metaphor that sings to me in a way that’s just….focused and liberating. 

This feeling is so different, and so clearly and obviously preferable to me. I feel contained, powerful, calm, capable, focused. More connected with the way I move through life and the impact I have with my energy. Insights into my emotional reactions arise without having to create a big fiery mess with them. I know what my next step is, and I feel happy knowing that I am moving forward one step at a time right now. I have, ‘gasp’, patience. More than that, with Abraham-Hicks type wisdom I understand that “patience is never necessary when you know everything is unfolding in perfect timing.” 

Mars wants to create from the power of action, but without the clarity of energy and feeling that emerges from deep within, our action energy is dispersed, wasted or destructive. Mars is actually leading us forward right now, as we head into months of retrograde periods, involving 5 different planets. It’s the astrological news of the year so to speak, so we would do well to get command of that energy now, and settle into a steady rhythm. We are actually travelling through the same Saggitarius/Scorpio landscape that Saturn took us through last year, so we know already what’s really important to us, and we are now readying ourselves for it to show up physically in our lives. As you know already, to have what you really want manifest in your life, you have to be a match to it.

So it is hugely worthwhile taking time to focus inward and deeply on clearing and balancing your most valuable resource, your own personal energy.

 

You don’t have to dance. You could embrace the zen of chopping wood. (Oh the joy of finding that perfect spot with your axe, where it just wants to split…) You could meditate. You could walk on the beach. With a dog, to remind you of the really important things in life, like ‘fun’ and ‘being in the now’ and ‘taking many opportunities throughout the day to stretch’ and ‘the power of naps in the sun’. You could get healing, or bodywork. You could simply slow down, getting more present with whatever you are doing while you are doing it, being focused on one thing at a time. You could make something beautiful as an act of pure pleasure. You could use your action energy for radical acts of compassion. Whatever calls from within, the action that you ‘can’t NOT take’, do that. Or find stillness and make it a conscious act. Whatever brings your focus to command of your power. Or take a nap! It’s a time where if we try to move forward too fast, we’ll find ourselves redoing things again, so at this point, efficiency trumps speed, be the tortoise and not the hare.  

With love, the dancing-peaceful-warrior-princess within me, honours the Mars realignment in you!

Would you like help with whatever realignment process you are going through? I can help you see yourself more clearly and release the stuck energy in your body. BodyTalk is a perfect combination of bodywork, shifting consciousness/old belief systems that aren’t really the authentic you, and getting you the ‘aha’ moment you need to move forward.  Yes, we really are moving forward! Book a session here.