The Importance of Mars Retrograde
And the effects to all House Cusps
No planet can shake up our lives more than Mars when it goes retrograde. Of all the planets, it has the greatest variability of time spent retrograde (between 58-81 days) a variability of roughly 23 days, whereas every other planet will have a variability of less than 7 days.
This means when Mars goes retrograde our lives can get shaken up with more intensity and unpredictability.
The Mars retrograde period is a time for:
1) Serious reconsiderations about how we’re resolving conflicts in our lives;
2) Understanding the limits to our will-power;
3) Not deluding ourselves about current strategies that may not be working to accomplish our stated goals.
Mars is retrograde from 6 December 2024 - 24 February 2025
What makes this year especially important is that Mars will be retrograde and debilitated in Cancer, which will elevate the emotional intensity of any conflicts in your life, specifically with regards to the house cusp (area of life) that Mars will be transiting over.
It’s especially important to analyze the exact degrees of your House cusps because Mars will be in both Leo and Cancer during this time. Mars will be retrograde at 17°0’ Cancer - 6°10’ Leo, so whatever House cusps you have in this range, or within 3° of this range, that is the area of your life that will be affected. And this may include 2 House cusps (like myself, the 3rd and 4th) so keep that in mind.
Here is Mars retrograding over my natal chart, as an example:
I did a deep dive into the history of Mars retrograde in Cancer as it pertains to the United States natal chart, and the monumental effects it has on geo-political events involving the US.
You can watch the full video on Youtube, and on my channel I uploaded individual videos for each period if you don’t have time to watch the entire 1 hour and 15 minute video.
Here is the playlist for all of those videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtbxCZBTLB00-J7wLqS5FTfpLleNSRbmj
And here are the effects for each house cusp as it pertains to your natal chart.
1st House Cusp
The inner frustrations about yourself and the path you’re walking in life, which may have been bubbling under the surface for quite some time, will finally become externalized. There may be fights, a noticeable sense of disagreeableness, being difficult, rigid and uncompromising. These are all expressions of an inner desire to change oneself. There may be a strong desire to express your personal needs and how others may or may not be supporting you. Instead of blaming others for external problems, look inwards and find where that problem is seeded in yourself, or how it is merely a symbol of something you aren’t satisfied about you’re using your energy to get what you want.
A positive of Mars retrograding through the 1st is that the efforts you’ve put towards collaborating with others can become recognized, and the fruits of those efforts will be realized. If you’re not receiving the proper recognition for your work there is a strong desire to receive it. This transit can help you help you obtain more freedom, independence and self-motivation as a “reward” for the energy you’ve put towards helping/assisting others.
2nd House Cusp
The potential for impulsive or emotional spending that can lead to conflicts. A heavy emphasis on seeing outside material possessions as absolutely necessary to accomplishing a task. Work to detach your ideas of practical value from your physical possessions, you are practical because of your effort and ability to work.
Also, this can be an important time to create a viable financial plan that includes allocating resources to emergencies or sudden life changes. An emphasis on the eyes - am I seeing all the factors of a problem clearly? Where are my blind spots?
3rd House Cusp
Avoid pointless arguments with neighbors, co-workers, associates and siblings - people that you interact with on a daily basis. Find your strengths and build on them, defend your beliefs, but don’t over do it and push people away who can be useful to you later on.
You may have very haphazard energy levels - one day our firing out of the gate and another you can barely get a single task done. So efficiency is critically important - don’t waste time on minuscule details which will only put you father behind. You may become very emotionally invested in hard work and have trouble seeing through the tunnel to the end, so you may need to force yourself to take more breaks and time off so you don’t burn yourself out. This is also a great time to re-start or upgrade an exercise or fitness routine.
4th House Cusp
Highly emotionally charged home life and potential for frustrating domestic issues, such as heightened tension and an uncompromising attitude towards how things are done around the house, and conflicts with roommates. Control anger impulses as intelligently as possible, which usually means stepping away and cooling down. Be very gentle with family members, particularly feminine figures in your life. Avoid major home improvements or real estate decisions until at least late February, as there can be many tantalizing details that may be difficult to resolve at the time being.
Also, unconscious desires and attitudes from the past may come into your present mental world. Stay in the present. Drive carefully and don’t succumb to road rage. In addition, your professional life may need to take a back seat for some time in order to re-orientate your emotional well-being.
5th House Cusp
Discipline may go out the window and you may be experiencing a heightened energy to express immediate desires. This can be a breakthrough time for letting pent up emotions flow out of you that may have been dormant or unconscious until now. Of course, there is a risk of offending others by not considering their desires, or becoming more inconsistent with your responsibilities, so it’s important to structure your energy in a productive way. Athletic activity is an excellent method, and embracing playfulness rather than a cutthroat drive to accomplish goals. This transit can also indicate pent up sexual frustration and the need to release it healthily.
This can be a very dangerous time for speculation and risk-taking, so be very cautious of these impulses to make quick progress because those ideas and efforts may backfire. Keep a cool head when it comes to your children (if you have them) as frustrations and conflict are more likely during this time.
6th House Cusp
You may become forced into a situation where you need to serve someone, or some project, but you are unenthusiastic or defensive about doing so. Be careful not to create enemies out of your frustration and desire to do your own thing, especially if you’re employed by someone else. Being a team player can feel very challenging, you may want to receive more credit than you are getting, so it’s important to realize when it’s necessary and submit yourself to getting the work done without rebelling or going rogue. Do what needs to be done and move on. There is a much higher risk of physical accidents when retrograding over the 6th cusp, so be cautious and avoid erratic or unstable situations.
You may also be facing health battles and a greater risk of infection, so preventative measures should be taken. There is also a higher probability for emotionally caused illnesses, so all anger and frustration needs to be expelled productively and quickly, such as through exercise and physical movement in general.
7th House Cusp
This can be a very tense time with those closest to you, particularly a spouse, significant other, and with those you have an intimate working relationship. Compromise and cooperation may feel especially difficult, and this transit requires lifting the focus off yourself and finding middle ground. You may feel strong desires to be independent, that seem to emerge out of nowhere, in order to resolve an ongoing conflict, but this is unlikely to work as a long-term strategy. The Mars virtues of discipline and restraint will help you refrain from impulsive reactions towards loved ones.
This transit over the 7th cusp can be positive for bringing unresolved conflicts to the forefront in order to clear the air of tensions that may have been brewing, just make sure you’re choosing your battles properly.
8th House Cusp
If you are married, or share joint resources with another person, this can be a positive time for re-strategizing the best use of your finances. Be very wary of taking out any loans or making major financial decisions especially if there are strong emotions involved. These may result in unexpected consequences and difficult future battles which could involve the legal system and court cases.
Psychologically this is time when hidden impulses and beliefs are stirred up within you. You may have to face uncomfortable emotional realities that are holding you back from making breakthroughs and transforming yourself towards the positive. This is a time when courage is necessary to fearlessly look into your dark side and confront character qualities that need improvement. And most importantly, be very cautious about harboring secretive intentions towards others as a means to getting the upper hand, these plans can have severe and unexpected blowback to your detriment.
9th House Cusp
Strongly held beliefs will come into question, either by yourself or by others challenging them. You may feel like you are losing ground in a war over these beliefs, so don’t waste time over-identifying with them and stridently defending them, but rather use your mental energy in expanding your worldview.
You may begin to question your ideals and find you have intense emotional attachments to them. It is important to remember that a healthy Mars is able to change on a dime, whether in an emergency situation or when it comes to how something should or shouldn’t be done. So this transit will give you the opportunity to adjust to new factors in the world around you in order to amend your belief system so that it matches new realities.
10th House Cusp
Instances when you displayed ineffective leadership will come to the fore during this transit. Fear may have been a driving factor when you didn’t take control over a situation, and now is the time to identify how and when you should have a more commanding posture.
It’s important to seek more independence in your work life, so if you have an employer you may not feel like taking orders from others, so it is important to be cooperative while still assuming more control over your output and your efforts. Contemplate the ideas of leadership and the character qualities necessary for being a reliable leader - this will pay great dividends when life calls on you to be a strong and ethical presence for the benefit of others.
11th House Cusp
This is the time to set, review, or re-affirm your goals for the future and how to achieve them. You may feel some disappointment for previously hopes and ambitions you sought to achieve, so now is the time to ask why they may have not worked or were unrealistic, and create a new vision for what’s ahead.
It’s important that you aren’t clouding this new vision for the future with emotional hopes and dreams, but rather a clear logical framework about how to move forward. The disappointment may also have had something to do with a group you belong to, but now is a good time to be a team player contribute to a group effort that may be more conducive to your new goals. And make sure to clearly coordinate your goals so so that you are in alignment with others rather that going rogue or assuming you are on the same page with others.
12th House Cusp
Enemies - people with a different agenda than your own - may emerge from unlikely places. Be prepared for these kinds of unexpected conflicts. Examine the way that you are asserting yourself - you may have pure intentions but other people may not be seeing it that way, and so others may be working behind the scenes to counter your efforts. Instead of lashing out or confronting others directly, confront yourself and examine what unconscious behaviors you’re doing that that are contrary to your stated intentions. Are your emotional responses to situations preventing you from seeing the situation clearly? This question is important for all people during this transit, but especially for the 12th House because there is a tendency towards self-denial and fighting with oneself internally.
Life may be forcing you to spend more time alone during this transit in order greater self-examination in order to develop a healthy emotional detachment from your ego and/or desires. Don’t fight this necessity to spend more time alone, and take advantage by intellectually stimulating yourself in a good book, in a solitary exercise routine, or advancing self-discipling through fasting/meditation.
If you would like to know the specifics of how Mars Retrograde will affect your chart and the ongoing transits in your life book a reading with me on my website.