As we approach the end of 2024 and the dawn of 2025, the celestial landscape is preparing a significant shift that will ripple through our lives, urging us to reflect, reevaluate, and renew. Mars, the planet of action and drive, is poised to go retrograde on December 7, 2024 until February 24, 2025, inviting a deep introspection and realignment of our core selves. This Mars retrograde, overlapping with other critical planetary movements, will set the stage for a transformative period that calls us to look within, reconcile our inner selves with new realities, and prepare for the birth of new life chapters.
As Mars moves through Leo and Cancer, it challenges us to take responsibility for our responses, confront emotional barriers, and make inspired, thoughtful choices. By embracing this time of reflection and realignment, we can transform potential frustrations into powerful catalysts for self-empowerment and renewal.
Mars Retrograde in Context
The Mars retrograde energy will close 2024 and usher in 2025, a year of renewal and significant life changes. With Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune all changing signs in 2025, we can expect the birth of new life chapters. Our lives will look very different by the end of next year! Preparing for this transformation, the cosmos calls us to look within and reconcile our inner selves with the new realities unfolding around us.
The overlapping retrogrades of Mars in Leo/Cancer and Mercury in Sagittarius will be closely followed by a Venus Retrograde in Aries overlapping a Mercury Retrograde (also in Aries) in March 2025. These four back to back personal planet retrogrades invite an extended period of deep introspection and realignment of our core being. You can read about the Mercury Retrograde in Sagittarius here: Mercury Retrograde in Sagittarius: A Journey of Truth and Expansion
This collective pause and review by these personal planets presents an opportunity to deliberately choose and embody who we want to become and how we wish to engage with the world around us in order to call in a new reality and new life moving forward.
To create meaningful, positive change in your external world, you must first make meaningful, positive changes to your inner reality. The more intentional you are about this internal growth, the more profound and beneficial the outcomes will be, especially in light of the significant transits slated for later in 2025.
Understanding the Mars Retrograde
When Mars goes retrograde, it urges us to review our actions and plans. Mars, as a catalyst for change, challenges and dismantles outdated structures, systems, and paradigms. Mars likes to destroy and breakdown walls and blockages but it does so carelessly and sometimes recklessly which means that it can lead to crisis.
While this process can be disruptive, these upheavals are often necessary to resolve stagnant or unproductive situations. Mars forces breakdowns to clear the way for breakthroughs, often sparked by newfound inspiration, passion, and desire.
Taking Charge of Your Reactions
Mars is all about ‘doing’ — actions and reactions. When faced with a situation, crisis, or conflict, Mars wants to know how you will respond. It challenges you to act in alignment with your personal integrity and values rather than reacting from an unconscious habit.
The key is to take responsibility for your response by focusing on what you can control: yourself and your actions. Between what happens to you and the response there is a gap where you have is your freedom to choose how you will respond. Intentionally elongate and use this gap in order to create more empowerment in your life.
Empowerment Through Proactive Choices
When we allow external conditions or other people to affect us, we become reactive and therefore disempowered. This means we are at the mercy of our environment, losing control over our direction and happiness. While the physical and social environment will always influence us, our response to it is within our realm of control. By proactively taking control of our response, we take our power into our own hands and create our own circumstances, reality, and life.
So, if you are going to take charge of your reactions, you must first take responsibility by removing your focus from conditions, situations and people (things that you cannot control) and placing it on yourself and your actions (the only thing you can control). Mars encourages us to act, not to be acted upon.
The Gift of Resistance
Whenever a planet is in retrograde, we have a profound opportunity to assess our resistance to the subjects and topic matter that the planet, sign and house represents. This is usually done by first noticing the resistance, often with it being amplified.
While this can be frustrating, it is a gift from the cosmos. Resistance weighs us down and causes problems. Unless we acknowledge, accept, and release our resistance, we cannot move forward and expand. During this retrograde period, become to observer of your resistance. What is it trying to tell you about where you need to let go and allow?
Navigating Mars Retrograde
During Mars retrograde, you might experience a decline in energy, increased frustrations, delayed actions, and fizzling passions. However, this is a blessing in disguise. It’s a divinely orchestrated plan to bring forth inspired and thoughtful action rather than action born of restless discord.
This period is an opportunity to ensure that your actions are true, pure, and aligned with your values. Now is your chance to choose your path based on careful considerations of the stirrings within your soul.
Mars Retrograde in Leo (Dec 7, 2024 – Jan 6, 2025)
When Mars goes retrograde in Leo, it’s time to hit the pause button and reassess your actions, plans, and passions. Leo, governed by the Sun, is all about self-expression, creativity, and your personal journey. This retrograde phase invites you to explore whether your self-expression aligns with your authentic identity or is merely ego-driven. It’s a perfect opportunity to refine your personal brand and ensure it reflects the true you.
Leo energy encourages following your heart, joy, and desires. Use this time to ponder what truly brings you happiness and how you can express your unique self more authentically. This retrograde can be a powerful catalyst for personal growth, helping you stand out and shine in a way that’s true to your heart. Just remember, it’s not about being the loudest in the room; it’s about being the most authentic.
During this retrograde, you’ll feel a strong pull to reevaluate your passions and the actions you take to pursue them. It’s a time to ensure your actions align with your heart’s deepest desires and your authentic self. Mars in Leo urges you to be bold and courageous, but with the retrograde influence, it’s essential to act mindfully and deliberately. Use this period to reconnect with your inner leader and ensure your actions are grounded in your core values and personal integrity.
With Leo’s creative energy and Mars’ retrograde motion, you might experience creative blocks. But don’t fret; these blocks are opportunities to delve deeper into your creative process. By looking within, you can find new sources of inspiration and potentially experience creative breakthroughs. So, embrace this time as a chance to ignite your inner creative flame.
Mars Retrograde in Cancer (Jan 6, 2025 – Feb 24, 2025)
When Mars goes retrograde in Cancer, it urges us to review our actions and plans through the lens of our emotional wellbeing and nurturing instincts. Cancer, ruled by the Moon, is all about our inner world, emotional needs, and the desire to feel safe and secure.
Mars retrograde in Cancer is a time to pause, reflect, and align your emotional actions with your personal integrity and values. It’s a period to take responsibility for your emotional responses and to choose proactive rather than reactive behaviours especially around the emotions of anger and frustration. Embrace the opportunity to assess and release your emotional resistance, and use this time to make inspired, thoughtful choices that align with your soul’s deepest desires.
You might find yourself re-evaluating your relationships with family and loved ones, as well as your approach to self-care and emotional nourishment. Frustrations during this period could stem from unmet emotional needs or unresolved issues from the past. Mars retrograde in Cancer encourages us to confront and heal these emotional wounds, to break down the barriers we’ve built around our hearts, and to foster a deeper sense of emotional intimacy with ourselves and others.
Final thoughts
Mars retrograde is a time to pause, reflect, and align your actions with your personal integrity and values. It’s a period to take responsibility for your responses and to choose proactive rather than reactive behaviour. With Leo and Cancer being active, this is an opportune time to delve into inner child work and heal childhood traumas and programming. Embrace the opportunity to assess and release resistance you are carrying from past experiences, and use this time to make inspired, thoughtful choices that align with your soul’s deepest desires.
By understanding and harnessing the power of the Mars retrograde, you can transform this period of potential frustration into a time of profound growth and self-empowerment. The key is to use this time for careful planning so that when Mars turns direct, you’re ready to take inspired action.