Mars Retrograde in Gemini ♂ Oct 30 – Jan 12

artist: Gordon Mortensen

Mars enters Gemini: Aug 20, 2022

Mars Retrograde in Gemini: Oct 30, 2022 – Jan 12, 2023

Mars enters Cancer: Mar 25, 2023

Planets in retrograde are not spinning backwards – it is an optical illusion as seen from Earth due to the fact that planets travel at their own respective speeds around the sun. In astrology, this illusion manifests as a “backwards” functioning of the planetary roles. Click here to learn more about retrograde.

Mars turns retrograde for two months every two years. We last experienced Mars Retrograde from Sep-Nov 2020 in Aries. This next retrograde falls in mutable air sign Gemini. Starting just before Halloween, it will span the rest of the year and finally wrap up in Jan 2023. People with natal planets & points in Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and/or Pisces should be prepared for some twists and turns.

Mars Retrograde in Gemini will give us lots of opportunities to work on communication. The way we use our time and energy is also up for review. Mars in an air sign brings insight and connectivity. Here we are lighthearted, curious, extroverted.

The pace of everyday life will pick up considerably. There is no shortage of things to do. Let me ask you this: How many windows do you have open in your mind right now? I’ve been thinking about my brain recently as a browser with way too many tabs open. So many thought channels running concurrently. And yes it helps so much with creativity but it’s also just making me feel really fucking tired. I think Mars Rx in Gemini is the perfect time to practice mindfulness and focus on one thing at a time.

Mars rules the body as well as our yang energy. Part of this retrograde is about fostering a new relationship to our body. Mars Retrograde means physical recalibration. Food, sleep, exercise, health – all of these and more will be thrown off as we digest new changes that arise.

Anything that has not been properly healed will resurface so ferociously that we will be forced to finally address and heal it. The physical body is the last stop. Imbalances in the outer, subtle levels of the aura percolate down to the body, crying out for love and attention. That is the power of Mars Retrograde: identifying the connection between body, mind, and spirit and the ways in which emotional/spiritual pain shows up in the body.

Mars Retrograde often feels like madness, despite the inundation of cheerful, breezy energy we can expect from Gemini. Mars, God of War, is the planet of action. When he is retrograde, we don’t know how – or when, or where – to act. And yet paradoxically we will feel immense cosmic pressure to hurry up and do something – but what? It appears that none of our options are ideal. So we need to reframe: how to make the best of a shitty situation?

Mars Retrograde is a confusing transit, much like Mercury or Venus Retrograde. Give yourself time to just sit and be. This is not a time of action, but rather of absorption, inundation, synthesis. Please rest. Lift your nose to the wind like a wolf; listen for the whispers. To find your personal Mars sign and whether this planet was retrograde when you were born, click here.