Mars Finally Turns Direct

Mars is all about action, so it seems apropos that with Mars finally turning direct after over three months of being retrograde in the sign of its detriment (Libra, in case you haven't been reading my blog lately), I would finally be moved to update my astrology site.

Not that I'm feeling all that energetic. Indeed, I am so tired I can barely keep my head up. It's been a hard day's night for the past few months. The hardest thing to deal with has not been my business-as-usual problems, but losing Miss Meowsers, my sweetie's darling gray tabby whom I was lucky enough to know and love for the past two years, to chronic kidney failure (diagnosed in late March, Miss M. declined considerably after the Grand Cross passed in late April; we put her to sleep at home, a few days before the Full Moon, at the tail end of last weekend, just past Mother's Day). I feel that I've lost a dear friend, guru, and child. Miss Meowsers was a true inspiration and proof that miracles exist in this world -- just for starters, when I met her, I was allergic to, and did not especially care for, cats. I have a great imagination, yet could never have imagined the bond that would begin developing between us in six months' time and deepen up till the very last moment she looked into my eyes.

Mars turned retrograde in my 2nd house and although I was lucky enough not to go broke, my finances did not remain stable, as my job situation ended soon after Mars backed over my critical-degree Jupiter (interestingly, the job began soon before Mars, still direct, passed over my Jupiter; it was good and unexpected fortune, as I'd been found for it instead of applying to it). In early April, Mars retrograded into my 1st house and I became increasingly dissatisfied with my appearance (a 1st-house concern), lack of creative motivation, and listlessness. I can only hope that as Mars moves beyond its stationary direct phase and begins to pick up speed and purpose, so will I.

Natually, we've all been in some holding pattern or other these past few months, but depending on the house or houses in which Mars turned retrograde in your own chart, its effects have been felt in strikingly different ways. For example, if Mars turned retrograde in your 3rd house, you might have found it increasingly frustrating to communicate, particularly with neighbors or siblings; if Mars turned retrograde in your 12th house, you might have been plagued with nightmares, developed hard-to-diagnose health problems that might have landed you in the hospital, or even been unjustly incarcerated.

Although Mars direct is generally worlds better than Mars retrograde, Mars is still in indecisive Libra and will be until late July; it will also need to repeat the square to Pluto and opposition to Uranus (though interestingly, Jupiter leaves Cancer before Mars can square it again). In other words, we are not in smooth sailing by a long shot -- but at least we won't be in the hellish, boxed-in limbo known as Mars retrograde.