Mars now appears to be in backward motion from the Earth’s perspective. The energy affects us when it comes to desire, action, the use of will, self-assertion/-defense, and standing up for ourselves. This is in play from today to mid-April, when it stations direct at 3 Virgo 41.
How and why you do what you do is up for review. Your normal impetus to act might feel a bit stalled now and if so, take it as a cue to let your energy field get reset about how things get and why you do them. Why you choose what you do is part of this so let any indecision open the door in your awareness to see what might need adjusting when it comes to what you want and why.
Approximately every two years we get the chance to do this. The last time, from mid-December 2009 to early March 2010, it was in Leo, asking us to see more about and into how we live the normal human story of putting ourselves at the center of the world. We were invited to correct course when it came to being invested in our own personal opinions and the wonderful feeling of being right all the time that, as humans, is entirely within our God-given rights. (Well, anyone with that sort of feeling would have his or her head contacting numerous brick walls then.)
This time, it’s in Virgo. The story is radically different than with the last Mars retrograde. Virgo is about service, healing, subverting ego in the service of something or someone else, being a team player, taking responsibility, and improving things. One bottom line of this sign is that when we live life through it, we learn humility or we are humiliated. There is a fine line between the two and it has everything to do with our willingness to put ego in the back seat.
When we do Virgo well, we choose to submit to an external agenda and we don’t let it mean that our own personal needs are not important. Note the natural quincunx to Aries, a sign associated with Mars. Signs that are five away from each other such as these two share a natural misunderstanding of the other and, usually, there’s a sense of threat due to the entirely foreign nature each perceives the other to have. Virgo is the sign that pushes and pulls us into fitting in with an agenda that can work only if we back off from our individuality and personal interests.
Mars retroing in Virgo is going to ask all of us to check our egos but not as a valid criticism of self-interested action. It will ask us each to see how chilling out when it comes to our own agendas and desires can serve a purpose. At least at some points during this retrograde you will be drawn to take self-interested action – a Mars phrase – and be confronted with an invitation to humble yourself.
Well, what will you do?
Check the part of you that might react to the “humble yourself” bit. Again, this retrograde is not about defeating your ego or “putting it in its place,” but about supporting you in seeing how you might align your will to a cause that serves more than just yourself.
The flip side is where we might not act in self-interested ways but need to. Our normal Virgoan routines can be going along nicely, the same as usual, and during this transit we will be able to see into the effects and ramifications of never putting ourselves first. Again, Mars retro is all about a course correction when it comes to all Mars behavior and activity. If you’re too proud to serve, you need to humble yourself and do some service. If you’re too humble or humiliated to invest in yourself, you need to take self-interested action to do so.
Take stock now of what you want and why, and how much self-interested action you take – and judge none of it. If you serve a lot, it doesn’t mean you’re a good person. It means that you serve a lot. If you don’t serve a lot it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person – it means you’re someone who doesn’t serve a lot. Check in with yourself and see where the best use of your time and energy are in the moment. You might find yourself inspired to pitch in on someone else’s project or support someone in learning something that you know.
Join me for a free conference call on where we are now at the beginning of 2012 with the evolution of consciousness in full swing. “Rethinking Responsibility” will feature a channeled message from Ascended Master Djehuty on where we are now and then I will frame Mars’s retrograde in Virgo, Saturn’s retrograde in Libra, and Neptune’s ingress to Pisces in terms of the evolution of the human collective this year. Don’t miss this call!
January 28th, 2012
10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern
(712) 432-0850
Participant code 917518#
On the call I’ll tell you how you can get a discount on the tuition for the next e-course offering, Soul Healing: Forgiveness and Giving and Taking Back Energy, beginning February 4th and open to everyone everywhere. It’s a prime opportunity for Mars retroing in Virgo, as we are asked to look into what it means to take responsibility for anything and everything.
Tom Jacobs is an Evolutionary Astrologer, Medium, and Channel. Get your Soul’s Journey Soundbite MP3 or video and contact him through https://tdjacobs.com.