Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I’m your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I’m an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I’m going to give you your weekly horoscope and no bullshit, mystical advice for living your very best life.

Darlings, Darlings, Darlings. It’s a good day for another Retrograde, wouldn’t you say? Today on this week’s Astrology Hot Take we are going to talk about Mars Retrograde. Mars goes Retrograde on September 9th 2020 at 28 degrees at the sign of Aries—its ruling sign, and it will remain Retrograde until November 13th, and on November 13th, it will be at 15 degrees of Aries. So this Retrograde is September 9th through November 13th 2020, and the planet Mars moves between the degrees of 28 and 15. So Retrograde means it’s moving backwards through the degrees of the same sign. 

Unlike Mercury, Mars goes Retrograde once every approximately two years. So Mercury Retrograde, which you’ve heard about, happens a couple few times a year, which is why it’s so impactful and so many people are aware of it. It happens frequently. Mars Retrograde is a lot more notable. In part maybe because of the things that Mars governs, which can be quite explosive, but also because it happens a lot less frequently—once every couple of years. When you think about the outer planets, they are Retrograde, again, all the time. The Sun and Moon never Retrograde. And then we have Venus and Mars, and those dudes, yeah, a lot less frequently, a much more notable deal. 

I’ve touched on Mars before. I’ve done a Astrology Hot Take about Mars, if you want more information. I also touched on it in episode 140 in the horoscope section. But quickie refresher, just so it’s all in one place. Mars is a planet that governs a lot of really important things. It’s fighting. It’s fornicating. It’s anger, and it is assertion and aggression. Mars has rulership over your ego. So the Sun in astrology is related to your will, but Mars in astrology is related to your ego. The difference between what you will and the drives of your ego; they are satiating really different parts of yourself, but they do get smooshed together a lot of times for a lot of people.

Okay. Now, Retrogrades. The easiest way to think about retrogrades is applying the rule of re’s: reevaluate, reassess, recalibrate, reconfigure. The reason why we apply the rule of re’s is because we are meant to kind of review when a Retrograde occurs. And that can look like the normal functions of the planet—so in this case Mars—can kind of be stalled by a Retrograde because, on a technical level, it appears that a planet is moving backwards during a Retrograde, right. It moves backwards through the zodiacal degrees. And so the functions of a planet—it can be counter to what you typically expect to see. 

What we are meant to do with Retrogrades is really turn within and reevaluate, in the case of Mars, what we’re doing, how we’re doing it—the ego drives and motives that are pushing us. We want to be able to really reassess our passions and our engagement because these things are all Mars. Mars is active, and it’s action. When you’re watching somebody move through the world, you’re watching their Mars. When you’re watching somebody drive their car, you’re watching their Mars. Mars is all about how we propel ourselves forward, what pace we take, the force we do it with. It’s a big deal. It’s a big deal. 

Mars is related to fighting; it’s related to aggression and anger and defensiveness and urgency and, again, egos. And it’s the male symbol, so it’s kind of like angry men. Mars Retrograde: it’s just a great time for us to really reevaluate our relationship to masculinity—yes, it is—to look at how we are embodying it. Because I don’t think that masculinity is exclusive to male people. This is a time for us to look at our relationship to these classically male energies. How are we embodying them? Because here’s the fun fact: everybody has Mars in their birth chart. Everybody has Mars in their birth chart, and I am not of the mind that men should embody Mars one way, and women should embody Mars another, partially because there’s more than two genders, but also because that’s an antiquated way of thinking. We all should embody the planets in our chart—Venus, Mars, all the damn planets with the ambition of being whole, not of being a good boy or a good girl, right. 

And, so, looking at our relationship to masculinity on a personal, I mean, that’s interesting. It’s hard. It’s good, whatever. On a social level, it can look a lot of ways. It can look like people who are highly identified with their Mars, AKA certain types of dudes getting real fucking defensive, feeling really like they need to fight, they need to through down, they need to defend something and getting incredibly aggressive about it. This is a period where we can expect those who want to fight to be motivated. It could be a time of broadened conversations around masculinity and those conversations actually really being led by people who have had masculinity forced upon them—men, right. And, so, there’s a lot of social potential in that regard. 

So let me tell you a little bit more about this Mars Retrograde chart. We can cast a chart for the exact time and date that a planet goes Retrograde to see kind of like the life of that Retrograde. If you are doing this yourself, what you should know is that you can cast it for the location of where you are, but the houses, the Ascendant, the Midheaven; they’re not relevant for everyone. They might be relevant in some ways for you if you’re casting it for where you live. So we’re not using houses and stuff like that when we cast these kinds of event charts like celestial event charts. 

Anyways, Mars Retrograde. This Mars Retrograde is in the sign of Aries. Now, the last time that Mars was Retrograde in the sign of Aries—it was in 1941. It was in 1941, and nothing was happening in 1941. Google it. You’ll see, absolutely nothing. I’m being sarcastic. It actually moved through really similar degrees. It went Retrograde at 23 degrees of Aries, and then it went direct at 11 degrees of Aries. So that’s interesting because we have another period of time where Mars went Retrograde in its ruling sign.

So as I look at this Mars Retrograde chart, of course, what concerns me is the square between Mars and Saturn. Now, the square between Mars and Saturn really tells us how frustrating this is likely to feel. You may find ways of reflecting on your ego or on your sexuality or on how you relate to your goals or some sort of project you’re trying to move forward. And it might in the end be this amazing, transformative experience as Retrogrades often can be. But because Saturn is forming a square to Mars, man, is it going to be frustrating. 

Saturn square to Mars is frustrating. Mars is urgent, and Saturn—Saturn is slow down and do it right. Saturn is delays and restrictions, and Mars is I do what I want. I do it when I want. I do it fast. So that can be really difficult, again, more socially. Mars is all about me, and Saturn is about society. So when we think about the potential for violence or conflict in reaction to being over-policed, and that can be in the context of literal fucking police. It’s people feeling like you are infringing upon my rights for self-governance, and I’m going to fight back. And there are pros and there are cons. 

And, if you take that, and you add to it the fact that there is a Neptune, Sun opposition in this chart, I see an increased concern for things like QAnon, which, honestly, I think I mispronounced, but I feel good about mispronouncing it. QAnon, if you don’t know what it is—first of all, I’m a little but jealous of you—the headline that the Guardian published recently. It’s the anti-sematic conspiracy theory gaining traction around the world. That’s a good headline to describe it. 

The thing about conspiracy theories that are really unprovable but essentially netted in hating a group or multiple groups of people; we should all be on guard against them. It’s really important to look at sources. It really is. And it's really important to make sure that the things you are aligning yourself with are not at their core hate based. That all said, Neptune opposite the Sun in this Mars Retrograde chart does indicate that because we feel bad, we are looking for a way out. That Sun, Neptune opposition is disassociative. It’s escapist. It’s looking for a way out. So what’s a way out of feeling angry? It’s finding a scapegoat. 

The thing that’s complicated about conspiracy theories, and there are so many things that are complicated about conspiracy theories, is that some things that are branded as conspiracy theories are really true, right. It is really authentically difficult to know what’s true, especially when you yourself are not an expert in all things. The key here during this Mars Retrograde period is to do two things that I have been encouraging you do to all year anyways—in part because of these damn transits, of course. One is to vet your sources, to look at the sources, so the date that a thing was written, who wrote it. If you have no idea who the publication is owned by, Google it—does not take three whole minutes, most of the time. So just make sure that you’re checking your sources, and that you’re not unwittingly kind of like nodding your head and being like, yeah, this makes total sense to something that’s actually written by a hate group. And, then, the other thing is to really stay present with your emotions so that you don’t end up looking for a way out of the reality that is existing inside of your body, that is existing inside of your head. 

So Neptune opposite Sun will incline us to dissociate, while Mars square to Saturn is like the universe holding your face in the puddle that you just made so that you can remember you did something wrong. It’s not great. It’s not a great combo platter, and it can really spark some deep disassociation, some deep scapegoating. So, listen, that might happen in society, that might happen with your uncle Who Who; it doesn’t have to happen with you. We don’t want to allow ourselves to become essentially like the lowest common denominator of a situation as much as possible. 

This Mars Retrograde also includes a Mars square to Pluto. Now that square is a little wider than the one with Saturn, but it’s absolutely active. And, so, themes in this Mars Retrograde period around defensiveness and retribution or punishment, safety and fear, and also boundaries and conflict; these are all themes that we’re going to want to watch out for, and you’re already feeling it probably. You’re already seeing evidence of it when you look around the world. 

The current American president has been really branding himself recently as the president of, and I quote in all caps, law and order. This kind of decision that he is going to be branded as this pro-police, pro-military, pro-border president is very classic of the astrology of the time. So if you have this idea that it’s not going to work, and it’s going to die down, I would like to disavalue of that. This is—it’s unfortunately—it’s text book for the astrology of this time. And what we can expect of this is that if he is successful in drumming up enough fear and defensiveness, that it will work, unfortunately. 

And, so, what we want to do is really look at our relationship to fear. And if you’re trying to talk to people who see things differently and have conversations, do not drive these conversations through fear. It won’t work. Winning an argument because you’ve frightened someone else is not a real win. 

And that’s another thing about Mars Retrograde, Mars Retrograde in Aries in particular, is that you have to really look at what your relationship to winning actually is. How do you define a win? Dominating someone or dominating a situation that may technically be winning, but to what end? Does it satiate your ego, or does it feed you in a deeper way? What does it mean? I don’t think there’s a singular answer because I’m not talking about a singular situation, but these are the kinds of questions to really be reflecting on. 

When we look at the relationship between anger and defensiveness and safety and defensiveness, again, I want to say, Mars is urgent. Mars is driving and passionate, and so there’s not going to be a way to avoid bruised egos, hurt feelings. You said it too aggressively. You said it wrong. They said it too aggressively. They said it wrong. And what you want to really look at is how can you stand in your ego in a healthy way. And part of what I believe that means, especially again because of Saturn’s involvement, is recognizing when you did something wrong. And instead of beating yourself up or defending it, being like, yeah, I did this wrong thing. And I did this wrong thing, and I apologize for doing a wrong thing, or I will make amends for doing this wrong thing. And not needing the other person to also admit that they did something wrong in order for you to be able to admit that you’ve done something wrong. 

The mark of a healthy ego is being able to understand that each win and also each failure does not define you. That looks like being able to say, “I’m not great at handling my anger all the time and my frustration, and I felt frustrated or angry by what just happened, and I acted out in a way that isn’t the way I wish I acted out. Sorry. Learning, growing over here. I have bad, hurt feelings, but also doesn’t entitle me to certain actions.” That’s a useful little thing to be able to say to a person and really mean.

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Now, I want to talk about something else that I’ve been pretty concerned about with this Mars Retrograde, and that’s COVID-19. Here’s what concerns me about COVID-19 and Mars and Aries Retrograde. Now I’ve been saying most weeks—I tried to cool it over the last couple of weeks. Why did I do that? I don’t know. Because I was trying to not overwhelm you. So here we go: COVID-19 global pandemic. 

In the United States of America, we are not doing well. We are doing objectively terribly. The way that American culture works is that we really are about personal liberty and personal freedoms, and we’re a pretty selfish culture, which, trust, this is a time of reckoning, and it will continue to be a time of reckoning for that. In the context of COVID, unfortunately, the kind of me firstness of this transit is not great for people having conservative actions to protect their community. 

It could be—Mars square to Saturn could be, you know what? We as a people decide that we want to take care of all of us and not just me and mine, and so I am going to curtail my actions—even though I’m frustrated, and I’ve been doing it for months on end already—I’m going to curtail my actions to protect the whole. That’s possible with the Mars Retrograde. This is not super likely when you look at the astrology and then you look at what people are actually doing. 

So I do want to encourage you to be a part of the solution. This is a time to become more conservative with COVID, not less. And that means accepting that there is still a global pandemic, and in the United States, we have not hit the second wave. And it’s predicted by scientists and doctors, it’s been predicted the whole time that the second wave will be worse than the first wave. And here in the US we are almost at 200,000 deaths from COVID-19. It’s really deeply horrifying. Most of these people who are dying of COVID-19 are dying alone. It’s just devastating. It is a devastating situation we are in. 

My concern as an astrologer is kind of two-fold. One is because this chart includes a Neptune, Sun opposition, which is related to potentially weakened autoimmunity or lung issues. Then I have a concern straight out the gate about COVID-19 because it’s a bug, right. It’s a flu. It’s pretty damn deadly. It’s really easy to pass. On the West Coast of the United States we’re having so many fires—just fires, fires, fires, right. Idaho, Washington, California. and I’m sure it’s happening in other regions as well. I know it’s happening in Colorado. It’s happening in a lot of places. 

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, yeah, that happens every year. What’s different is the weakening of human lungs because of the inhalation of fire—it does make you more susceptible to getting bugs and flus and such and thus. And what is COVID-19 but a flu you really don’t want to get. I’m not trying to frighten you with all this stuff—I’m really not. I do want to center you in what’s important though. And your desire to hang out with friends, your desire to go on dates, your desire to, I don’t know, not wear a mask in public or not get zits when go to a place so just making a compromise this one time—you know, chin zits; they’re not fun. Mars can give you cystic zits, really angry ones too. It’s not easy. It’s not chill. That’s it. Those things are not more important, if your ego is healthy and well-balanced, than protecting society. And I think it’s really important that you look at what you’re actually doing, how you’re protecting your community, how you’re protecting your loved ones, how you’re protecting yourself. 

So there’s a concern that I have about people’s immunity in general with this transit. And I’m talking about the US because I live in the US, and that’s what I’m the most informed about, but this is a global transit; it’s not just in the US that it’s happening. 

Now, also Mars in Aries is related to spread. Mars in Aries—its actions are fast and it can be quite far reaching. I mean, it can burn out—that’s actually good news in the context of COVID-19—but the implication here is spread. 

Now, here’s another implication unfortunately. Mars is related to the vascular system. It is related to inflammation. It’s related to when you have a fever. It’s a Martian thing. It’s like anything in your head is Mars as well. Mars is related to your blood and your muscles, actually. So the vascular presentation of COVID-19 in many people has always been really concerning for me and something I’ve really been watching closely because of this Mars Retrograde. 

The unfortunate implications here astrologically could be—and, of course, I don’t know. Nobody knows what’s coming. This is a novel virus. It’s new, so the thing about astrology is we study things that have happened to understand what will come next. This hasn’t happened before, not exactly this, and so while we can look at let’s say the 1918 flu to see how that tore through societies, it wasn’t a global world back then. People were not as individualistic at that time as they are now, and people weren’t taking planes all the time all over the world and all over the country. It was a much smaller world, and so the consequences were very different. 

Now, okay, back to this. I do have a concern with the Mars Retrograde that we will see a second wave or a new presentation of COVID-19. My hope is that I’m wrong about that. This is not a hard predication. I even hesitated to say it. The reason why I’m including this is because, if we all are more conservative than we’ve been, if we’re all really considerate, and we’re all really careful, it can have an impact on our communities. So I really want to encourage you to have an impact on your community and have that impact be positive. 

And, in this case, being a hero; it’s really kind of very Mars Retrogrady. It’s taking a step back from your ego and from personal gratification and centering the collective. It’s not doing some things that you want to do. It’s dealing with frustrations, but doing it because you believe it is right and because when your community suffers, you suffer; when your community thrives, you thrive. I don’t know if you believe that; I sure fucking believe it. 

I think a lot of us need to start acting like we believe it if we want to have the kind of changes that we need, and we do need a lot of changes. And in the context of COVID-19, we need to be very realistic about this. We really do. It’s not over. It’s nowhere in the US close to over. And I know that’s frustrating, and I know it’s upsetting, and I know it’s scary, but just because you’re scared or upset doesn’t mean it’s over. So we need to all start acting in a way that better reflects the reality that we’re living in. 

And that brings me to one last thing I want to talk about in this Mars Retrograde Astrology Hot Take, and it’s something that I already touched on a bit in this episode. It’s policing. If you are an organizer, if you are somebody who is in politics, and you have the potential to actively work on police reform—you may be all about the abolition of the police, you may be about police reform. And I want to be really clear; I’m not talking about individual people who have individual jobs because in all industries there are good and decent people doing their damn best. I understand that. I’m talking about systems. 

We have the potential during this Mars Retrograde to really do the ground work for police reform, for reforming and revisioning of how police can better serve our communities. And that is related to looking at budgets. That is related to looking at power. It is related to looking at the literal tools that cops have, that American police forces have. Do they have weapons of war that they’re policing their communities with? Is that necessary? 

This can be a time where maybe not material strives are made or things are moved and propelled forwards—because that’s generally not what we advise around a Mars Retrograde. The conventional wisdom is don’t start a new project. The conventional wisdom is the things you try to do to push your ego forward or your ambitions forward are not super well starred during a Mars Retrograde. 

This is a time for running the rule of re’s. It’s like going back, reviewing, reassessing. It’s doing the research. It’s investigation to see how to look towards change. Because if it is only boots on the street, if it’s only conflict between the populous and the police—which absolutely is a part of any meaningful change, and I’m not saying it’s the wrong thing; I’m not saying it’s the right thing. I’m saying it’s a part of the whole thing—if it’s just that and not also organizing, revisioning, planning, reviewing, reassessing, if it’s not also all those things, then what we have is kind of like explosions of conflict—very Mars in Aries square to Pluto and Saturn—instead of those things as a part of a larger movement of change, right. 

And what we want to do is we want to create momentum, and some of that momentum needs to be back at the drawing board—that’s what the Retrograde wants of us. So wherever you fall around these topics and within these movements, this is a great time to know that we do need to kind of revisit the plan, we do need to reorganize; that is part of what it is.

I did a big data dump on this Mars Retrograde. I could talk about it a lot longer. So if you’re interested, I will drop more content and further unpack any of these topics if you like. So do not hesitate to send me questions at ghostofapodcast.com, My Loves.

I’m going to end with one last thing. Maybe this is the third time I’ve said it’s one last thing, but, oh, well. Okay, conventional wisdom with Mars Retrograde is don’t start a new project. Don’t launch a new business. Don’t do something that is strictly for your ego and from your ego. And I will say that I stand by that—that is absolutely kind of like a general truth about Retrogrades; we’re not meant to launch new projects during Retrogrades because they tend to be influenced by the Retrograde. 

That said, Ghost of a Podcast was created during the last Mars Retrograde; it was, and I fucking love my podcast. It brings me so much joy; I can’t even fucking tell you, My Friends. And I just share this with you because I want you to know that, yes, astrologers are going to advise you not to start something new, but you don’t need to hear this advice and be like, oh, shit, but I need a new job, or I was planning on launching a business. Don’t hear it that way. Hear, okay, so it’s like inclement weather; I must dress for the weather, that’s all. 

I launched Ghost of a Podcast during the last Mars Retrograde. I’m actually planning on launching another new project during this Mars Retrograde, and there is no amount of Mars Retrograde that is going to stop me from doing what feels right to me. When delays occur, when frustrations occur, I’m going to be like, oh, that’s the Mars Retrograde. It’s not a sign of failure. It’s not a sign that I’m doing something wrong even, necessarily. It’s just—it’s the transit, so I’m going to work with the transit. I’m going to recognize that it’s an opportunity through the venture to engage with frustration or my ego or whatever it is—that’s the way you engage with astrology. You don’t stop living. 

Don’t stop living; use the information to bolster you so that when whatever it is happens, whatever transit is happening, whenever it presents itself, you’re like, oh, I understand objectively, cognitively what this energy is, and I have a sense of what I’m meant to learn from it. Now I have to drop into my felt experience and apply that data. It’s activating emotional intelligence. See what I’m saying? I know you do. I know you do.