MARS IN LEO
On Sunday November 3rd 2024, the planet Mars began what will be a complicated journey through the zodiac sign of Leo.
This messiness is due to an upcoming retrograde. Over the next month, Mars will transit the first 6 degrees of Leo, then station retrograde on December 6th. It’ll retrace its steps and re-enter Cancer exactly a month later. On February 23rd 2025, Mars will station direct and start moving toward Leo again, re-entering the sign of the lion on April 17th. Finally, it’ll move from Leo into Virgo on June 17th, which is a whole 6.5 months from now!
These messy movements of Mars will spend a lot of time affecting any planets you might have in Leo or Cancer. For the next couple months, this is most relevant to placements between 0 and 6 degrees of Leo. If you have natal planets from 0-6 degrees of another fixed sign (Aquarius, Taurus or Scorpio), they’ll form challenging opposition or square aspects with Mars during this time, impacting you more directly - but we’ll all feel this transit as a collective.
Adding a deeper level of drama and complexity, Pluto is currently sitting at the final threshold of Capricorn, ready to cross into Aquarius in just a couple weeks. The cusp between Cancer and Leo is directly opposite Pluto’s position, so Mars was in an exact opposition to Pluto right before it crossed into the sign of Leo. This challenging transit has already been affecting us for a while, stirring up heated conflicts, aggression, crisis, wounding and survival instincts. With the upcoming Mars retrograde, the opposition to Pluto will hit exactitude two more times, and will continue affecting us on into the spring of next year. As we work on integrating the challenging lessons of this planetary relationship, we’ll encounter opportunities for brave action and deep, honest inner work.
A focus on shadow work aligns well with Mars’ time in Cancer. It’s been diving into the fertile imaginative waters of this cardinal sign, exploring emotions and gestating impressions. Now, moving into Leo, that energy is exploding outward in a spark of fire (much like Mercury moving into fellow fire sign Sagittarius). The message is clear: we must share our inner lives with the world. It’s time to vulnerably brave the risk of being seen, and thereby potentially being judged.
We need to express our feelings of passion, desire, and rage. Goodness knows there’s so much to be angry about right now, as the “powers that be” destroy the planet, oppress the vulnerable, enact murderous genocides, and hoard the resources produced by our collective labor. To stand up to these gross injustices, we need to harness the energetic action of Mars and the confident authority of Leo.
Expressing anger can obviously be problematic when done in unconscious and harmful ways. So it’s crucial that we consider how to vent these energies safely and constructively. How can we channel them into productive action, rather than harming those around us - or bottling up these feelings and poisoning ourselves?
Mars is a very physical planet, and its entrance into Leo is an invitation to tend to our bodies, knowing that we are worthy of having our needs and wants met. Since Leo is the sign of children, this transit is a reminder to see the inner child within you, to kindly and gently re-parent that small version of yourself. Mars can grant us the courage to protect our inner children, while Leo inspires us to express our authentic truths.
