In the thirty-five years I’ve been exploring the universal energies, I have never come across a similar period to the one we are entering. It’s unusual, if not rare.
Taking the long view, five of the social & outer planets are entering new zodiac signs between now & July 2025. These more distant planets move slowly so represent the big evolutionary cycles of the collective. When they aspect planets in an individual’s chart however, they focus energy into major life changes. Less weighty yet much more tangible are three personal planets in back-to-back retrograde movement, between now and April 2025.
Personal planets indicate subjective aspects of your individuality. Retrograde means energy is focused inward, orientated towards the past rather than moving forward into life. The upcoming retrogrades are Mercury – symbolising your mind, information, communication, travel, learning, planning & organisation; Mars – your initiative, passion & drive, physical vitality, self-assertion & anger; Venus – your feel-good, enjoyment of life, creative energy, attraction/magnetism, love & money. These personal planets represent your key means of self-knowing and self-expression.
Personal planets = individuation, the journey of being fully human. Transpersonal planets = evolution, the leap into finer frequency living for us all. Taken together, this flow of energies indicates that personal shifts will support the new foundation for collective opportunities from spring/summer 2025. What is your part in this? Think you already know? Over the next five months, there’ll be a few eye-openers.
This blog, the Adventurer & the Homebird, focuses on the first two planetary retrogrades: Mercury in Sagittarius, 26 November to 15 December, Mars in Leo/Cancer 6 December to 24 February. Including the pre & post retrograde degrees this period covers almost six months, 9 November to 3 January (Mercury) & 6 October to 2 May 2025 (Mars with Venus too).
No matter your Sun sign, the energies of Sagittarius & Cancer operate somewhere within your individuality and govern some aspect of your life. There may be links between the two, or a combination of their contradictory natures. For instance, I have my homebird energy sitting in the adventurer part of my chart, closely linked to two other risk-taking planets. My life has been an ongoing discovery in how to integrate the polarised energies of belonging and travel. The next phase is already underway.
The adventurer of the zodiac is fire sign Sagittarius, home of Mercury’s retrograde. Sagittarius represents how we discover, grow, and learn through exploration & experience, through expanding our horizons.
This may be literally through travel or connection with cultures different to our own, or it may take the form of inner exploration, religious or philosophical enquiry. The Sagittarian energy seeks to find the meaning of life through experience, through crossing all existing boundaries. It wants to know, generally through its own experience, not through being told or taught. We derive meaning, and potentially wisdom, from having experienced something fully. This is the Sagittarian quest.
The homebird sign of the zodiac is Cancer, the sign of most of Mars’s retrograde journey. Cancer represents mother, home, family, roots and how we connect emotionally.
It’s an intuitive instinctual sign of the zodiac, ruling our emotional wellbeing and sense of connectedness within & to those around us, where we feel we belong (or not) and how we take care of ourselves. Whilst Sagittarius is ‘out there beyond the horizon’, Cancer is cosied up here by the fire with those it loves, safe & secure.
The current focus of these diverse signs reveals where daring, or the calling to undertake a quest meets ‘up close & personal’, which of these we tend to favour and how we integrate risk-taking with staying safe. In the natural zodiac, these two signs are in quincunx aspect to each other, meaning they have nothing in common. What a dilemma if both are strong for you, and for these upcoming few months. It’s a bit like trying to resolve the Rubik’s Cube… trying and testing to see what fits where and how aligned it is. Mars retrograde starting in fire sign of individuality Leo, reveals that the resolution of these awkward energies is a new sense of full individuality. Leo is the sign where we develop stability in being a mature individual, open to adapt and change as life brings us new experience.
How do we find a way to deeper wisdom and self-knowledge when faced with paradoxical energies such as Cancer/Sagittarius? The fact that they’re a focus now shows there’s a gift to claim.
There are no coincidences in the planetary rhythms. The Sun meets with Mercury Rx at 14 Sagittarius just as Mars is at standstill. This indicates that Mercury’s new cycle in Sagittarius is also rooted in Mars backward flow. There is a revelation about how we use mind and effort, where we push or hold back, where we limit ourselves through safety, or rush out blindly in a quest for more.
The deeper wisdom in this alignment reveals that the digestion (Cancer) of our experience (Sagittarius) is a key to growth and integration and new individuality (Leo). Exploring our individual tendencies towards excess and/or deficiency in each sign can be a profound key in this exploration. It’s a starting point that reveals where you may be depleted, not fully engaging, or avoiding certain aspects of individuality that are available for your wellbeing & fullness. There are always new valuable aspects of individuality calling us. The planetary energies reveal these through their rhythms.
Healthy Sagittarius: joyful, optimistic, expansive, adventurous, freedom-loving, truth-seeking, having faith.
Excess Sagittarius: rash, scattered, hasty, excessive, blunt, lacking boundaries, burnt out.
Lacking Sagittarius: fearful, doubting, pessimistic, limited, no joie-de-vivre
Healthy Cancer: strong emotional connections, receptive, devotional, good self-care, nurturing, protective, contented, instinctual.
Excess Cancer: attached, co-dependent or needy, defensive, takes everything personally, resentful, food issues
Lacking Cancer: poor mothering, isolated, lonely, no roots, self-neglect, unstable, lack of self or body connection
The resolution of this period of deep inner enquiry is not available to us until mid 2025.
Venus’s retrograde in Aries/Pisces (whilst Mars is still on its retrograde shadow) is across the equinox point. It’s a passage both Saturn and Neptune are making in 2025 too. We’re moving from endings to beginnings. How we flow into those new potentials comes from the foundation-making period we’re in. To anchor the new air/fire focus of mid-2025 onwards, we need deep roots. Taking this current opportunity to find your new inner earth is not only wise, it’s essential.
For further background & insight on this period read my blog ‘Close to Home, Close to the Bone‘ on Mars Rx
The Astrology
Mercury Rx in Sagittarius 26 November to 17 December
Mars Rx in Leo/Cancer 6 December to 25 February 2025
Venus Rx in Pisces/Aries 2 March to 14 April 2025
