Aligned Action & Mars Retrograde

So you’ve set a powerful intention on a New Moon date, and you’ve raised vibration. Maybe you've even done a pile of energy work to prepare your vibration-emotional grid, but your manifestation has yet to materialize. Now what?!

o While the length and the complexity of the journey varies depending on what you’re trying to manifest, one possibility is that you’re simply not aiming high enough. Wait what?! For starters, it helps if your intention is a soul-level desire. Indeed, as an extension of source energy and a powerful co-creator of your own reality, Spirit wants the highest and best outcome for all of us. Accordingly, our higher selves are always divinely nudging and guiding us towards the "cutting edge" of our soul's evolution and expansion. Like the prideful, externally-validated figure on the 6 of Wands tarot card, ego gratification of our lower desires will only keep us satisfied to the next cheap thrill!

o You simply don't believe! Your soul-level desire is something which already belongs to Spirit, and the Law of Polarity says that what we want is already here. It's just a matter of offering the right vibration to start calling it into your experience. Since Cartesian logic and Newtonian physics have conditioned in us the need to see it first, however, doubt can be a major showstopper along the way. While Abraham-Hicks recommends getting out ahead of our manifestations by stopping doubt before it starts, another technique is to learn to discern the first small, subtle indicators that our desire is manifesting. Spirit sends us signs, synchronistic messages, and dream guidance to help us keep the faith and cultivate trust. Pay very close attention to the way you feel when you receive these signs of alignment—they are our internal guidance system's 'little bread crumb trail' home to our highest intentions!

o Certainly money and objects are easier to manifest than people since these things do not have wills of their own, but attachment to specific forms and outcomes can really slow things down. Abraham-Hicks has used the example of wanting a car with an engine in it—not the one on the side of the road that looks perfect from the outside, but turns out to have no engine on the inside. While such initiations or 'tests of faith' can prove both painful and frustrating, sometimes 'rejection [really is] divine protection!'

Image credit: Joshua Reynolds, Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney--The Archers, 1769 (Museum: Tate Gallery)

o Another possibility is karma… the beloved Law of Attraction isn’t going to work so well if you have a heavy karmic load. Why? Because the moment we set a powerful intention, Spirit shows us what our blocks are to aligning with the frequency of our desire. If you're drawn to this article, however, chances are you’re doing your inner work and are already on the path of balancing your karma and clearing your subconscious blocks.

o Another reason your manifestation may be stalled is because you’re simply not taking enough action. Piles of energy work notwithstanding, as multidimensional healer Michael Golzmane of clearandconnect.com has observed, “God is consciousness; man is manifestation.” Indeed, roughly 50% of manifestation is clearing karma; the other 50% is conscious work that leads the proverbial horse to the water to drink (if it chooses lol). On the flip side, ‘if you do what you did, you’ll get what you got’—that's just the nature of karmic law, or the Law of Cause and Effect. In order to create a different outcome we need to subtly alter our actions; in order to transform fate into destiny, whereby we transcend what Gary Zukav has referred to as "victim consciousness" and activate "manifestor consciousness," we also have to recognize that life is happening through and as us rather than to or at us.

o Okay, so you have to take an action, but how do you know which one to take?! Action without alignment creates a contradictory vibration, at best delaying results, at worst pushing them away. Think of raw action as blunt, assertive, instinctive, even biological. While it is a necessary part of life, it is often a deeply unconscious reaction to subconscious programming and karmic debris. We can also think of it in terms of balancing polarities, masculine/feminine, push/pull, input/output, fire/water, air/earth, head/heart, mind/body. Taking action with too much or too little of any of those energies results in ego distortions, and then it "sticks out here," in turn repelling the very things we are trying to attract!

Aligned or inspired action is action we take based on guidance we receive from Spirit, guidance which usually floats in when we're in an expanded flow state of consciousness. Elizabeth Purvis of Feminine Magik has referred to this as "receiving the way." While it might be logical to suppose you would receive the way during a formal seated meditation, this may not occur if you still have resistance to spiritual practices. Indeed, Carl Jung noted that in order to connect with our intuition, we need to be relaxed. While discerning between intuition and fear is a whole other blog post, suffice it to say, you can't think or will your way to the next divinely timed download. It may float in suddenly, unexpectedly upon waking, or in the shower, while doing dishes or walking the dog, or during your daily commute—whatever it takes to disengage the thinking mind long enough for the proverbial crack of light to get in. Aha!

Interestingly, Purvis also adds that usually aligned action steps feel a little uncomfortable because they are pushing us beyond our edge. Indeed, we have a pertinent free will choice to make with our E.G.O—either we Ease God’s Orders or we Edge God Out. Like the reserved figure seated squarely with his four round pentacles in the 4 of Pentacles tarot card, the ego likes predictable results, lived within the confines of its comfort zone. But when we contract our energy fields that way, we also "pinch ourselves off" from broader perspective, which is a major abundance block!

o Okay, so now that you know what to do, how do you know when to do it?! Since divine time only has one tense, that of the continuous present, what this also implies is that universal laws conform to Quantum rather than Newtonian time. To this end, Eckhart Tolle has gone so far as to correlate these concepts with that of vertical time and horizontal time—the former reminds us that life is the only absolute, as opposed to the latter, which is a human construct with its basis in separation consciousness. Why contemplate greener grass or wait for the grass to grow, when we can simply shift our locus of control from the external back to the internal, thereby reclaiming our power in the process?! Indeed, from a quantum perspective, 'seeing is [no longer] believing; believing is seeing!'

Similarly, Abraham-Hicks points out that 99% of manifestation is non-physical; accordingly, only 1% of all that we experience in our physical, five-sense reality is comprised of particle or form. To see the process of conscious co-creation through, whereby the wave is collapsed back into the particle, resulting in the desired “see it, touch it, taste it, hear it, feel it” physical manifestation, the head and the heart must also be balanced and in a state of coherence. This is the zero point, the center of the center, the breath within the breath within the breath!

Interestingly, Abraham-Hicks has also observed that often when we receive an intuitive nudge, download, or sudden insight that this is divine time, thus if we were to take action upon it immediately, alignment would be assured. After all, there's no time like the present, right?! While this is true, manifestation is also not a one-off event. We are constantly manifesting results from some action or intention—possibly even from past life or ancestral debt karma—the question is... are we simply manifesting by default or by the process of conscious co-creation?! It is a cosmic dance with the Universe, much like the ebb and flow of the tides, the sighing and ceasing of the waves. The action is the YANG and the reception is the YIN.

o Are you practicing the right vibration enough of the time?! This is the principle of active faith or 'believing beyond what we can see,' which Abraham-Hicks has also referred to as moving from believing to knowing. They also qualify this by explaining that this is the vibration we must learn to practice, "not all the of time, but most of time." Similarly, life coaches Tony Robins and Clair Summer have respectively referred to this as "holding the vibration until..." and "normalizing the right frequency." It's a sustained state of surrender, an anchored free fall. While we can also have blocks to receiving that keep us stuck in the wrong energy polarity, Venus Retrograde is a more natural time for exploring the intricacies of feminine embodiment, grounding, and integration practices.

Mars Retrograde

While it is prudent not to abdicate our personal power over to the planets, astrological beliefs still are very palpable in the morphogenetic fields of collective consciousness. For this reason, astrological transits can provide a helpful gauge of broader social, economic, even political trends. They also remind us of what Hay House author Colette Baron-Reid has referred to as the “two pillars of creation”— there’s what we want to create, but we also have to accept life on life’s terms. While we may be a power manifestator with an impressive record of consistent results, there are still some things that are fatefully out of our hands.

Fortunately, there’s an astrological transit that can help (re)align us with our actions, passions, and even purpose… Mars Retrograde. Mars is all about action, initiation, leadership; in synastry and couples astrology, it’s also associated with passion. Ruled by the fiery sign of Aries, it is the planet associated with the Divine Masculine—as opposed to Venus which is associated with the Divine Feminine. One of the most significant transits of 2022, Mars has been retrograding through the sign of Gemini since October 31. While Mars doesn’t go retrograde often, on average only spending six weeks per zodiac sign, on account of its retrograde motion, Mars will spend a record of seven total months in Gemini. That’s roughly five times longer than usual!

“When Mars goes retrograde we [still] take action as usual,” astrobutterfly.com explains, but as with any retrograde, “we go back, we ponder, we revisit, we strategize. We see what works and what doesn’t.” While we can’t change what happened, we can gain perspective, raise vibration and consciousness, and course-correct by subtly altering our actions, thereby freeing ourselves from the karmic bounds of Earth. Given retrograding Mars' square with retrograding Neptune in Pisces (exact November 19), a transit associated with confusion and mixed messages, things may not make sense at first. Meanwhile, with Gemini ruled by Mercury, the messenger planet, retrogrades in this sign provide a complete overhaul of matters of thought, communication, and creative expression. Since Mars Retrograde dampens the fire of Mars, "it is a time for thinking before acting," explains astrologyking.com; "fated events and repeating themes reinforce which of your intense desires need more background work before being acted upon."

While the impacted life area varies based on where the retrograde is transiting your natal chart, by the second half of the Mars retrograde cycle, when Mars opposes the Sun in Sagittarius, you should have a pretty good idea about what this transit is all about. Indeed, coming off this month's intense Full Moon in Gemini, the Mars Opposition (exact December 8) is another challenging yet illuminating aspect that retrograding Mars makes with the Sun in Sagittarius. Going forward, Gemini's ruler Mercury joins the retrograde lineup on December 29, retrograding in the sign of Capricorn until January 18, 2023. While it will be in a challenging orb to the dramatic Venus and Pluto conjunction (exact January 1, 2023), fortunately a Mercury Retrograde in this cardinal earth sign will help ground and stabilize some of the intensity stirred up by Mars. While Mars finally goes direct in Gemini on January 12, the fiery planet will remain in its retrograde shadow period until March 16, and won't formally leave the sign until March 25.

Accompanied by a purge of the solar plexus chakra and karmic patterns, "the deeper purpose of this whole period," astrologer and energy transformation expert Cassady Cayne adds, "is to help us cleanse out the old outworn identities and dynamics, so we can rise higher into unity." Since the only constant in life is change, making friends with uncertainty allows us to stay at cause and remain active change agents."Not to prevent the inevitable, not to ‘control’ the situation," emphasizes astrobutterfly.com,"but to be conscious about what’s happening." We may be creatures of habit, but we don't have to fatefully repeat the same mistakes. By urging us inward, retrogrades allow the opportunity to re-script and even futurecast our own lives. If we are ready to let go of limiting beliefs and outmoded programming, the catalytic potential of Mars Retrograde is huge. May it herald a new era of conscious co-creation, life meaning, and purpose!

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