Mars is the celestial highlight of this Fall season, retrograde in the sign Taurus.
The outer planets are always retrograde when in opposition to the Sun, and in the case of Mars this phenomenon occurs  for about 75 days, and includes the two quincunxes of the red planet to the Sun. Not all oppositions are created equal, however, and this year's Mars  apparition was special.

Though Mars was closest to the Earth on October 30, the opposition to the Sun actually took place early on the morning of November 7 with a declination of 16 degrees north, and at 15 degrees of Taurus in longitude. .Mars has been in Taurus longer than any time since the Fall and Winter of 1926-27. Mars has a 79 year cycle at the end of which time it comes back to the same (within a day or two) degree and sign. This lengthy transit is because it stationed near its own nodal axis and turned back.

It is significant also that when a planet is retrograde the energy it symbolizes is turned inward and absorbed, and will be taken  for granted on a deep psychological and unconscious level. A person with  Mars retrograde will not seek  the kind of experience indicated by this planet outside himself, rather he finds it deep within. In a very personal sense he "becomes" the planet. In the case of Mars, he or she will internalize anger and aggressiveness, and though they usually avoid direct confrontation with other people, they can drive themselves mercilessly and refuse to recognize physical limitations. The most sacred use of Mars retrograde is to express it as courage and activism. They make good crusaders and pioneers. These people have a passionate intensity that needs an outlet  as in sports, music, acting and creative writing. Examples are Beethoven, Mozart, Gioacchino Rossini, Lord Byron, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf , Joan of Arc, Pope John Paul II, Sigmund Freud, Martin Luther King, Anwar Sadat, Nostradamus, the list goes on and on.

A serious mistake is made by astrologers who interpret Mars in Taurus or Libra as Venusian,  in its Fall or Detriment, as in actuality those two signs have produced some of the most spectacular examples of Mars retrograde in history. . Mars was retrograde in Taurus at the birth of Caesar Augustus, perhaps the most important figure in the history of the Roman Empire. Born Octavius, he was the grandson of Julia Caesar, sister of Julius Caesar. He delivered the  eulogy for his grandmother Julia in 51 B.C. when he first came to  public notice and was adopted  by his Uncle Julius.A look at Augustus' chart shows Mars at 2 degrees of Taurus, retrograde, and conjunct both Saturn retrograde at the first degree of Taurus and the lunar north node at 2 degrees Taurus. According to Fagan and the historian Suetonius, this  powerful placement fell in his 8th house and was sextile a Uranus-Neptune conjunction in Cancer on his midheaven. He also had an out of bounds Moon in Capricorn in the 5th house. A more impressive chart would be hard to find. For those astrologers who would like to cast the chart themselves, Augustus was born September 21, 62 B.C. at 5:35  a.m. in Rome. The Sun in late Virgo was just rising on the eastern horizon. When Julius Caesar was murdered on March 15, 44 B.C., his right hand man, Mark Anthony was the leader of the pro-Caesar party. The dictator's will came as a bombshell as it named his nephew and adopted son as his chief heir.  Octavius now took the name Julius Caesar Octavianus because of his adoption,  and because of the will of Julius Caesar. Initially Mark Anthony tried to block Octavian's move to take control of the government. True to his retrograde Mars in Taurus,  Octavian acted with determination and impressive courage and won the support of the people. The victory of Octavian was complete when Mark Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt in 31 B.C. The following year Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide and Octavian became sole master of the entire  Roman Empire.In  2 B.C. he was granted the title "Father of his Country." An entire book could be written about the achievements of Caesar Augustus but suffice it to say that he is one of the best examples of a person born with Mars retrograde in Taurus.

Other notables born with Mars retrograde in Taurus include feminist author  Louisa May Alcott who supported her family from age 15, Will Rogers, the beloved philosopher-cowboy, writer and actor, and also Harry Haldeman of Watergate fame. Haldeman was know as the  Iron Chancellor of the Nixon administration  who was charged  with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury.

Mars retrograde in Libra has also produced some notable personalities, including Sigmund Freud  who was born May 6, 1856 at 6:30 pm in Frieburg, Germany with Mars at 3 degrees of Libra, retrograde, just seven days before Mars turned direct. Here again we have Mars in Libra retrograde and Sun in Taurus, and if an astrologer makes the mistake of considering this an indication that Freud was too Venusian to be able to identify with his retrograde Mars, a serious error could be made in interpretation. Evangeline Adams made note that Mars in Libra is not weak and it indeed becomes "more effective through being more controlled, just as the explosive force of gunpowder gains in effectiveness by virtue of the limitation of the barrel."  Freud  founded psychoanalysis and pioneered the cathartic method of treatment by getting patients to recall repressed experiences and the emotions which accompanied them. Repression of the instinctual drives of sexuality and aggression were the chief concern of Freud.

Another notable person with Mars retrograde in Libra was the late John Paul II who like Freud was a Taurus. More than any other person, the Pope was responsible for bringing down the iron curtain without the nuclear war which had seemed a major threat for the latter part of the 20th century. An active athletic man, he was always in physical motion. He committed himself to a life of celibacy and used his Mars energy as a bold crusader for justice, peace and human rights. He actively fought Communism since his youth and  was in underground resistance to the Nazis in Poland. Not even an assassin's bullet was able to  stop him from visiting the most dangerous spots in the world.

And still another example of Mars retrograde in Libra was Gioacchino Rossini who composed 40 some operas before age 37, often as many as five a year. When Mars is retrograde there is a concentrated retention of energy that can burst out explosively, finding its best expression in music, writing or acting.  Rossini burned himself out by age 40 and spent the remainder of his life composing short piano songs and religious works. His retrograde Mars in Libra was conjunct the North Node of the Moon.

Wolfgang Mozart, Gustav Mahler, Simon and Garfunkle, as well as Ludwig Beethoven and Rossini, were all noted for their prodigious output and productivity. Mozart was the most productive musician who ever lived and much of his work was done in feverish haste. He wrote his Linz symphony in four days, composing, copying, rehearsing, and readying  it for the public.  The same week he composed a short adagio introduction to another symphony. He was born with Sun  in Aquarius and Mars stationing in Cancer, still retrograde, and turning direct a week after he was born.

Ludwig Beethoven was born at the opposition of a retrograde Mars in  Gemini to his Sun in Sagittarius. He  composed stormy, heroic , insistent music even though  he became deaf at age 32. Goethe wrote of Beethoven that he had never met "an artist more intense, more dynamic, or more sincere, and I was astounded by his talent.  Unfortunately, he is one of those untamed persons who do nothing toward making it a more pleasant place for themselves or others." Beethoven refused to compromise his intense likes and dislikes, and this unwillingness to compromise is usually a trademark of Mars retrograde, particularly at the opposition.

Song writer, guitarist and singer James Taylor was born with Mars retrograde in Leo in the twelfth house, inconjunct his Pisces Sun.  The inconjunct of Mars to the Sun and inner planets is twice as apt to happen as the opposition because Mars is retrograde through both inconjuncts by transit. Taylor is not an angry man and has great empathy with his listeners.

Joan of Arc and Martin Luther King top the list of  Mars retrograde crusaders who made a lasting mark on history by the sheer force of their inner drive and will. Joan was a simple, uneducated teen age girl from a small village in France when she convinced the King of France to let her lead an army against the English who occupied her country. She led her Army to a momentous victory at Orleans and King Charles was crowned soon after.  Mars had just stationed on her South Node at birth and turned retrograde, which gave her an overdose of Martian energy.  She had military genius, but her religious zeal and refusal to recant in her belief that she had been given a divine mission by God himself caused her death by fire.  Any planet on the South Node can be excessive and if it is also retrograde it can be a person's undoing. The concentrated energies and drive of Martin Luther King Jr. did more for the civil rights movement than any other black leader of his time.  The slogan "we shall overcome" is a perfect expression  of the kind of relentless determination found in people with Mars retrograde.  They prefer a strategic, indirect approach to problems rather than direct aggression.

Savonarola had a similar fate as Joan of Arc. and he had Mars retrograde rising in Aries.   A rigidly moral man, he condemned the corruption of the Church during the Renaissance period, particularly during the reign of the Borgia Pope Alexander VI while Pluto was in Scorpio.  He also felt a divine mission to preach against the wickedness of the church leaders and the humanistic paganism of  Florence. Though a Dominican monk, he ruled Florence following the demise of the Medicis. He criticized the personal life of the Borgia pope and in 1497 burned "the vanities," art work and books he deemed corrupt. Savonarola was tortured, hung and burned. Jesse Jackson, like Savonarola, is a Libra with Mars in opposition from the sign Aries .  Like Savonarola, he is an angry man but he has been able to use his anger in a crusade for his people. Martin  Luther King had Mars inconjunct  the Sun, retrograde in Gemini, and thus had less personal anger. Rather he expressed the collective anger of his people.

 The late Franklin Delano Roosevelt had Mars retrograde in Gemini and was an eloquent man who led the country  through both the depression of the 1930s and the Second World War. His Mars was trine Mercury in Aquarius, and  turned direct soon after his birth.  The writer Virginia Woolf  was also an Aquarian with Mars retrograde in Gemini and was one of the greatest literary talents of the twentieth century. Other writers with Mars   retrograde include James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Philip Roth, Pearl Buck, Lillian Hellman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, A.A. Milne, Nikolai Gogol and Anais Nin.  James Joyce was born the same week as Roosevelt and Woolf, and was also an Aquarian with Mars retrograde in Gemini. All were eloquent with words, and both Woolf and Joyce used the "flow of consciousness" technique in their writing.

Sports is an important outlet for natives with  Mars retrograde, though they usually shy away from team sports and prefer individual sports where they do not have to work in cooperation with other people. Examples are Knute Rockne, Rocky Marciano, Eddie Arcaro, Billie Jean King, Gordon Pirie and Dorothy Hamill.  Lance Armstrong was born with a stationary direct Mars in Aquarius, as his Mars had just turned direct the week before his birth. In sports as in music and political activism, the danger is in driving themselves to exhaustion because they do not recognize the usual physical limitations.

Writing is an outlet for Mars retrograde, and  Lord Byron had Mars retrograde in Cancer inconjunct the Sun in Aquarius. His masterpiece, Don Juan, was autobiographical, expressing his sardonic emotions and brooding defiance. His writing had a rhythmic style in keeping with Martian energy. He was able to express Mars as passionate lover, the Don Juan and Casanova of the human experience.  Another famous writer with Mars retrograde was the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He also had a rhythmic beat to his poetry and wrote lyrical poems about American history, including Hiawtha.

 It seems important to include Philip II of Spain when writing of historical figures who had Mars retrograde at birth. Philip sent the Spanish Armada to conquer Elizabeth of England, and as a result lost Spain's  famed naval power and control of Europe and the New World. Philip had Mars retrograde in Scorpio, inconjunct Saturn in Aries on his ascendant. H e felt he had a mission from God to secure Europe and the New World for Catholicism and to stamp out the Protestantism of Elizabeth. The result was that Protestantism was to become the dominant faith in the American colonies which eventually became the United States, while Spain and Catholicism were limited to Central and South America.

When Pluto is conjunct a retrograde Mars, the aggressive action can be intensified. Mikhail Gorbachev was born with Mars and Pluto both retrograde in Cancer in the 9th house, and with Jupiter, Moon and Neptune also retrograde. A strategic man, he worked with Pope John Paul II to bring down the iron curtain between Russia and Germany without a war,  but is blamed by many in Russia for dismantling the power of the Soviet Union. A man of great charm,  Ronald Reagan once said of him: "He is such a nice man I have trouble remembering who he is."

The fire of Mars will fade during November  and will reach its stationary point  late the night of December 10, turning direct at 8 degrees of Taurus. In a close square to Saturn at 11  degrees of Leo,  this aspect will become exact the day after Christmas. To make the fixed T cross complete, Jupiter will move to 10 degrees of Scorpio the week before Christmas. Mid November will also be intense with the Sun opposing Mars at 15 degrees of  Scorpio and Taurus on November 7, and the following day the Moon in Aquarius squaring both Mars and the Sun.  All during November Mars will  shine big and bright around declination 15 degrees north. It will have an apparent diameter of 16" and not until late January will it shrink below 10".  It will have reached its max in size by Halloween with a near record breaking diameter of 20.2 arcseconds.  During November it will shrink from 20" to 17".  All during November and December Mars will be at 15 degrees north declination.