Even though the current Mars retrograde, that started yesterday, is one of several retrogrades that are happening right now, it’s a bit more significant only because it happens only about every 2 years, compared to other retrogrades that are happening more frequently. And to add to that, as someone who is in a Mars profection year right now (!), this holds even more significance personally.

It’s said that a retrograde is a time when things slow down, especially with Mars that is all about moving fast forward. Things are going to be revised and reassessed, like previous actions and decisions taken just before the retrograde. So are those revised actions limited only to the time period just preceding the start of the retrograde, taking place during the time Mars traveled through the chart area that is about to be revisited? Or maybe the revision can include also actions and decisions taken much earlier, regardless of where in the chart the retrograde happens?

It’s logical to assume the former, because it kind of falls into place that there is an overlap between the direct motion and the retrograde, but the problem is that actions are not born necessarily just before their implementation. There might be a significant period of time of gestation and pondering about the action, before it’s being actually carried out. This might be even a matter of years, depending on the subject matter. So in such a case, the retrograde of about 2.5 months can cause a reevaluation of things that were in the making for a much longer period of time and only have been acted upon in the last couple of months. Or does it affect only actions that were born as ideas just recently, during those couple of months that happened during the transit of the planet in the area being revisited?

I personally don’t have an answer for this question, and it might be interesting to try to check this on a personal level from experience during the retrograde. This requires to pay close attention to what is exactly being affected (if at all) – decisions and actions whose seeds are new (from about the last 2 months) or also those that where thought about much earlier. This current Mars retrograde is happening till February 24th next year, so there’s enough time to try and make this little observational experiment.