War of Words: The Astrology of Mars in Gemini 2022

Mars enters Gemini on August 20, 2022 and we’ll all need to get comfy with him there, because he doesn’t leave until March 25, 2023.

This extended stay is thanks to Mars’ retrograde period between October 31, 2022 and January 13, 2023. I’ve written a little bit about that in this post already.

For your horoscope on Mars in Gemini, read this post.

I will do a separate, detailed post on the meaning of Mars’ retrograde period in Gemini. In this one, I want to expand on the meaning of Mars in Gemini. This will serve as a good preface for looking at what his retrograde in Gemini might bring.

War of Words

Let’s start with the basics. Gemini is a mutable air sign ruled by Mercury. Mars does not have any particular strength or weakness in Gemini except for some dignity by face in the second decan (from 10 to 20 degrees). However, moving into this sign from Taurus gives a big dignity boost to Mars, because he is in his adversity in the bull’s sign.

Rather than listlessly plodding through the green pastures of Taurus, when Mars enters Gemini he becomes the fiery spirit of incendiary dialogue. Mars in Gemini shows us that words cut just as sharply as knives do. “The pen is mightier than the sword” – this old adage is the perfect description of how Mars operates in Gemini.

Mars in Gemini wages war through words, through the mind. These are periods where it matters very much what thoughts we think with – and those thoughts are going to be fraught, challenged and weaponized over the next several months.

One of my keywords for Mars in Gemini is “info wars” – and indeed, with Alex Jones recently on trial, this phrase is especially poignant right now. The issues at stake in that trial are also absolutely part of the story of Mars in Gemini. Propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, lack of information and all the ways that news and media can be exploited, subverted, weaponized, destabilized and censored – all of this is going to be a huge part of the next seven months.

Read much, believe little.

Mind on Fire

Mars in Gemini can be an excellent time to work on intellectual pursuits like writing. This is a time where the mind is fired up and working overdrive. You might find yourself thinking a dizzying array of things, all your thoughts charged up and racing. If you can channel this productively, more power to you.

The danger is going too far and letting your thoughts get away from you, and falling into anxiety and stress. Caffeine and other stimulants of the mind are going to exacerbate this, so I recommend cutting back on those substances if you can.

If you’re the type who tends to spend a lot of time in your head, and/or if you have a tendency towards paranoid, obsessive, anxious and/or other generally unhealthy thought-patterns, be extra mindful during this period. Find and practice ways to ground yourself and take yourself out of your brain and into your body.

I recommend getting up and going outside as a very basic way of breaking these patterns once they get going. Touch the earth – do some gardening, mow the lawn, go for a walk, or even just water and trim your houseplants. Eat something – that can really help ground you, especially if you have a tendency not to eat when you get stressed.

If you’re so inclined, exercise is an excellent way to short-circuit destructive thoughts. Once you get your heart rate up, it becomes difficult or impossible to keep those thoughts going, so this can be a useful thing to do if you find yourself falling into those habits.

All of these things are going to be heightened when Mars stations retrograde. During that period in particular, your energy levels might become more variable or lower overall. So don’t push yourself too hard and listen to your body’s signals.

Famous Mars in Gemini Examples

I find it instructive to look at some celebrities and other prominent figures who have certain transits natally, to give you an idea of the different ways those energies can manifest.

One of my favourite examples of someone with Mars in Gemini natally is Gabriel García Márquez. Márquez was a famous Colombian novelist whose iconic books explore themes of heartbreak, suffering, cruelty and the abuses of power through evocative, magical realist prose – the perfect embodiment of the warrior planet expressing himself through Gemini’s quill.

Another great example of a Mars in Gemini native is Jim Morrison, the ill-fated lead singer of The Doors. His lyrics were deeply evocative and often disturbing, presenting images of sex, violence, death and other pathological troubles seething in the underbelly of the 1970s-era drug-fuelled counterculture; his trippy, psychedelic tones echo Márquez’s magical realism. Notably, Morrison has a Mars-Uranus conjunction in Gemini, so he’s an especially poignant example for the upcoming Mars in Gemini transit, as we’re fresh off the recent Mars-Uranus conjunction in Taurus.

Another prominent Mars in Gemini native is Henry Kissinger, a controversial US politician, diplomat and former National Security Advisor who served under US Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He is a polarizing figure, both condemned as an alleged war criminal and venerated as an effective US politician and geopoliticist. This strikingly divergent reputation is a perfect example of Mars energy being transmuted into two very different forms at the same time via the double-bodied sign of Gemini – and showing the ways that words can both quell and ignite real violence. 

A final example of Mars in Gemini is O.J. Simpson, the American former football player, actor and convicted felon who is best known for being tried for the murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. That trial was very lengthy and hugely publicized – we see the manifestation of Mars in Gemini where the act of shocking violence is overshadowed by all the talk about said act. Then in 2007, the controversy resumed with the publication of If I Did It, in which Simpson puts forth a supposedly hypothetical accounting of the murders for which he was acquitted, but later found guilty of in civil trial. Again, Mars in Gemini = words as weapons (and sometimes words about actual weapons).

Mercury-Ruled Mars

Mercury rules Gemini so when Mars is in Gemini, Mercury’s condition and movement take on a key role in how Mars will behave in this sign. Therefore, in 2022-23 we need to pay attention to what Mercury is doing for some indication of how Mars might manifest.

Because Mercury moves quickly and forms a lot of different aspects with different planets in a fairly short timeframe, Mars’ retrogrades in Gemini tend to take on more of a fast-paced, frenetic quality. The warrior planet struggles to keep up with everything Mercury throws at him during these periods.

I’m expecting Mars to come on strong right at his ingress into Gemini on August 20, as Mercury is currently in Virgo at this time – the other sign of his rulership. Having the ruler of the sign in a favourable place gives a general boost to a planet’s behaviour in a given sign. Mercury will be square Mars at this time, giving a bit of challenge, but that will shift on August 26 when Mercury ingresses Libra. This puts Mercury into a trine with Mars, which is a further boost to their productive relationship.

The periods of increased tension and chances of conflict and confusion are when Mercury is retrograde, the first of which is between September 10 to October 2, 2022. When Mercury stations direct on October 2, Mars, Mercury and Neptune are in a T-square, and for a couple days prior to that the Moon in Sagittarius forms a mutable grand cross. This speaks to a very tense configuration rife for confusion, delusion and haywire communications of all kinds.

Mars’ retrograde station on October 30 is going to happen with a bang. It happens just a day after Mercury ingresses Scorpio. This gives both planets a boost as they are in mutual reception with one another, so even though they are averse, there’s more of a chance of a productive relationship. However, this is right in the middle of eclipse season – there is a solar eclipse in Scorpio on October 25 and a lunar eclipse in Taurus on November 8. So, this is going to be a chaotic time.

One of my concerns, when I first looked at the Mars retrograde cycle this year, was of an EMP attack or other major disruption of telecommunication and media networks. If I had to guess when that might happen, one of the prime candidates is right around the start of the Mars retrograde.

The second Mercury retrograde period during the Mars retrograde cycle is between December 29, 2022 to January 18, 2023. Mercury will be close to Pluto at the start of it which gives some more transformative, obsessive vibes, which will come back again after Mercury goes direct and conjoins Pluto at the beginning of February. Mars goes direct right before Mercury also stations direct in January, so there may be a sense of intensity at appraising the intensity of the mess that we all have to sort out.

On a geopolitical level, Mars in Gemini may translate to a lot of the continued sabre-rattling that we’ve seen so far in 2022. In the US Sibly chart, Gemini is the seventh house – the house of open enemies. The US also has natal Mars and Uranus here, so the transit will see the US having a reprisal of the explosive Mars-Uranus energies that we just had at the beginning of August, which coincided with Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan and all of the fraught international relations since then.

We could see some intensification of the war efforts in Ukraine, and there could also be some other unexpected events. EMP attacks, nuclear accidents, major power outages, who knows. I see that mainly happening either around October-November 2022, or in early 2023 after Mars stations direct. 

But overall I think most of the conflict of the Mars in Gemini period is going to happen in our own minds, both individually and collectively.

I’ll leave it at that for now. As I said, I’ll do a separate post evaluating Mars’ specific retrograde period, so watch for that.