Surrendering to the Retrogrades

About 3 times a year, Mercury goes into retrograde, and all the memes show up: “Don’t sign that contract!” “Don’t text your exes!” “Watch out for Mercury in Gatorade!” But why does this even show up in the first place? What is a retrograde anyway? And why does it matter?

What is a retrograde?

Retrogrades occur when it looks like a planet reverses direction in the sky. They happen because all the planets revolve around the Sun at different speeds, including our own.

For the planets further out than the Earth, the Earth overtakes that planet. When the planets are closest, it’s as if we’re in a faster car overtaking the slower one, and it looks like the other planet goes backwards. As we continue around the curve of our orbit and we get further away from the other planet, we can see that it’s moving as it always was, going the same direction we are.

For the planets closer to the sun, retrograde motion happens when the planet is on the far side of the Sun from us. From there, it appears to be going in the opposite direction in the sky relative to us.

Why are retrogrades important in astrology?

So, why does this backward motion cause such a brouhaha in the astrological world?

There’s a general sense that, if the planets are swimming upstream against their usual direction, things should go backwards during these times. This is why we hear about Mercury Retrograde being associated with communication snags, traffic delays, and so on. But Hellenistic astrology gives a deeper understanding to retrogrades.

Hellenistic astrology, from the early days of the Roman Empire, placed a lot of focus on how light played a role in our lives. (This is where the tropical zodiac came from, where the signs are based upon the seasons – the amount of light in the day – rather than the placement of the constellations in the sky.)

They saw the light of the Sun and the light of the Moon as representative of how abstract and concrete dynamics intertwine in our lives. The Sun rises consistently, day after day, following the plane of the ecliptic across the sky. Its impact is apparent whether or not there are clouds in the sky. This unchangeability came to represent the abstract, conceptual ideas that never change: archetypes, nonduality, the concept of the unchanging spirit, The One.

The Moon, on the other hand, changes constantly. It waxes and wanes every 28 days. Its light can easily be obliterated by a single cloud. Its orbit bobs above and below the plane of the ecliptic faster than any other planet. It came to represent the changeability of the “sublunary sphere” – everything that happens below the moon, on the planet. It represents the changes in our circumstances and environment.

These two concepts – the unchanging, unifying themes and the changeable dualistic nature of our experiences – come into play throughout Hellenistic astrology, including in retrogrades.

Throughout the day, most of the sky – the Sun and the stars – all move as one, as the Earth rotates. This unifying motion, or Primary Motion, sweeps everything clockwise through the zodiac every day. Primary Motion is aligned with the solar ideas of unity and universal concepts. The individual planets, however, chart their own course across the sky, slowly moving counterclockwise from sign to sign over the course of days, months and years. It’s not noticeable in any given day, but by looking at the sky at the same time over the course of days, you can see this individualistic motion from day to day. This individualistic motion is called Secondary Motion, and it’s associated with the lunar concepts of changeability and duality.

When a planet goes into retrograde, it moves clockwise, not counterclockwise. During this time, it goes with the flow of the Primary Motion. This means that retrograde planets aren’t just going backwards against their normal paths. They are following the path of universal concepts, of unchanging ideas, of the soul and spirit over the day-to-day experiences of the ego.

Retrogrades are opportunities to surrender to the flow of the universe.

Frequently our day-to-day lives have different circumstances that cause us to bob and weave and adjust our expectations. When a retrograde happens, it can cause all of that motion to give way to the universal themes. Depending on how much we’ve been fighting to make things go against the flow, we may find our own secondary, egoic motion has been at odds with our soul’s thematic life goals for a long time. Retrogrades will bring that into focus pretty quickly.

What happens when the planets go into retrograde?

The individual planets have their own themes for their retrogrades. These will come up as we compare what’s happening in our daily lives to the meaning behind it all.

Mercury retrograde

Mercury is the planet responsible for communication, thought processes, and technology. Have we spoken/thought with integrity? Are we speaking against our ideals? Do the desires of our thoughts conflict with the ideals of our souls? Are we trying to juggle so many things that we ignore what’s actually important? Have we overanalyzed something that’s really quite simple? Are we missing the forest for the trees?

Venus retrograde

Venus is the planet of love, harmony, relationships, and pleasure. Have we sacrificed ourselves in the name of harmony? Have we compromised ourselves to chase our desires? Have we sacrificed our desires for the desires society says we should have?

Mars retrograde

As the planet of action, confrontation and decisiveness, Mars’s retrograde challenges us to ask, are we driving ourselves relentlessly into a brick wall? Are we looking before we leap? Are we acting deliberately/intuitively, or reacting traumatically/reflexively? Do we need to recharge our batteries?

Jupiter retrograde

Jupiter is the planet of idealism, of creating something better, of organization. When it can’t make things better, it’ll make things bigger, at least. Are we trying to make something work that wasn’t meant to be? Are we expanding beyond our means or beyond the capacity of our support system? Do we need to reevaluate our goals? Are we trying to support a system that no longer serves us or society as a whole? Is our desire for the good times getting out of hand?

Saturn retrograde

Saturn is about boundaries, rules, limitations, and endings. Are we acknowledging our limits? Are we being thoughtful in our decisions? Do we need time away from the hustle to refocus on what’s actually important? Are we avoiding our path? Are we breaking the rules skillfully or impetuously? Are we accepting when something’s time has come?

While Neptune, Uranus and Pluto also have retrogrades, those furthermost planets’ retrogrades are so long – up to half the entire year in Pluto’s case – that they appear more like inhales and exhales than actual changes in direction. Since they’re beyond Saturn, beyond that border between the mundane and the universal, they’re already that much closer to the universal concepts that the difference is fairly minimal.

Impact of birth time on a retrogrades

I haven’t seen this in any literature or research, but I feel like a person’s birth time can make a difference. People born during the day are said to have a “daytime chart,” where the Sun has more emphasis than the Moon. Conversely, people born at night have a nighttime chart, where the Moon has more prominence.

This prominence extends to a person’s focus in life. People with daytime charts tend to focus more on the concepts and ideas that life brings to them. What is my purpose in life? What do these events mean? What am I learning from this? People with nighttime charts tend to focus more on the events and circumstances of their lives. They tend to live more in the moment, enjoying life’s little pleasures and being impacted more immediately by adverse circumstances.

While retrogrades can impact everyone, it seems to me like they would impact people with nighttime charts more strongly. I’d imagine planets in normal motion impact both groups equally, simply because everyone deals with planets in normal motion most of the time. It’s just the way things are. But when planets reverse course and move in the Primary direction, they’re no longer moving in their usual “against the Primary” direction. Instead, they are moving in concert with the Sun, with the flow of the universe.

And that’s it! Retrogrades aren’t necessarily times of misfortune, nor are they automatically times for reflection. But they are times when the daily bustle of life will take a step back and give us time to ask how what we’re doing fits into the grand scheme of things. And if we’ve been acting at cross-currents against the bigger picture of our lives, well, we’ll find out!