Whether you’re into astrology or you have friends who are enthusiasts, you’ve no doubt heard about retrogrades. They’re blamed for all sorts of problems: missing mail, contract breaches, bad dates, and even lost interest in pursuing one’s goals. These effects are thought to impact our daily lives, but what about people born with planets in retrograde? Astrologers believe that natal planet retrogrades can not only affect our personalities but also our personal growth.
What Are Retrogrades?
When a planet retrogrades, it doesn’t literally change course and move backward in its orbit. It just looks that way from our earthly perspective. “Retrograde” is shorthand for “apparent retrograde motion,” an illusion that usually results from Earth passing slower-orbiting planets like Mars and Jupiter.
With faster-moving Mercury and Venus, however, the effect works a little differently. They take only 88 and 225 days respectively to complete one orbit around the sun, so they pass our planet as it makes its 365-day orbit. Mercury sprints past us four times during one Earth year, while Venus overtakes our planet once. Those passes also cause the illusion of a backward-moving planet.
Retrogrades and Our Everyday Lives
In astrology, a planet’s apparent retrograde motion impacts its usual energies. As AstroStyle explains, those energies are weaker, thwarted, or don’t affect our lives in their normal fashion. In everyday life, this could translate to trouble in each planet’s ruling areas or a need to step back and reassess one’s approaches.
We hear the most about Mercury since it appears to retrograde more often than the others. Because it’s the planet of communication, travel, and technology, these retrogrades are blamed for communication foul-ups, arguments, misdirected emails, computer outages, and lost baggage at airports. Venus retrogrades are linked to relationship challenges, breakups, and trouble finding love. Mars and the outer planets have longer retrograde periods, causing their effects to be felt for several months.
Impacts in the Natal Chart
Astrologers describe how retrogrades may influence daily life, but they believe the same energies manifest with retrogrades in a birth chart. Some go a step further and suggest deeper meanings. Astro Codex characterizes natal retrogrades as karmic markers, pointing to struggles and trauma from past lives that one should try to resolve. Natal Mercury retrogrades are frequently mentioned, and AstroStyle discusses this in detail. Ophira and Tali Edut credit it with communication challenges, adding that a person with this placement may be shy, lack confidence, or worry about being misunderstood. However, that doesn’t mean the individual will fall short in this skill. Bustle’s Brandi Neal mentions that the late musician Prince had a Mercury retrograde in his birth chart.
Other natal retrogrades play out in similar ways. Besides our solar system’s major planets, smaller bodies like Chiron, Juno, and Ceres experience retrograde periods. Cafe Astrology describes these bodies’ energies as turned inward, causing the individual to face certain unique challenges. Because technological innovation falls in Uranus’s domain, a natal retrograde may produce a person who distrusts new technologies. A natal Venus retrograde may result in an individual who struggles to express love, represses emotions, and second-guesses these feelings. Neptune rules dreams, healing, and what lies below the surface, so someone with a natal Neptune retrograde could become an intensely private person who’s uncomfortable expressing inner wishes, goals, and dreams. The Astro Codex offers detailed descriptions of even more natal planet retrogrades.
The Deeper Symbolism of Retrogrades
Astrology is a fascinating practice. It taps into beliefs from older civilizations, yet it remains relevant in modern times. As new generations look outside traditional religious beliefs to find meaning in their lives, planetary retrogrades gain new significance for individuals and our wider cultural discourse.