← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 119/235
Retrograde
What it means
A planet is retrograde when, seen from Earth, it appears to slide backwards through the signs — from 20° of a sign back to 19°, 18° and so on — instead of moving forward in the usual order. William Ramsey put it plainly in 1653: a planet is retrograde "when he goes backward or contrary to the succession of the signs". In a chart it is marked ℞ beside the planet.
Why it happens
Nothing actually reverses. Every planet keeps moving forward round the Sun; what changes is our point of view. Earth is itself moving, and when it overtakes a slower outer planet — or is overtaken by a faster inner one — that planet seems to drift backwards against the background stars, much as a car you pass on a motorway seems to fall back. For Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the outer planets this happens around their opposition to the Sun, when Earth passes between them and the Sun. For Mercury and Venus it happens around their inferior conjunction, when they pass between us and the Sun. Each retrograde begins and ends with a station. The Sun and the Moon never go retrograde.
How often
| Planet | How often | Roughly how long |
|---|---|---|
| Mercury | three or four times a year | about 3 weeks |
| Venus | every 19 months or so | about 6 weeks |
| Mars | every 26 months or so | about 2 to 2½ months |
| Jupiter | once a year | about 4 months |
| Saturn | once a year | about 4½ months |
| Uranus, Neptune, Pluto | once a year | about 5 to 6 months |
The outer planets spend close to half of every year retrograde, so having one retrograde at birth is ordinary.
In a birth chart
A planet retrograde at birth is often read as working inwardly first: its themes are thought over, revisited and made personal before they are shown to the world. Someone born with Mercury retrograde may think in loops and second drafts; Venus retrograde may incline toward slow, considered affection. Modern writers tend to treat it as a different style rather than a weakness.
The tradition was sterner. Lilly counted retrogradation among the accidental debilities, scoring a retrograde planet −5 and a direct one +4; in a horary question a retrograde significator could mean a matter that goes back on itself, is delayed or is returned.
In transit
Retrograde periods are widely read as seasons for the "re-" words — reviewing, revising, returning, repairing — rather than for fresh launches in the planet's area of life. Donna Cunningham called Mercury's retrograde spells "a natural and even helpful recurrent cycle", no more alarming than the seasons. Because the planet crosses the same stretch of the zodiac three times (forward, back, forward again), a transit made during a retrograde tends to arrive in three passes, which many astrologers read as a story told in stages.