Retrograde Planets
Think of overtaking a slower car on the motorway. For a moment, seen from your seat, it seems to slide backwards against the hills behind it, though it is still moving forward. That is exactly what a retrograde planet is: an illusion of backward motion, seen from a moving Earth.
The Earth (blue) moves faster than Mars (red) and overtakes it. Against the stars, Mars moves forward, seems to stop, slips backwards between 3 and 5, stops again and moves on. Nothing really reverses: it is the view from a moving planet.
- Retrograde the apparent backward stretch, while the Earth overtakes
- Stations the turning points, where the planet seems to stand still
Why it happens
The Earth and the other planets all go round the Sun in the same direction, at different speeds. When the Earth overtakes a slower outer planet, the planet seems to drift backwards against the background stars, then stops and moves forward again. An inner planet, Mercury or Venus, looks retrograde when it overtakes the Earth on the inside.
The turning points, where a planet seems to stand still, are called stations: it stations retrograde, then later stations direct.
- Mercurythinking
- Venusattraction
- Marsaction
- Jupiterexpansion
- Saturnstructure
How often each planet turns
- Mercury: about three times a year, for about three weeks.
- Venus: about every 19 months, for about six weeks.
- Mars: about every two years, for about two and a half months.
- Jupiter and Saturn: once a year, for about four months.
- Uranus, Neptune and Pluto: once a year, for about five months.
- The Sun and the Moon: never.
Here is something many people never notice: the slow outer planets spend close to half of every year retrograde.
What is moving in your chart now?
Start with your birth chart: every transit and return is read against it.
