← Astrology for Beginners · lesson 15/19
You're on a train, and another train alongside is going a bit slower. For a moment it looks like that train is sliding backwards — even though it's rolling forwards too. It's an illusion, created by the fact that you're overtaking it.
That's almost exactly what a retrograde planet is.
When a planet is retrograde, it looks, from here on Earth, like it's drifting backwards through the zodiac. But no planet actually reverses — they all keep moving forwards. What we're seeing is the view from a moving Earth as we and the other planet pass each other, like those two trains. Astrologers mark it with a little ℞ symbol next to the planet.
Almost all of them — except the Sun and the Moon, which only ever go forwards. The famous one is Mercury, which turns retrograde about three times a year, for roughly three weeks each time. The slow outer planets are retrograde for months at a stretch, so for them it's almost a background hum rather than an event.
Here's the simplest way to hold it: a retrograde planet's energy turns inward. It's a time to go back over things rather than charge ahead — and astrologers love that it's full of "re-" words: review, reflect, revise, reconsider, reconnect, repair. The past tends to resurface. It's a pause, not a punishment.
Mercury rules messages, thinking, travel and gadgets, so when it's retrograde the classic complaints are: crossed wires, delays, missed trains, dodgy tech, plans that need redoing. The sensible response isn't panic — it's just double-check and back things up: confirm the times, save your work, read the small print, and maybe don't sign the huge contract this week if you can wait.
But honestly? It gets blamed for far too much. Add up all of Mercury's retrogrades and it's only about 70 days a year — a normal part of the rhythm, like the seasons. It's genuinely good for the re- jobs: finishing things, tidying up, reconnecting with people, rethinking a plan.
If a planet was retrograde the moment you were born, that part of you tends to work more inwardly — to its own private rhythm, thought-through rather than blurted out. It's not a flaw; plenty of people have one (or several), and it often just means you do that thing your own way.
As ever, I don't think Mercury reaches across space to lose your luggage. A retrograde is an illusion of motion — and astrology, being a language, reads a meaning into it that happens to be a useful one: every so often, slow down and look back before you push on. The sky isn't against you. It's just suggesting a pause.