The words a chart uses
What does retrograde mean in astrology?
A planet is retrograde when, seen from the Earth, it appears to move backward through the zodiac for a while; the tradition reads it as a time to revisit that planet's theme.
Retrograde motion is real as an appearance and not as a change of course. Every planet keeps travelling in the same direction around the Sun, but the Earth is moving too. When the Earth passes a slower outer planet, or a faster inner one passes the Earth, the planet appears from here to slow, stop, drift backward against the stars, stop again and resume. The stops are its stations.
Mercury turns retrograde about three times a year, for around three weeks each time. Venus and Mars do so less often. The outer planets spend months of every year retrograde.
How the tradition reads it
A retrograde stretch is traditionally associated with going back over the planet's theme: Mercury's with rethinking and rereading, Venus's with revisiting what you value, Mars's with reconsidering where your effort goes. It is read as a time to review rather than a time when things go wrong.
In a natal chart, a planet that was retrograde at birth is read as a theme turned somewhat inward, one you may come to in your own way and your own time.
On the Transits page
Becoming Choice marks each retrograde stretch from the engine's own stations, never guessed from a speed: a rule above a transit's bar and a mark where the planet turns. A transit to a point the planet passes while retrograde often has three exact dates, direct, retrograde and direct again.
In the sky now
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