by Robert Wilkinson
Recently I was interviewed about my take on retrogrades, whether they’re easy or hard, why they may or may not be challenging, how natal retrograde planets work, how to use retrogrades to best effect, and more. Today I’ll give you my notes I prepared for that interview.
The interviewer is going to use some of this as well as material from other interviews in her upcoming book on retrogrades. She sent me questions so I’d know what general things she wanted me to comment on. Here are the questions and my answer notes, though of course I fleshed out some answers in the interview which I include here. While some things repeat, it was how the interview unfolded, so some of this is a perfect example of a retrograde piece!
As I had many pages of notes, I’ve split this into two parts for an easier read. In this part I offered her my take on challenges of Mercury retrograde, are there easier or harder times, and why they happen.
I began by stating that retrogrades are a phenomenon which happens to all the planets and it’s a function of the relative speeds of those planets from the perspective of the Earth. This is because nothing really goes backwards, but slows down in its orbit and speeds up in its orbit and sometimes Earth is in a position where it looks like the planet is going backwards. That means we have to take a different look from a different angle at the span we’ve just traversed.
We’ve already seen this span once and the retrograde gives us an alternative view so that when the planet goes direct, we get a third experience of that energy so we can master it.
Are retrogrades challenging?
This is where we have to break it down to examine which planet we’re talking about. Each planet has its duality of function, which I explain in Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend. There is a positive, or healthy expression of each planet, as well as an unhealthy function, and our job is to raise the expression of that planet from the unhealthy to the healthy. Retrogrades give us opportunities to take a new look at all the parts of us that are shown by the different planets to change how we want to express those energies.
I have found the most challenging period for Mercury and Venus is the period before the retrograde station, when they’re slowing down before the inferior conjunction, which is when Mercury or Venus conjuncts the Sun while retrograde. The slowed pace affects our response to those energies. After the inferior conjunction the planet begins to speed up through the next superior conjunction, which is when Mercury or Venus conjuncts the Sun in forward motion.
With Mars, I believe the most challenging period is the time when it’s in its shadow zone up to the oppositions, since it is slowing down that entire time. Again, that means the pace of all things ruled by Mars slows down, so we have to adjust to a different pace.
I don’t consider the retrogrades for planets beyond Mars to have any negatives, because they’re “nothing personal.” While the Sun and Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all personal planets, Jupiter and Saturn represent the social, cultural, and spiritual factors in our house of personality. While the Sun and Moon do not go retrograde, they do slow down and speed up in the course of their orbit, which impacts our experience.
Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are the spiritual field for the entire world, so we get new material when they move forward out of their previous shadow zone, and then review that spiritual material when they are retrograde. However, because they occupy a relatively narrow span of degrees in any given year, they could occupy a given shadow zone off and on for as much as a year or two or three.
All retrogrades give us reflections and reviews. The inner planet retrograde periods give insights into personality. The outer planet retrograde oppositions to the Sun bring awareness of those social, spiritual, and transpersonal energies within the larger whole cycle. All oppositions to Mars and the planets beyond Mars happen when those planets are retrograde, while all conjunctions of the Sun with an outer planet happen when that planet is direct.
Are Some easier than Others?
I have found the forward period after the planet goes stationary direct, because we’ve already traversed that span of experience twice. In studying retrogrades, we learn about the shadow zone. That is the span of degrees between the retrograde station and the direct station. The recent Mercury retrograde began at 25 Capricorn and went back to 9 Capricorn. That made 9 through 25 Capricorn the shadow zone.
We got our first experience of the retrograde shadow zone during the first transit with Mercury slowing down before it went stationary retrograde. We got a second experience of the retrograde zone while the planet was retrograde. It then went stationary direct and began its third time in that degree span. By the third pass, we should already have some expertise in understanding what that was about, specific to the house or houses where it happened in our charts.
Whatever the sign, we got three different views of that span of experience and what it’s about in our lives. That multiple angle understanding allows us to move forward with that three-fold experience after Mercury leaves its shadow zone.
Why does it happen 3 times a year?
It’s because Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, moves a whole lot faster than we do. It happens frequently because it’s part of a natural process of Mercury speeding around the Sun during the time it takes for the Earth to go around the Sun. That’s why it seems to race forward and then go back from the perspective of the Earth.
Mercury represents “Divine Mind” which is continually racing forward and then slowing down so that Life, represented by the Sun, can catch up to it from the perspective of the Earth. Mercury is how we coordinate things in life, There are times when our mind gets out ahead of our life and at some point we have to slow down and figure out how all this information fits into our life on a day to day basis. Once the inward-turned mind or the “backward turned” review and reflection, “compare and contrast” process of the retrograde is done, then the mind realizes it’s looked at something long enough and it’s time to move forward with a new understanding.
Even though Mercury retrograde period do happen more frequently than other planetary retrogrades, different Mercury retrograde periods fall in different elements. For example, all of the 2022 Mercury retrograde periods began in the early degrees of the Air signs and retrograded back into the latter degrees of the Earth signs. In 2023 they all begin in late Earth and retrograde back to the early degrees of the Earth signs. In 2024 they will all begin in Earth and then retrograde back into Fire.
Each year brings its own special Mercury retrograde qualities. And because each one falls in a different sign and a different house we’re continually reviewing and getting new information and getting a new look at those affairs, just from a different angle. Like in 2022, in January we had a retrograde in Aquarius which ended in Capricorn started in a visionary idealistic sign and wound up in a sign of practicality. In May we had a retrograde which began in Gemini, the sign of information and sending and receiving ideas and wound up in Taurus, a sign where we learn what is of value and how to simplify things to make the idea substantial.
Each of us had to deal with these in our own way. Different people have different experiences with the same retrograde, since it falls in different houses, and rules different houses in the natal chart. Some of us get insights into things, while others are forced to deal with things from the past which they didn’t deal with before. Some get dramatic returns, while others get new ways of seeing how things have come to be as they are.
Mercury retrogrades are often periods when if we didn’t deal with something in the past which needed to be dealt with then, they come back during a subsequent retrograde. These are times when things which were concealed before are no longer hidden. We may not have understood something in the past, but a retrograde helps us take a new look at that past in a new light given subsequent events.
That’s why there’s often a “back to the future” quality in Mercury retrograde periods and events because they often bring the past back up to the present. Sometimes things from the past which we didn’t think were important then are suddenly seen in a new light and understanding and we realize something back then is crucial to our functioning now.
That’s what a retrograde does. It brings echoes, returns, reflections and reviews, even rehearsals, because sometimes we go through things which don’t turn out as we expected and we wonder why we went through it and then we find ourselves doing the exact same things after a period of time when we are doing it the ways we’re supposed to be doing it. That’s when a retrograde becomes a rehearsal for a future we didn’t know was coming!
Why Retrogrades are Good
I appreciate all of them, since they each give a review of crucial departments of life. Each planet is responsible for its own department of life just like each house is an area of our life. Retrogrades give us an ability to reflect on how we’re responding to our inner planetary energy and the strengths and weaknesses of each planet. The planets are our inner Lights, each with a specific “department of labor.” We learn by those parts of us experiencing all 12 sectors of reality we call the signs.
For example, Jupiter moves forward in a sign, and then retrogrades in that sign and some years even goes back to a previous sign. It then moves forward to the next sign, and goes retrograde in that sign. With Saturn, we might get two or may three retrogrades in each sign it occupies. Uranus gives us seven retrogrades in each sign.
So we get different layers of retrogrades, different opportunities to learn about planetary functions as they go through all 12 signs bringing us unique experiences within the whole of life. Along the way we learn about those planetary functions in the personal world, the interpersonal world, and the transpersonal world within us, in our dealings with others, and in how we deal with the universe.
If we get an opportunity to take a second, third, or fourth look at something we’re experiencing then we’re not racing forward trying to process new experiences; we’re reviewing and reflecting and remembering and re-evaluating, rethinking and re-feeling whatever the retrograde brings up in our inner world or in the outer world. Retrogrades are a natural part of every planetary cycle, like an inbreathing and outbreathing of our experience of that inner planetary quality, moving forward, then reflecting, then moving forward, then reflecting.
We are a consciousness moving forward in our experience. As part of the growth process, we need time to reflect, review, and digest our experiences to allow our planetary qualities to evolve as we move through the personal signs, the interpersonal signs, and the transpersonal signs. We pick up qualities along the way and drop other qualities which no longer appeal to us.
I speak about this in my books on Saturn and Venus. Life is about making choices to replace unhealthy responses with healthy responses. Eventually we are able to create positive and constructive karmic patterns so that whether a planet is retrograde or direct, or in any of the signs, we are using those planetary energies in a favorable way. When we are able to do that, then we are never paralyzed by any planet in any sign making any aspect, and are never led to express our planets in an unhealthy way.
What Do Think Is A Difficult Retrograde?
Those retrogrades which involve things from the past which should have been resolved in the past. Even if something from the past reappears in a retrograde, it doesn’t mean we’re necessarily supposed to say “yes” to it. It may be that it returns so we can be really clear why we had to say “no” to it in the first place. Maybe some old offer will come back and we’ll see that what we really wanted in the past no longer appeals to us because we have grown and we don’t want that any more as it would distract us from our purpose, what we’re trying to actualize in the moment.
Sometimes people will come back and we’ll see a quality in them which we didn’t see in the past which helps us understand why something happened the way it happened. With a Venus retrograde, we may get a review of a person or a feeling, maybe some way of relating or a memory of how we were seduced in the past, or maybe how we gave away our power to another and got off center or lost our balance. If something or someone returns, it’s not necessarily because we didn’t deal with it initially; perhaps we get a new look to see what was in our mental “rear view mirror” so we can see how we’ve grown in our likes since then.
Is the Shadow Zone the Same the Whole Time
The first pass through the shadow zone is our first exposure to that altered pace. The retrograde gives a new look at the same area from a different angle. The third time in forward motion should be easy, since we’ve already gotten a look before the retrograde.
It’s like we study the Book of Life each day as we live it. But there are times when we don’t get to go to the next chapter, and have to review what we just read or saw or thought or heard. We have to find a different angle of understanding as we review and reflect on the material, and incorporate it into our larger understanding of our way of expressing that planetary energy.
See you soon with part 2 which includes some remarkable Mercury retrograde events across a few centuries, how birthchart retrogrades work, progressed planets going retrograde or direct, and ways to use retrogrades to best advantage!
© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson
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