Reframing Retrogrades as initiations, not interruptions. Let’s look deeper into how retrogrades empower us to live more authentically and powerfully.
Every few months, the astrology corner of the internet lights up like a siren.
🚨 Mercury retrograde! Don’t sign contracts. Don’t travel. Back up your files.
🚨 Venus retrograde? Exes inbound. Rethink your bangs.
🚨 Saturn retrograde? Good luck with that karmic loop you thought you finished.
Retrogrades have become the scapegoats of modern astrology. Blamed for everything from romantic confusion to dropped calls. But here’s the truth behind the trend: retrogrades aren’t malfunctions in the cosmic machine. They’re the mechanism itself shifting into a different gear. Not breaking down, but breaking open.
And more than anything, they’re misunderstood because they interrupt a fantasy we’ve all been trained to uphold: that time is linear, outcomes are clean, and growth always looks like forward motion.
It doesn’t.
Not in myth. Not in magic. Not in life.
Retrogrades Are When Planets Get Closest to Earth
Let’s be clear about the astronomy. Retrograde motion is an optical illusion caused by the relative speeds of planetary orbits. But in that illusion, there’s a deeper truth. When a planet goes retrograde, it’s not retreating—it’s getting closer to Earth than at any other time in its cycle.
This proximity matters. Retrograde planets aren’t going silent. They’re getting louder. Brighter in the sky. More insistent, more personal. They’re looking us in the eye and approaching us for conversation.
A planet in retrograde is more active and more intimate.
Not backing away, but pulling us closer to its archetype.
Mercury brings the trickster.
Venus reweaves desire.
Mars stirs inner fire.
Saturn holds us in the loop until the pattern is seen and honored.
These aren’t problems. They’re initiations.
Mercury Retrograde: The Trickster Speaks in Loops
Mercury retrograde is the most infamous of the bunch—and the most misunderstood. People treat it like a virus: protect your tech, avoid new ventures, brace for chaos. But Mercury isn’t just a messenger. He’s a psychopomp, a guide between worlds. A trickster god with winged sandals, slipping between meaning and miscommunication, clarity and confusion.
When Mercury stations retrograde, he’s in a phase of solar proximity. That’s the key. He’s closer to us—and to the Sun—than at any other point in his orbit. It’s the moment when he becomes a mouthpiece for the divine, whispering insights through disorder.
In my own life, Mercury retrogrades have a habit of syncing up with the process of recording—music especially. Rewrites, studio sessions, demos revisited. They’re less about miscommunication and more about a return to something essential: the refinement of thought, tone, and delivery. The message finds a truer form in the second take.
You don’t have to stop everything during Mercury Rx. You just have to listen in a different register.
Venus Retrograde: Desire Turned Inside Out
Venus retrograde is rare—every 18 months or so—but its impact runs deep. This goes beyond love or aesthetics. It’s about the fundamental architecture of value and desire. What do you find beautiful? Who do you believe yourself to be when reflected through the eyes of another?
When Venus is retrograde, she too is closest to Earth. She disappears from the sky and is reborn as either a new evening or morning star—a celestial motif that ancient astrologers watched closely. This rebirth is personal. Internal. It asks us to reevaluate not only who and what we love, but why. Venus stirs more than the vapors of attraction in us during this time, forcing us into acknowledging what we think we’re worth.
It’s not always about exes coming back. Sometimes it’s about a part of yourself returning—the part that once compromised too much, or forgot what it really wanted.
Venus Rx may bring nostalgic waves, aesthetic overhauls, or relational reassessments. But the real magic is in re-choosing yourself.
Saturn Retrograde: Sacred Repetition
Saturn retrograde doesn’t usually come with dramatic headlines—but its work is no less profound. Saturn is the ruler of time, boundaries, and karma. He builds slowly. When retrograde he demands accountability for what’s been constructed.
Have you been doing the work that you owed yourself? Is the structure stable?
Are you upholding your end of the contract?
During Saturn Rx, we revisit lessons we thought we’d finished. But this isn’t failure. It’s the wisdom of iteration. The loop returns because there’s something more to extract, be it more nuance, more integration, or more authenticity in ourselves and our work.
Saturn stations often coincide with major pivots—responsibility finally taken, commitments made or rejected in favor of what is deemed a wiser path. It’s not the time things collapse. It’s the time we see what can last.
Expectation vs. Experience
So if retrogrades aren’t the problem… what is?
Expectations. Specifically, our cultural addiction to linear progress, quick resolutions at all costs. Retrogrades interrupt that, they spiral, they revisit, they delay. And in doing so, they force us to sit with the process instead of thinking only in terms of the product.
They are the “no” that leads to the real “yes.”
The delay that reveals the deeper direction.
The pattern that, when repeated, finally leads to lasting clarity.
If you expect retrogrades to act like the direct motion of a planet, of course you’ll be disappointed. But if you meet them on their terms— nonlinear, inner-directed, archetypal in nature—you’ll find they’re not setbacks at all. They’re initiations into a deeper layer of the archetype.
Stations Are Activation Points
For timing work station degrees are crucial. When a planet stations (either retrograde or direct), it hovers, lingers, marks the ground. If it hits a point in your natal chart, it will be very deeply felt.
Mercury stations on your Moon? Emotional intelligence becomes the lesson.
Venus stations on your Midheaven? Your public image reshapes around your true values.
Saturn stations opposite your Mars? A reckoning of energy, will, and responsibility.
These moments are not random. They’re thresholds that lead to the way forward, written into the architecture of your chart.
In Closing: The Path Isn’t Straight—It Spirals
Retrogrades invite us to live truly astrologically, not just theoretically.
To move with the rhythms and stand in cognizance of cycles and our place in the greater whole.
To loosen our grip on forward motion and welcome the wisdom in reversal.
They are not curses.
They are conversations.
And the planets, closer now than usual, are whispering things you could only hear through concentrated listening.
So the next time you see a retrograde approaching, don’t brace for chaos.
Breathe into the loop.
Something sacred is unfolding—not despite the delay, but because of it.