* reconsider before speaking
* lots of inner conversation and thoughts
* feels misunderstood
Mercury involves mental processes and communication of all kinds. Exploring ideas, seeking knowledge, writing, public speaking and making contacts. Mercury is retrograde at least three times each year, and is our most frequently retrograde planet. During this usually three week timeframe, misunderstandings increase, mail and email gets lost, messages are delayed or appear elsewhere, misdirection and frustration with miscommunications of all kinds tend to intensify. Odd ideas tend to occur as normal abilities and patterns of writing, learning, and speech become disrupted.
For a few, this retrograde actually has the opposite effect. New ideas, new speaking or writing abilities are often revealed in people whose natal Mercury is retrograde. Are you normally hesitant or afraid to speak out? Do you find yourself very concerned with how others will take your words or what will happen if you speak your mind? If so you may see improvements in both your usual internal and external dialogue.
Venus Retrograde
* reconsider before expressing love or affection
* relate awkwardly to others
* doubts the love others offer
* can become obsessed in relationships
* feels let down by the commitment level of others
Venus involves pleasure, love, romance, relaxation, aesthetics, peaceful feelings, harmony, money, and values. Venus tends to work by attraction. Approximately every eighteen months or so, Venus slips into retrograde for about six weeks. While Venus is retrograde, you are more likely to find your ability to attract what you want restricted or inhibited. You could find yourself much more concerned with achieving or maintaining external beauty, your flow of ready cash, questioning your ideas of pleasure, aesthetics, or even revaluating your feelings about romantic relationships.
A natal Venus retrograde can cause you difficulty achieving fulfillment or finding your right romantic partner. You may be more in love with your ideas about love than you are with any real person you know.
Mars Retrograde
* reconsider before expressing anger
* finds competitive situations hard to handle
* tends to be repressed
* can become depressed
Mars represents direct energy, physical expression, individual action and assertiveness, as well as anger, desire, sexuality, competitiveness and motivation for self interest. Mars energies tend to burst forward exerted in short duration. Every two years Mars goes retrograde for two to two-and-a-half months. What often results are upsets and frustrations in daily life as emotions which should be externalised become internalised. When you finally explode, it is likely that you will act aggressively against your own self interest.
If you have Mars in retrograde in your natal chart, you may find that you are waging an internal battle causing you difficulty in asserting yourself because you are afraid of the consequences of releasing your anger. You may tend to over think before you act. You may find that you have a tendency to hold back.
Jupiter Retrograde
* has doubts
* finds it easy to settle for second best
* feels superior in some way inside
* looks inside for answers to religious questions
Jupiter represents the principles of expansion, gambling, speculation, luck, opportunities, optimism, abundance, travel, higher education, teaching, religion and philosophy. Approximately four months a year, this planet slips into retrograde. When it does, you are likely to see its influence roll through your life and society around you. Plans have a tendency to implode. Jupiter retrograde influences us internally to look within to seek new meanings. You may find you can best use these opportunities to revaluate your life and reach new levels of awareness and understanding.
If Jupiter is retrograde in your natal chart, you have a very rich internal life. You actually make your own luck. Abundance is felt within as you search the world looking to discover truth and develop a broader philosophy of life and living. At the same time, you may feel hesitant about involving yourself too deeply in others affairs or sharing your views out of a concern for being thought so different that you may be cast out by public opinion. Speculations may not bring you all the external rewards you seek, but each time you take a chance, your adventures allow you to gain from a wide variety of experiences.
Saturn Retrograde
* feeling not good enough inside
* indulgent outward behaviour may mask inner feelings of inadequacy
* hides fears
Saturn deals with karma, limits, responsibility, tradition, conservatives, authorities, long term goals and accomplishments patiently created, taking responsibility, creating structure, and setting boundaries. Once a year the planet Saturn goes into retrograde for about four-and-a-half months. During this influence, you will probably find it unwise to attempt sudden changes or to rush through things. Take practical steps and accept limitations while you take serious steps toward your long term goals. Saturn retrograde can cause you to become your own worst enemy, limit your actions or leave you feeling blocked and pessimistic.
Saturn retrograde in your natal chart, indicates that you are likely to have been abused by those with power over you, perhaps having faced unfair situations at home. You may need to declare personal boundaries, to work out conflicts with authority on a karmic scale. You could feel that fate conspires against your desires but it’s really you putting the brakes on through feelings of persecution or inhibition in the house where it is placed until you work out how to face doing or confronting whoever or whatever it is that threatens you.
Uranus Retrograde
* feel different inside
* outward conformist behavior masks inner feelings of non-conformity
* has a difficult time finding their niche in society
Planet of change, independence and risk Uranus is retrograde for about five months out of every year. While it is, you can expect the unexpected. The situation is not secure. Things are subject to sudden fluctuation and you may be feeling a bit stubborn, rebellious, your emotions explosive and uncooperative toward anyone or anything that represents the status quo. Internally, you may feel like you are so ready to take a risk and just blow off conventional wisdom or prescribed ways of doing things.
If Uranus is retrograde in your natal chart, you fare more than ready to try something new and are very likely to experience wide fluctuations in circumstances in the areas of life represented by the house in which Uranus is placed even if your manner has a tendency to hide it. You really do have a tendency to push thing to extremes there. You are actually a catalyst for positive energies if you channel your rebelliousness into originality as you move toward independence and personal freedom.
Neptune Retrograde
* feels guilty inside
* tends to blame themselves when things go wrong
* super sensitive inside
Neptune goes into retrograde five months out of every year, a time when a lack of boundaries, imagination, creativity and a desire to experience the pleasures of the moment can get the best of you as logic is set aside replaced by feelings and intuition.
Neptune retrograde in your natal chart indicates that you could feel inhibited by the harsh realities of the physical world, choosing to spend a lot of time in your own imagination. Daydreams could replace active participation in life inhibiting your ability to realise your potentials in the areas of life represented by the house where Neptune is placed. Substance abuse can be triggered by a need to escape and you can fall prey to your own illusions if you don’t accept people as they are and use your sensitivity to let go of limitations as you stay connected to others.
Pluto Retrograde
* keeps their chin up during crisis
* want to keep inner upheavals private
* get what they want by acting like they don't care
Pluto is the planet of complete transformation, upheaval, reversals, and bew beginnings, and spends on average, five months out of the year in retrograde. It is also a time of destruction and rebuilding when intense situations and outside forces intervene.
Pluto retrograde in your natal chart indicates that you are here to learn karmic lessons about intensity, control, and struggles for dominance. While you are wrestling with your own inner conflicts, outside forces are likely to upset your life. You are likely to find public opinion can be fickle, giving you little outward reason for blind trust in others. The people who make up your world may revere you one moment and revile you the next. Part of your lesson is to refuse to get locked in a battle of egos.
