Karma Relationships

Live Your Passion

Healing With Angels

Spiritual Warrior

If you want to know how the planets in retrograde affect you personally and what planets were in retrograde at the moment of your birth,
have your chart assembled at astrology.com's quick and easy.

Retrograde Planets 2004

In Astrology, a culture and the chart of an individual are significantly affected by the spin (or wobble) and movement of the planets. Most often, the planets (save for the Sun) rotate on their forward path. Then there's a brief period, called the stationary period, when the planets slow and appear to have stopped moving altogether.

Having a stationary planet in your chart is generally quite fortunate. Stationary planets emphasize the planetary influence, making you the epitome of that planet's attributes.

From our perspective here on Earth, planets appear to be spinning backwards after resting in a stationary position. This celestial phenomenon for astrologers means that the planet is in retrograde.

Planets in retrograde can have an inverse effect on the world, sometimes reversing situations and changing our feelings and regular activities. A planet's retrograde influence can tell of an individual or cultural passive aggression, an internalizing of the surrounding environment and the skewing of emotional or physical communication.

Each planet has its own unique cycle of how many days it takes to orbit the Sun and its frequency and duration in retrograde. The planets closest to the Sun have a shorter cycle (for example, it only takes 88 days for Mercury to go full circle, whereas Neptune requires 165 years).

The effects of planets in retrograde vary depending on your own unique astrological chart, but the descriptions below reveal some of the more common attributes of planets in retrograde and their characteristics in general and for the individual.

SR means Stationary Retrograde
SD means Stationary Direct