By Madame Dana Zia
This year has started out with two of the inner planets, Mercury and Mars, in retrograde and if you are like me, getting anything started, much less finished, is challenging! (Remember that retrograde is “apparent” and the planet is not going backwards, it just seems that way as we pass them up.) The inner planets, Mercury, Venus and Mars are considered very influential in their placement of your birth chart and in the Solar System since they are so close to us (Earth) and they move pretty darn fast compared to the outer planets.
For example, Venus’ orbit around the Sun is 225 days, Mars’ is 687 days and the next planet out from the Sun is Jupiter and his orbit is 12 years. The next planet is Saturn and it takes 29 years to orbit the Sun. Big difference! So when the inner planets are in a retrograde, we tend to feel it more. Having two planets, Mars and Mercury retrograde can be quite profound and give us cause to pause.
Mars started his bi-yearly retrograde on October 30 of 2022 and goes direct on Jan 12th 2023 in the social sign of Gemini. Mars is the planet of “get er done” and forward momentum. When he goes retrograde, we may feel slowed down, in hibernation, stuck or even thwarted. Geminis are profoundly affected by this retrograde but Sagittarius, Pisces or Virgo are also getting to feel frozen in motion. (Or on the couch.)
Mercury retrograde is a more well-known one to most Earthlings and is also very misunderstood. Mercury started his last retrograde of the year on December 29th 2022 until January 18th 2023 in the responsible sign of Capricorn. Mercury is the planet that resides over communication, thoughts, internet, computers, travel and learning. (To name a few.) When he goes into his apparent retrograde, you can feel that communications go awry, computers and phones have glitches, travel plans go askew, and real estate deals blow up.
These retrogrades can be a time where you want to stay in bed with no “get up and go” but in truth they are there to ask us to turn inward. Both of these retrograde are inviting us to slow down and breathe. Take it easy and don’t beat up on yourself for not flying into the New Year like a rocket. Do some delicious self-care and pile up with your cat, dog or favorite person on the couch with no regrets. I feel that these retrogrades are teaming up on us to offer up a time to reflect on our last year and what we want from the coming year.
Come January 12th when Mars goes direct this energy is really going to start to shift. Suddenly you will feel energy start to fill your sails and then when Mercury goes direct on the 18th, your ship will sail. Take faith and know this too shall pass. Meanwhile chillax and read by the fire.
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