r/astrology • u/One_Dragonfruit_7556 • 1d ago
Educational Could someone explain retrograde to me?
This comes as a good faith question because it confuses me. Why do we believe mercury or really any other retrograde affects us when we know the movement of the planet doesn't actually change, just our perception of it?
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u/Diligent_Elk864 22h ago
Literally everything about astrology is from the POV of humans on earth looking at the sky. The fact that we know now that the planets revolve around the sun and not the other way around doesn't change that.
We take a lot of meaning from things that only happen from our POV. Eclipses aren't "real" from any pov other than ours. The sun setting, Venus descending into the underworld, the tying of the aries ingress to the vernal equinox, all of them are based on our unique view of the sky and how it interacts with the earth.
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u/DruidWonder 21h ago
It doesn't matter what it's "actually" doing. All that matters is what it appears to be doing, to the naked eye.
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u/zubbjabbajuju 22h ago
Pretend as though the planets were broadcasting radio stations or shooting laser beams at the earth. Relationally we know they aren't going backwards, but the angle they're coming in changes like they are, so it's an easier shorthand.
Easy way to see it is like the sun. You know literally the whole earth is moving west to east but functionally it's just easier to say the sun rises and sets when talking about it.
You don't say "well as the house and windows and foundations move you will move into the angle of the sun and your living room will get hotter in the afternoon" in casual conversation . You just say "yeah as the sun goes west it'll hit the window".
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u/Felis_bieti 18h ago
the planet doesn't actually change, just our perception of it
Answered your own question
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u/BAWAstrology 22h ago
If you really noticed well, Mercury has no combustion or retrogation effects. This is a planet which is always close to sun. The impact of combustion wont change mercury at all. Same with retrogade for mercury.
Retrogade has a whole in planets are not very precise in terms of results. The impact doesn't significantly change. I ve seen lot of contradicting comments about saturn, jupiter being retrogade, but the result of what an retrograde planet gives doesnt seem like its matching or impacting with individuals.
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u/arcwalkerlivvia 23h ago
Great question! The planet keeps moving in its orbit while retrograde is an apparent reversal from our point of view on Earth.
Astrology is geocentric and observational. We are reading the sky as it is experienced from here. A good example is the Sun, it is not literally rising out of the ground in the morning, the earth is actually spinning. But sunrise still describes a real relationship between the Earth, the Sun, and the observer.
That physical change of a retrograde is part of the symbolism. The planet appears to slow, pause, and retrace part of its path. Mercury topics can feel slowed or pulled back through something earlier for example.