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As the nights remain long and dark, we find ourselves with nearly half of the planets in retrograde in early 2025 with more soon to encounter the apparent backward motion. The current lineup includes several planets that sit further away from the Sun, including Jupiter and Uranus, whose retrogrades are less frequent and arguably more significant than those that we experience on a more regular basis.
What Does It Mean When Planets Are In Retrograde?
In ancient astrology, it was accepted that planets in retrograde were journeying through the underworld, gathering insights, perspectives, and information from the unseen world. This understanding was used as a metaphor for what happens within our inner worlds when a planet is in retrograde.
No matter what we humans think life should look like, retrogrades reminds us that our path is not linear. Although many of us may feel more comfortable during experiences that are direct and straightforward, are we forgetting the rest of the picture?
As the planets in our cosmos take a moment to retrace their steps, they take us on a journey through our past actions, selves, experiences, desires, and expressions. It is a retracing and reliving of what is still awaiting our presence, awareness, understanding, and compassion.
Throughout a retrograde, we experience what needs to be witnessed so that it may be worked through. The endings that never truly ended and are in need of reviving or final closure. The old ideas that entered our consciousness before we were ready and require us to understand or release them. And the stories that need the kind of reframe that comes from looking at them anew from a more recently acquired perspective.
As much as planets in retrograde can feel like a step backward, they are a necessary and sacred part of our journey forward. They are the gift of reflection that allows for insight, the introspection that allows for self-awareness, the spaciousness required for the assimilation of steps already taken, and the sacred pause needed to build the inner capacity to take any leap forward.
What Planet is in Retrograde Right Now?
Beyond the light of our awareness, there are aspects of us, each represented by a planet in retrograde, that journey downward and backward into our shadows. Far beneath the surface, these aspects await being acknowledged, witnessed, claimed, and reintegrated into our consciousness.
This is why many astrologers caution us not to begin anything new during retrograde or make any sudden changes or big decisions. Once we emerge from this descent, we do so with these newly reclaimed parts of ourselves. We emerge as more of who we are. We emerge with greater clarity on our next season, the direction of our forward movement, our most aligned desires, and our enhanced understanding of, quite simply, who we are.
Uranus Retrograde | September 1, 2024-January 30, 2025
Jupiter Retrograde | October 9, 2024-February 4, 2025
Mercury Retrograde | November 25-December 15, 2024
Mars Retrograde in Leo and Cancer | December 6, 2024-February 23, 2025
What Are the Planets in Retrograde in 2025?
On addition to those currently retrograding, the folloiwng planets will find themselves in apparent backward motion in the months to come.
Venus Retrograde in Aries and Pisces | March 2 – April 13, 2025
Mercury Retrograde in Aries and Pisces | March 15 – April 7, 2025
Pluto Retrograde in Aquarius | May 4 – 14 October, 2025
Neptune Retrograde in Aries and Pisces | July 4 – December 10, 2025
Saturn Retrograde in Aries and Pisces | July 13 – November 28, 2025
Mercury Retrograde in Leo | July 18 – August 11, 2025
Chiron Retrograde in Aries | July 30, 2025 – January 2, 2026
Uranus Retrograde in Gemini and Taurus | September 6, 2025 – February 4, 2026
Mercury Retrograde in Sagittarius and Pisces | November 9 – November 29, 2025
Jupiter Retrograde in Cancer | November 11, 2025 – March 11, 2026 
Retrogrades can feel like a step backward, but are a necessary part of our way forward. (Illustration: Unknown)How to Navigate Planets in Retrograde
When planets are in retrograde, the world around us continues to move forward but we are invited to bring space into our days wherever possible. An extra few breaths before we begin our day, a quiet contemplation at lunch, a few minutes of quiet as we settle into bed.
We are asked to clear away the unnecessary, the noise, the extra, and instead create pockets of space. Space for the inner journeying that is taking place within you to reach your consciousness. Space for emotion to move through your body and release itself where it can. Space for reflection. Space for you to surprise yourself as to who you now are, and all the ways in which you have changed. There are new perspectives waiting to be seen.
In astrology, the inner planets of Venus and Mars are referred to as “personal planets.” These retrogrades are generally felt more within our individual experience, compared to the outer planets, which operate less within our seen and felt everyday reality and more behind the scenes at a slower pace. Despite our long line-up of outer planets still in their backward spin, there is the experience of finding our clarity and our way forward once again.
Our journey within this human experience is not only non-linear, but our directions shift. The speed at which we move seems to ebb and flow. The desires that call our name take different forms. We experience cycles of immense transformation and movement, cycles of sinking into a routine and setting down roots and simply being, and cycles of excitement, adventure, and outward exploring.
And so, how do we continue with our forward movement, the direction that is so expected of us in today’s world, when so much of us is instead invited to mimic the planets in retrograde and go on our own retrograde exploration? What does this mean for us as we sink into stillness, reflection, and inward contemplation?
Planets in retrograde afford us an opportunity to catch up with who we have become, the experiences we have moved through, and the insights we have learned along the way. It is as if the changes and growth we have been experiencing are granted an opportunity to seep deep into our bodies, integrate into our identities, and become available for us to live. We move through so much in this world and are changed by all of it. This retrograde season, can you allow yourself to get to know yourself?
Many astrologers caution us not to begin anything new or make any sudden changes or big decisions when there are planets in retrograde. When we emerge with these newly reclaimed parts of ourselves, we emerge with greater clarity around our most aligned desires, and our enhanced understanding of, quite simply, who we are.
The invitation of any transit in astrology is to continue to honor our experiences and bring appreciation and respect for the inward as much as the outward, the reflection as much as the forward thinking, and the stillness as much as the action.
Explore the effects of other retrogrades, the Moon, what your opposite sign means, and how astrology intersects with your everyday life with our astrology email newsletter.
RELATED: These Are the Most Significant Astrological Transits of 2025 (And What They Mean for You)
This article has been updated to reflect recent retrogrades.
