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A Birth Chart is Natal Chart in other terms. This is like a snapshot of the sky the day we were born, and it determines our placements in signs, planets, asteroids, etc. Our birth charts reveal who we are at our core and the sensitive angles that we have. It is like a detailed version of ourselves.
For us to know what our birth chart looks like, you must know your birth date, birth location, and birth time. And then, you can go to any online website that will calculate these things to give you your birth chart. It can be a little hard to interpret your birth chart without the help of someone professional or deep knowledge of Astrology. Before we talk about the effect of retrograde planets in our birth chart on our everyday life, we must know the meaning of each planet.
Understanding the Planets
It is vital to keep in mind that when you were born, each planet was in a specific sign. Some of us were born with all planets in one constellation. In others’ these planets are scattered across the sky.
The planets are grouped into two categories: the inner planets or our planets in Astrology and the outer planets or our generational planet in Astrology. Note that when we are talking about Astrology, we are looking at this whole thing from the Geocentric Perspective. Meaning, we look at everything as if the Earth is the center of everything.
Our planets are the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars and the placements of these planets affect our individuality, our moods, and our activities on a day-to-day basis. Our generational planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto and the placements of these planets affect us on a much larger scale. Meaning, there is a certain group of people who experience the same effects.
The Sun
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The Sun is ruled by the Zodiac Sign, Leo, and it rules the 5th House, the House of Pleasure. It is the start of your planet. It is the father luminary and the very essence of ourselves. You will mostly relate to the constellation it is in. It takes about 30 days for the Sun to change its position.
This represents our ego, our identity, vitality, and our basic personality traits. We usually answer with our Sun Sign when we are asked what our zodiac sign is. It is important to know, though, that our Sun sign is just a small part of ourselves. The placement of Sun in our birth chart reveals how we describe ourselves to our friends and our family.
The Moon
The Moon is ruled by the Zodiac Sign, Cancer, and it rules the 4th House, the House of Family and Home. It is the mother luminary and is the most emotional. It is the second personal planet and changes signs every two and a half days.
The Moon represents your emotions and how you deal with them. It may also represent your relationship with your mother and governs your deepest emotions. It also shows what you need to be emotionally fulfilled and if your sun and moon sign are the same, then you were most probably born on a full moon.
Mercury
Mercury is ruled by the Zodiac Signs, Gemini, and Libra, and it rules over the 3rd House, the House of Communication, and the 6th House, the House of Health. It is our 3rd personal planet, and it spends about 14 to 30 days to change. It is the Messenger Planet among all other planets. This planet represents how we communicate, our intellect or intelligence, and our opinions.
Venus
Venus is ruled by the Zodiac Signs, Taurus, and Libra and it rules over the 2nd House, the House of Possessions, and the 7th House, the House of Partnerships. It is your 4th personal planet and is the planet of love. It goes on about 23 days to 2 months before it moves to the next constellation.
It represents your relationships, attraction, aesthetics, and beauty and it reveals how you act in relationships. This shows the kind of things you are attracted to in other people and what you think is beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. It also shows what type of individuals you attract in your life and what type of arts and literature you like to get into.
Mars
Mars is ruled the Zodiac Signs, Aries, and Scorpio, and it rules the 1st House, the House of Self. It is the planet of Aggression and War and is your last personal planet. It has very masculine energy, and it takes about 2 months to change signs.
This planet reveals the amount of competitiveness you have in your spirit, and it represents your anger, your drive, your sexual desires, and your perseverance. It just doesn’t show how angry and intense you are, it also shows how you go after your goals and anything in life.
Jupiter
Jupiter is ruled by the Zodiac Signs, Sagittarius, and Pisces, and it rules the 9th House, the House of Philosophy. It is the first generational planet and is the planet of luck and a higher mind. It takes about one year to change signs, and a lot of people kind of have the same characteristics when they all have Jupiter in the same sign.
It determines what you want to achieve in education and how you want to expand your life. This planet represents expansion, luck, growth, and prosperity, and what you need to fully prosper in life.
Saturn
Saturn is ruled by the Zodiac Signs, Capricorn, and Aquarius, and it rules the 10th House, the House of Social Status. It takes about 2 years and a half to change signs and it is the planet of responsibilities. It governs our limitations and fears and how we overcome them. It represents structure, discipline, limitations, and restrictions.
Uranus
Uranus is ruled by the Zodiac Sign, Aquarius, and it rules the 11th House, the House of Friendships. It takes about 7 years to change, so the effect of this planet will be felt by generations born within these 7 years. It is the planet of individuality, and it rules over disruption and change in society.
It represents rebellion, technology, innovation, and liberation, and it shows how you act when you rebel. It shows you the things that you want to rebel against, and it influences the structure of society and how it will thrive.
You might also find this article interesting: The Secret to Attracting Wealth: Traits the rare billionaires share!
Neptune
Neptune is ruled by the Zodiac Sign, Pisces, and it rules the 12th House, the House of Subconscious. It is the planet of the visionary self, and it changes every 14 years. It governs our subconscious mind and the things we dream about at night. It represents creativity, illusions, psychic abilities, dreams, inspiration, and spirituality.
Pluto
Pluto is ruled by the Zodiac Sign, Scorpio, and it rules the 8th House, the House of Sex and Death. It is the planet of transformation and takes the longest to change. It takes about 12 to 15 years to move from one sign to another.
It has this reputation that it can either create or ruin things in society. It can be the greatest creation of the greatest destruction, and it represents secrets, power, truth, death, and rebirth. This reveals how you act when you have power that you have been hopeful for, and how you change into something else. This is also the planet that governs how you discover new ways of living.
What is Retrograde Motion?
Retrograde Motion is the apparent backward motion of a planet when viewed from Earth. It is not an actual phenomenon though and is just an illusion that happens due to our geocentric perspective here on Earth. Now you may ask how you can find out whether you’ve got any retrograde planet in your chart? You just simply look for the Rx sign next to your planets.
When a planet slows down and it appears to move backward from the Earth, it is a Stationary Retrograde. And when the planets travel backward from East to West, it is simply called Retrograde. These are like reversals and energies are acting oppositely.
It is like a general archetype of planets coming in roundabout ways. It is something that you struggled with in your past life, and it is a focus area of something we need to make right. There is a lot of frustrations here but can be looked at as an opportunity to fix issues regarding the planet.
How much time does each planet spend in Retrograde every year?
Mercury retrograde happens most of the time. It occurs 3 times every 12 months and spends about 22 days every time.
Venus retrograde happens once every year and a half and spends 42 days in retrograde every time.
Mars retrograde happens once every 26 months or roughly every 2 years and spends 60 to 80 days in retrograde every time.
Jupiter retrograde happens once a year, and it stays in retrograde for about 100 days every year.
Saturn retrograde happens once a year and lasts up to 135 days.
Retrogrades of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto happen for at least 5 months.
Retrograde Planets
Mercury in Retrograde
Mercury is known to rule the House of Communication but when someone has a Mercury Retrograde in their birth chart, this person is a lot less talkative. If you are this person, then you are prone to greater reflection before sharing your thoughts and opinions.
When Mercury is in Retrograde, it can manifest itself as a person needing more time to think and has a very unusual way of learning. This person has a talent for thinking outside the box and is someone who goes against the grain. This person is inventive and keeping a journal could be a very useful way to organize their thoughts.
Venus in Retrograde
The placement of Venus in our birth charts shows us how we act in relationships and what we need from them. It reveals what brings us pleasure and joy. When Venus is in Retrograde, you are a person that is a lot less prone to express your affection with other people.
You sometimes find it hard to identify whether the person has an interest in you. Just like a person with Mercury Retrograde, when you have this placement, you tend to be more reflective within yourself. You tend to be more in tune with your inner nature, and you are usually less concerned with material matters.
Mars in Retrograde
The planet, Mars shows the competitive side within us and how we compete with ourselves. When Mars is in Retrograde, there is a sign of enormous drive that the outer world does not think that it is possible. You are prone to getting upset at yourself for the littlest things.
Most of the time, you blame yourself for the things that did not go right according to your plans. You tend to get angry at yourself very easily for the smallest of issues. However, you express this anger in a very reserved way, but you tend to be very impatient.
Jupiter in Retrograde
When talking about Jupiter in terms of Astrology, we think of luck, destiny, and growth. This planet governs our fate and what we are meant to do. When a person has Jupiter in Retrograde in his or her birth chart, this person might find fate inside of them rather than from external forces.
This person is most likely to be less in touch with the different trends unfolding across all social media. You like reflecting on things on your own, and you are more concerned with your principles rather than your success.
Saturn in Retrograde
Saturn rules over the House of Social Status and what type of person you are in the society. When you have Saturn in Retrograde, you tend to have a great deal of inner discipline and inner strength. You are the type of person who is very keen to keep your success and challenges to yourself.
You somehow do not like it when people get into your business and tell you what to do. You have a different approach with limits and tend to be very ambitious, but you keep these things from the world. You like celebrating and crying over things on your own.
Uranus in Retrograde
Uranus is ruled by Aquarius that is rebellious and likes to do things on his or her own. This fact alone makes defiant, disobedient, and unruly. When you have Uranus in Retrograde, there is a serious “mad scientist” vibe that is around you.
You tend to be struggling to express how original, innovative, and liberated you are. You find it hard to somehow trust technology and benefit from it. You can be very good at following the rules and the Law but at some point, you will burst out with a fit of rebellion.
Neptune in Retrograde
Neptune is ruled by Cancer and governs our subconscious mind. When Neptune is in Retrograde as you see in your birth chart, you tend to struggle with your spirituality, creativity, and compassion.
You find it hard to show how compassionate and vulnerable you are because of the placement of Neptune in Retrograde in your life. People with this placement tend to be private and they hide that deep faith is missing in their lives. These people can find it hard to trust others and are afraid to dream big because they are afraid of being let down.
Pluto in Retrograde
Pluto is the planet that governs our transformation and all things intense. When you have Pluto in Retrograde, then you probably deal with the shadow sides of life and faces growth of opportunities for you to transform yourself. When you have this placement in this birth chart, you tend to fear control, manipulation, and betrayal. However, you keep this to yourself because exposing yourself makes you feel vulnerable.
Did you know that retrogrades don't only happen to planets? Asteroids too! Learn more about it in this Retrograde Asteroids article that I wrote.
How to Survive Retrograde Planets?
When there is a Retrograde happening all over the world, it is our opportunity to step back, rewind, and renew ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we are not going forward in our life, it just means that we must look for other directions to go in. During these times, this is our chance to go inward to ourselves and reflect.
It is hard to balance everything when we have a retrograde happening because we are tackling past thoughts and events with new lessons and things to learn. This can lead to a “black or white” approach to the planet’s significations.
During retrogrades, we must learn a lot of things by looking into our past and finding ways to learn from them. This is an opportunity to sit still and reflect because we need this time to not overburden ourselves with new things. There could be a lot of career opportunities that would come to you but that would mean that they would come from taking up past opportunities and going back to things all over again.
Continue reading this next article related to Retrograde Asteroids In A Birth Chart.
Karen Hyman
Karen is a Psychic Medium, a Professional Astrologer, a Spiritual Advisor, and a Life Coach who has been in this career for 19+ years. She specializes in numerology, tarot and oracle cards, twin flames, love & relationships, zodiac, horoscope, dreams interpretation, and astrology. She aims to provide comfort and assurance using her abilities to offer answers to those who seek professional guidance. Read More About Karen Here.
