The Least Known Side of the Moon

ON THE NATURE OF RETROGRADE PLANETS

The movement of the planets

If you look at the starry sky at night, you might notice that everything - stars, planets, the Moon - participate in perpetual movement. They rise in the East, culminate above our head and then set in the West.

This movement is the result of our Earth's rotation around its axis, it is relatively fast: one full rotation of the sky takes 24 hours.

But there is also another kind of movement in the sky. If you make a photo of the sky at the same time, say 2:00 am, night by night, you will notice that the sky doesn't stay the same. The starts form a kind of fixed background, but the lights (well, you have a chance to see only the Moon at night) and planets move against the background of stars.

This movement is much slower: the fastest of the travelers, the Moon, completes her path around the sky in about one month, while the slowest of those visible by naked eye, Saturn, does the same in about 30 years.

Planets are traveling along the ecliptic - the imaginable path of the Sun against the background of stars, hence the ecliptic is used as a kind of ruler or tape-measure that helps us to define where exactly a planet is located in the sky at the moment. If we say that Mercury is at the moment in the 2nd degree of Leo this simply means that, relative to the ecliptic, Mercury is somewhere between its imaginary points which could be labeled as "1° Leo" and "2° Leo".

Retrograde motion

Relative to the ecliptic, the planets are normally moving from West to East (opposite to that fast movement that results from the Eath's rotation around its axis). But at some stage in their movement a planet gradually slows down and then begins to move backwards, i.e. from East to West. This is exactly what is called retrograde motion. Its duration is different for different planets - for example, Mercury moves backwards for about 3 weeks, and then it resumes its normal forward movement, while Venus remains retrograde for about a month and a half.

There is nothing mystical in this change of direction. It is described in many textbooks on astronomy. This is a visual phenomenon, of course. No planet changes its direction in reality, they just continue to rotate around the sun. There are schemes explaining how this phenomenon works but I don't want to make you boring by showing these schemes to you. If you are interested, you should be able to easily find them in astrological and astronomical textbooks.

Let me just propose you a simple analogy which can give you an idea of how it works. Say you are traveling in a train and there is another train moving next to yours in the same direction. If that another train is slightly slower than yours, it will seem to you that it goes backwards, while in fact it goes forward. The phenomenon of retrograde motion works in a similar way: depending on the relation between the speed of the Earth in the Space and the speed of another planet, it may seem that that planet goes backwards.

The symbolizm of retrograde motion

While astronomers simply explain the mechanics of retrograde motion, we astrologers try to understand what meaning this phenomenon could convey to us.

Let us note that as a result of retrograde motion, a planet passes thrice along one and the same segment of ecliptic. Say, during the retrograde motion of Mercury in July 2006 Mercury stopped in its apparent motion against the starry sky on the 4th of July while being in the 2nd degree of Leo. Mercury then went backwards and was moving this way until it reached the 22nd degree of Cancer. On the 29th of July it stopped and from there resumed its normal forward motion.

Hence in the process of retrograde motion Mercury was moving backwards along the piece of ecliptic from the 2nd degree of Leo to the 22nd degree of Cancer. However, to reach the 2nd degree of Leo, Mercury had to already pass along the same segment of ecliptic. It crossed the 22nd degree of Cancer around the 17th of June. And after reaching the same 22nd degree of Cancer in retrograde motion, mercury will reach the 2nd degree of Leo again - this will happen around the 12th of August.

The whole story looks like this:

22nd degree of Cancer on the 17th of June (point 1 on the picture below),

2nd degree of Leo on the 4th of July (point 2),

22nd degree of Cancer on the 29th of July (point 3),

2nd degree of Leo on the 12th of August (point 4).

As you see, Mercury walks along the same piece of ecliptic (22 Cancer - 2 Leo) thrice: from point 1 to point 2 (direct), from point 2 to point 3 (retrograde) and from point 3 to point 4 (direct).

Being astrologers, we should think in the terms of "as above, so below". So what could it mean for us, terrestrial beings, if celestial Mercury stops, goes back and then forward again, passing thrice the same piece of ecliptic along the way?

My teacher of astrology, Russian mathematician and aeronautical engineer Augustina Semenko, used to say that the whole story of retrograde motion is about the change of stereotype.

A Stereotype? What is this?

Whether we realise this or not, in our lives we have some reference points for our experiences, some templates or patterns which define exactly we perform this or that activity.

We tend to comunicate in a certain manner peculiar to us, our preferences in learning a new information may be quite different from those of the other people. We prefer to read certain kind of articles in certain newspapers, to express our thoughts in a manner of our own. All these details of our personal approach towards communication can be perseived as the Stereotype of Mercury.

The Stereotype of Venus is about our likes and dislikes, attractions and fashions. We prefer certain styles, colours, we might feel affinity with some people but not with the others. We have specific preferences in food and drinks.

The Stereotype of Mars is about how we are using our energy to achieve what we want to achieve. It defines our approach to work, sports, exercising, our ability to pursue our goals and defend ourselves, both physically and psychologically.

The important idea is that our stereotypes do not stay the same over the whole life. They tend to change, to evolve and develop. However, the changes in our attitudes can be more noticeable for those people who are not very close to us. And the last person to notice any change is ourselves.

Anyway, the idea of Augustina Semenko is that the most important changes in our stereotypes take place during the retrograde motion of the appropriate planets.

Before point 1 on the graph shown above we are happy to use the old stereotype. However, during the period of time from point 1 to point 2 the old stereotype becomes weaker and weaker until it completely vanishes at point 2.

We are left in this world without a stereotype to use and we feel like we have lost something. We go backwards in an attempt to find what we have lost, and the period from point 2 to point 3 is when we have no stereotype at all and are looking fo one. This is a strange and interesting time when many things can happen - those which would seem to us impossible before. Some usual, basic affairs might be not very successful however, as we have no firm ground to deal with them.

We pick up some new stereotype at around point 3, and then the period of time from point 3 to point 4 is when we learn to use the new stereotype, this takes some time.

(to be continued)