Venus and Mercury are both retrograde this month. Mercury retrograde gets almost all of the attention, so it is easy to miss that Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the outer planets take their own retrograde periods too, and that each one puts a different part of life under review.
Retrograde is an appearance
No planet reverses its orbit. Earth and the other planets circle the Sun at different speeds, and when one of them overtakes another, the planet being passed appears to drift backwards against the stars. It is the same effect as passing a slower car on the motorway, where the other car seems to slide backwards for a moment. Astrology reads that apparent backward motion as a stretch of time when the planet’s territory turns inward instead of outward.
If the relationship between the moving sky and your own chart is new to you, what is a transit covers the groundwork.
Each planet reviews a different area
Mercury governs words, movement and arrangements, which is why its retrograde shows up as rereading messages and reconfirming plans. Venus governs relationships, money and value. Its retrograde tends to bring the distance in a friendship or a spending habit back into view. Mars governs action, drive, and the force that pushes something forward. Its retrograde can feel like a loss of momentum, and that pause is usually spent asking what the effort is actually for.
Jupiter governs how you expand and what you believe. Saturn governs responsibility and structure. A Jupiter retrograde inspects the substance of what has been growing, and a Saturn retrograde inspects the shape of the commitments you carry.
Uranus, Neptune and Pluto move slowly and work on themes larger than one person’s calendar. They spend part of every year retrograde, and that period rarely announces itself in daily life the way Mercury or Venus does.
Frequency changes the texture
Mercury turns retrograde about three times a year. Venus does so roughly once every year and a half, Mars roughly once every two years, and the outer planets every year for several months at a time. These are approximate figures, and the exact dates shift from year to year.
That difference in frequency is most of what you feel. Something that arrives three times a year keeps meeting you at the level of scheduling and correspondence, so it becomes familiar. A Venus retrograde arrives long after the last one has faded from memory, and it touches something further down than logistics. The outer planet retrogrades run so long that they sit in the background.
The sky this month
October carries two retrogrades at once. Venus is retrograde from October 3 to November 14, and Mercury from October 24 to November 14. The planet of relationships and value and the planet of language and logistics are both in review mode in the same month. Pluto turned direct on October 16, so the count of retrograde planets keeps changing from month to month.
For how to spend this particular Venus retrograde, see how to spend the Venus retrograde. For the Scorpio season that overlaps with the Mercury retrograde, see Scorpio season with Mercury retrograde. An earlier worked example of reading a Mercury retrograde in a real sky is in Mercury retrograde and Jupiter entering Leo.
Check it against your own chart
Where a retrograde planet is currently travelling in your chart is where the review is most likely to be happening. The HOSHIDOU ephemeris shows which planets are retrograde on any given date, without signing in. Open today’s sky and count how many carry the retrograde mark.
Open the HOSHIDOU ephemeris and see which planets are retrograde