The Truth about all of the Planets going into Retrograde

As I was prepping for today's #MindfulMonday post, I was shocked by the abundance of one type of article and blog I kept running into on different sites. I kept finding "Mercury is in Retrograde", "What it means when your planet is in retrograde", blah blah blah. What was most interesting about this was that I wasn't on any astrology sites. I was looking at wellness, beauty, even fashion sites. It seems as though astrology is the newest trend.

I started wondering what all of this retrograde stuff was all about. And how much it was true as opposed to how much of if was a woo-woo cop out.

I apologize to all of my "spiritualist' friends and readers out there.

You know I love you, but some of these elements have gotten a little out of hand when a simple scroll through my blog roll reveals more about how distant planets and constellations affect my work at the office or my love life then my own actions.

So here goes.

First, let's talk about this whole Retrograde thing.

As a technical term, retrograde simply means a planet looks like it is moving backwards in its orbit from our point of view on Earth. As a planet orbits the sun, there are moments when it is closets  and furthest away from us here on earth. Astrologists believe that planets bring with them a set of energies and elements they control. For them, the term 'retrograde' in astrology means that as a planet moves away from earth in its natural orbit, the planet’s energy turns inward, creating a sense of reconsidering and reevaluating. The reason we keep hearing about Mercury in particular is a few reasons:

1. Mercury has the shortest orbit therefore its in retrograde more often.

2. Mercury is believed to control coordination and communication, things we often need in our day to day interdependent lives.

But what "Mercury in retrograde" has become in the cultural vernacular is the reason you're having a crappy day/ week/ month. My boss yelled at me because Mercury is in retrograde (and not because you screwed up something you and your boss have previously discussed simply because you weren't paying attention). My girlfriend broke up with me because Mercury is in retrograde (and not because you were being a royal pain in the butt or were being in attentive). I left my keys at home because Mercury is in retrograde (and not because you woke update and rushed out of the house and onto your commute).

You get my point.

So many people who have little understanding of astrology are simply tossing around the phrase to explain what could just be a natural rough patch in life. What if it has nothing to do with planets or orbits or constellations? What if it is just a bad moment? A bad day? A bad week? These things happen, and not for some deep, dark and spooky reasons like a retrograde, either.

To be honest, it feels like it takes more faith to believe that a planet or a constellation has control over my life more than it does to believe in God. But that is another blog post for another day.

The truth is that a rock in space, other than it hurtling towards you at a million miles an hour, really has little to do with your every day life here on earth. I've had some pretty awesome times when the planets were doing whatever they were doing and never really gave them a second (or first) thought.

Furthermore, while it is quite fun and trendy right now to delve into astrology, it feels pretty irresponsible. People are literally blaming ancient gases, dust, and minerals in orbits that we have yet to discover for our own actions and reactions instead of taking ownership of them ourselves. Just because Mercury is in retrograde doesn't mean I get to be a total ass to you, and vice versa. Nor do I get to blame all of the things wrong in my world on the solar system when many of the things going wrong are things that are within my control.

The point of this little post: maybe we should stop looking at the skies to determine what our own minds and hands and hearts should be crafting.