New video. Interview with me on retrograde planets in astrology. A video version edited with my graphics and animations.

★ ☿ ★ ♀ ★ ♂ ★ ♃ ★ ♄ ★ ♅ ♆ ♇ ★ ℞ ★

New material: WATCH A BRAND NEW VIDEO.
I’ve given an INTERVIEW on retrograde planets for an English astrologer, Mary English.
Below is the description and the list of timestamps, as well as (so far only partial) transcript of the video.


★ ☿ ★ ♀ ★ ♂ ★ ♃ ★ ♄ ★ ♅ ♆ ♇ ★ ℞ ★

What it actually means when a planet is “going backwards”? Astronomy- and astrology-wise. Why a planet in opposition to the Sun is always retrograde.

What keywords did the ancient astrologers use. The origins of the word “retrograde” – retrōgradus in Latin, the deep meaning of the original word for retrograde planets in Ancient Greek – ἀναποδισμός and it’s multi-layered meanings that perfectly describe a retrograde planet’s astrological effects.

What if Mercury or Venus are both retrograde (in front of the Sun) and combust.

Being born with no retrogrades planet (8% of people) vs being born with 2 retrogrades vs with many retrogrades.

Retrogrades in predictive astrology – profections and progressions. Which transits are important.

Retrogrades in Horary.

Interview with astrologer Gregory Rozek about retrograde planets. Mary English, astrologer from England (UK) interviews Gregory for the episode 181 of her “Learn Astrology with Mary English” podcast. Aimed as both a general introduction to the topic for the beginner/intermediate astrology learners, as well as introducing details and statistics that generally don’t get shared: how to quickly eye on how many retrogrades a chart has, why planets go retrograde, how to understand aand interpret them, the rich meaning of original Ancient Greek term ἀναποδισμός (anapismos) and the actual meaning of the not so meaningfull word “retrograde”, what it means if an astrological chart has no retrograde planets vs many retrograde planets, example of a chart with maximum number of retrograde charts and what kind of life that gives, and finally using retrograde planets in timing techniques: annual profections, transits and progressions, and how to use retrogrades in horary (the astrology of casting chart for specific questions).
Few words on transits in 2020 when we have a lot of retrograde planets, and how to know what to focus in the reading, by combining your profections and periods when planets go retrograde.

★ 🜚 ★ ☾ ★ ☿ ★ ♀ ★ ♂ ★ ♃ ★ ♄ ★ ⊗ ⌽ ★ ☊ ☋ ★ ♅ ♆ ♇ ★ ℞ ★

Gregory Rozek – graphic designer and astrologer gregoryrozek.com
http://gregoryrozek.com

I do astrological readings. To have an astrological interpretation of your birth chart by me, visit my website or just shoot me an email at info@gregoryrozek.com
I work mainly with ancient astrology (a.k.a. Greco-Roman or Hellenistic astrology), putting a lot of focus on mainly 7 classical planets, whole-sign houses, Fortune (Tyche) and Spirit (Daimon), annual profections interpreted together with solar returns and other timelords (sign of the year and lord of the year, aphesis or zodiacal releasing from Fortune and Spirit, synodic planetary years, ascension time for signs, and retrograde planets).

You can Read my research article on retrograde planets here for free. It’s an expanded version of

Here you can see all articles on retrograde planets on my website:

★ ☉ ★ ☽ ★ ☿ ★ ♀ ★ ♂ ★ ♃ ★ ♄ ★ ♅ ★ ♆ ★ ♇ ★

Mary English
https://maryenglish.com

Learn with Astro Mary podcast
https://astromary.libsyn.com/episode-181

 

Some main TIMESTAMPS:
0:00:03 Introducing Gregory (as an expert in retrogrades)

1:01:05 Interview on retrogrades begins

0:21:00 When Mercury or Venus are both retrograde and combust

0:25:14 keywords for interpreting retrogrades

0:26:21 Rest of the planets – like car race
0:28:04 recognizing when Mars to Pluto are retrograde in an astrological chart

0:33:23 charts with many retrograde planets
0:38:57 table of the centuries
00:43:00 unusual case of 2082 (5 classical planets retrograde +7 modern planets at the same time)
0:43:35 chart: Nostradamus (all classical planets retrograde)
0:48:43 chart: Michael (maximum 7 modern planets retrograde)
0:58:50 summarizing quote for ppl with many Rx
1:00:30 Question regarding:remedies

1:03:35 Forcasting. Retrogrades in profections and transits.
1:04:04 table of how often each goes retrograde
1:04:55 Venus 8-year cycle and the 5-pointed start it draws and 2020 transits
1:09:34 Forcasting. Retrogrades in profections and transits.
1:20:13 Forcasting: Progressions

1:23:51 Retrogrades in horary

1:28:26 Closing remarks and some information about Gregory

 

Symbols and words used in video:
★ ℞ – retrograde / retrogradation; outside of astrology: an abbreviation of any Latin word begining with a letter R.
LATIN WORDS:
RETROGRADUS (retrō-gradus) (adj) – (one that is) walking bacwards (gradus = step), “retrograde”
RETROGRADATIO (retrō-grādatio) (noun) – retrogradation
ANCIENT GREEK WORDS (Hellenistic astrology):
ANAPODSIMOS, ἀναποδισμός (ana-podisMÓS – high pitch on the final vowel) – from the verb ANAPODIZŌ (anapodizo with long “O”), ἀναποδίζω (ana-poDI-zo): ἀνα (ana) = up(wards), thoroughly, re-, -again, back(wards) + πούς (Gen. ποδός) = foot. ANAPODSIMOS = make a step backwards, return (reccuring events), re-examination, call back and question.

Stars or planets in astrology:
★ ☉ Sun (in ancient astrology the symbol was 🜚)
★ ☾ or ☽ Moon
★ ☿ Mercury
★ ♀ Venus
★ ♂ Mars
★ ♃ Jupiter
★ ♄ Saturn
Hellenistic Lots, later called Arabic Parts:
★ ⊗ Lot of Fortune (Tyche/Tuche, Fortune, or Part of Fortune)
★ ⌽ Lot of Spirit (Daimon, Spirit, or Part of Spirit)
Lunar Nodes:
★ ☊ North Node (or Ascending Lunar Node, or Dragon Head, or Rahu in Indian astrology/Jyotish/jtotiśa)
★ ☋ South Node (Descending Lunar Node, Dragon Tail, Ketu)
Modern planets / outer planets / the invisibles
★ ♅ Uranus (or Hershel, or King George’s star)
★ ♆ Neptune
★ ♇ Pluto

The signs of the Zodiac
(Greek: zodia / zodia (ζῴδια / zōidia), singular: zodion / zoidion (ζῴδιον))
♈ Aries (the Ram)
♉ Taurus (the Bull)
♊ Gemini (the Twins)
♋ Cancer (the Crab)
♌ Leo (the Lion)
♍ Virgo (the Virgin)
♎ Libra (the Balance)
♏ Scorpio (the Scrorpion)
♐ Sagittarius (the Archer)
♑ Capricorn (the Goat-Horn One)
♒ Aquarius (the Water-Bearer)
♓ Pisces (the Fish(es))

★ combust, combustion – being roughly within 15° (of zodiacal longitude) from the Sun, invisible due to the closeness of the solar rays.
★ profections, annual profections – turning the chart one sign for each year of life, making the sign where the profected Ascendant lands on the Sign of the Year, and its classical ruler – the Lord of the Year.

 

0:00:00 [Mary English:] Hello, welcome back to “Learn Astrology with Mary”. My name’s Mary English and this week we have a fantastic guest.
We have GREGORY ROZEK and he’s going to be talking about RETROGRADE planets.Now, in 2014 Gregory entered a competition with the Astrological Association and it was an essay contest and he submitted an article called “People with many retrogrades” and it’s all about the retrograde planets. And in the contest (the essay contest) he was awarded a prize.

So today we’re going to learn about them [retrogrades].
One – because we’ve got a whole bunch of them coming up this month.
And the other – just the subject itself is very interesting.

So welcome Gregory! How’re you feeling today? What’s the weather like over in Poland at the moment?

0:00:45 [Gregory Rozek:] Hello Mary! I’m feeling quite great because I’m able to speak with you. Weather is quite warm here, so I’ll take a walk after this. So, should we start or some preliminary information from you?
0:01:06 [Mary:] Where we’re going to be starting by you telling me exactly, you know, what is a retrograde planet. So if you can just tell us a little bit about… so just quite… use it into easy terms? When a planet goes retrograde exactly what is happening to it and can you tell us not so much too much about the astronomy but in astrology — when a planet does that, how does it all happen? What’s behind it, or what’s the important thing we need to know?
0:01:33 [Gregory:] So, yes, like you’re saying, astronomy is quite complicated… And it’s one of those things/parts of astrology or reading a chart where you need to use them every time, like… to see… Because planet is either going in the usual direction, which is called going forward or direct and sometimes they go retrograde so it seems like if we would look at the sky at night and compare the planet’s path to the stars we would see that: oh, suddenly Mars is going the other direction then it used to go (or when the Sun goes and the Moon goes) so it’s a very weird visual phenomenon. So, visual phenomena in ancient astronomy and astrology were one of the most important in terms of interpretation.
0:02:31 And if you do interpretation of of any astrological charts you will usually start with cookbooks like, Mars and Virgo means THIS, when it’s in this House it means THAT etc. Like, oh this Mercury in HERE shows me i’m GOOD with travel, but the ASPECT says NOT GOOD with travel… So people get confused, etc. Retrogradation is one of those elements that usually change most of the interpretations to something weirder or stranger.
0:03:05 [Mary:] Yeah, and is it necessarily negative when a planet goes retrograde? Because everybody gets quite negative about Mercury Retrograde, but I always say to people when it’s retrograde you just need to RE-do something, RE-think, RE-organize. Just stick the word “RE-” in front. Does the same apply to all the other planets as well?
0:03:22 [Gregory:] Well, the perfect KEYWORDS for retrograde planets come from Sahl ibn Bishr. He’s an Arabic (Arabian) astrologer from 9th century, and he just gave a short passage which just list 4 words that perfectly show what the ancient and traditional astrologers usually’ve seen a planet that go[es] retrograde. so the 4 words are:

disobedience,
collapse,
repetition,
and disagreement.

0:03:53 [Mary:] All right…
0:03:55 [Gregory:] And other astrologers for example [Vettius] Valens (from ancient astrology,  2nd century) says retrograde planets shows: delays in expectations. So whatever you expect, because the planet was going forward but then it turned its back and started to, you know, going backwards – so your expectations are not met or you will have to wait much more when the planet turns back to its normal forward direction. Also all the actions get delayed. So if you expect something to happen but the planet that is responsible for this goes retrograde – it can either not happen or, like with Mercury Retrograde – you will hear, like, every weird thing about communication failing, or stuff like that. Profits also are delayed, so if you start something with retrograde planets then…
0:04:58 [Mary:] well like start a business you mean, yeah?
0:05:01 [Gregory:] Yeah, for example Saturn is a planet that is from the classical planets mostly influential over businesses. So if you start a business or work with Saturn Retrograde it might be very difficult to keep this job or, like, to not not get, I don’t know, insane or want to quit it. (Like, …) things like that.

Or if you have Saturn retrograde in your birth chart then keeping one, job 9-to-5 job, would be a real struggle if this, like, Saturn is quite important in your chart.

0:05:37 [Mary:] ohhh…, cool!
0:05:38 [Gregory:] Others would say, like, it’s generally difficulty and misfortune to have retrograde planets.

So this is classical view. But the thing is, … it’s all… – This is just the classical version of [astrological] cookbooks. Which means that it’s just ONE of the downsides. So if you just have a planet retrograde, it doesn’t mean it’s, like, terrible for you.

0:06:00 [Mary:] Okay.
0:06:00 [Gregory:] … but if you have planet that is retrograde AND in bad aspect, or AND in bad house, or the sign of its fall, like – – some more, more components – then we usually read it as: non-promising, troublesome, and disappointing. So something that will make you very nervous and [cause] anger at the world.

Yeah, but this is just the one part of this. Because we are dealing with materialistic views, so in terms of mundane word, doing action, achieving goals – – retrogrades are a NO-NO. Like, because it’s just abnormal situation, going against the grain, etc., so you you are supposed to expect that things will not happen as expected.

0:06:55 [Mary:] Mm-mm-mm…!
0:06:57 [Gregory:] So for example, the other part is more spiritual. And in modern astrology you will learn a lot of people try to stress out that: “yeah, these planets are more spiritual!” It actually comes at least from… since the 8th century. Because Mashallah [Māschā’ Allāh] has shown that he also thinks of retrograde planets as showing more spirituality – because of a planet that goes direct and is a normal planet and normal planets were seen as parts of the soul that descend from the sky from heaven and descend down to earth and the earth, you know, with this material world, so they lose their godliness and become just lower, lower entities, so to say. So if the planet turns around, it’s like if it would be… going up again, like, ascending. So the person loses…, or planets loses focus or goals that are materialistic or mundane, day-to-day, and gets more focused on spirituality, things that are, you know, more, like, about his soul, etc.. Not necessarily religion but more of this kind of, like,  disconnection with the mundane world. (Like they just…)
0:08:31 [Mary:] sure
0:08:31 [Gregory:] yeah
0:08:32 [Mary:] Uh-uh. Yeah, because I’ve got Mercury Retrograde myself so i do know what some planets like. And i’m always waffling on about it because it means that I don’t learn in a regular way and I’ve taught, like yourself, I’ve taught myself astrology. But you’ve got diploma. Well I don’t even have that but I’ve taught myself astrology because i couldn’t have been taught it by someone else, I had to learn it myself. Which is why…
0:08:52 [Gregory:] yeah…
0:08:53 [Mary]...I teach it for people to learn themselves. I don’t teach astrology, I help people learn for themselves, because everybody’s different. But I’ve only found that out from having the Mercury Retrograde. And it wasn’t until I understood astrology – it’s like “ahhhh-ahhh!!” light bulb moment that that was why I couldn’t, I was just sh** at school, excuse my french! But yeah, uh-um.

Okay, that’s interesting i like that the “disobey” one, that sounds nice. [Laugh]

0:09:16 [Gregory:] Yeah, so if I just add another note for this “spirituality” thing – I actually think it ties very nicely to the word itself. so maybe I’ll just tell you what the word actually means.
0:09:33 [Mary:] yeah

[Gregory:] because English word “RETROGRADE” (so “going RETROGRADE”) or the noun for this phenomenon – RETROGRADATION – come directly from Latin “RETRŌGRADUS” which means “retrograde”.

RETRŌ-” means, like “backwards” or “reversing”.
And “GRADUS” is just “a step” – so, like, when you walk you make steps.

So it literally means “going backwards” or “going with your steps backwards”, something like that.

So… The other translation that the scholars use is “regression”. So “Mercury is in regression”, something like that. Or, that is “retracting its steps” instead of “moving forwards”. So, I think this would be better words for to use in English, because they mean something, instead of, like, just “retrograde” and nobody knows what it actually means.

0:10:33 But the Latin RETRŌGRADUS or a noun RETRŌGRĀDATIO come from actually just strictly translating from the Greek. And the Greek original term from the Ancient Greek (or Hellenistic) astrology, is actually a bit deeper in meaning.

The word for a planet that is retrograde is ANAPODISMÓS (ἀναποδισμός). (so it consists…) It…, again, consists of two parts:

ANA-” (ἀνα-) is just the prefix that here means “backwards” again.
And “-PODISMÓS” (-ποδισμός) comes from “POÚS” (πούς), or version of this word in declination is “PODÓS” (ποδός) – feet. So you might know about podology, you know, the doctors who deal with your feet etc.

So, it basically means something with your feet that goes “back, reverse”. So the meaning is the same [as in Latin].

0:11:33 And… But if you dig deeper it has more than one meaning. Because Latin “RETRŌGRADUS” almost 90% of the time is just reserved for planets or stars.
0:11:48 [Mary:] Okay.
0:11:49 [Gregory:] But the Greek term is just a usual term for, like, walking backwards. But the other meanings are… (Let me read that): “make a step backwards,” “to return” – it’s used for reoccurring events. And in astrology retrograde planets often show that something will happen more than once.
0:12:15 [Mary:] Ohh, okay, uh-huh.
0:12:17 [Gregory:] (it’s…) Maybe it’s connected with the thing that and when planet goes (you know) goes direct, then goes retrograde passing through the same degrees it already has, then turns direct again, and passing the same degrees for the third time.
0:12:33 [Mary:] Yes, that’s the thing that a lot of my students probably don’t know already that a planet just doesn’t go retrograde and then go forward again. It might go a bit to a certain degree and then go direct, and then make a further retrograde – it’s like “OOH-OOH!”. You know, this is something that we probably haven’t discussed anything on the podcast, so it’s really exciting hearing from the expert that knows all about it. Because i don’t, yeah
0:12:56 [Gregory:] Yeah so so this part of astronomy is very important, like, because we visually see what the planet is doing. It goes, for example, to 30° of, let’s say, Aries, and then turns retrograde so it’ll go 29°, 28°, etc and we’ll go several degrees, almost reaching the beginning of this sign And, you know, after some weeks or months or however (whichever planet is it’s how long it takes), then it will go direct again and we’ll pass again, like 10°, 11°, 13° [Aries], and so it has to catch up. So, every time a planet makes a circle around the zodiac, when it goes retrogrades it slows down, it has to, you know, make a loop in the sky to catch up, go back to some things it was already passing or transiting, and do them again when direct.

This is the corrected transcript for the first 12 minutes of an hour and half long video. With time more should be processed.