The Power of Planetary Stations

by Ronnie Gale Dreyer

If you are a consulting astrologer, your forecasting tool kit will no doubt contain a list of “sensitive” degrees from the recent past, present, and immediate future including those of lunations (New and Full Moons), eclipse points, planetary stations, and aspect combinations. While these are all potent degrees when they transit a planet, point, or angle in a natal chart, this article will address retrograde and direct planetary stations, which frame a planet’s retrograde period.

Retrogradation

The key to understanding the nature and power of planetary stations, is first to understand what it means to go retrograde and direct. The phenomenon of retrogradation takes place when a planet reduces the speed by which it travels, stops, and, as a result, “appears” to move backwards for a fixed amount of time, causing it to linger longer than usual in a portion of the zodiac. At some point in the cycle, the planet slows once more, stations, and then moves forward again.

While all the degrees between the retrograde and direct stations are sensitive due to the fact that they are hit by the planet three times – during its initial direct motion, when it is retrograde, and then when it goes direct again – it is the stationary degrees that accurately indicate life trends and events, by activating planets, points, or angles in the natal chart. Because the transiting planet is slow in motion around the stationary point, its effects are always more potent than a transit (whether direct or retrograde) that moves more quickly. After all, how can you compare the effect of a fleeting gaze to that of a fixed stare?

Though each of the planets is retrograde for different lengths of time, two common astronomical factors are 1) the planet slows in motion during its retrograde cycle, and 2) midway through the retrograde cycle, the planet lies closest to the earth in its orbit around the Sun. The inferior planets, Mercury and Venus, which are closer to the Sun than the Earth, will always form an inferior conjunction with the Sun (i.e., between the Sun and the Earth) during their retrograde cycle. The superior planets, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, whose orbits lie beyond that of Earth, will form an opposition to the Sun (with the Earth between the Sun and the planet, heliocentrically), at the moment they are closest to the Earth in their retrograde cycle. We have just seen this in the case of retrograde Jupiter in Scorpio, which formed an opposition to the Sun in Taurus at its closest point to the Earth.

Vedic astrologers have always considered natal and transiting retrogrades to be highly significant and pronounced, due to their proximity to the Earth, and the way in which they linger. A retrograde benefic may, in fact, be too excessive, while a retrograde malefic may cause more harm than good. At any rate, the natural tendency of the planet will be emphasized. For example, when Mars was retrograde during the summer of 2003 there was a heat wave in Europe, and a blackout in the Eastern United States.

Retrograde Cycles

If you have a point or personal planet on the span of degrees in between the retrograde and direct planetary stations, take note of the three times that the planet will hit that degree as it is moving direct, then retrograde, then direct once again. That period is known as the shadow or retrograde arc. For instance, Venus stationed retrograde on 24 December 2005 at 1º Aquarius 28', and stationed direct on 3 February 2006 at 16º Capricorn 01'. However, it first crossed 16º Capricorn on 22 November 2005, and last crossed 1º Aquarius on 7 March 2006. That means its retrograde arc, or shadow, lasted from 22 November 2005 through 7 March 2006, extending the influence of the retrograde period.

Planetary Stations at Work.

Julia Roberts. A good example of beneficial stations at work is Julia Roberts, who, after much anticipation, made her Broadway debut on 19 April 2006 in the play Three Days of Rain. Looking at her chart, we see that Venus, which stationed direct on 3 February 2006 at 16º Capricorn 01', exactly squares her Midheaven at 16º Aries 37', and trines her natal Venus at 18º Virgo 04'. (Venus is the only natal planet that aspects her MC, where it forms a quincunx.) Less than one month later, on 1 March 2006, Jupiter stationed retrograde at 18º Scorpio 52', sextiling her Venus, and forming an inconjunct to the Midheaven, thereby creating a yod consisting of transiting Jupiter, natal Venus and natal MC.

What makes planetary stations most powerful, especially those of the slower-moving planets, is the length of time that they linger on a specific degree. Before turning retrograde on 1 March, Jupiter first reached the degree of its retrograde station around 9 February 2006, where it lingered until 27 March 2006. It then stayed at 17º Scorpio, still within orb of the station, until 6 April 2006. It is for that reason that planetary stations are so powerful, as they intently bear down on the natal chart for some time. In the case of a benefic station, you could not ask for more.

With Venus and Jupiter stations activating her natal Venus and Midheaven, it is no wonder that Julia Roberts was sought after for this role, and that the play had a sold-out run. Even though she received less than stellar reviews for her performance, perhaps due in part to the Venus station squaring her MC and the fact that the Jupiter stationed retrograde rather than direct, Roberts, and consequently the play, reaped the benefit of Jupiter’s transit. Tickets to the show, which previewed March 28, opened April 19, and was set to close its limited run on June 18, were completely sold out despite lack of critical praise. In fact, Roberts’s love affair with New York began as soon as she arrived, with the press following her every move, theatregoers flocking to see her, and autograph hounds waiting for her after every performance.

It seems that Hollywood’s golden girl can do no wrong, showing how powerful a benefic transit can be especially when it involves two separate stations of Venus and Jupiter.

Leah. While the degree of each lunation, eclipse, station, or aspect combination is potent in itself, those degrees that appear in multiple configurations have the potential to do the most good, as well as create the most havoc. On 28 May 2000, the Jupiter Saturn conjunction occurred at 22º Taurus 43'. Although Mars stationed retrograde 1 October 2005, more than five years later, at 23º Taurus 22', it became obvious that there could be links between the two dates, especially if you have a personal planet, point, or angle there. That degree became even further sensitized this past year due to two lunations on that degree, namely the Full Moon on 16 November 2005 at 23º Taurus 46', and the New Moon on 13 May 2006 at 22º Scorpio 23'.

Leah, a colleague whose Midheaven is 23º Taurus 43', is a perfect example of how the sensitive degrees work. In May 2000, when the Jupiter Saturn conjunction transited her MC, Leah met another astrologer (“Nancy”) whose business was booming due to the media attention that she attracted. Nancy was so impressed with Leah’s credentials and approach to astrology, that she asked if Leah might want her overflow business. Leah was more than happy to have this new referral source, and as a result her clientele doubled. Over the next five years, Nancy referred clients to Leah, who was now able to earn her entire salary from the practice of astrology.

In 2005, this relationship changed, when Leah began ghostwriting some of Nancy’s syndicated daily horoscope column. At first, this was a mutually beneficial arrangement; Nancy was relieved of an overflow of work, and Leah earned more money. As the year unfolded, however, Leah found Nancy to be a difficult taskmaster. Whereas in the beginning she loved everything Leah wrote, as the months went on, Nancy was critical, and not very tactful. Leah was keenly aware that Mars was going to station retrograde on her MC, the same degree where Jupiter and Saturn conjoined five years earlier, leading to her first meeting with Nancy. Since Mars was bound to change the nature of their relationship, Leah wanted to make the change willingly, rather than have it forced upon her. Of course, she hoped that Mars would take on the role of entrepreneur rather than that of the aggressor.

Mindful that retrograde Mars would linger around that degree until 13 October, she decided to lessen her workload and was working on how to tell Nancy. However, even with 20-20 foresight, one day in mid-September with the station approaching, Nancy caught Leah off guard and critiqued her work in a harsh way. Without thinking, Leah stormed back at her. The moment she did, she knew that given the climate of the station, and that Mars was close to the earth, and in a grand cross by sign with Saturn in Leo, Jupiter in Scorpio, and Neptune in Aquarius, this would be the beginning of the end of their five and a half year relationship.

This is one of those examples of a situation where even awareness of what might come cannot always change the situation, unless you are in a state of total preparedness all of the time. While most of us aspire to that state of mind, it is often daunting in our everyday lives, not to be caught off guard, no matter how hard we try. Given the nature of Mars, and the fact that Leah reacted in typical Mars fashion, even incredible foresight did not prevent the rift in what up to that point was a productive and lucrative relationship. However, Leah’s knowledge of astrology did allow her to be prepared for something like this, and while difficult, she was ready for a change.

With Mars stationing on her Midheaven, along with the lunations that followed on that same degree, Leah had the green light to review her own work situation, and to acknowledge that perhaps ghostwriting for someone else was not really what she needed to do, but instead to do her own writing, which she is currently doing.

Prince Charles. Using the dates of the Mars station as well as the direct Saturn station that occurred on 5 April 2006 at 4º Leo 23', it is notable that Prince Charles’s Sun, ruler of his Leo Ascendant, is placed at 22º Scorpio 25', exactly opposite the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction and the Mars retrograde station, as well as conjoining and opposing the lunations. Additionally, the recent Saturn station conjoined his Ascendant of 5º Leo 25', with slow-moving Saturn lingering between 4º-5º Leo from 21 February through 18 May 2006. With both his Ascendant and ruling planet affected by planetary stations, it may just be a year where he has come into his own more than ever before, and is starting to be taken seriously as someone to be reckoned with. It is always important though to note that with two malefic stations, nothing comes easy, and everything will still be a test. There will always be resistance either from himself, or from the public, and whatever he wishes to achieve will come with a lot of hard work, even frustration and disappointment. (This will be more pronounced since the Saturn station will also form a t-square with his natal Moon-North Node in Taurus, and Mercury-South Node in Scorpio.)

Saturn’s passage over the Ascendant, however, will definitely move him out of the area of introspection, and perhaps for the first time in a long time, he can face the public with a new sense of confidence and certainty. Since Saturn crossed his Ascendant for the first time on 28 August 2005, and for the final time on 10 May 2006, he should now begin to emerge as an even more important figure than ever before.

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Planetary stations are just one technique that Ronnie will be using in her post-conference workshop on forecasting. (Gerasime, if this is too tacky then take it out.)

Charts to use

Julia Roberts, 28 October 1967, 00:16 a.m. EDT, Smyrna, Georgia, 33N53, 84W30. Tropical, Placidus, True Nodes, “AA” Rodden rating from birth records. ASC: 27 Cancer 51, MC: 16 Aries 37, Sun: 4 Scorpio 03, Moon: 24 Leo 47.

Ronnie Gale Dreyer is an internationally known astrological consultant, lecturer and teacher based in New York City. She is the author of Healing Signs, Vedic Astrology, Venus, Your Sun and Moon Guide to Love and Life, and a contributor to several anthologies including Under One Sky. Ronnie is considered a pioneer in making Vedic astrology (which she studied in Benares, India) accessible to western audiences, and is a practitioner of both Vedic and Western astrology. A faculty member of ACVA Online, she holds a B.A. in English/Theater, and is NCGR Level IV certified. Ronnie received the 2002 Marion D. March Regulus Award for Community Service. She can be reached at 212-799-9187, Ronnie@ronniedreyer.com, www.ronniedreyer.com.