Advertisement

Brace Yourself for the Inner Turmoil of Uranus Retrograde

Getty Images

Last month, we were treated to a Mercury retrograde period that dealt us three weeks of mental fog, awkward miscommunications, and logistical mishaps.

This month, we must face an altogether more challenging, if less immediately felt, planetary backspin. On Saturday, August 15, Uranus, the off-kilter planet of change and revolution, will begin its annual retrograde in the sign of Taurus. This distant planet won’t mess with our Zoom dates and email passwords like Mercury tends to, but, rather, it’ll have a gradual, more lasting effect on the way we live our lives.

RELATED: Your August Horoscope Is Here

Uranus retrograde demands long-term changes from within.

When it’s moving in a normal, forward motion, Uranus functions as the trickster of our solar system, inciting jarring changes that take effect over the course of years. Back in March 2019, Uranus moved into Taurus, a sign with strong spiritual ties to both the earth and physical, material resources, and astrologers warned of massive shifts and shake-ups in the environment and economy — sound at all familiar?

While we still have several years to go before Uranus moves into another sign, its retrograde period this month will provide us with a slight respite from the chaos of the last year and a half. Well, respite might be a strong word — more accurately, Uranus will take a break from rattling cages in the outside world to shake us from inside.

When it’s retrograde, Uranus demands that we take stock of the current state of things, including the recent changes that its direct movement has wrought, and ask ourselves whether we’re equipped to meet this moment head-on: Are we holding onto old beliefs that cause us to hesitate rather than act? Are our long-held assumptions no longer in line with the truth, the reality of the situation? Are our goals, desires, and even our needs, relevant and attainable right now?

This interrogation of the self should culminate in the following question: How can we adjust these things within ourselves to better navigate and live in the world that awaits outside? The time has come to get creative, if a little critical, with yourself. This planetary period rewards those who nimbly adapt and innovate to meet the demands of their situation.

You should emerge from Uranus retrograde prepared for (or even in the midst of) an internal evolution.

Uranus will end its retrograde and direct course on January 14, 2021, at which point you should hopefully have a better idea of what you need to address about yourself. Perhaps you’ve already started to enact changes in an area of your life that’d grown stagnant — or maybe you’re only just warming to the idea of moving on from something.

If you’re in the latter camp, try to combat your attachment to the old and familiar by focusing on your needs for the future. It’s more than likely that you’ll only be able to meet your goals if you evolve and leave behind old habits, assumptions, and routines. If everything else that’s happened so far this year hasn’t provided enough evidence, let Uranus retrograde be the thing that proves, once and for all, the ability to adapt is an indispensable skill — develop and hone it now.