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mbg Spirituality & Relationships Editor

By Sarah Regan

mbg Spirituality & Relationships Editor

Sarah Regan is a Spirituality & Relationships Editor, and a registered yoga instructor. She received her bachelor’s in broadcasting and mass communication from SUNY Oswego, and lives in Buffalo, New York.

Image by Leandro Crespi / Stocksy

January 19, 2023

New year, new you? Um, maybe not quite yet. In case you haven’t noticed, the first few weeks of 2023 haven’t exactly been smooth sailing. We started off the year with not one but three planets in retrograde: Mercury, Mars, and Uranus. But the good news is, there are clear skies (and direct planets) on the horizon.

As a refresher, retrogrades happen when a planet passes the Earth in its journey around the Sun. From down here, this makes it look like the planet is moving backwards.

It isn’t actually moving backwards, of course, however it does cause some signal scrambling, and can manifest in different areas of our life depending on which planet is retrograde. Mercury retrogrades interfere with communication and information, for example, while Mars retrogrades interfere with action and drive, and Uranus retrogrades relate to sudden change and radical innovation on an internal (rather than external) level.

Ready for the good news? We’re fresh out of Mercury and Mars’ retrograde periods already, and once Uranus goes direct on January 22 (after a five-month retrograde, no less), there won’t be a single retrograde planet until April 21!

And this, astrologers say, is something to be celebrated.

OK, so there’s no planets in retrograde for the next few months. But why does that actually matter for us? For one thing, it means that the themes and areas of life each of the planets govern will be moving ahead full steam, as opposed to thwarting our progress.

And according to the AstroTwins, we can also thank Uranus moving direct through Taurus for a bit of a material boost. “Bottlenecked plans with work and money could pick up speed again—stay on your toes!” the twins note.

Not only that, but risk-taker Jupiter (the planet of expansion, luck, and abundance) is in Aries until May 16. As the twins explain, this means you have all the planetary permission you need to step on the gas.

So, if your New Year’s resolutions didn’t get off on the right foot, have no fear. In fact, the twins say that the first few weeks of January were better suited for evaluating your options anyway. Once all the planets are direct, according to them, “You can confidently choose your 2023 direction and go.”