Retrogrades in Natal chart. What do they mean? How many are normal?

Okay, I have somewhat recently picked up astrology as an interest of mine. Through my readings of astrology books I have read every once in a while about Retrograde planets.
I desided to check out my natal Chart, yet again for the millionth time. And well, what I found kinda shocked me..

The question is.. how many planets in retrograde would you consider.. um.. "normal".

Because, here are the list of planets that were in retrograde when I was born...
Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Urnus, Neptune and Pluto.

Yeah, I have 6 planets in retro when I was born. And the question I have that has come up for myself is. What does it mean?? Is it normal to have that many? I read that having a couple of the outer planets in retro was somewhat normal, but, jeez.

Basicly, the ones that arnt are, Mars, Venus, the moon and sun. Would be kinda worried if the sun went into retrograde tough..

Anyway, anyone have any takes on this? If you want to pull up my chart to check it out for yourself, this all happened on...
May 27th, 1982, 9:00 am.

Any input/ideas are more than welcome.

Most people have Retrograde planets around two or three is normal. More than 3 or 0 is considered abnormal (according to Tracy Marks)

The most common retrogrades are the outer planets, ranginf from around 44% of the time for Pluto to 33% for Jupiter. Mercury, Mars and Venus are much less common as retrogrades - Venus, for example is only retrograde somwthing like 7.7% of the time.

So your six retrogrades, although the most common individually, are considered rare whe occuring at the same time.

As to what retrogrades mean there is not complete agreement - one approach is to view them as tending to direct the planetary energies inwards - thus leading to more self examination and self understanding but perhaps more inhibitions when it comes to projecting those energies into external events. I stress that this is one approach of a number. A good book to read in the issue is Erin Sullivan's 'Retrograde Planets' which provides an indepth coverage from a psychological point of view.

Traditional Western approaches tend to see retrograde motion as inhibiting or weakening a planet, (though the traditional approach tends to discount the three outer planets). Vedic Astrology takes the contrary view and sees Retrograde motion as actually giving strength (though Vedic Astrologers also tend not to use the three outer planets. Now as the Hindu approach to life is perhaps more spiritual and inward looking, you might argue that what is a weakness in Western eyes is quite clearly a strength in Indian eyes.

You are therefore likely to get a different answer depending on what school of thought your Astrologer belongs to.

I like Martin Shulman's Karmic Astrology: Retrogrades and Reincarnation (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0877283451/ref=nosim/aeclectic/) for this subject. It's got a lot of psychobabble, but I like that. Might be a turnoff if you're a more practical-minded person, though.

Cheers,
Kaylee

I've also got the Schulman book, and indeed he has quite a good series on Karmic Astrology and as you say it is rather full of 'psychobabble' and yes I tend to be a little more practical

There are some very good psychological Astrologers and I regularly draw on the works of Stephen Arroyo, Tracy Marks and Erin Sullivan but in the main I prefer my Astrology to yield something in the way of predictable results that are observable. At its' worst psychological astrology draws a lot of conclusions that are just not testable, being 'internalised.' However, variety is the spice of Astrology