℞ What to do during a retrograde: put one thing on the shelf to go back to

Retrogrades are traditionally a time for the re- words: revisit, return, reread. Umbriel's free Backwards Shelf gives every planet that is retrograde right now a shelf of its own, open from the day it turns back to the day it turns forward. You put one thing on it to go back to, a message, a hobby, a book, and later tick it "went back".

• What you'll needOne thing to go back to; no chart and no account
• What you getA shelf for each planet retrograde now with the dates it turns back and forward, one thing on each shelf, a "went back" tick, and a printable plate of the year's retrogrades and what sat on their shelves
• CostFree, no account required

The usual advice about retrogrades is a list of things not to do. The Backwards Shelf offers something to do instead, taken from the same tradition: a retrograde is a time for going back.

Whichever planets are retrograde right now each get a shelf, open from the day the planet stations and turns back to the day it stations again and turns forward. Both dates are on the shelf. Mercury gets one three or four times a year; the slower planets hold theirs open for months.

You put one thing on a shelf to go back to: an unanswered message, a hobby gone quiet, a book with a bookmark a third of the way through. When you have gone back to it, tick "went back". If you have not, it simply stays on the shelf, described in the same plain words either way. Nothing says you never went back, nothing scores the shelves, and there is no streak.

The year object is the year's retrogrades on one engraved plate: a bar for each retrograde along the year's line, and under it a small square for each thing put on that shelf, hollow while it is still there and inked once you went back. A retrograde with nothing on its shelf is bare paper.

The dates are the engine's own, found at the moment each planet's motion changes direction. For Mercury, Venus and Mars they agree with NASA's JPL Horizons to within a day across 2026 and 2027.

Your shelves stay private, on your device, and if you sign in they sync end to end encrypted, the same way the journal does. Nothing is posted.

A planet is retrograde while its daily motion along the ecliptic is negative. The engine's transit speed is scanned day by day for each planet, and wherever it changes sign the station is found by bisection to the instant, the same way the engine finds its next station anywhere else. A shelf opens at one station and closes at the next, so its dates are the planet's own. For Mercury, Venus and Mars, the engine's station days have been checked against NASA's JPL Horizons for 2026 and 2027 and agree to within a day. Each thing you put on a shelf is stored with the planet, the moment you put it there and whether you have ticked it; it belongs to whichever retrograde of that planet was open at that moment, and is never filed by a date typed in. The year plate draws each retrograde as a bar from station to station along the year, with a square beneath for each thing, hollow or inked.