People with a passing interest in astrology tend to know that “things go wrong” during a Mercury retrograde. They come wanting to know when it’s going to happen and how to minimize the pain of it — or how to avoid it altogether.
Like all things astrological, a Mercury retrograde is both unavoidable and, yes, manageable. A horoscope reading can help with the management of this and other passages because it allows you to see how a Mercury retrograde, a Saturn return or some other cycle fits into your particular way of being in the world.
Recently, a friend experienced a series of disruptions to her life in the space of just a few days: a fender-bender, an insurance mix-up, a miscommunication with her son’s teacher. She was concerned that things were going to get worse and worse, that this series of mishaps was just the forerunner to greater strife and trauma.
The events started just after Mercury went retrograde — but although we often advise caution during these periods, not everyone will have such a run of low-grade bad luck during a Mercury retrograde. I looked at my friend’s horoscope chart and, sure enough, Mercury was passing back and forth right over her Sun-Moon conjunction. Sun and Moon form the core of our awareness — desire and need — and Mercury was playing havoc with this part of her life for a period of time.
But what purpose does this serve? We often joke about Mercury retrograde: It’s an excuse for misspeaking, or a lighthearted warning; and it seems rare that truly serious traumas arise from this transitory period (barring other astrological factors coming into play). But I’ve often thought that times like these — when the insurance company “accidentally” drops you, or you have a little fender-bender, or you put in 3 cups of sugar instead of the 1/3 cup the recipe calls for — are designed to get our attention.
We usually, out of necessity, walk through life with one eye closed. We drive the same route day after day without realizing it. We say, “Fine” when asked, “How are you?” We eat the same thing for breakfast, expect this co-worker or that client to act a certain way, buy the same color lipstick year in and year out. We type without looking at the keyboard.
On a typical day, Mercury helps us absorb and assimilate all these rote ways of being, all these under-the-radar ways of getting through life. He operates in in-between spaces, provides the connective glue that lets life go forward, brings together people and things and information to make sure things can happen. It’s an extremely important function; without it, we would have too many decisions to make anew each day. We wouldn’t be able to move from the small decisions to the big ones. We would be paralyzed.
But on an atypical day — when Mercury turns on its head and appears to be going backwards in the sky — those little rules and traditions and habits get a bit twisted. Mercury is not just a facilitator but also a trickster who gets bored easily. He needs variety and newness, so old habits are a prime target for messing with. The road you usually drive to work is closed; your faithful old vacuum cleaner breaks down; telephone lines get crossed; the store is out of your lipstick color; the Monday meeting you’ve had for years is suddenly changed to Tuesdays.
These aren’t dramatic or traumatic changes but they do require alertness, small decisions, flexibility, fluidity and awareness of what’s really important. Mercury demands that we not be too fixed, too attached to a certain way of being. When he goes retrograde, it’s a reminder that we must not be too stuck in our ways, that we have the capacity to roll with the punches, keep our priorities straight and make sure our sense of humor is alive.
If you can adapt quickly to drive a new route to work, get a new lipstick color, sweep instead of vacuum, respond with humor when a co-worker throws you a curve ball, then you have a good capacity for dealing with Mercury retrograde.
But if you’re like another friend — who, when I called to cancel a lunch date, wailed, “But it’s in my DayTimer! What am I going to do now?” — then it’s time to work on your relationship with Mercury in your chart. The trickster will visit us all. The most you resist him, the more disturbing his visit will be.
Mercury is retrograde from Sunday, January 11 through the end of this month. What mishaps have befallen you? And more importantly, how have they made you more conscious, more flexible or more humor-filled?
Phew, I can’t believe how right-on-target this is. And what a relief. Thanks for the great insight.