It’s not just about misplaced keys and frequent delays, the process of Mercury’s retrograde can be quite profound and necessary. In honor of August’s pronounced Mercury retrograde period, let’s examine the features of this complex process.
In astrology, the planet Mercury (the Greek Hermes) is responsible for relaying messages of all kinds. This would include deliveries to our mailboxes and texts to our smartphones, but also traffic signals, the synapses in our nervous systems, and even communication with the dead. In Roman mythology, Mercury was in charge of guiding souls to the underworld and delivering correspondence to the gods. The word “mercurial” is often used to describe someone who is changeable, as one would need to be in order to traverse realms and translate multiple languages. The daily physical and mental trips that have us arriving at destinations and conclusions speak to all forms of movement ruled by “the winged messenger.”
So, what happens when this messenger planet goes retrograde? As the name suggests, “retrograde” is when a planet appears to go backward in its orbit, as viewed from Earth. Astronomers refer to this as “apparent retrograde motion,” because it is an optical illusion. Mercury goes retrograde about three or four times a year, so it’s a pretty regular occurrence. Mercury is a fast-moving inner planet, meaning it’s close to the earth. When it appears to slow down and change direction, the shift is more noticeable than that of more distant planets that don’t change direction as often. Retrograding planets, in general, are experienced as louder and more intense than usual. The amplification of Mercury can feel like over-thinking, hypermobility, and superfluous communications.
Mercury’s retrograde has become a cultural marker of time even amongst people who don’t practice astrology. It’s become synonymous with lost email, car breakdowns, electronic meltdowns, and the sticking of one’s foot in one’s mouth. Astrologically speaking, those types of occurrences DO fall under Mercury retrograde’s jurisdiction, but it can express in many different ways for different people at different times. Some Mercury retrograde periods are more difficult than others depending on a variety of factors. Given that many of the things that Mercury presides over are such basic parts of everyday living (cognition, movement, and communication), it’s easy to take Mercury for granted until it upends our larger ambitions.
Due to the apparent back-tracking action, a lot of astrologers use this general rule for working with Mercury retrogrades: it’s a good time for activities that have the prefix “re.” It’s time to rework, review, revise, reconnect, rethink, revisit, etc. It’s a bit simplistic, but still a useful way to think about retrograde periods. These periods can be quite supportive of examining relics of our histories or making discoveries off the beaten path. In the movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris states, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Annoying as it may be, Mercury retrograde periods help us do that. They help us disengage from strict logic, linear time, and material circumstance. Katherine May in her book Wintering shares a similar sentiment: “I love the inconvenience the same way that I sneakingly love a bad cold: the irresistible disruption to mundane life, forcing you to stop for a while and step outside your normal habits.”
When any of the planets go through their retrograde, they go through an underworld of sorts. They explore terrain that is internal, strange—a departure from the ordinary. We get to traverse the bounds of time and social constructs, and find darker, unexplored spaces. The world of image, emotion, and intuition live in these spaces. Retrogrades force us to leave room for the miraculous, the sublime, and whatever it is you might think of as the hand of god.
This month’s Mercury retrograde period initiating in the sign of Virgo, but mostly taking place in Leo, will have us rethinking what it means to be central. Does all organizational activity need to cohere around one source? Are there ways to organize ourselves and our lives with multiple and nonhierarchical frameworks? We’ll also reconsider the ways we express ourselves and the role that shame plays in keeping us from joy, vitality, and passion.
Without Mercury, one thing can’t lead to another and we lose the ability to stitch together the stuff of life: thoughts, feelings, people, and places. Without Mercury’s retrograde periods we lose the ability to have a meaningful conversation with possibility.
