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Mercury Retrograde in Taurus – April 2017

It’s that time again.

But it’s nothing to be afraid of. Mercury is doing that thing again where he’s like “okay, I know I usually am here to mediate your communications and make them easy and all but I’m super tired and just going to nap for a few week,” and everyone else is all “omg you’re ruining my life,” but you shouldn’t get worked up, because we can take a look at what you in particular need to be especially careful of.

There’s always a couple of things to look at when you’re trying to get a sense for what’s going to happen during a retrograde period. They are:

  • the three parts of the retrograde and when they start 
  • the sign that the retrograde is falling in & what else is going on in the rest of zodiac around it
  • where in your chart the storm is touching down

We’re going to take a look at the first few together, and then I’m going to give patrons a deeper look at number 4.

Anatomy of a retrograde

A retrograde always occurs between two points, and it goes between those two points three times. That means there’s three distinct phases of retrograde. When it begins, it’s trucking along the zodiac in a forward direction until it starts slowing down due to incoming retrograde motion. Then it hits point A, and moves backwards on the zodiac wheel. We call that point “Mercury stationing retrograde.” During this spring’s Rx cycle, that point is 4 degrees Taurus. So Mercury has been happily zipping through Pisces, then plodding through Aries, then its shoelace comes untied and it starts tripping over it in the last few degrees of Aries through Taurus, and then it faceplants right at the beginning of its journey through Taurus. And then it turns right back around and starts running backwards because it’s embarrassed or something, idk.

Point is, it stops, and reverses. And then it’s going backwards through the zodiac, clunking right over all of those points that it had just run over before. It’s going to back up to a point, finally catch its breath, and then move back over them a third time before finally clearing the retrograde and moving on normally.

That means there are three different parts to each retrograde — two “shadows” on either side, when Mercury is going over the retrograde-affected points while moving direct, plus the retrograde itself.

Here, I’ve made a low quality illustration to show you kind of what it looks like. It’s not to proper scale and all the sign symbols somehow got misaligned, but you get the idea. The “points A and B” of the retrograde are the two black lines on Mercury’s path. When he crosses the first line in forward motion, the first shadow starts. When he hits the second line, he stations retrograde and moves backwards. Then he hits the first line, stations direct, and moves forward through the second shadow. When he finally crosses the second black line, the retrograde period is over.

mercuryspath

Shadow period 1 for this round of retrograde is already well underway. This is like the part of the horror movie when the protagonist is driving up to the house and you’re like “huh, something is totally off.” But if you stay perceptive and flexible, you can kind of deduce what’s going on. Use that to your advantage. During this time, you can kind of get a feel for what issues are going to come up later so you can prepare for them. Hopefully you haven’t started calling your exes or being deliberately passive aggressive with your friends or something else that could pressurize under full retrograde.

The retrograde itself usually feels like a very sudden slow-down in time. The station date for this period is April 9th. This is the time when you have to be the most careful and during which time the most “classically Mercury” things go down — the lost tickets, the smashed phone, sending a sext to your boss, etc. But you have to stay calm, remember — it’s during this time that you are most likely to overreact and make a situation worse before the opportunity to repair it has presented itself. That’s how Mercury retrograde gets you.

Shadow period 2 is not-quite-normal yet — the energy is still very much around. But this is the time when revelation and clarification tend to occur, and the knots start to untangle themselves. It begins when retrograde ends (May 3rd this time) and continues for several weeks until equilibrium returns (May 20th.)

Let’s talk about this retrograde’s chart.

Each sign that Mercury moves through during any part of the year, including retrograde, is going to describe some of the issues that are more likely to come up at the time.

Since we know this is an earth sign, this retrograde is going to have you taking a look at what you value. This could be material and physical or more abstractly about “your values.” Taurus rules “money-in, money-out” — basic cash flow — and our comforts. On a secondary level, it also talks about how needs and desires, based on what’s important to us.

Usually, astrologers are like “purchase nothing during Mercury retrograde” and I feel like that’s often not a fair warning. Venus tends to be the planet that rules possessions and money, so I find people tend to have more of an urge to overspend or make a bad investment during Venus’s weak periods. Welp, Venus is also retrograde right now, and additionally, the sign that Mercury is moving through is Venus-ruled, so this like the one Merc retro period for which I will wholeheartedly cosign that advice. If you need to deal with purchases or sourcing for work or another big project, it’s fine to continue the project, but be super precise about the expectations you have for the work you’re looking to get done. Any ambiguity in terms of measurements, materials and qualities, return policies — take your time and iron out the details before you do something irreversible. In an earthy sign with weakened Venus energy, you don’t want Mercury to trick you into sinking your money somewhere it shouldn’t have gone. Be extremely careful and proactive about money matters and possible scams — I know it’s scary, but check your balances regularly and frequently.

Sometimes, life happens, and you find yourself having to make a big decision during Mercury retrograde. That’s okay. This isn’t about refraining from pertinent activities, it’s a reminder to dot your i’s, cross your t’s, and keep all the receipts. I’ve signed a lease during Mercury retrograde and the effect is less “this place in an unlivable horror and I need to get out immediately” and more “wow, I needed to move suddenly and I totally should have double-checked that we included our verbal agreement about x in the written lease. I should probably talk to the landlord about that when retrograde is over.”

Because this is an earth sign, it’s also not a huge warning sign of complete technological meltdown, but it can be a time when communications that are mediated through technology suffer from petty faults. It is never a bad time to back up your data and hang on to a copy or a screenshot of something for a little longer than you might usually. It is also a time when relationships mediated online can suffer from ambiguity or miscommunication.

One last little practical thing: money. Like the other earth signs, Taurus is more deeply connected to finances and possessions than other parts of the zodiac. For that reason, expect erraticism and prepare for it by being smart. Mercury’s effects don’t always look awful, but they can be “revealed” to be disadvantageous later. If a “mercurial” person ends up getting some extra money to you out the blue, don’t rush to spend it before you know you’re secure. If you’re expecting money, remember that retrograde is a slow period, especially with Venus impaired too. Keep up on your communications and expectations of payment, but try to give yourself a budgetary cushion.

When it comes to taking on a new contract under retrograde periods, it’s very important to look at the circumstances. Taurus is a sign that’s all about groundedness, so with retrograde energy, it can feel like the ground isn’t fully rooted. You can often expect “final decisions” made under Mercury retrograde to end up reversed — often due to miscommunication issues. That’s why you always hear to be careful about jumping headfirst into something new. The exception is when you are entering a project that is a return to something you have already moved on from or abandoned. Mercury rewards looking backwards at this time, so yes, take a vacation if it’s back to a place you haven’t been in awhile, reconnect. Yes, make that call about picking up the idea you hadn’t been able to juggle six months ago if it’s feeling really right now.

Towards the end of its motion, Mercury will briefly revisit the last part of Aries. Its prior trip through this area, it got itself all tangled up in a really tough astro-dynamic called a T-square. We’ll talk about this in your personal horoscopes, but the beginning period of the retrograde is going to be all about power and personal relationships, then resolving to a clearing out of that baggage when Mercury comes back to that point. For the duration of the entire period, you could be considering dropping something important to you in exchange for something you really wanted. Be sensitive and open to the possibility that you could be misreading the motives of other people at this time, for better or worse. Don’t be naive, but don’t assume the worst.

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Stop Blaming Mercury Retrograde For Everything

Hello friends. Welcome to another MERCURY RETROGRADE.

Now, I understand that in the past few years, “Mercury retrograde” has become a sort of mainstream buzzword for terror, calamity, and general life falling apart. I’ve noticed a lot of amateur astrologers and clickbait writers making panicked “brace yourself!!!!!” posts about Mercury retrograde on social media and people always message me being like “Lohla — is my life about to fall apart???” and I have to be like “no bb, just play it cool.” 

I don’t know where the retrograde hysteria about little Mercury being single-handedly able to ruin lives comes from. In astrology, that’s not actually what it means, and “preparing yourself” by getting anxious, overzealous and fidgety is pretty much the OPPOSITE of what you should do.

Let’s talk about retrogrades in general, and then I’ll get on with the significance of this particular retrograde and how to handle it like a champ.

What is retrograde even I literally don’t understand how this is relevant like sun signs are cool I guess but what does this even mean

A retrograde is a common, regular occurrence in astrology — so regular, in fact, that the planets don’t deviate from their “retrograde and direct stationing schedules” — aka how often they do it. Astrology is all about cycles, and retrogrades are part of how those cycles always, always play out.

Just as planets take a certain amount of time to complete their orbits around the sun, they take a specific amount of time to complete their circuit of the geocentric zodiac map used in western astrology. Without boring you to tears, astrologers use some pretty basic math and scientific observances to determine how the planets move along the little map we use — it’s not a surprise when a planet retrogrades and it’s never for a weird amount of time. This is stuff we’ve noticed since ancient times, and we’ve been mapping the same little patterns for hundreds and hundreds of years. 

Our calendar, the Gregorian calendar, is a simple measure of the 365 (point whatever) days it takes Earth to complete its orbit around the sun. Another way to describe that is “how long it takes the sun to make a complete cycle through what we can see of the sky from our point on earth” — that’s how we look at it in astrology. It’s a little more complex than that, and there are specific reasons why a geocentric map is used and how astrologers “set” it consistently to the scientifically-descriptive heliocentric model, but that’s a bone I have to pick with Bill Nye at a different time.

Each planet has its own length of time it takes to orbit around the sun. Translating that to the zodiac, each planet takes a different amount of time to move through the zodiac wheel as observed from our point on earth. Since we are also orbiting the sun, sometimes, from our point of view, it appears as though each planet is going “backwards” through the zodiac or slowing down. 

“But Lohla, the planets aren’t actually moving any differently. Astrology’s not real, because the ancients didn’t account for earth’s orbit,” you might say. Hang on, Agent Scully, I’m not finished explaining. We got that accounted for.

Have you ever sat in a train station and watched through the window at the train on the next platform? As your train pulls out and speeds up, for a second, you might swear that the other train is pulling backwards in the other direction, even though it’s standing still. In New York, if you’re on the express, you might also notice this when keeping an eye on the local train one track over — as your train overtakes the speed of the other, the local may appear to stop or slide back, even though it’s also moving forward, just at a different rate than you are. Once you get far enough away, it’s easier to see that it’s moving in the same direction as you, just slowly.

That’s the basic optical illusion behind apparent retrograde motion. It’s a little different mechanically, but the same “trick” is happening.

Essentially, when this happens astrologically, all that’s going on is Earth is passing by another planet while they’re all going about their little orbits. Just lapping each other. So while Mercury usually looks like it’s moving east in our night sky, it suddenly looks like it’s going west from our point of view.

Slap the zodiac wheel on top of this diagram, and you see why this is astrologically relevant. Planets usually look like they’re proceeding through the zodiac in forward motion (Aries to Taurus, Taurus to Gemini, and so on). But when they’re going through apparent retrograde motion in relation to earth, they move “backwards” in the zodiac as we see it.

This has significance in astrology, but it’s not some kind of tragic saga — it’s a completely normal, routine occurrence with some easily predictable effects, and other effects that will be significant for individuals that vary from person to person. 

Before I continue, let’s get a few things down and debunk a little more:

1) “Mercury is especially awful and bad and Mercury retrograde is the worst of them all./ Mercury retrograde is the only one that matters.” 

Every single planet retrogrades in astrology.

Poor Mercury is not some uniquely mischief-making entity — he’s just a speedy little guy, so he retrogrades more often compared to everybody else. That’s why you always hear, like, your mom and your best friend and Katy Perry wailing about Mercury retro — it literally happens 3-4 times a year every single calendar year, where Mars and Venus retrograde more like every 18 months or so. There is nothing especially treacherous about Mercury retrograde — in fact, you should be less scared of it, since it’s retrograde for like /25-30% of the year/ every single year. If you hid under a blanket every single time it happened, you would be wasting over a quarter of your life!! 

PLEASE stop blaming baby Mercury. It’s mean. He does great stuff for you in your chart and transiting your chart like 75% of the time. Thank him.

2) “Yeah but you should notice when planets are retrograding and avoid those time periods to do anything important.”

My sweet astrology amateur: there is always, always a planet in retrograde. Often multiple. And life isn’t awful the entire time, so we can’t just blame retrograde motion for times when it sucks and when it doesn’t. The outer planets, because they’re such slowpokes? They spend MONTHS AT A TIME in retrograde. Months. You can’t cross off half of your calendar because a planet looks weebly in the sky. You would only have, like, one productive week every year. 

3) “Then what’s the point of paying attention?”

Because it’s more specific than that. Don’t be a nerd. Each specific planet’s specific attributes translate a bit differently than usual every time they do their little moonwalk in the sky. How they do it and how it affects your life, for astrologers, depends on:

A) where in the zodiac this is going down — just like the rest of the year, Mercury skedoodling around in Gemini is going to have super different vibes from when it’s hanging out in Capricorn

B) what other planetary aspects it might make during that time

C) how it ping pongs with your personal natal chart

All that being said, each retrograde period is going to have a ~general feel~ based on all these factors, so there’s a couple things we can make an educated guess about. Let’s get to it.

Okay, so it doesn’t ruin lives. What does it do then?

In astrology, each planet “rules” activity in certain aspects of our lives. Mercury is, most simply put, the ruler of communication. The house where it falls in our chart describes the things that get us talking, and our Mercury sign gives us the gift and tendencies of our own unique voice.

The reason why people go wild over Mercury retrograde is because, of course, communication rules everything. But this is also a kind of blessing. Things themselves are less apt to actually go completely wrong during Mercury retrograde than they are during other hard transits. However, our perception of them is skewed, which means our reactions can make a situation feel much worse. Words between friends can sour due to a simple misunderstanding. You sent a screenshot of a text conversation to the person you’re talking to. You state something clumsily, and the snippet gets taken out of context. Since Mercury rules our intellect, we can often feel like our intellect is weaker — like we aren’t as sharp, and we aren’t as quick or rational in our responses to emotional events. This can lead to sloppy mistakes in, mainly, work and friendship. But very often, Mercury stations direct, and the clouds of brain fog begin to clear, and we see that the initial horror of the situation wasn’t what we thought it was. We see that we behaved more “mercurially” than we intended and may have jumped the gun.

Mercury rules a couple of other things too, like our relationships to our immediate surroundings, short-distance travel, relationships with siblings, commutes, and our aptitude at choosing between many options.  It will also pick up some more “flavor” depending on the element of the sign that the retrograde takes place in. When it retrogrades in an air sign, we see more errors in specifically online communication and technological fritzes and mishaps. In a fire sign, we might see we made decisions too quickly and didn’t work out details well, or that we started something we don’t truly have the energy to sustain. In a water sign, we tend to misread the gauges of our own emotional loads and overcommit or show up too little in our relationships, or lose touch with our feelings. And in an earth sign, we often misjudge our own values, and how other people value us, and the ways in which they do.

Sometimes, when we make unwise decisions regarding one of these things that Mercury guards in our lives, things do go haywire. You bought tickets for the wrong flight. The cat spilled wine on your new laptop. You sign a contract or a lease that’s missing an important clause. You get halfway through launching a new project and you lose steam when you realize you made a serious error right at the start of your work.

However, there are many upsides to the brevity of Mercury’s backwardness. Often, these problems are surface-level, and they’re alleviated quickly with sheer time and patience. The slowness of the world during Mercury’s restful period also affords us a great opportunity: to double back and reflect. If you need to negotiate the terms of a contract you’ve already made, it’s a brilliant time. If you want to change something that has already been established, there’s a window to break the old agreement without really “breaking” anything. If you invite something from the past into your life, or you edit your old notes and files, you can often recover things you had assumed were lost. It’s a time to retrain your habits and tidy up what you have and repurpose it, whether it’s material belongings or relationships to people and places. Mercury still affords plenty of opportunity while retrograde. It’s just often not the ones you had planned to look for at the time.