Coming up, yet another Mercury Retrograde period. Hooray! And I’ll be honest, the stars really conspired together to make this one a doozy.
So I wanted make sure to offer a complete understanding of what you can expect during this period, so you can prepare yourself and feel ready to handle it.
More importantly, I wanted to give you some input into ways that you can really utilize this period for your own growth. While there may be challenges coming ahead, they are never so difficult that we cannot learn from them and take advantage of what they have to teach us.
Understanding Mercury Retrograde
When the divine progenitor of the Cosmos created the world, it started by setting all the heavens in a clockwise motion around the earth. All the heavenly bodies rise up in the east and set in the west at an even, constant rate, pivoting around the pole start. This motion creates unity, oneness, and stability, and is known as the primary motion.
Then, in order to create duality, separation, and change, it created the seven planets to push against and fight this motion of constancy and unity by moving counterclockwise. This is the secondary motion. By moving against the clockwise motion of the primary motion, the planets literally create the possibility for individuality and uniqueness in the web of life.
Normally, planets move counterclockwise through the sky in the order of the signs, happily combating unity and oneness and creating separation and change as they wander through the sky to the beats of their own drums.
But whenever a planet goes retrograde, it ceases to move in the order of the signs, no longer contributing to the secondary motion and the creation of the world of materiality. Now it moves backwards, unable to fight against the motion of unity any longer, surrendering its own will to create separation and change.
When this happens, the planet ceases to have power over its regular domain - as if it has lost control of its steering wheel. For this reason, the practical, mundane significations of the planet begin to suffer. The planet no longer presides and manages its kingdom. And when a planet cannot manage its own kingdom, that kingdom suffers. As a result, the enterprises, goals, and objects associated with the retrograde planet fall apart without their leader.
In the case of Mercury retrogrades, the kingdoms of technology, communication, and tranportation all begin to fall apart. Mercury’s not around to keep these things running smoothly and effectively.
The following tidbits of advice apply to any mercury retrograde period: don’t expect people to understand you the first, second, or even the third time you say something. Don’t be shocked or surprised when your technological gadgets don’t work or start to fall apart. Don’t go on any long trips. If there was ever a time that should certainly not text and drive…this would be it!
Specific to this Mercury retrograde, the retrogradation in Libra means that communication and interpersonal challenges take center stage. Your patience will be challenged by a lack of harmony and cognitive connection with other people. It will be harder to understand each other and get along.
Other aspects conspire to make this period more challenging than needed. The placement of Venus in her detriment in Scorpio compounds this issue: instead of interpersonal kindness and politeness is replaced by the compulsive need to dredge up the emotional gunk of life, both in yourself and other people. Because Venus rules Mercury while he is in Libra, difficult interpersonal baggage and uncomfortable emotions will be more likely to arise in people’s interactions.
Mars’ presence in Libra compounds this issue with more interpersonal drama and even some fiery disagreements. Don’t expect free-flowing, easy interpersonal encounters. Expect ones that are transformative (read: a helluva lotta work).
On the bright side, Mercury forms a trine to Jupiter and a trine to Saturn. Jupiter will provide a lot of groundedness and guarantees that the work that you do during this period is effective – you may find spiritual teachers and guides coming in who can give you detached input on the interpersonal drama you are experiencing. Saturn will not so much make things easier as he will hold your hand through the difficult experiences and keep you centered. If you lean into the pain, as opposed to running from it, you will find great rewards on the other side.
Utilizing Mercury Retrograde
In general, retrogrades are fantastic times to stop doing outer work associated with that planet and begin focusing on more inner work associated with it. Now is the time to turn our mercurial faculties inward.
Any mercury retrograde period strongly supports reflective work on themes related to that planet. We can dive in and analyze how we communicate with other people, or we can take up a journaling practice and use words and language to process our inner life. I always make sure to take longer, contemplative walks (very mercurial) during any mercury retrograde period.
Because of Mercury’s association with thought and the discursive mind, mercury retrogrades strongly support meditation in general, (i.e. turning the mind inward). In particular, this will be a good time for such practices like Zen and Vipassana which are directly aimed at quieting the mind. If you are interested in going on a meditation retreat or doing a meditation intensive, then now would be the time to act on that.
Take this as an opportunity to reflect on your own issues that you have communicating with other people. How could you express yourself more clearly? When people misunderstand you, or you misunderstand someone else, examine the ways in which you were responsible for it. When Mercury leaves retrograde in three weeks, you will find that the habits of better communication that you fostered during this period deepen significantly. Your ability to express yourself and hold dialogue will strengthen.
This is our final Mercury Retrograde of 2021 to contend with, this time in the Cardinal Air sign of Libra. Mercury will be retrograde from September 27th until October 18th.