The planet of communication and connections turns retrograde for several weeks several times each year, making it an experience we’re well acquainted with, whether we recognize it or not. As the planet that presides over short distance travel, wiring, exchanges and messages, Mercury is very involved in our day-to-day activities. We refer to planets as retrograde when they appear to move backward from Earth’s perspective. This illusion represents a time to redefine, reevaluate, rework, and reclaim. We get another shot at something if we want it.
Mercury Retrograde is a cosmic do-over. If you want to try again – at a relationship, a project, an idea, a conversation – you get a second chance during these periods. Mercury is the ruling planet of all communication – verbal, written, and body language. It’s the part of us that takes information in, categorizes, connects, and translates. The success of business partnerships, creative projects, friendships, and romances are dependent upon effective communication. If you think about it, pretty much everything revolves around communication. Mercury Retrograde also brings communication forward from old relationships, so I’m often revisited by people who have been out of my life for days, months, or even decades.
Astrologers recommend easing off certain pursuits, like starting new endeavors, signing contracts, completing tasks, and building new relationships during Mercury Retrograde. If traveling, it’s recommended that you allow extra time for delays and mix-ups. Take this time to be mindful, stay calm, and reflect. Practice compassion with yourself and everyone else. For me, the medicine of Mercury Retrograde is that we can always go home. We can always try again. We can shift reality through our perspective. We can always turn back time.
While things can go awry during Mercury Retrograde, there’s great potential for reworking anything old in a very positive way. I’m offering you five tips for managing Mercury Retrograde and suggestions on what to do when it goes direct. If you roll with the unexpected delays and mix-ups that are likely during this time, slow down and turn your focus inward, the potential for progress is amazing. As always, working with the energy makes all the difference.
Five Tips for Managing Mercury Retrograde
1. Dive back into old writing projects: Mercury Retrograde is one of the best times to pick up where you left off on writing that book, article, letter, or personal journaling. If you started communicating something, but haven’t finished it, get on it! You may find the structure changes and progresses with ease as you recommit to bringing it together. The words you couldn’t find before now fall into place, like pieces of a puzzle. The missing lyrics to your song are well within reach – you only need to listen to the voice within and let it flow onto the page and into the universe.
2. Rewire your mind by refocusing your thoughts: The Law of Attraction, based in the Hermetic Principles teaches us that everything manifest is created by thought. Our thoughts become form. If you, like most of us, have gotten into a rut of negative self-talk, this is THE time to get yourself out. Choose to focus on what you want and apply the discipline to keep this focus going. Do you want abundance? Stop thinking about all the things you don’t have and worrying that you don’t have enough. A very simple “I want plenty of money and resources to do all the things I want and need to do.” can change your life. You make reality with your thoughts. Reclaim your thinking as your magic wand of creation.
3. Tune in to your inner voice: Think of Mercury Retrograde as temporary insanity, meaning irrationality. Mercury represents our logical, rational mind, and in retrograde this flow changes. What do you do when things don’t make sense? Like that long line of cars, that’s not moving for no apparent reason. When the outside world seems to go a bit crazy and you feel misunderstood, confused, or left out of the loop, stop listening so intently to the external stimuli. If you’re delayed in your broken down car with a dead smartphone, take a breath and take advantage of time with yourself. Sometimes we need reminding that life isn’t just a series of problems to solve and schedules to adhere to. What do you have to say to yourself when the world outside isn’t competing for your attention?
4. Slow down: This one’s simple to say – take your foot off the gas. A mind in overdrive will short-circuit, exactly something that happens during Mercury Retrograde. Be kind to your nervous system, another Mercurial function. We love to jack ourselves up on adrenalin – the caffeine, the next crisis, the need to react to everything without pause. Take the backseat during this time. Your view may seem more obstructed, but your inner landscape will have a chance to speak.
5. Try something again: Do you want a different experience in some area that’s already been on your mind? Have you been trying to communicate something without success? Is there something you started learning, but gave up? This is your redo, retry, rework it opportunity. Come up with a new plan, new ideas, or even look at the entire situation from a new perspective. You may find new connections available to you, and that messages are actually received, within and without.
What to Do When Mercury Turns Direct
In today’s society, we rely on our minds and technology to a great extent – we know our bodies have to scream for attention to get us to slow down. If you let the computer freeze-ups, traffic jams, and miscommunication blow by like the breeze, you realize this stuff just isn’t that big of a deal. Did you find the quiet calm of your mind, the part that normally doesn’t have a chance to come forward amidst your chaos? Once Mercury turns direct, act on the projects and intentions you reworked during the retrograde. If you discovered life from a new perspective, use it and share it! Mercury wants to keep the story going. Now that you’ve had time to reconsider your own “story,” don’t let it stop at the first, second or third chapter. Keep going until your life fills volumes and expands into series you never imagined.
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