Surviving Mercury’s Retrogrades

The Roman god Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks) is the messenger of the gods—the link between spirit and matter, between soul and personality. Mercury symbolizes the power of communication, reasoning capacities and the ability to perceive relationships and gather facts. Mercury narrates, talks argues, debates, writes, analyzes, memorizes, studies travels, sells, reflects, and expresses itself through the hands as well as the tongue. Mercury is the magician and the trickster, two sides of the same coin, both inclined to be hard teachers. As a master of the hidden realms, Mercury confounds us with unexpected information and events and challenges our habitual perceptions. He also surprises us with unexpected gifts and new possibilities. If we like the surprises, we call it magick; if we don’t, we call it bad luck. Either way, the result is to jar us from the inertia of our routines and move us out of the mundane. So when the planet is retrograde, we can expect things “ruled” by Mercury to go haywire; it’s just another way Mercury is providing lessons.

Mercury retrograde periods are plagued by indecision, bad timing, delays, communication errors, and mechanical problems. Although many of us particularly notice computer problems during this time frame. Uranus is the planet that rules electronic devices, including computers. But since so much of our communication is conducted via computer, Mercury’s influence has expanded.

For many of us, knowing when Mercury goes retrograde can be a sanity saver. We can mark retrograde periods on our calendars so we won’t throw parties, write letters, buy electronics (or pets), sign contracts or take a new job. If nothing else, it’s a time to take extra care that what you say is understood as you meant it to be. For years, it was a time when I battened down the hatches and rode out the messed up energies.

No longer. Now I use the retrograde energies of Mercury in ways that the work like a kind of cosmic aikido move. Doing so has transformed nine weeks of my year into positive, productive times and my frustration level has decreased dramatically.

The key is to remember that Mercury retrograde is a time for “re” doing things. So it is a wonderful time for anything based on research, planning, examination of resources and completing projects. You don’t want to start anything new during Mercury retrograde, but if there is a project hanging out there that you haven’t gotten around to finishing, this is the perfect time to return to it.

Mercury retrograde is not my favorite time of the year, but I’m a lot less stressed about it now that I’ve learned some strategies for using the backward energy to my advantage.

Excerpt from:
Dancing with Mercury,
Backwards: Do More Than Just Survive Mercury
Retrograde
By Lisa McSherry
Llewellyn’s 2013 Magical Almanac for Every Day Living