Mercury Retrograde Explained
Mercury retrogrades have been occurring three times a year for 4.6 billion years. And yet, this retrograde planet is a popular topic with little understanding of the myriad of ways this planetary phenomenon can be explained or interpreted. I hope you enjoy this excerpt from my latest book A Box of Magick to explain the science and mystery behind Mercury Retrograde.
Mercury: God of Communication
During a Mercury Retrograde, we are thrust into the past to revisit, remember, sift through our past communications, actions, and decide what thoughts, emotions, or beliefs we should keep as we move forward. This God teaches us Divine Timing. For three weeks, we must sit in the unknowing as chaos reigns around us. It is this time of quiet rest when we can remember ourselves to wholeness.
Ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos (who lived around 310–230 BC) proposed that we lived in a heliocentric universe, meaning the planets revolve around the sun, but he gained few supporters. It took the world eighteen centuries to catch on to this early insight until Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus produced a fully predictive mathematical model of a heliocentric system in the fifteenth century. The term “retrograde,” in reference to when a planet is on the opposite side of the sun from our position on earth, was first used in 1960s. From our two-dimensional geo-centric or Earth centric, perspective when a planet is traveling with us around the sun, we appear to be going in the same direction around the sun. When any planet is on the other side of the sun, it appears to be traveling counter-clockwise or backwards.
Since Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, completes its speedy orbit in eighty-eight days, there are three times during the year when the God of Communication is on the other side of the sun from the earth’s perspective and appears to be moving backward, or opposite of our movement, for three weeks at a time.
From the 1960s through the 2010s, the lessons of Mercury retrogrades have focused on seeing this three-week phase as an essential time of slowing down communication and activity. It is essentially a cosmic naptime. Mercury Retrograde not only gives us permission to pause and stop being so productive in a relentless forward movement, but it underscores an essential period of rest, reflection, reconnection, and reinvention (all the re- words). Magick often includes Shadow work to help us reclaim what may exist but remains unseen in the mystery, including parts of ourselves or relationships that have faded.
In some cases, you will experience what is called a paradigm shift when your mind lets go of the baggage and healing occurs. It’s like taking a cinder block out of your backpack and noticing how much lighter you feel without it. This may happen or may not; simply allow whatever you feel to be OK.
Today, fear has replaced the curiosity that once surrounded Mercury retrogrades. People are told their cars will break down, that they should expect fights with lovers and friends, and to be aware of theft and scams. Our collective hyper-focus on the negative possibilities of miscommunication makes some people shudder, as if they need a desk to hide under.
How universal influences affect you is entirely up to you. Will you look at Mercury retrogrades as an opportunity to deepen experiences or will you let negative stories sharpen the blade of fear? Will you welcome the disorder, knowing that when we release our rigidity, we are offered a new perspective that may allow us to grow more as light beings and a child of Divine Love?
Have you ever seen or been in a group in which each person held a single candle? It is magnificent to behold several solo lights coming together as one grand collection of individual flames. Each light is important and adds to the collective effect of all that brilliance. The same rings true when we collectively decide to see something in a particular way. Our combined thoughts carve a channel that can direct universal influence through one perspective. In other words, if people forget that Mercury retrograde is meant to be a welcome reprieve and, instead, only see pandemonium, then one day, that may be all we ever see.
It just takes one brave soul to trust their heart and see something new to make a difference in a field of single lights.
So no matter which planet is in retrograde, if you can be still and watch how the planetary movements affect you when they have forward momentum or backwards movement. You can apply the principles of retrograde for any planet and the realms they influence.
