Shifting Stories Through Retro Mercury

As ‘retrograding’ Mercury conjoins the Sun in Aquarius today, and sextiling Uranus conjoins the South Node of the Moon in Aries, it is a perfect time to question the stories we’ve always told ourselves about the way things are~ and to create new, radical visions and testimonies to pass along to our communities and children.

There is a huge amount of fear-mongering by many professional and amateur astrologers alike about the planet Mercury when it appears to go backwards in the sky, about 3 or 4 times a year. The reality is that we now know it is not going backwards at all. No planet moves backwards in the sky- they only ever appear to be moving that way.

It makes a huge amount of sense that our ancestors, when staring up at the brilliant sky above, night after night, observing and absorbing its patterns and planetary pathways, would rightfully be ENTIRELY FREAKED OUT if a planet that had been traveling in one direction, suddenly began to travel in reverse for several weeks! No wonder the ancestors came up with the word planet, as it means ‘wanderer’~ it would’ve been hard to make sense of the astronomical patterns for quite some time, back in the distant past.

It is similar to when we are driving down the freeway at a good clip, and we start to pass a car going slower than us in the next lane over. If someone riding in our car keeps their gaze locked on the car driving slower next to us, it will surely look as though the other car is traveling in reverse. But this is without the universal understanding of things that most adults now possess, about both the physics of driving and of the various planetary orbits.

When we stop and think about it, *plenty* of flights are delayed and smart phones crash to the ground during non-Mercury-retrograde periods. And, conversely, a lot of wonderful and effective communication and successful traveling happens during the approximate 9-12 weeks a year that Mercury looks retrograde.

I propose that we no longer feed The Mercury-in-Retrograde-Beast. What new stories can we instead tell? 

If you must apply meaning to the retrograding motion (astrology’s motto, after all, is: As Above, So Below), any planet’s retrograding cycle is a fine symbolic slash actual time for looking inward or slowing down regarding what the planet collectively represents. Mercury is about perception, communication, language, speed, transportation, connections, and shiftiness. During these backwards Mercurial times, consider words that start with the prefix ‘re’ as good focal points. We can use the retrograding periods of this planet to reflect on and reassess our communication with ourselves & others, to remember tasks or correspondences we have yet to follow up on, to review & refine ideas and projects, to read & study languages, to realize new goals moving forward, and to generally relax and think flowing thoughts about all-things-mercurial. As Whitley Gilbert from A Different World impassionately reminds us: “Relax, Relate, Release!”

In a similarly creative-breakthrough vein, Uranus in Aries conjunct the South Node can be thought of as a lit match of new and wild ideas igniting and potentially burning up our outdated patterns and belief systems.

For example (riffing off a Steven Forrest idea), if you’ve always hated romance novels and identified fiercely with the anti-romancey-stance your whole life, and then one day find yourself shamefully peeking at one of the gooey love stories, would you admit it to your best friend or bedmate? Or would you cling to your old identity and hide the novel under the mattress before they had a chance to catch you reading it?

Maybe we’ve never thought we would be single or would be partnered or would be divorced, but the time has come to allow and embrace a change. Perhaps we would never have expected to move far away from our family of origin, or use a wheelchair, or take a dance class, or use a ‘men’s bathroom’ if we’ve only ever used a ‘women’s room,’ or live abroad, or have children, or go to therapy, or stop going to therapy, or renounce the religion we grew up within, or believe in astrology! Uranus shows us that things don’t have to be how they’ve always been; we can allow a new understanding to settle upon an old point of view.

What new story or part of your evolving identity are you willing to fully allow into your life today?