Slow your roll there, Ladies and Gents: Mercury Retro and Direct 101

Mercury is about to end it's foggy retrograde cycle through Pisces but we are not out of the woods yet. It won't be until the 20th until Mercury starts moving forward and, Until then, it is actually the most powerful time for Mercury to be expressing it's wonkiness.

There are a lot of misconceptions about mercury retrograde. So for y'alls edification and such:

Mercury Retro and Direct 101

Most everyone knows about Mercury retrograde period and some understand that retrograde periods are when a planet appears to move backwards in the sky and is a cycle where the planetary virtues are turned inwards, backwards and skewed in some way. Like all of astrology this is symbolic.

Mercury rules the mind, words, writing, numbers, details, communications and the like. It's retrograde period does not cause relationship breakups, fights or generally "bad things" to happen though it can cause problems related to the things it generally corresponds to. Justin Beiber's hamster dying is not one of them (I actually read this) unless he accidentally misread "hamster poison" as "hamster food" and fed it to him. Then, yes, dang it.

Retrograde planets

A retrograde planet will effect you MOST when it is slowing down to the point where it appears to stop in the sky before going reverse or before switching forward again. Speed is more important than direction but forwards is still "better" than backwards only because it's going to stop and retrace it's steps. It isn't a curse though it can be very frustrating.


A planet stationing to go forwards or reverse will be making an aspect to one of your personal planets or points for it to be noticeable. However other people connected to you can be vicariously effected, as in the case of accidentally feeding someone 'people poison' instead of 'people food'.

Retrograde movement is not "bad". It can be but It can just as likely be good. it depends on other factors. There are many long-winded, wide-eyed and spiritual takes on retrograde processes being necessary for evolution and whatnot. I don't discount them but I'm not going to indulge in it either. Often it is a time when we realize an error not necessarily the time of the error itself though the realization is when we must deal with the mistake.

Planetary dignity or debility can be Good or bad, respectively and most noticeably when making aspects to you. Dignity is when a planet is in a sign it rules or has a special affinity with. Debility is when it is in a sign opposite the sign it rules or opposite a sign it has a special affinity with. Mercury is dignified in Gemini and Virgo and it is  debilitated in Sagittarius and pisces.


I hope this clears things up and alleviates undue anxiety about this process for some people. You can't hide from life and we can't always wait for the stars to align in perfect symmetry before taking action, but listening to intuition and observing this process with proper awareness can help direct our lives in small but significant ways.