Mercury Retrograde August 24

So, pretty much everyone who has had any contact with pop culture for the past few decades has at least heard of a Mercury Retrograde. Some people may even have some vague notion of what it is. Either way, I’m going to go over some basics about what a Mercury Retrograde is, why they don’t all have the exact same effect, including why this one we’re in right now has a bit more importance than many other ones, and why they don’t affect everyone equally.

Astrology, as I understand it currently, works under assumption that certain planets rule over certain energies, and aspects of life. Many people, even without knowing it, link certain planets to certain energies and aspects of life already. Take Venus and Mars, for example. Venus is linked to women and Mars to men. At Planet Fitness, one of the gyms I go to, the symbols for the men’s and women’s restrooms are marked with the astrological symbols for Mars and Venus, respectively. You may have also heard about Venus being linked to love and Mars being linked to war. Well, Mercury is no different and has traditionally been seen to govern over many important aspects of life. Some of the most common ones that are heard these days, especially during Mercury retrogrades, are: communication, technology, travel and most mercantile things. He also rules over the signs of Virgo and Gemini (as mentioned in my previous blog post). After we come to the understanding that Mercury governs these areas or topics of life, we can look at how the experiences he has are reflected in what we experience here on Earth.

Let’s take you, for example. Imagine you’re a really quick-witted person that’s on top of everything, you’re great at communicating and you keep everyone up-to-date on all kinds of things that are happening, especially the details, and that’s just who you are and what you do. As you go throughout life, everyone in your presence gets to experience this energy from you, they get accustomed to it and everything you do. Well, it might not be hard to imagine that whatever happens to you, including the situations and places you find yourself in, would directly affect your energy, how you behave and present to the world, and your ability to take care of whatever it is you normally take care of. This includes things like you: ending up in a spot in which you’re uncomfortable or unfamiliar, being strapped for resources, getting into an argument, or you’re just tired because you worked too much. You can relate to those situations. Right? In astrology, the planets also find themselves in similar situations.

As an astrologer, I see stories like those listed above playing out in the sky. I often assess the situations of different planets to see how things are working out for them and their correspondences here on Earth in general, in my life and in the lives of my clients and loved ones. Sometimes it’s easy to focus on one aspect of things, like a full moon, new moon or even a retrograde because they stand out. However, we have to keep in mind that just like in our lives, much of the time, even if we’re only aware of ourselves or some things that are happening at any given time, there are more things happening in the sky at the same time, and sometimes, those things affect things within our purview, or we affect those other situations we aren’t paying attention to yet. Heck, a lot of what is happening isn’t affecting us personally, but there’s probably someone out there that is being directly affected by other things in the sky most people aren’t paying attention to.

Sometimes, like this time, things like a Mercury retrograde will affect a bunch of other planets and whatever they rule over. This is a bigger deal this time around also because while Mercury retrogrades occur every few months, this time it’s coinciding with other alignments that don’t happen as often and Mercury’s the one calling the shots for some of the planets involved. So, not only is this Mercury retrograde affecting Mercury himself, both Jupiter and Mars have recently come together in Gemini, which is ruled by Mercury. They’re both going to be making connections to Saturn, which is in Pisces, a sign traditionally ruled by Jupiter, which gives a double impact there. Venus is in Virgo right now so she’s going to be affected. Uranus is in Venus’ sign so he’ll also be somehow tangentially affected because Venus. He’s also going to be in contact with Mercury himself. By the end of this retrograde Mercury will have met up with Venus, the Sun and the Moon in conjunctions while he’s traveling backwards. As alluded to before, he’ll also make another square to Uranus, which, btw, the last time he did coincided with the big tech crash being attributed to a CrowdStrike update and Biden announcing he won’t be running anymore. This means that there’s a chance we’ll revisit those topics or similar ones. Mercury will go through that square one more time after he’s gone direct. At the last pass we might have a better understanding of whatever is going on with these topics because it’ll be the third visit and Mercury will be going direct so thinking and communication will also be direct at that point. The positions of the other planets at each of these lineups will be different as well, so we can expect there to be some difference in the way things play out during these activations, especially because Uranus will no longer be hanging out with Mars as Mercury aspects him. All of this is on top of the usual need to double-check communications and prepare for delays and things going wrong with plans. Needless to say, Mercury is making big moves throughout August.

How will you know whether or not this Mercury Retrograde is really going to affect you? Get a copy of your birth chart. You’ll need your exact TIME, date and place of birth. If you have planets or important angles (Ascendant and MC, mainly) around 4 Virgo, where Mercury stops to go backwards, this retrograde will probably be more significant for you. The same can be said if you have any planets around 4 degrees of the other mutable signs: Gemini, Sagittarius and Pisces because the first two make squares to Virgo and the Pisces placement will be in opposition to this energy. Squares and oppositions are typically felt stronger and are a bit more noticeable because they tend to cause situations which spur some type of change and/or decisions to be made. The same can be said if you have planets or important angles around 21 Leo, which is where Mercury stops to go forward again, and the other fixed signs (Taurus, Scorpio and Aquarius) around that same degree. Also, If you have any important placements in Virgo and/or Gemini you might notice this retrograde more. The Mercury Cazimi also started yesterday and ended today at 26 Leo, that’s energy that’ll infuse Mercury with directives from the sun and probably give you insight to the areas of your life ruled by Virgo and Gemini, along with any personal planets you have near 26 Leo.

I could go on forever, but the post has already gone on long and I’ve missed a couple of specific times I wanted to post it by. I’d blame that and the inevitable typos on the Mercury retrograde, but my procrastination and me not paying attention to times and dates are not things that are happening just now. Nevertheless, I’m going to post this even though the cazimi has now officially ended as of minutes ago. Haha

P.S. I'm going to soon post something on basics of astrology to refer people to so I'm not retyping the same stuff over and over.... but just because you're reading this doesn't mean you've read or are reading my other stuff, right?