Oh crap! Not mercury retrograde.
Yes, yes. You know the drill. Mercury will go retrograde in Virgo next Monday, August 5th, and everything from phones disconnecting to delayed flights will get blamed on Mercury retrograde. As they should. But, Mercury retrograde gets a bit of a bad wrap. Do a search online for do’s and don’t’s of a Mercury retrograde and you may be thinking that you should just huddle up at home for a little while. But you really can’t. The problem is that Mercury retrograde is common. In fact, Mercury goes retrograde about three or four times a year, and last for about 21 days, and that’s not including the shadow periods. So basically, far too frequently to just stay in bed.
So how can you handle it better? First, know your astrology chart. Find out what sign the Mercury Retrograde will be in, then see what house it will be in, in your own chart. This will tell you what area of life you might see problems in. Second, take a look at the degree Mercury is at. Is it forming an aspects to any of your planets? If so, how do you think that aspect is going to affect you?
For example: This last Mercury Retrograde (in April 2024) was an absolute doozy as far as I was concerned. Mercury was retrograde in Aries in my 8th house (house of debt), and it was opposing my Sun, Uranus and Mercury all in Libra in the 2nd (house of money). This all makes SO MUCH sense to me now. But it didn’t when this happened:
It was a lazy Sunday morning. I was laying in bed websurfing when I noticed something odd. My Fitbit had died. Now this isn’t the end of the world, I don’t use it to religiously count every step I take, but it was inconvenient. You see it connected to my phone and so without it working, I don’t get alerts to let me know that someone’s calling, texting or that I have an appointment coming up. Well that just wouldn’t do.
So, not to overreact or anything, I immediately panicked. My freaking Fitbit died, and now I was helpless. I needed to replace it, right away.
So, I went on Amazon and took a look at Fitbits. I was feeling pretty salty because I had only had the one that died for like 9 months. But, you gotta do what you gotta do. I found the same model and it was 100 bucks or so. Now, I was feeling cheap and I didn’t want to blow a whole $100 on a new one, so I looked for other options. And I found one. It was a cheaper $50 model, which I thought was an entry level Fitbit. Score. I ordered it with Prime delivery with the option to get it the same day. Whew. Problem solved.
Five hours later, the watch arrived. It was not an entry level Fitbit. It was a knock off brand and I had made a mistake. But that didn’t stop me. I decided that I would just live with it. So I opened up the box and got going on getting the new watch all set up.
And it was a disaster. First, the watch came without the bands attached. So I had to assemble it. And I tell you what. It was a pain in the butt. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get the stupid watch bands pins to stay inside the band long enough for me to stuff the band into the opening in the watch. It seemed nearly impossible. But then finally after 20 minutes of failed attempts it popped right in. Yeah! Success! 10 minutes later I had the second one done. Oh the joy!
I got the watch on and went about setting it up. You would think this would go smoothly, but no. Problems, problems, problems. First, I read the instructions, but when I scanned the QR code it took me to the wrong website. It was the website for registering the product and not the app for setting it up. Strike one. Next, I grab the app that was mentioned in the literature, but it wouldn’t connect the watch to my phone. Strike two. Third, I grabbed the correct app, got the watch working and connected to my phone only to find out that it notifies you of calls and messages, but not alerts on your calendar. Strike three – your out.
I tried to hide my disappointment and grin and bear it. But I had just wasted my money (2nd house) on a smart watch (Uranus/Mercury), because I decided to make an impulsive purchase on my card (Mercury in Aries in the 8th). I figured I could put up with it for 6 months or so, and then bite the bullet and buy a new Fitbit. I went onto other things and just stayed resigned to the inevitable.
About three hours later, something weird happened. I had an epiphany. I was just sitting there watching TV, when all of a sudden like a bolt out of the blue (Uranus) it hit me. My Fitbit is dead because the battery died.
Now surely, I couldn’t be that stupid. I mean, it’s not the first time my Fitbit has died because the battery needed charged. But was I? Oh. My. God.
I quickly went into my room and retrieved the dead Fitbit. The charger was still on the outlet and I promptly put it on. And that’s when the magic happened. My fit bit started charging. It was alive. Alive. A total miracle.
I tell you this story because it is the most Mercury Retrograde story there is. The problem with Mercury Retrograde is that when it hits planets in your chart, it can cause some fuzzy thinking. So you need to slow down, think things through and double check things just in case you missed something, overlooked it or just plain got brain freeze.
Get a free copy of your chart at Astro.com.
If you’d like to work out how Mercury Retrograde may affect you, download the worksheet.
So, what’s your Mercury Retrograde story?
