Mercury Retrograde

All planets rotate around the sun in the same direction and that fact never changes; however, many people believe that the planet Mercury is moving backwards in a retrograde. This, however, is simply an illusion as the planet Mercury orbits the Sun at a faster rate than the Earth. Meaning that a few times a year, Mercury catches up to Earth and passes us on our journey around the Sun. When Mercury makes this pass, from our perspective, it appears to slow down, stop completely, and go backwards. This backwards movement is identified as the retrograde period, but the planet is only appearing to move backwards due to an optical illusion formed from Mercury passing Earth in its orbit between the Earth and the Sun. This orbit can be illustrated by the similar idea that if a car were to pass you on the road and suddenly slow down, your brain would momentarily be tricked into thinking that the car was moving backwards.

Mercury typically goes into retrograde three times a year, but every few years, it goes into retrograde four times. As Mercury is the planet associated with all forms of communication, including how we think and how we communicate our ideas and feelings to the world, when this reversal occurs, it can shift our focus away from expressing outwards into expressing inwards. This retrograde period has a way of opening up our eyes to something that we were unable, unwilling or too busy to see. This makes Mercury retrograde a time to review what you are doing instead of jumping into something new.

Poor communication and even technological problems are quite common in this period and due to this shift in focus, and it is warned to not have any surgical or any other type of procedures done to your body in this time in addition to not buying new vehicles, electronic equipment or gadgets, not jumping to conclusions, starting anything new without finishing your to do list, giving mixed messages, believing everything you hear, or spreading rumors (which you shouldn’t do anytime throughout the year). Instead of these things, it is suggested that you review all contracts and legal documents before signing, pause and breathe before speaking, read all emails and documents before you send, track important mail and packages, leave early for any travel and appointments, renew your commitments rather than making new ones, plan reunions with old friends and loved ones, expect to hear from or run into people from your past, get sentimental and reconnect with your roots, finish processing what’s unresolved so you can let it go, and back up your digital data.

While we do not have any scientific evidence yet for Mercury Retrograde’s effect on earth, science has proven certain things when it comes to energy; however, since we manifest what we focus on, it is quite likelier that that is where these unusual experiences during retrograde come from as we set our minds to expect certain things to happen and then subconsciously look for and bring about these things. In an additional note, we are currently now in a period of Mercury Retrograde that began on October 14th and will end here shortly on November 3rd. If you’ve been experiencing some of these signs that are supposedly linked to Mercury’s retrograde, could this concept have some substance? Or is it just our subconscious manifestation of these effects? With the growing extent of science, perhaps one day a more firm conclusion can be drawn, but for today, it remains unknown.