When Mercury is retrograde, it is a time of rethinking, refocusing and re-communicating.
Mercury Retrogradeby Rebecca Brents
When Mercury is retrograde (Mercury Rx -- in shorthand), it is a time of rethinking, refocusing and re-communicating. Metaphorically, Mercury represents your use of intellectual energy; your mental focus; the application of your mind's assets; your ability to read, write, study, talk, absorb information and learn new things; your communication skills, your use of knowledge, your own mind's individual perspective; and your ability to be mobile, to move around, both physically and intellectually.
Mercury Rx, for all its aggravations -- and those can be serious -- is an exercise in thinking better by thinking differently ... breaking out of tunnel-vision into more creative possibilities. That's perhaps the best gift of this pesky little phenomenon. It also symbolizes experiences that are not nearly so charming.
Mercury "goes retrograde" two or three times a year and remains so for about three and a half weeks. It goes retrograde more often than any other planet, but stays that way for a shorter time ... each time. Theoretically, I suppose it balances out. In real life, it often doesn't seem that way.
As with all retrograde symbolism, the emphasis is on the "re ..." -- doing something over, doing something again, doing something differently, doing something else. I said in the opening that as a planetary metaphor, Mercury represents intellectual processes, logical and analytical thinking, communications issues, information and data gathering activities, conversation, all "linguistic exchanges" -- whether written or verbal, and travel.
When Mercury retrogrades, a specific area of your life undergoes all this re-formulation, and benefits in the end from a truly helpful intellectual renewal. If you know where this happening is in your natal chart, you can not only watch the results as they occur ... you can appreciate the construction that's underway ... and maybe even help it along. That is, indeed, the best use to make of this time when greater self-awareness, introspection, pondering, contemplating, meditating and even praying are legitimate and helpful responses to what is taking place -- all over the world.
This article is a summary (about 25%) of a much longer article, Mercury Retrograde -- Rethinking Your Present Direction, available to the Premium Members at Enchanted Spirit. Other articles about Mercury Retrograde are published there as well. The complete version of this article is also published and available to the public in our EBook, "Planets in Retrograde," which offers information on all the planets that contain a retrograde phase as part of their cycle through the Zodiac.
(c) 2007 by Rebecca Brents. All rights reserved.
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