Mindfully Retrograding with Mercury

A plan for engaging Mercury’s messages with intention (and a lot less angst)

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Ah, Mercury! The planet determined to keep us on our toes each time it retrogrades. Often serving as the object of great frustration when things seem to go wrong as Mercury appears to be spinning backward in the sky.

If you haven’t read my previous article about devilifying Mercury Retrograde, you can read it here.

For August 2024, my invitation for working with Mercury Retrograde is particular and focused, because we are in retrograde state most of the month (4th through 27th)!

It goes like this:

Watch for specific, personalized cues

By this, I mean: Watch for specific personalized cues

Mercury rules communication. So while yes, we can often be on the receiving end of general communication wonkiness during a retrograde, Mercury also does a very good job of letting us know what we personally need to pay attention to during these periods.

If you want to have feelings of peace, rather than angst during a retrograde, take time to listen and pin down Mercury’s message for you. It will likely fall into one of these categories:

1. Old relationships
   Usually appearing in the form of a lesson from a past relationship that can still teach you something today. Love, work, family, friend categories are all fair game. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll have an in-person encounter with someone; they might simply pop up unexpectedly in dreams, meditations or conversations. Avatars awaiting your attention.

2. Speed (or more aptly: Slowing Down)

   This is a universal principle of retrogrades. And yet you can look for a specific area of your life in which you need to consciously slow down for a bit to listen more deeply. Look for circumstances where you’ve made mistakes or overlooked things; that often happens when we’re being a little too speedy.

3. Listening
   Much like the Speed category, Mercury Retrogrades almost always involve some lesson about listening more deeply, so watch for areas where you’ve been tuning out or turning away (not so ironically, this goes hand in hand with Slowing Down). If you’ve been ignoring something for a little too long, Mercury will give you clear signs that tell you it’s time to deal with it (the signs are often un-ignorable and not the smallest bit irritating).

4. Speech
   Mercury will call forward any areas in which you are being sloppy, unclear or unkind in your communication with others. Try not to generalize here. Look for specific situations in which you are struggling with words and self-expression, particularly those that are ending in less-than-ideal outcomes.

5. Tech
   Mercury loves to mess with tech. Usually to get you to see where you might be distracting with tech (away from other Mercury messages, perhaps?), so be honest with yourself when assessing. And when something “breaks,” consider that you might need to change your relationship to that particular device, at least temporarily (smart phone, car, TV, air conditioner, etc.). So when you can’t access your email for 6 hours, instead of raging about it, maybe it’s time to pivot and head out for a walk or lunch with a friend?

6. Completions
   For anything that you need to more consciously complete right now, Mercury will insist you attend to the details of that process. Especially if there is a situation that has loose ends, feels a bit icky. Look for the signs that ask you to focus on intentionally tying up those loose ends.

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Commit to the lesson

Once you have a bead on the one or two areas where Mercury is specifically tapping on your shoulder, it’s time to commit. Commit to taking action related to that personalized gift.

You might wonder: How do I know what that action needs to be?

This is where breaking down the specifics of Mercury’s personalized message(s) can be helpful. Here are a couple of examples:

You keep having dreams or memory flashes about an old boss/friendship/lover of yours. The relationship was tense and upsetting for you; you left the situation under duress as a result. Whenever you emerge from these dreams or flashes, you do your best to either ignore them or snarl (again) about how terrible that person was.

MERCURY IS SAYING: Don’t turn away!

TWO POSSIBLE ACTIONS:

1. If you are now in a work/friend/love circumstance that is respectful and kind, your action is to work on letting go of the old hurt and blame, putting that reclaimed energy toward moving forward.

2. If you are in a repeat scenario where you are mistreated in a key relationship, the action is to take a good look at why you might have set yourself up in the same situation again (and how you can unwind from that pattern).

OR

You have multiple instances of “saying the wrong thing” recently that creates tension with your partner or spouse. Less-than-skillful delivery. Blame flying around. Silent treatments or heated exchanges present.

MERCURY IS SAYING: Time to work on your communication skills and not make excuses!

THE ACTION:
Get to the heart of the matter. Take notice as to whether you are “mis-communicating” about one particular topic that is a hot spot for you. Or perhaps you’re upset about something in your life and it’s coming out sideways in communication with your loved one. Either way, it’s time to acknowledge the root of any poor communication and start making conscious changes (apologies, discussion about what’s really going on, taking plenty of time to clearly express what you feel, taking responsibility for your choices).

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To arrive at a good action plan, you have to do a little sleuthing and maybe even take some test runs. Once you find a track that feels right, you’ll more naturally come to see what needs to be rearranged and updated, let go of and fully completed.

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Accept the bobbles and wobbles

Regardless of what you decide to personally tackle during a retrograde, one universal practice is this: Do your best to go with the flow. Wobbling and bobbling welcome.

Mercury Retrograde isn’t out to get you. It’s trying to get your attention, redirect you in some way. The more you receive the personalized Mercury messages and shift your approach (rather than shake your fist skyward in the general direction of Mercury), the more you’ll find yourself aligning with the retrograde energies and taking leaps forward.

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Let me know how the practice goes for you. I hope you’ll come to befriend Mercury more than ever before through this month’s retrograde!

Love coming to you on Mercury’s wings,
Kimberly