7 - The Truth about Mercury Retrograde

Here’s the truth: Mercury is retrograde a l-o-t. In this episode, learn how to make friends with Mercury retrograde so you don’t have to put your life on hold. Listen for my top Mercury retrograde strategies and what you can expect from the August 2024 retrograde.

In this episode:

• Mercury retrograde basics
• My favorite Mercury retrograde strategies
• Overview of Mercury retrograde August 2024
• Mercury retrograde in Virgo
• Mercury retrograde in Leo

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Transcript

Hi, I'm Claire Gallagher, and this is Third House Gossip, where we spill the astrological tea. So pour something delicious and let's chat. This podcast is sponsored by me. So to support the show and support yourself, come see me for an astrology reading. Just head to astrologywithclaire. com. That's astrology with C L A I R E dot com. 

Hi, Astro Lover. Welcome back to the podcast. I am very excited to be able to talk today. Yes, you heard me correctly because I started this podcast and then promptly lost my voice for quite a while and couldn't record any new episodes. Ain't that just the life. Wild timing. I mean, I could really psychoanalyze that, but I'm going to, um, not do that.

And we're going to move on to our topic for today, which is Mercury retrograde, all things retrograde, the truth about Mercury retrograde. And I love this transit. I think it's so useful. It gets a really bad reputation, which is why I like to talk about it so much because we can kind of debunk some of those myths and turn this on its head and make mercury retrograde fun and helpful.

So today we're going to start with mercury retrograde basics so that we all know what we're talking about. And then we're going to talk about strategies or what to do when mercury is retrograde. Notice that I didn't say what not to do. There's enough out there that tells you what not to do.

I'm a doer, so I want to know what kind of action I can take during this time. And that is what we're going to talk about today. And we'll finish up with themes for mercury retrograde for August of 2024. And they're going to be two distinct themes this year because mercury retrograde is going to be straddling two different signs, Virgo and Leo. But more on that in a bit. 

So here's the truth. Mercury is retrograde a lot. Depending on how the calendar year divvies up, it is retrograde about four times per year. Three weeks at a pop. So that's about three months out of the entire year. So it really is best to make friends with this transit and understand how it can help us. 

So first things first, what's a retrograde? And what I'm about to say can apply to any retrograde planet, not just mercury. So a retrograde is essentially a slowing down. A planet has stopped in the sky. It's made a U turn, and then it's retracing its steps at a much slower pace. So there's this theme of delay. Or, if you like, and I like, conscious pausing, taking our time. 

There's also the theme of retracing. So we've already been through this part of the Zodiac. This planet has already been to this territory and it's visiting it a second time. So it has an opportunity to redo maybe what it did before. It can make different choices, or it can revisit and go, huh, maybe this is a little different than what I thought the first time.

Retrogrades are also opportunities to take an alternative approach, an alternative route. It's different than the status quo. We're not moving forward. We're not doing business as usual. We're doing things a little bit creatively because maybe we don't have all the tools we need or all the energy we want or what have you. And so we have to do things a little bit differently than usual.

Mercury is the planet of communication. So anything spoken or written or exchanged in the ether belongs to Mercury. Mercury is also really into details as well as organization and systems. And so when mercury retrograde occurs, these are the areas that have a little bit of that slowdown or a little bit of that retracing energy.

Mercury is also into paperwork, it's into studying. It's also about how you think. As well as your information hygiene, if you will, what you're allowing to come in and what's going out. Mercury is also a planet of commerce and exchange, and so when mercury retrograde occurs, there can be changes in how we do business. And of course, there's also technology and travel, which ping back to the classic mercury retrograde significations of, you know, plane delays, car breakdowns, that kind of stuff.

So, imagine you're walking to your favorite cafe to do some work, and as you're walking, you begin a mental checklist to make sure you have everything you need. Phone? Check. Wallet? Check. Journal? Yep. Laptop? Got it. Headphones? Not so sure. I think I packed them in the inside pocket, or maybe I left them on my desk. Can I work without my headphones today? Gosh, I don't know. 

So while you're having this conversation with yourself, you begin to slow down. And finally, you decide there's absolutely no way you can concentrate without your headphones. So you stop right in the middle of the sidewalk and check your bag. And guess what? They're not there. So, of course, you turn around and you head home. You retrace your steps. And that is exactly what Mercury Retrograde is like. 

But there's another way this story could go. Maybe you decide, you know what, I'm gonna take the risk of working without my headphones, and I'm gonna keep walking. And you get to the cafe, and wouldn't you know, everybody and their brother, every crying baby, and the whole high school football team decided to get a latte all at the same time. 

 Or it could be like what happened to me the other day at one of my favorite cafes. I was sitting outside in the courtyard and this guy with this huge hose came through and he was like, so sorry to disturb y'all, but uh, we've got to empty the grease trap. It might be a little smelly. And that was an understatement. Your friend was out of there in a hot minute. It was so gross and needless to say, I didn't get any work done there.

 So you get the idea. With mercury retrograde, you're doing your best to focus, you're doing your best to concentrate, but sometimes it just takes you three times as long to do whatever you were going to do. You can still get the work done, but you have to use some creative solutions with a hefty side of patience.

Let's move on to my favorite mercury retrograde strategies.

So strategy number one is to wait it out. So this is just taking a pause on something until the retrograde passes. That's perfectly reasonable and okay. So I've done this plenty of times as both a choice and sometimes not as a choice, but it usually works out for the better.

And I want to be clear that mercury retrograde is occurring in one part of your chart, and it might be activating a couple more, but it's not happening in the whole chart. My point is, you don't have to stop living your life. There's just one area, or maybe two, that Mercury retrograde is focused on, and those are the areas where you might want to pause consciously and take your time.

The second Mercury retrograde strategy is to do it differently. So you don't have to completely stop what you're doing during a retrograde, but you may need to come at it from a different angle, especially if you keep getting stuck, and that's really not uncommon during these times. So if you feel like you're coming up against a wall, and pausing isn't an option, because it's not always an option, doing it differently might mean doing things backwards, like literally reversing the order, or coming at it from the side, or trying an approach that you've just never done before. Really think creatively about how you could approach the work that you always do in a fresh way. 

And of course, this doesn't have to be about work. This can be about anything in life. So, for example, the other day, I was like, I have this intuitive hit to take my neighborhood walk backwards. And something as silly as doing that can open up your brain in a fresh, new way.

The next strategy is to go with the slow. So you have permission to stop fighting against a retrograde and just slow down if you want to. Sometimes I like to think of a planet's retrograde cycle as each planet's opportunity to go on vacation and recharge. So Mercury is going on vacation. So when you think about it that way, it's not so scary, right?

So, sure, you can try to hustle during a retrograde, you can knock yourself out, and I've done it plenty of times, but you may actually knock yourself out, meaning you may feel like you're hitting tons of walls and unnecessary setbacks. So if you just chill out and go with the slow, and remember, it's only temporary, you have the potential to remove all that unnecessary suffering in an instant.

Another thing you can do to go with the slow is to create buffers in your schedule. Now I'm not talking hours of time, I'm talking little minutes, like five minutes. Five minutes at the end of something, five minutes at the beginning of something, less or more if you have time, for you to just integrate or complete a task because sometimes things do just take a little bit longer during a retrograde And so giving yourself ample space to complete something or to digest what you've already done is a really kind thing to do

Another strategy for mercury retrograde is to beta test. So this is an excellent, proactive retrograde thing to do. I've used retrogrades many times to beta test like a class or a service or another project that I just wasn't sure about. It's a low pressure way to gather information about something you're interested in doing without putting too much risk in up front in the form of energy or time.

So, again, a retrograde doesn't mean you have to sit on your hands and do nothing. You can test things out and see what works and what doesn't, and frame it as an experiment. So these are wonderful chunks of time for trial and error.

And then of course, there are the three R's, reduce, reuse, and recycle. So by reduce, I literally mean considering reducing your workload if possible, especially if the retrograde is affecting like the 10th house or the midheaven. So in my experience, we tend to have a little bit more limited bandwidth during retrogrades or our bandwidth fills up faster. So I like to be kind to myself and preserve my brain a little bit by consuming less outside info and by removing things that are just extra pressure.

By reduce, I also mean simplify, so you can clean something up or refine something or make it simpler, like edit a document, clean up the files on your computer, or put the finishing touches on some type of proposal. You're not necessarily starting something new, but you're freshening up something you've already begun.

Speaking of, retrogrades are my fave times for reviewing all of the things I've already made and considering if there's anything I'd like to dust off and refresh. For example, I'm refreshing a lot of material in this episode from many classes and things I've done in the past on Mercury Retrograde.

 If you're a business owner like me, you may have felt the pressure that it's just not enough to do our jobs anymore, but now we have to be full time content creators too and make multiple social posts and blogs and free content all the time.

And it's just so much and too much. No, thank you. So whether it's old social content or finding your notes from college, or searching for last year's recipe stash, whatever it is, find something that you can reuse so that you don't have to start from scratch.

All right. So hopefully that got you thinking and feeling a little bit more empowered and in control when it comes to mercury retrograde. And those tips can be used for any mercury retrograde at any time. And they can also be used for any retrograde of any planet PS.

 So let's transition to talking about the current Mercury retrograde, August 2024. Mercury will be retrograde from August 5th to August 28th, and it's going to station retrograde at the fourth degree of Virgo, and it's going to shimmy backwards all the way to the 21st degree of Leo, where it will station direct on August 28th.

So because Mercury retrograde is straddling two signs, it's also going to be straddling, at least in the whole sign house system, it's going to be straddling two houses in your birth chart as well. So I want you to find your birth chart and check where Virgo is and where Leo is. And these are the two themes that Mercury retrograde are going to be about for you.

 So for example, let's pretend you have Virgo on your second house. That means you're a Leo rising, and you have Leo on your first house. So Mercury retrograde for you is going to be about second house and first house stuff, which could be money, and then self expression or vitality.

 Or, let's pretend Virgo is on your 7th house and Leo is on your 6th house. So the themes are going to be relationship and then work or daily routine. So find that in your chart and if you need a little help, don't forget about the houses episode that I did earlier and that'll flesh out those themes for you.

Mercury will be retrograde in Virgo for about 10 days and retrograde in Leo for about 14 days. So it's not exactly even, but it's a good chunk in both signs. Mercury retrograde is about asking questions and getting curious. So you'll notice throughout the themes, I've sprinkled a lot of reflection questions that I want you to write down and take with you throughout the retrograde.

Let's start with Mercury retrograde in Virgo. I'm calling this the classic Mercury retrograde, and this time period is from August 5th to 14th.

The first theme I came up with is revisiting the details one more time. So, Mercury in Virgo, regardless of what direction it's traveling, is extremely detail oriented. It likes to make lists, it likes to check those lists off, it likes to make schedules, it wants all of the info, and it wants to sort it.

So this is a really great time to double check that the dates and the times or the agenda that you set maybe a few weeks ago still work and still feel good to yourself. I really want you to take your time. You know, don't rush yourself revisiting the details. I really want you to play the whole tape through.

So to flesh this out with an example, let's pretend you're a service based provider and you've created this new service and you're really excited about offering it to your clients and you're just not quite sure that the length of time or the price or the agenda is exactly how you want it to be. So revisiting those details one more time during mercury retrograde is a great thing to do.

It's also, remember beta test, it's also perfectly wonderful to get a few close clients and say, Hey, I'm trying this new thing. Do you want to try it with me and see how it feels? And that'll really let you embody the details and see if they still work and feel aligned for you. And remember, it's okay to change your mind. And honestly, that's a lot of what we do during Mercury retrograde is we see things differently. And so we decide to make different decisions. 

Thinking critically about efficiency is another Mercury retrograde theme in Virgo. So as a Virgo sun, I feel like I can really agree that Virgo likes to do things excellently, but it also likes to do those things efficiently and rather quickly. This is a really good time to think about how the systems and stuff that we've created in our life could work better in the future. How can you reduce excess work or excess steps and really streamline something? Really think about how you could be more supported, more efficient, and more powerful by making things easier on yourself.

Another theme of Mercury Retrograde in Virgo is reorganizing a system. So, whether it's a spice cabinet or a morning routine or something in business operations, I want you to think, what can you do now to make this easier later on?

So for me, for example, this is occurring in my 10th house of career, and I'm wanting to synthesize and reorganize all of the many notes that I've taken during my hundreds and hundreds of client sessions into something that I can access whenever I want, like a notebook of interpretation or a little Claire encyclopedia that has all of my thoughts about certain transits and certain planets and certain placements. So go ahead and think about a system in your life that you're craving a little bit more organization around and how you can pay attention to that over the next few weeks.

While Mercury is retrograde in Virgo, Venus is going to come up next to it and give it a kiss. So this is going to happen on August 7th at the 3rd degree of Virgo. And so there's going to be a more collaborative or relational component kind of occur on this day within Mercury Retrograde's themes. So for example, you might want to start thinking about how might these restructurings and reorganizings that I'm doing affect other people in my life.

Or you might want to share what you've been revamping with somebody else. You might be lost in the details and really struggling to see clearly and this is a really great day to ask somebody for help 

Venus can also bring a creative component to Mercury retrograde where we might be revamping something artistic or creative. It's also an invitation to kind of get out of the retrograde funk by doing something pleasurable and fun for yourself.

And then on August 14th, Mercury will sashay back into Leo where it will finish out the rest of its retrograde. So this is August 14th through 28. The theme that came to mind for this section of the retrograde is re clarify. So Leo is ruled by the sun, the bright, beautiful orb that gives us the ability to see what is here. And when Mercury is in the sun's sign or in Leo, it has a real gift for seeing clearly, having clarity, having vision.

So when mercury retrograde is occurring in Leo, we're going to start talking and thinking about our vision for the future, for ourselves, what we really want. And we will begin to re clarify that for ourselves and maybe for others. This might involve restating to ourselves and restating to others who we are and what we are willing to do or maybe not do.

A reflection question I have for you during these days is what was the original vision behind this and does it still feel authentic?

Leo is about the individual. It's about the I, the me, and there's nothing wrong with that. While Mercury is hanging out, taking its slow time here, I want you to think about your personal priorities. What's really important to you? And if your actions and words and your thoughts are mirroring and backing up what you said was important.

Another opportunity that we have with Mercury retrograde in Leo is to revamp our self talk. I want you to begin noticing, how do you speak about yourself to other people? Does there need to be some type of adjustment there or tweak in the words that you use to describe who you are? Can you choose words that are more bright or more confident? It's a great time to remember your brightest and shiniest parts and to get comfortable saying out loud what those things are.

On August 18th Mercury retrograde will make probably its most important and pivotal aspect during the retrograde and that is a square to Uranus. There can be a real sense of urgency when Mercury and Uranus interact, they both rule the mind, they both are really excitable. And so when they interact in a tense way, like a square, it can be a little bit uncomfortable. We can want to rush, we can want to speed through things. And so the retrograde pace can feel a little frustrating. We might want to kick against it a little bit.

When Uranus is involved, there can be changes in direction that come on rather suddenly. There can be reversals where we're having to do things backwards and in a new way out of nowhere. So this is one of those days where you may notice you've changed your mind about something. And again, that's totally okay. Mercury retrograde is about changing our mind, changing our thinking.

You may have a new idea pop into your mind, or you may take a new approach with something, but it's going to take a little elbow grease and a little effort because of this square.

August 18th is a busy day for Mercury retrograde as the Sun will also make a conjunction with Mercury retrograde at the 26th degree of Leo. So this ushers in the halfway point of Mercury retrograde. And this is one of my favorite pieces of the retrograde. Of course, it happens every time. If you didn't know now, you know, and I like to think of this day or this collection of hours surrounding this aspect as a clarifying point.

If I've been really itching to roll out something new during mercury retrograde or implement something. I allow myself to do it on the cazimi day, which is when the sun makes a conjunction to mercury retrograde, because we have access to a little bit more wisdom than maybe we have the week prior during the retrograde shenanigans. There's a little bit more light to see where we're going and what we're doing.

August 24th is our final aspect for Mercury retrograde, and that is Mars sextile Mercury at the 22nd degree of Leo. So this is kind of a lively aspect. I really like the way it feels. Sometimes when Mars and Mercury can interact, it can feel a little bit like Mercury and Uranus, where it's very excitable, maybe a little urgent. But because it's a sextile, I think it's going to feel a little bit more playful and curious than urgent. You might be preparing to put your new clarity into action. So really taking what you've learned over the retrograde, what systems you're ready to roll out, what changes you're ready to make and putting some real energy behind those things, getting ready to implement them.

You might also have a surge of energy where you're finally ready to do something that you've been procrastinating on. And I know I've been procrastinating on a couple things, so I'm looking forward to a little Mars shot to my Mercury retrograde on the 24th. 

All right, Astro lover, that is it for me. I am wishing you a wonderful mercury retrograde where all your organizational dreams come true and we'll talk soon.