Spring morning and Mercury retrograde

This was the view out my front window early this morning. Despite a few more flurries, the yards are back to green and the trees have been freed of their snowy load. Such is spring this year, after hardly a winter – except for the wind.

Every year my neighbors and I comment on how odd the weather is, and I am reminded of astrologer talk about how crazy the planetary energies are. Since we are just over halfway between the first set of eclipses for 2022, perhaps I’m not alone in feeling the uncertainty and swirl.

Astrologer Emily Trinkaus will be joining me next Monday, May 16th for another episode of The Natural Wisdom Podcast. We’ll provide a little perspective on this Sunday’s Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse, as well as some of the other shifting energies of this month.

One such change is that of Mercury turning retrograde, i.e. apparently backwards-moving. Even non-astrologers have heard the horror stories of Mercury retrograde, some of which might even be true! It is a good idea to back up your computers in the next day or so, and be a bit extra careful with agreements and communication in general. The general encouragement of Mercury’s back-tracking is to slow down and review whatever part of your life is indicated by Mercury’s transit, i.e. the house or houses where it occurs.

This particular Mercurial journey is in early Gemini moving back into late Taurus over the next few weeks. The retrograde period begins on May 10th and ends on June 3rd, although the periods just before and after the changes in direction are affected as well.

In my case, those signs come in my 11th house of groups and organizations, community, and legacy. I’ll be spending some time contemplating what groups I might want to create, join or leave. I will definitely be paying extra attention to what I say, as well as confirming any agreements to meet up with friends.

Mercury retrogrades tend to point out to me where I get stuck in my head with a story or explanation that may or may not reflect outer reality. With my mind running off on unhelpful tangents, it is much more useful to slow down and take a moment to feel into my intuitive sense of what’s going on. 

At the least, these periods of incomplete information, mixed messages, and scheduling snafus call for greater patience and tolerance. If you’re like me and make up stories in your head about what another person is thinking or feeling, Mercury retrograde offers an opportunity to back up and be curious, rather than sink into judgments.

While there are generally three of these periods in a year, in 2022 we actually get four. We have ample opportunity to reconsider, re-think, review, refine, and rewrite the stories by which we live our lives.

Good luck out there, and take it easy!