Mercury is the energy we use to reason, define and make sense of the world around us. It is the mental process that aid us in our everyday life. For example: The dial on the stove is set on high, and the induction ring is red, our reasoning (mercurial energy) tells us not to touch it.
What happens when that transiting energy is seemingly moving backwards in retrograde? Before you start wondering where all the files have gone, why you have misspelled your own name or why you can’t find the words in an argument, take a breather.
It’s hard in this world to slow down. But Mercury going into retrograde for a very specific reason. There is a need to reflect and reevaluate the way you are perceiving and defining your life. It’s important to take the moment to surrender to your human experience, and to look closely on how the change in mental processes has manifested. Otherwise, your mental faculties become strained, focus becomes difficult and your energetic field becomes garbled. Did the files delete themselves? Or did they somehow get dragged to the trash when you weren’t paying attention while trying to open three apps at once from your desktop?
The change doesn’t have to be obvious, it can be subtle. Mercury since 5 March 2019, stayed stationary for 4 days at 29 degrees Pisces, and has moved backwards ever since then, eventually to turn direct on March 28. So if you have your natal chart cast, you can make the following observations. What house cusp does Pisces rule? For me, Pisces begins her rulership of the 2nd House at 26 degrees. Therefore Mercury from 29 back towards 16 travelled from my House of Needs (2) to the House of the Self (1).
What changed for me? I was staying at a completely sustainable community for around 8 days. I wrote, and did a lot of spiritual inner work while I was there. There was a shift occurring in what I thought I needed in order to survive and I was starting to connect with the fact that I don’t need very much. As I was walking around in my environment, and engaging with cows and other natural creatures, it dawned on me that these beings were curious and had a soul, keen on surviving themselves. This idea melded slowly with the new ideas on survival that i had been working through, and it prompted me to observe my body. I started to realise that I was feeling energised and sated after the exclusively vegetarian diet that was encouraged in this place. After years of struggling with food, thinking that there was just so much out there tempting me, I made the connection that I can be energised and very satisfied with a diet that I decided could satisfy me, and in that moment, it was a diet that did not centre around eating animals. That way of thinking made a deep resonance to me, and I thought that I will just continue to think this way. I’m not saying that I will never eat meat again, life is too long for absolutes. But my body (1) felt such a change, and it signalled for me a new beginning, a new way of thinking.