This is your friendly astrological weather forecaster letting you know that it’s time to batten down the hatches and prepare yourself for another Mercury Retrograde!

I’m not one of those “Oh, the Stars made me do it!” types, so don’t look for sympathy from me when the turds hit the rotating oscillator.  And I’m not one to panic and wig-out just because dear Mercury is going retrograde.  However, I have learned from long experience that keeping track of when planets switch directions keeps me from being tossed about in the energetic shift.  In this case, keeping track of dear Mercury ensures that I’m not the one stuck in the traffic jams, and I’m not the one late for work, and I’m not the one trying to find my files (because I backed them up on my own just to be safe).

In other words, when it comes to Astrology, an ounce of Star-Prevention is worth a pound of Oh-Shit-Cure.  Mercury is the retrograde we get to experience the most often, happening three times per year on average.  We’re getting just a touch of an extra retro period this year as we have a final round of Mercury-in-reverse happening around Yule.  Yes, you heard that correctly — Mercury retrograde at Yule.  I’m going to suggest you get that holiday shopping done EARLY, friends.

But first, we have Mercury Retrograding in September.  Take a deep breath.  It’s easy to handle.  The key is in the RE- prefix on the word Retrograde.  As long as you RE-think that email before you send it and RE-consider snapping someone’s head off before you do it, your communications will be fine.  As long as you RE-view that project before popping it off to your manager and RE-plan your mornings to leave just a little earlier in case of traffic snafus, you’ll find very little affects the daily grind.

Mercury Retrograde actually provides us with an excellent chance to go back over old ground.  Whether it’s RE-editing something we’ve written, RE-solving to finish up unfinished projects, or RE-establishing communication with old friends or family members, Mercury allows us the opportunity to go back and pick up a few loose ends we might have dropped.  It’s a great time to RE-minisce or RE-read favorite books.  It’s just not the best time to start anything new or make any huge commitments.  What you try to start when Mercury is in Retrograde might feel good in a nostalgic way, but when Mercury goes direct again, you’ll often find yourself realizing you’d actually outgrown whatever desire made you do that in the first place.

Mercury Retrogrades from September 6th through September 29th of this year, but you’ll feel its effects most strongly from around August 26th through September 6th and again from September 26th through October 5th.  Why so early and so late?  During these times, Mercury begins to “slow down”, or seems to from our earthly vantage point.  This period is called “going through its Storm”, and that should give you enough clues as to what’s going on right there.  The planet is having to shift gears and bring its mass to a standstill, then reaccelerate in reverse only to have to stop and throw it in Drive again three and a half weeks later.  So, while all that shifting and starting and stopping and reversing and accelerating is going on, things get a little messy down here.  Again, the planet doesn’t actually go backwards… it’s more that the Earth is passing by Mercury from our vantage point and it feels like the gears in the Celestial clock are grinding a bit.

I’ve had plenty of people tell me that astrology is rubbish.  Ok, fine.  Whatever.  I’ve seen it in action.  I’ve been married to IT guys or in relationships with IT guys most of my life.  I can tell you that I marked Mercury Retrogrades on my calendar because computers tend to go haywire and have glitches during Mercury Retro.  I knew that I’d be an IT widow (ie, left home alone because the servers were down) more often during Mercury Retrograde than any other time.  For me, personally, I have ten years of proven observation that my life runs far more smoothly when I hold up my finger and gauge the astrological winds blowing rather than just giving the stars “the finger”.

So, if you have anything you want to get started before the Retrograde period, between now and August 21st is a good time to do it.  Mercury will come out of its shadow (back to the same degree where it went Retrograde) on October 14th.  This is, incidentally, the same day that Jupiter turns Direct after a long summer spent Retrograde.  With the planet of expansion and long-distance travel (Jupiter) and the planet of short-distance travel and communications (Mercury) reaching forward on the same day, expect the last half of October to be a beneficial sling-shot into the future.

I’d be gathering that stone and figuring out what you want to aim for right now.  *smile*

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).