Saturday 5/31/08--Mercury retrograde

Mercury retrograde can trip us up, but people get too spooked by the ominous warnings of the magazine astrologers.

All planets sometimes appear to backtrack in our sky, called being retrograde, due to our relative motions, the way the car next to you on the freeway seems to fade back as you speed up. At those times their energy influence on us is internalizing and deepening. There's nothing wrong with this, and it can serve us if we accept it.

Mercury is about mental processing and quickness, electric connection, and when it is retrograde the mental tide is flowing backwards, undermining momentum, giving us pause and distracting us with second thoughts. All the typical talk, "bad for communication, things break, plans fall through, don't sign contracts," is true if you don't accept and adjust to unexpected interruptions and shifting changes. Mercury retrograde can make for deep, reflective, powerfully poetic communication, magical connections and fortunate developments. It can even be a good time to sign a contract if you're willing to admit your doubts when they come up and wait until they naturally resolve before moving forward. It's people pushing past anxious feelings that causes all the famous problems. If we give in at every moment, no matter how weird, confused, scrambled or frustrated or it may leave us, the crazy mental stuff sorts itself out, sometimes with surprising rewards.

Mercury goes retrograde for a few weeks several times each year. This one, ending June 19, might be especially challenging since it's happening in Gemini, the last of the three air signs (Libra, Aquarius, Gemini), which seeks mental resolution. Several spiritual influences are in Aquarius, aligning us at the center of awareness.

It's all ok if we accept the unique mental flow of every moment, settled with nature and living with the consequences.