I have been asked by several clients to give a heads-up regarding the times of Mercury retrograde in this year of 2018.
Mercury retrograde seems to have entered the basic understanding of the general populace.
A client in Chicago once called me and exclaimed that a reporter on the local evening news announced that there must be Mercury retrograde since he had never seen so much traffic congestion and accidents in Cook County as he was witnessing at that time. In deed Mercury was retrograde.
Mercury retrogrades are those times when Murphy’s Law — whatever can go wrong, could go wrong — seems in effect.
Since Mercury is related to communications, thought processing and travel, whenever Mercury goes retrograde those areas are especially prone to having major problems.
Things are most convoluted at those times when Mercury is turning motion, whether from direct to retrograde or from retrograde to direct motion. It takes some time for us to get our sea legs with the dramatic shift in the energy.
It is important to recognize that the planet Mercury does not actually change direction. But where we stand on planet Earth it appears as though planets, at times, are moving backward.
This appearance of backward motion, or retrograde motion, is similar to the optical illusion of being on a faster-moving train that is parallel to a slower-moving train. Our perspective from the faster-moving train is the optical illusion that the slower-moving train is moving backward. So too with the planets. There are times when different planets appear to be moving backward, or going through retrograde motion.
When a planet is direct, those energies move forward and progress their energies in our lives. When a planet is retrograde, we have the opportunity of going back over an area, to see if we really ‘got it’, to see if we need to rework it or need to refine it. As in life, the law of three is operational. We go through something as a planet moves direct, have the opportunity to review it or go back over it as the planet retrogrades, then finish it or complete that particular phase as the planet goes direct and goes through that area of the wheel the third time over.
We’re often just not thinking right when Mercury is retrograde.
More than once during Mercury retrograde, people are likely to leave voicemail messages without leaving their return phone number. Or letters go out without stamps on. Or checks are filled out but not signed.
Mercury retrogrades are not great times to sign contracts or arrive at agreements, since some significant detail is often left out or not addressed. If you can avoid signing important documents or avoid making expensive purchases during this time, it would be wise to do so. However, if you have to sign contracts at this time, be certain to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.
I also suggest that if you know you have to sign a contract or close a deal during Mercury retrograde, that you do a symbolic ‘dress rehearsal’ before the actual signing or closing prior to Mercury turning retrograde. Get a form, put in all the particulars and sign it as though it were the legal binding document. Doing so can help mitigate the liabilities of the ‘real’ signing or closing during Mercury retrograde.
As Mercury is also related to transportation, travel during Mercury retrogrades can prove difficult — delays, accidents, postponements are all part of the possible scenarios. Right before and right after Mercury turns direction, watch the traffic reports. There tend to be more accidents, more breakdowns, more transportation delays.
There are usually three Mercury retrogrades, although sometimes four, in each year.
In this year of 2018, Mercury will be retrograde from:
1. March 22nd to April 15th
2. July 26th to August 19th
3. November 16th to December 6th
These are times when we have to be careful in regard to what we say, how we say it and any important decisions we might make.
The one Mercury retrograde to be especially careful with will be the November – December retrograde when Mercury turns retrograde in Sagittarius, a Sign of Detriment for Mercury where Mercury is not comfortable with a liability of being incredibly diffuse.
Not quite as significant as the Mercury retrograde itself, it is also wise to be careful during those times of the Mercury retrograde ‘shadow’, that period of time when Mercury has turned direct and continues to the Sign and degree when Mercury turned retrograde. During this year of 2018, the Mercury retrograde ‘shadow’ extends from:
1. April 15th to May 3rd
2. August 19th to September 2nd
3. December 6th to December 24th
I’m not a ‘shutter the windows, bar the door’ type of person, but having a heads-up regarding Mercury retrograde and the Mercury retrograde ‘shadow’ are times to be extra vigilant, aware and mindful to some of the liable confusions and frustrations this energy configuration might entail.
A particular energy configuration that can prove incredibly disruptive, whether Mercury is retrograde or direct, is a bad connection, adverse aspect, between Mercury and Uranus. The squares and oppositions between these two, even the conjunction, can prove highly problematic and are on my list of ‘no fly’ dates.
Years ago a client called me up to tell me that I had ‘predicted’ the crash of TWA flight 800 on July 16th, 1996. I corrected him and said that I had suggested he not fly on that date, my reasoning being that Mercury was opposing Uranus on that day. Needless to say, not all air flights crashed on that day and his flight out of JFK might have been delayed or affected by the TWA crash but he was not scheduled for flight 800.
Adverse aspects, bad connections, between Mercury and Uranus can ratchet up problems with air flights and also high technology issues.
Days in 2018 to be aware of for such bad connections and days I would avoid flying are:
1. January 27th – 28th
2. May 13th
3. June 30th
4. October 10th
As indicated above, not every flight on those days is going to crash. Astrology provides us heads-up regarding the energies operating, and with bad connections, adverse aspects, between Mercury and Uranus there is a liability of problems with air travel, travel in general, computer issues and other high tech foul-ups.
Astrology is all about timing, as is life.
Two Classic Mercury retrogrades:
I. US Presidential Election 2000
Confusion and lack of clarity are key elements of Mercury retrograde. A classic Mercury retrograde was indeed the 2000 US Presidential Election. Mercury turned retrograde the third week of October and turned direct on the evening of Tuesday, November 7th, Election Day in 2000.
Communications were certainly off. And clarity was certainly lacking.
We saw it with the outcome of the election and with the debacle in its aftermath. As though watching reruns of the Keystone Kops, we saw it in the reporting of election returns on Election Night, as the omniscient News media first called Florida for Gore, then later retracted, then went back and forth, before asserting that Florida was too close to call. New Mexico was another state that flip-flopped.
The US Presidential election of 2000 was eventually decided by one vote, the vote of US Supreme Court Justice Kennedy.
Despite the fact that the Democrat candidate Al Gore received half a percent more in popular vote than Republican candidate George W. Bush, the electoral vote was decided by the way the votes in the state of Florida were counted.
In forthcoming US history, the election of 2000 will be hotly argued. Perhaps a few more years down the road, there will be the asterisk to the election with the caption — * it happened during Mercury retrograde.
The entire US election 2000 seemed very classic of Mercury retrograde.
II. Mercury Retrograde of March 19th – April 12th, 2005
This Mercury retrograde was a doozy, as if none of them ever is. There were three examples that people got to witness during this particular Mercury retrograde:
1. The first well-witnessed example of this Mercury retrograde occurred on Saturday, the 19th, the day that Mercury was turning retrograde. The New York Daily News [with the 7th largest U.S. newspaper circulation of more than ¾ million papers at the time], which had been touting its “Scratch ‘N Match” game for a year, misprinted one of the winning numbers to the game, leading thousands of people who played the game to mistakenly believe they had the winning numbers and had won $100,000.00. Not so, thanks to a printing error. And what an uproar it created.
Remember: Miscommunications and mix-ups are key elements of Mercury retrograde.
2. The second example of this Mercury retrograde played out on Fox television’s reality show “American Idol”. The phone numbers for viewers to pick their favorite contestant were incorrectly displayed during the Tuesday show, necessitating a revote during the show on Wednesday and an additional “Idol” program having to be broadcast on the Thursday.
3. The third well-witnessed example of this particular Mercury retrograde was England’s Prince Charles whose plans for a Friday the 8th wedding had to be rescheduled for Saturday the 9th due to the funeral of Pope John Paul II on the 8th.
I repeat that I’m not a ‘shutter the windows, bar the door’ type of person, but I have seen the various problems associated with Mercury retrograde and with adverse aspects, bad connections, between Mercury and Uranus.
Use this information as you like. As I have been asked by several clients about the Mercury retrograde and ‘no fly dates’ for 2018, I have provided the information.
Remember Murphy’s Law during a Mercury retrograde: ‘whatever can go wrong, could go wrong’.
