Mercury Retrograde: Thinking Over The “Big Problem”

mercuryrxWhat haven’t you accomplished in the past two months? Is there something that is on hold? A career decision, a critical task, a relationship?

Mercury handles many of our everyday activities, reading, writing, banking, buying, and selling. It is how we reason through a problem, and it is how we communicate to other people. In many ways, this planet, the closest to the Sun, is a facilitator in the transactions of life.

Mercury is trickster, as we learned from his myth. As a precocious infant he stole the sacred cattle, the ancient world’s equivalent of gold bullion, of his brother Apollo infuriating him. Apollo was so ticked at his father’s newest offspring that he hauled the swaddling babe up to Olympus to be judged by the King of the Gods. You have to understand Zeus’ history to fully appreciate what happens next. Zeus had a tenuous power sharing arrangement with Neptune and Pluto, his brothers. Well aware that the balance of power could be tipped to upend his position, he either sidestepped the issue or when cornered took the position of the most powerful god or goddess in the argument. Apollo, as the god of prophesies, was fairly sure, that Zeus would favor him in any judgment. But Mercury was a new god, the god of reason and intellect. Instead of insight coming from the soul, Mercury’s appearance signaled that it came from the mind. This was a shift in human consciousness, perhaps even displaying the shift from the bicameral mind of early humans that perceived thought as the voices of the gods to the self-awareness that humans enjoy today.

Zeus was no fool and he knew the birth of this new god signaled a new way in which humans would interact with the gods and each other. Zeus wouldn’t punish this baby god. Instead he smoothed over the disagreement and in the end the two gods exchanged gifts. Mercury gave Apollo the lyre, which he invented on the day of his birth, and Apollo gave him a golden staff, a symbol of communication with divine forces.

Mercury, the planet of our communication skills and our thinking processes now appears to be moving backward in its obit. We are often cautioned during this retrograde period not to start new projects, buy expensive items, start a new job, and sign a contract. We find that during this period that our perceptions about the terms of the agreements we enter in to are subject to change. Why? Because this is time we should be using not to start things, but to mop up the things we didn’t take care of previously.

Mercury is in Venus ruled Taurus, so the areas of life we are concerned with right now are our resources, financial and otherwise. Taurus seeks to procure and protect, though with the retrograde period, this is often gives way to expending resources to conserve what you have. Thus we often find ourselves having to make critical repairs or replacements to appliances and vehicles. We rethink contracts and ask for different terms. If here is something we’ve neglected to do such as pay a parking ticket, suddenly it become a big problem that needs to be resolved. However, during the retrograde period, we get to sit and cogitate on “the big problem” until Mercury moves forward and we can do something.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about what will concern you under this retrograde period.

For another take on Mercury Retrograde check out Julie Demboski’s site.

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2 Responses to Mercury Retrograde: Thinking Over The “Big Problem”

  1. Julie D says:

    Thanks for the link, Beth! Hope Merc retro is treating you well–jd

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