My natal Mercury is Retrograde. It’s been my experience that a natal Mercury retrograde confers a little bit of protection against the more wily and troublesome aspects of that particular form of time dysphoria. I usually don’t have terrible Mercury retrogrades. I mean, it’s not always smooth sailing! I’m still impacted by the troubles that center around groups of people or other people (travel for example isn’t just about me, but about all of us moving through the world together). But my own shit stays mostly together.
That said, this particular retrograde stationed directly on top of my natal Mercury Retrograde in Leo in my first house and oh boy am I feeling it! It’s been foolish errors and troubles for weeks now, starting with the Mercury shadow. The retrograde station itself was marked by a difficult social experience that made me feel vulnerable and scattered. My very existence and meaning (first house, right?) was called into question professionally. An error in last month’s planner was brought to my attention the other week and I made a truly embarrassing error in the August planners (I just rerolled them, so grab a new copy members!).
I feel exposed and vulnerable. I feel out of synch and confused. I cleaned out my guestroom for a guest that didn’t materialize and now my office is complete chaos! I’ve had a series of unexpected migraine headaches. I desperately want to hide in a hole, eschewing all obligations and requirements and not come out until the ACTUAL Autumn equinox. Ironically, part of the mix up was trying to get ahead (during a retrograde! what was I thinking? I should know better!) and do two planner months at once.
I’m sharing this because, well, I think it’s actually valuable to hear. We ALL have times when things aren’t going well: when our friends hurt us, when we fuck up, when we fight with our loved ones, when we can’t seem to focus. And YES, being organized and having your shit together can help! I’m incredibly grateful to past me for having systems in place, for having some of my work done ahead of time, for having templates and context I can lean on. Because I need that now. But that doesn’t mean I’m exempt from any difficulty in my life.
Now, my personal rule is that I don’t take financial advice from poor people, I don’t take love advice from lonely people, I don’t take planning advice from disorganized people, and I don’t take magical advice from people who’s lives are on fire. That’s just baseline self-protection because the world is full of shitty advice. But I don’t only take advice from perfect people because there are NO perfect people. And how people deal with their imperfections and failures and mess-ups tells me a lot about who they are. We all want to put our best foot forward in the world. I’m going to continue to try to do my best and I hope you’ll forgive me if my best is a little wonky this week… and — more importantly — forgive yourself when things are difficult and wonky. Because we all need that.
