In astrology, the planet Mercury represents all things communication, travel, and technology. So when this planet passes by Earth for three weeks — there can be some pretty intense life shifts. During Mercury retrograde, the planet isn’t actually moving backwards like we are often lead to believe. It means that as it’s passing the Earth’s orbit and rounds the bend, it appears to stop and spin backwards. It gives the illusion that the planet is moving backwards. Which is why this is really a doozy.
During this time, you really have no choice but to get in touch with your inner self. Whether you like it or not, you must get in touch with your inner self. You might find more clarity about what you need to let go of in your life during this time. Or it might cause more murkiness for the vision of your future plans. A lot of that depends on your zodiac sign.
So, let me tell you five reasons why Mercury retrograde has such a bad reputation for you. And maybe this awareness will help you get ahead of the pending destruction!
Aries: You’re An Avoider
1. You like to act like a know-it-all on things you just read the first section of the Wikipedia article for years ago and Mercury retrogress exposes you.
2. You have made a lot of mistakes in the past and prefer to think of every day as a new you instead of remembering the many times and a multitude of ways you have screwed up.
3. Everyone at home and work is mad at you because you are never the one to take out the trash in either of those two places.
4. You hate getting caught up in drama and don’t see why people are getting so upset. You don’t even remember everything you’ve said to get what you want so it’s really weird when other people do.
5. You actually don’t care about communication at all, as long as people do what you want them to so this is just a hurdle that could be avoided if people listened to you.
Taurus: You’re Perpetually Confused
1. You hate being confused. Plants are not confused about their role in the great cosmos and neither are rocks and they are both fine. Why should you be confused?
2. You don’t like to talk anyway so this confusion and consequent need to clarify isn’t really working in your favor.
3. You need a shelf so you look for the best deal on Amazon but when it arrives you find out that you’ve gotten what you paid for and it cannot hold more than decorative plastic goods.
4. You honestly have nothing to say to other people as long as they’re chill which, during Mercury retrograde, they definitely are NOT.
5. You literally don’t know how to express love except through your great staying power. So when a partner asks you to show affection, you can only respond by asking “Haven’t I been here?”
Gemini: You Are Thriving, Oddly Enough
1. You actually love Mercury retrograde.
2. Finally, people are as confused as you are usually because don’t humans beings just exist in one plane in infinite levels of scale (like, whaaat??!?)??
3. A startlingly amount of people call you at midnight freaked out about their problems and, why yes, you are more than happy to chat.
4. It doesn’t matter if you forget something necessary because you have fifty backup plans ready and on file. Same with getting lost. You know all the detours to get where you want to go and try them all at once so, if something doesn’t work out, you probably don’t even notice.
5. You weren’t born to be understood so the more bewildered reactions you get, the better you start to feel about all things and self.
Cancer: Your Emotions Are On Blast
1. You have really weird dreams.
2. Real life suddenly doesn’t matter to you anymore — during Mercury retrograde, you only care about fan fiction and your OTP.
3. No one understands how you feel about your OTP because your fandom died in 2006.
4. You start researching cults and conspiracy theories and suddenly realize how worthless living life is when we’re all controlled by the Illuminati.
5. You never forget anything so Mercury retrograde makes you extra paranoid when all the little things from your past that embarrassed you get pushed to the front part of your brain.
Leo: You Realize The World Doesn’t Revolve Around You
1. Your friends betray you.
2. Not only do your friends betray you, but it turns out that they never worshipped you sufficiently in the first place.
3. You want spend a lot of money in order to compensate for your hurt feelings but find out that you only have $2 in your bank account.
4. You start to doubt your full potential when you’ve been sure, from birth, that world domination was somewhere in there.
5. You’re forced to figure out how to achieve your dream while making money instead of just spending money.
Virgo: You Take Time To Show Off
1. You also love Mercury retrograde.
2. During Mercury retrograde, people actually pay attention to you and you get to show them all your accomplishments instead of sitting in your room sewing.
3. All the hours you spent trying figure stuff out start to pay off as Mercury retrograde forces everyone else to try to figure this stuff out too.
4. You love thinking about the past and psychoanalyzing yourself already – Mercury retrograde just gives you time to do it.
5. Losing something or forgetting something gives you time to reorganize your space and re-do your calendar, declutter your computer files, etc.
Libra: You Unravel, Quickly
1. You feel so, so lonely.
2. You hate fighting and Mercury retrograde must know it because, suddenly, you’re in the middle of ten different dramas.
3. You have to take a side in order to figure out how to communicate/resolve and you’d much rather keep a problem alive and kicking as long as you’re safe in the middle ground.
4. You suck at keeping a healthy schedule and getting enough sleep so when Mercury retrograde comes around, you start to quickly and inevitably unravel.
5. The thing you don’t want to confront is right there in your subconscious and you hate looking at it so you have to keep your eyes open at all costs, leading to number 4.
Scorpio: You Create Drama
1. Every time you’ve gotten stood up, it was during Mercury retrograde.
2. During Mercury retrograde, you start to realize that no one is there for you, that you’re born alone and die alone.
3. Sex is not good during Mercury retrograde and you have to figure out why.
4. Anything you were watching under the surface or was planning to maneuver in stealth starts to come out in a blatant, really aggressive way, even if you meant well.
5. Friends suck during Mercury retrograde and you start cutting people out of your life. Eventually, because you’re petty, you have no one left except your mom (maybe) and your cat (who you’re also slightly competitive with), thus reinforcing the dying alone part.
Sagittarius: Your Life Turns Into A Black Hole
1. Everyone starts to yell at you during Mercury retrograde, for every little thing, even things that were fine when things were normal and Mercury was direct.
2. People start to talk a lot of shit about you and everyone believes it.
3. Your career hangs on whether you’re willing to admit that you were wrong about something and you hate this.
4. Your relationship also depends on whether you’re willing to come down from your high horse and you also hate this because (secretly) you love horses more than your partner.
5. You firmly believe that bad luck only comes to those to ask for it and, inevitably, at some point during Mercury retrograde, you get a day where you drop your phone, lose $20, get in two fights, break a leg, and accidentally pee yourself. At that point, you can only blame yourself.
Capricorn: Your Health Takes A Toll
1. Normally, you think you’re so clever for only spending $20 on food a week eating disgusting stuff but during Mercury retrograde, you suddenly start to not feel so well.
2. Really, you literally get sick and have to spend a day off from work missing something really important or losing out on making more money than you initially “saved.”
3. You have to spend a day screaming at people who just will not listen and will never listen.
4. Other people question your efficiency because you’ve spent the last two days having diarrhea at home and you have to explain why you actually got a lot done.
5. Actually, you’re still right because self-care, like showering or eating, is uncompensated labor performed to maintain a functional society. It’s not your fault that no one else understands where you’re coming from.
Aquarius: Confusing Shit (Like Emotions) Happen
1. Someone inevitably falls in love with you or you fall in love with someone.
2. It makes you feel really icky because you’re used to spending all your time researching either quantum physics or the forgotten anime of the 1990’s.
3. You have sex and you’re not entirely what it means or how you’re supposed to act now. You weren’t even really sure how to have sex and had to look it up on Wikihow.
4. You tried the Wikihow page for “How to show affection” years ago and it didn’t work because of your resting bitch face.
5. Someone inevitably tries to make you have fun at some point during Mercury retrograde and you’re not really sure what that is.
Pisces: Everyone Seems To Hate You
1. You can’t depend on anyone during Mercury retrograde.
2. You are also suddenly confronted by five separate people during Mercury retrograde about how you relied completely on another person to get something done and didn’t help out at all, except for ruminating on “big ideas” and writing poetry about what was happening.
3. You don’t see why no one is willing to understand that you were just a victim in every situation you’ve ever been in.
4. You’ve forgotten everything that you were supposed to remember and no one is waiting for you when you go back to get it.
5. People in your family get mad at you and they tell you that you’re responsible for several of their complexes before you get to tell them the same thing.
What Do You Think?