Mercury in retrograde highlights life’s messiness
Sometimes, everything seems to go wrong all at once. It’s less about bad things happening “in threes,” and more about a lot of different things falling apart, somehow at the same time, like a vindictive butterfly knocking over the first of a mile of dominoes, and floating away, laughing.
Could it be “Mercury in retrograde,” the astrological phenomenon, which means that Mercury is moving, essentially, backwards?
Mercury in retrograde — or “Merc in ret” as it’s known across my group texts — is happening now, and was happening when Facebook and Instagram went down last week, or so I heard: As a Capricorn, I am too busy working to be having fun on social media all the time.
Officially, Mercury in retrograde is said to cause problems with logistics and mechanics, usually relating to computers, contracts and travel — astrologers seem to think that everyone is constantly buying laptops and signing contracts, and also, that the average person is far more concerned with going on “romantic getaways” than anyone I know.
It does seem, sometimes, like Mercury in retrograde is actually coinciding with things going wrong, but it’s hard to say, between “observer bias” and self-fulfilling prophecies and the fact that every day for the last few years there’s been some kind of legitimate catastrophe.
If you’ve heard of Mercury in retrograde already, you either believe in astrology, or might, kind of, believe in it.
I’ve always liked what the actress and writer June Diane Raphael said about astrology, on comedian Pete Holmes’ You Made It Weird podcast: “I think it’s just another tool to know yourself.” Or, you really don’t believe in it, but still like reading your horoscope. Identifying with your sun sign is like taking a love quiz, or finding out your Myers-Briggs type or Harry Potter “house”: another small but secretly useful way to get to know, or at least classify yourself. Even cynics like to hear the sound of their own name.
It’s also a way to tell stories, share metaphors and make meaning of the world, part of the long tradition of trying to make sense of a chaotic universe.
When things go wrong during Mercury in retrograde, a believer uses the idea of this cosmic disorganization to assure themselves that whatever bonkers stuff went down on their business trip or with their iPhone wasn’t their fault and was, basically, inevitable. It’s like any other kind of faith in something that can’t be seen: It helps.
I’m somewhere between a casual astrology enthusiast, who talks about their horoscope and Mercury in retrograde the same way I talk about the weather or celebrities, and a horoscope-head, who is willing to get into something that she doesn’t expect to understand if it gets at something that nothing else does.
I’m a Capricorn, but, my moon — which is about the private and emotional self — is in Pisces, which makes me empathic and sensitive and too susceptible to other people. This combination is the astrological equivalent of milk chocolate with a hard candy shell.
What I actually like the most about Mercury in retrograde, and why I’m an enthusiastic texter and tweeter about its effects, is its cosmic acknowledgment that time, and life, isn’t straightforward. It makes explicit that down, messy, unproductive time is inevitable, and should be expected and respected. If anything, Mercury in retrograde, and astrology generally, suggest that life has a rhythm beyond an ever-upward trajectory, and that’s something everyone should believe in.