Mercury is no longer retrograde! The Mercury retrograde that began on March 22 has ended, two days ago now, with the planet of communication stationing direct again.
We are still in what some call the shadow zone, where Mercury again travels along the path in space it just backed over and gets back to the point where it was when it first went retrograde. We’ll be past that point on May 7.
I’ve been keeping some notes to myself regarding the little phenomena that would only crop up during Mercury retro. I’m going to call these symptoms of Mercury retro — perhaps some of these will sound familiar to others’ experience?
- Finding a lost letter on the bus, stamped and addressed but not yet mailed
- Assigned a bewildering copyediting task, in the form of an article that was hurriedly translated from Japanese
- Learning of a meeting thirty minutes past its start time, after becoming suddenly, completely, inexplicably disconnected from all means of work communication
- After months without incident, my shoelaces are suddenly determined to come untied at least twice a day
- At least two hours dedicated to troubleshooting a new video conferencing system plagued by microphone echoes
- Attempting to print from my browser and getting the content translated into… whatever this is. The language of Mercury?
Most of these things gave me the distinct feeling of my brain — or someone else’s — running in reverse.
The next Mercury retrograde period this year will be at the end of July, just in time for summer travel snafus. Have patience, and double-check everything — not a cure, but it definitely mitigates the effects.