Mercury Retrograde, March 2024

Mercury is slowing down now, as it approaches its station on Monday to go retrograde until 25th April. It entered the ‘pre-shadow period’ on 18th March, which is the period of time it spends going forward through the degrees of the zodiac that it will soon retrograde backwards through. So we might already be feeling the retrograde atmosphere of confusions, delays and misunderstandings which can throw us off track during the three weeks of the retrograde period itself.

How can we use this period constructively? Mercury retrograde reminds us that there may be another perspective to consider, which can be of help if we take the time to think it through. Hermes might trip us up for a reason, asking to look again and look more obliquely, or see more deeply, without our usual preconceptions. We can use the time to look inward into ourselves, review our situation, read around a subject to gain a wider view, allowing the spirit of the trickster to be our guide.

Perhaps appropriately enough, I’m currently preparing for a workshop on Astrology and Alchemy, which I’ll be teaching in the first week of May alongside Clare Martin. In alchemy Mercurius is both the ‘prima materia’ and the ‘philosopher’s stone’ – the beginning and the end of the work – suggesting that the reborn person who emerges at the end of the process was in fact there all along, embedded in us from the start. We may not make a profound transition in the three short weeks of this coming Mercury retrograde, but sometimes seeing things from a different angle, or having the courage to embrace a change of heart, is all it takes to move us forward.

~ Carole Taylor

[Image: Wikimedia Commons - public domain]

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