MercAlert! MercAlert!  
Mercury Is Retrograde!

Don’t worry, Wonder Woman. It's not you. It's just that time again. Delays, postponements cancellations; screw-ups with trains, boats and planes; trouble with computers, phones and all those other bleeping gadgets!

BECAUSE . . .

Three times a year, for approximately three weeks at a time, Mercury, the planet that rules communication and transportation, lurches into reverse and throws our lives into chaos.

• The ATM swallows your bank card

• The new battery in your car dies

• Your phone mysteriously erases all your texts

• You race to a meeting thinking you’re late; you’re a day early. It was rescheduled. “Didn't you get the text?”

And so it goes.

Sure, these sorts of glitches happen all the time.  But when they happen all at the same time, over what begins to feel like a maddeningly long period, you can bet that Mercury is winging backwards. It’s not that you can’t move ahead now, it’s just harder—like swimming upstream. You exert a whole lot of effort but you don’t get very far.

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO?

• Slow down, go with the flow and reset expectations

• Pad your schedule. If you think that proposal will take one day to finish, plan on three 

• Allow extra time to get to your appointments 

• If at all possible, don't schedule tech roll outs or new product launches during the retro

• Back up your files, back up your files, back up your files!

• AND, because we are in virtual rewind, do things that start with “re,” e.g., reflect, regroup, repair, replace, renew, replenish, rewrite, rehearse, etc. 

AND THEN, THERE ARE THE THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO!

I won’t mince words. This Retrograde is going to be a buster. What's makes it twice as vexing is that Mercury is shifting into reverse while traveling through revved-up Aries. Now we have a backward-moving planet in a forward-moving sign. Can you smell the burnt rubber? Persist in moving ahead now and you’ll end up spinning your wheels—or worse. Piling on, Aries is notoriously impatient, impulsive and hot-headed, arguably the worst temperament in the Zodiac for entering a period of soul-searching and reflection. So how can you survive this roiling juggernaut?

THERE ARE SOME UPSIDES to MERCURY’S RETROGRADE

Sometimes, I actually look forward to this backward period. It's a chance to reconnect with old friends, catch up on pet projects and, just maybe, finish that masterpiece in progress. Here are a couple of more upsides:

The Mercury Retrograde Reveal
You make a happy discovery like my Aries client Keith did. Keith works hard and plays hard. He never looks at his credit card statements.  Who has time?  He just pays them. But once upon a Mercury Retrograde—and upon the advice of his, ahem, sage astrologer—he actually took time to peruse his Visa bill and, lo and behold, he found he’d been double billed for a new kayak. That retrograde review saved Andy $1,100!

From Oh, No! to Aha!
Every Mercury Retrograde offers an "oh, no! to aha!" moment. Here's one from Janet: I was driving to my nephew's graduation party, already running late due to Mercury madness. We were yakking and oh, no! We missed our turn! Worse, there wasn't another exit for miles. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, we reached the next exit. But instead of putting us back on the parkway, the GPS now wanted us to take local roads. We took a chance and, amazingly, found a more direct way. After all that, I was only 5 minutes late. Aha! I've been taking this more scenic route to my brother's ever since.

The Boomerang Effect
The Case of the Missing Case
It’s almost impossible to lose something when Mercury’s Retrograde. I once "lost" a small credit card case at a holiday party. I figured it had fallen out of my jacket when I helped clean up a blizzard of wrapping paper. I called my friends, but they couldn't find it. I could come look myself, if I made it soon: They were leaving for 6 months and already packing. I went back, but no luck. I had held off replacing the cards, convinced the case would turn up. “It can't be lost, Mercury's Retrograde!” But I finally gave in and cancelled them. The very next day, my friends called. They found my case! It tumbled out of a cluster of wrapping paper they used as cushioning to pack boxes! Case found. Case closed.