Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in The Adjustment Bureau - A very Mercury Retrograde kind of movie!

So many of you have struggled with the current Mercury Retrograde… I’ve heard story after story from clients and friends – some of them quite funny and some of them very serious. I’ve had my own misadventures this Retrograde as well! 

When you realize that this Mercury Retrograde period coincided with the New Moon Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius on Nov. 25, the very powerful Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Gemini on Dec. 10 and Uranus going Direct (after 5 months of being Retrograde) at the zero point of Aries, you may begin to understand just how powerful this Retrograde has been. In conjunction with the eclipses it had the potential to be life changing. 

But as of tonight at 8:43 PM Eastern Time Mercury starts to travel forward again and we can begin to get our ducks back into their neat little rows ( or maybe new rows that align with us better) and make sense out of the glitches, accidents, and miscommunications of  the past 3 weeks. Mercury went Retrograde on Nov. 24 – Thanksgiving Day in the United States. I’m sure you’ll look back on that day and laugh about the arguments, travel mishaps and late guest arrivals – once a little more time has passed. 😉

I just want to remind you that if you did experience personal, business, relationship or career issues during the past 3 weeks, they happened either to wake you up to something or to remind you that something needs a little adjusting. Remember the movie The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt? That whole story was like one huge Mercury Retrograde. There was a team of officials who reported to the Universal Master Mind/God – and who behaved and looked like the FBI. These Adjustment Bureau officials were meant to keep people living in line with the course of their destiny. That film brought up all kinds of questions about free will and fate, but setting those questions aside – I tend to look at Mercury Retrograde periods as your own very positive version of an Adjustment Bureau – not an outside force trying to keep you on their track from the outside, but an Adjustment Bureau from within – as a human responding dynamically and with intention to the energy that is around you.

If you’re strongly impacted during a Retrograde, you likely to have planets or points in your chart that are in the same sign (or a sign squared to that sign) and near the same degree as Mercury during those 3 weeks of retrogression.  You’re being given an opportunity, via communication, transportation, contract, and/or technological mess-ups to pull back, re-evaluate, take a deeper look at and restore whatever it is that’s not quite in sync with who you’ve become and who you are in fact becoming from your own mental perceptions. You’re given the opportunity to adjust your mental attitudes, the way you think about things, the way you communicate with the folks around you. It’s kind of wonderful when you think about it!

This Retrograde was in Sagittarius traveling backwards between 20 and 3 degrees (there are 30 degrees in every astrological sign). So for the signs Sagittarius, Gemini, Virgo and Pisces, this would have been a great time to pay attention to any obstacles or cranks and ask why they were there. And then ask what you can do differently that would put you on a smoother track. Sagittarius is all about the belief system, your philosophies on life, your moral compass and how you judge yourself and others. It’s also about the freedom to expand and grow beyond your current parameters – which are almost definitely parameters that you have set for yourself – even if they came in the guise of job, career, or  family restrictions. So this particular Retrograde will have many of us questioning our current life path en toto – because this one is about adjusting what you believe in.

Now – the Retrograde motion itself is officially over tonight – but the planet doesn’t reach it’s normal speed until early January – the same time as it passes the 20th degree which is where it started its backwards movement. That means we aren’t “out of the shadow of the retrograde” until the first couple of days of January. So you have time to continue to reevaluate, relax, re-do, and restore whatever is appropriate. I encourage you to wait until after Jan. 1 to sign contracts and push forward fully with anything that has come into question. You’ll definitely feel the difference and do begin to flow with the forward motion. Just give yourself plenty of time to plan and lay a strong foundation for any changes that you’re making as a result of this time of adjustment.

And give thanks! Your personal, internal adjustment bureau is looking out for you – not making your decisions for you… just showing you the best places inside or out, that need a little conscious tweaking.