I’m delighted to let you know that Mercury is going Direct in Scorpio today as of 5:48 PM Eastern Time. I can hear you shouting “Yay!!” as you jump up and down… No more Mercury Retrograde until February 23, 2013! I’m saying that just as a reminder that Mercury turning Retrograde is a very regular cycle in our lives that occurs every 3 months – 4 times a year – and it stays Retrograde 3 weeks each time. This is an example of the natural inhale and exhale, ebb and flow of life – of two steps forward, one step back, of needing rest after forward motion. Learning to move gracefully and fully engaged with that cycle is a terrific goal to have. (See my article “Mercury Retrograde: The Unlikely Healing Gift” for insights on that.)

This Mercury Retrograde for me has actually been quite smooth and fruitful… perhaps that’s the result of consciously working in accordance with the energy, or maybe, I’ve just been lucky this past 3 weeks. Trust me – I’ve had my share of truly DOOZIE Mercury Retrogrades! Whatever the reason for the ease of this one, I’m looking forward to the next 3 months as Mercury moves forward to see what will bloom fresh and new in my mind and how I will determine to express it to others.

Time-lapse image showing Retrograde motion in space.

Bear in mind that we will be in the “shadow” of Mercury Retrograde until Dec. 14. This simply means that Mercury goes back over the same degrees of the Zodiac it covered while it was going backwards, until it ends up where it started. During this time, the next 19 days, you might expect whatever came up during the Retrograde to resurface. (For this kind of retrospective, it’s helpful to know what degrees of Scorpio and Sagittarius the Retrograde covered – it began at 4 degrees of Sagittarius and moved back to 18 degrees of Scorpio – and where those degrees are in your birth chart – and what days over the past 3 weeks specific things happened. Always helpful to keep a journal for things like this so you can look back and find patterns or witness lessons learned or simply life experienced.)

I love watching annual trends with these kinds of Cosmic escapades. Last year, 2011, Mercury went Retrograde on Thanksgiving Day. This year, 2012, on Thanksgiving we were in the throes of Mercury Retrograde – just a few days before the end of it. And next year Mercury Retrograde will be over almost 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. But we’ll have a Retrograde Halloween! That sounds like the perfect time to communicate (Mercury) with those already gone before us (Retrograde).

Have fun in your forward journey all!

NOTE: Here’s a wonderful video that shows Mercury Retrograde motion astronomically – a space view of how we see Mercury Retrograde. Fabulous!

From the YouTube Video explanation:

Please watch in Full screen HD-mode! This animation shows from GEOCENTRIC point of view (Earth’ observer) how the innermost planet Mercury moves on its small orbit direct, than suddenly appears to move retrograde (backwards) and turns direct again. The red grid marks the ecliptical plane, in which the Sun and most planets move more or less. The figures indicate the 30° intersection of the ecliptical grid, so 0° longitude is the beginning at the vernal equinox = 0° Aries, Every further 30° step is the next astrological (tropical) sign of the zodiac, so e.g. 30°-60° = Taurus, 60°-90° = Gemini and so on. The movement for Mercury is shown for 2009 and 2010 covering two of its retrograde periods, which take about three weeks and occur four times every Earth year. Mercury’s orbit is shown in orange colour (ellipse). The panel on the left corner is in German and displays the calendar date of the animation. The timestep is 1 day per trail and computation. This is how the apparent retrograde motion of planets actually appears and happens. Stars and other planets are excluded in this animation. The animation was generated with Redshift 7 Premium by USM Media. More explanations will be inserted into the animation soon.