℞ Retrograde guidance
Mercury retrograde
Three or four times a year, for about three weeks each time.
Mercury governs the small machinery of a day: messages, paperwork, travel plans, the wording of an agreement. When it turns retrograde, that machinery asks to be checked rather than trusted. None of this is a prohibition. It is a preference for the second read over the first draft, and for confirming what you assumed was already settled.
What helps
- Read anything back before you send it, especially when the tone matters.
- Confirm times, addresses and bookings rather than assuming they held.
- Return to work you left half finished. This is good ground for revising.
- Back up your files and write down the passwords you rely on.
- Leave more room than usual around travel connections.
What to hold off on
- Signing a contract you have not read twice.
- Buying a phone, a laptop or a car on the spot.
- Launching something that only gets one first impression.
- Sending the message you wrote while annoyed.
- Treating a first misunderstanding as the final word.
When it turns direct
Mercury takes about two weeks after turning direct to get back to the degree where it started. Decisions made in that stretch tend to hold better than ones forced through mid retrograde.
Retrograde motion is apparent, not actual. No planet reverses course. It is the view from a moving Earth, and it is that shift in perspective the tradition reads.