Imagine if Mercury retrograde was actually here to help? Beyond the miscommunications and the techno fails, Ruby Warrington finds five ways to make the retro period work for her.
Image: Baron Von Fancy
Mercury retrograde gets a lot of bad press. In fact it’s kind of become like the “gluten” of the Cosmic calendar – we’ve been taught we’re all allergic and that the symptoms, as my friend Michael puts it, are basically a total “cluster flux.”
But besides the miscommunications and the electronic breakdowns (which let’s face, can happen at the best of times), what if Mercury retrograde was actually here to help? Maybe I’ve got too much time for the power of positive thinking, but a couple of years ago I decided to reframe my thinking about Mercury retrograde completely.
I mean, how often to do you get things perfect first time around? How many people do you have “unfinished business” with? And how many situations have you pretty much given up on, assuming they’ll never get resolved?
Instead of counting down the days to the messenger planet’s next retro phase in a state of alternating panic and dread (“gotta get everything finished before it hits, gotta prepare for the worst”), these days I ask the Universe to shine a light on the areas of my life that are due for a do-over.
Mercury retrograde can bring unfinished projects and long-lost people back into your life – and don’t we all need a second chance to make it right sometimes? Okay, maybe it’s not the best idea to go hunting down the ex who totally sapped you of your self-esteem and left you feeling like an empty shell – some things definitely are best left in the past. The trick is to trust that anything it’s in your best interest to revisit will present itself to you.
“Surrender” has been a theme of our Tarotscopestress Louise Androlia’s forecasts this year, and this is a great concept to work with during Mercury retrograde. So how about you commit to just go with the flow? You’ll navigate any bumps in the road with way more ease if you make like a river, baby.
As the brilliant Astro Twins put it in my pre-retrograde Aries reading for October; “Think of the prefix “re-,” which means to go back, as a guide for a smoother Mercury retrograde: rethink, redecorate, revise, research, reunite…and so on.”
Here are five ways I’ve been taking their advice:
Illustration: Kelly Smith
Revising my passion project
When the current Mercury retrograde phase hit, I was in Washington DC at Gala Darling’s Blogcademy. A two-day course she teaches with her fellow super-bloggers Seana Haider and Kat Williams, it gives a totally brilliant overview of the business of blogging – covering everything from creating killer content, to social media, branding, and getting strategic about commercialising your site. In other words, ESSENTIAL intel for anybody who’s serious about making their blog their full time job (that’ll be me, then).
By the time we broke for lunch on the first day I’d already taken about a gazillion notes, and I realized that my timing actually couldn’t be more perfect! Since then, I’ve been making all sorts of tweaks and fine-tuning my vision for the site. So watch this space – and please tell me if you like – or don’t like – what you see. The major lesson of Mercury retrograde is that life, and the projects and relationships will fill it with, is a work in progress.
Revisiting my favorite workout
There’s this workout called IntenSati that I got completely obsessed with last year. It’s a hard-core cardio class that makes me sweat more than Bikram and which also incorporates spoken, feel-good affirmations, and I would bounce out of class higher than a hot air balloon and ready to conquer the world. The teacher and founder Patricia Moreno is also the most amazing motivational speaker – we even got her to do a podcast for the site, and seriously, if you’re ever feeling crappy in any way whatsoever about your life, just have a listen to this.
Then I moved to another part of town, and basically stopped going. It was too far, I was too busy, yada, yada. But I got back in Patricia’s studio just before Mercury retro hit and MAN I realized how much I’d been missing it. So now it’s back on my schedule. Yes, it means an extra half an hour out of my week getting there. That’s HALF AN HOUR out of my WHOLE WEEK getting to feel completely awesome. I say fair trade.
Reconnecting with the people I love
So there’s a biggy, and a not-so-biggy-but-brilliant-anyway. The biggy (and it really is) is that I did the Landmark Forum the weekend before Mercury retrograde. I’m actually going to write about my experience in a separate post so I won’t go into the details of what went on “in the room” now, but the repercussions, which essentially hit right with the retro, mean I’ve had conversations with my mom where I’ve experienced the sensation of actually being her daughter for the first time since I was…I don’t know, I can’t even remember. Pretty mind blowing, and yes I’ll write about it in detail another time.
On the not-so-biggy side, since I moved to NYC almost three years ago, I obviously don’t get to see my girlfriends in London nearly as much as I’d like. And what do you know. Not one but TWO of my closest (Aries, funnily enough) and best women are coming to visit before the month – and Mercury retrograde – is out. Yay, Mercury retrograde.
Realizing I can’t just erase my past
Okay so this may be TMI, but this week I’m finally booked in with a GI to get to the bottom of the niggling gut issues I’ve been experiencing since…well that’s the thing, since as long as I can remember. If I’m honest about it, things haven’t been amazing “down there” since I developed an eating disorder in my teens. And here I’d been blaming it all on gluten, dairy, red meat, caffeine, etc (i.e. pick whatever foodie bad guy everybody’s talking about this week).
But the fact is I basically survived on instant coffee and apples for several years, and then (ab)used alcohol as a way to ease myself back into the world of eating. Thinking back, it feels like a lifetime ago – almost like it happened to another person. But to imagine it didn’t have any kind of long-term effect on my digestive system is crazy. Equally as crazy, it’s taken until this Mercury retrograde period for my psyche to finally come clean and connect the dots.
Revamping my autumn/winter wardrobe
Okay this feels a bit like cheating. But the fact this Mercury retrograde phase has coincided with a sudden drop in temperatures has triggered a total “ugh I need a winter wardrobe overhaul” moment. The key is not to shop now though (and especially not online, as Mercury retro will probably mean techno fails and “RE”funds), but it does feel like the perfect time to re-evaluate the contents of my closet. Maybe I’ll even get my friend Psychic Betsy over for another psychic closet clear out…Once the decks are clear, I’ll be able to see what’s missing and THEN hit the stores to re-stock.
So there you have it – all the ways I’m using Mercury retrograde to make my life more awesome. Roll some big spending in November!
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