Are you feeling out of sorts as the month begins? If so, relax. It’s not just you.
We’re kicking off May with weird energy. The cosmos is shifting. We’re still riding the high of zany eclipse energy (read about them in last month’s column), but now we’ve added Mercury retrograde to the mix. That’s a double dose of weird.
Mercury will be in retrograde throughout the first half of the month until May 15, and it takes a few days for retrograde energy to die down even after that, so this energy will affect most of May.
A retrograde happens when, due to the locations of the planets in relation to Earth, the planets sometimes look like they’re going backwards in the sky. They’re not actually going backwards, but they look like they are. Here’s an example: Remember when we were kids sitting in the backseat of the car, looking out at the sky? And the moon would move both forward and backwards in the sky depending on where our parents were driving? That’s the basic gist of retrogradation.
When a planet retrogrades, its energy, in a way, goes backwards. (One of my mentors liked to say that it goes widdershins.) It wants to revisit the past as opposed to moving into the future. It wants to reflect and internalize instead of act and express outwardly. It prefers nonaction to action. You can imagine that in today’s extroverted, capitalist societies that value tangible and measurable results, retrograde energy is hella uncomfortable.
Mercury retrograde often ends up getting blamed for sooo many things, so let’s also clarify what Mercury can actually affect. Mercury rules communication, perception, mental activity, technology, and travel, as well as the signs Gemini and Virgo. Geminis and Virgos, therefore, may feel more out of sorts than others in that weird, retrograde-y, I-can’t-quite-put-a-finger-on-it sort of way...
Want to read more? Check out the entire article on JoySauce here!
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