The Complete Cycle of Mercury Retrograde

Mercury is turning retrograde in September. The tiny planet will reverse its course on the 7th of the month. But what a lot of people do not realize is that at the time of this writing, August 27th Mercury has already entered the retrograde period. In reality it entered the first stage of the retrograde period on August 16th. Let me explain those statements.

Right now Mercury is approximately 2 degrees of Libra. The planet entered the sign of Libra on the 25th of August. Mercury will get as far as 6 degrees before it actually turns retrograde in motion. It will travel all the way back to Virgo before it goes direct. Mercury will go over the ground it covered up until October 19th when it once again hits 6 degrees of Libra. This is point it was in September when the planet turned retrograde.

In essence the whole “retrograde” period lasted from August 17th until October 19th. I put the word retrograde in quotes because only a part of that time Mercury was retrograde in motion. The other time it was covering ground that had been covered before or covering ground that will be covered again.

To give you an example of how this may work, let’s say that your natal Mercury is 23 degrees of Virgo. On the 18th of August, when transiting Mercury conjuncts your natal Mercury, someone leaves a message on your answering machine or voicemail. The problem is the message is garbled and all you can make out if that someone will be in your town the beginning of October. You pretty much forget about the call and on the 23rd of September, when Mercury retrograde conjuncts your natal Mercury again, you get a call from the mystery caller, an old friend saying that they are currently in town and would like to get together. You meet your friend and tell them about the garbled message. Anyway your friend leaves but on the 3rd of October, when Mercury conjuncts your natal Mercury for the last time, they call you thanking you for the nice time they had while they were there.

Three separate instances, all related to your friend and the retrograde Mercury, but only one occurred while the planet was actually retrograde in motion.

In order to get a true understanding of how Mecury retrograde works, you need to look at the whole cycle of Mercury retrograde.