Here is the third of your four Mer­cury Ret­ro­grades this year. Begin­ning at the very end of Vir­go, one of the signs that Mer­cury is said to “rule”, and mov­ing back through about ½ of Vir­go until Sep­tem­ber 21^st-22^nd, Mer­cury ret­ro­grade is always an oppor­tu­ni­ty to pause and recon­sid­er the most impor­tant fac­tor in the qual­i­ty of your life, the health of your mind.

One of the most impor­tant gifts you have secured by mov­ing through the human king­dom is your won­drous fac­ul­ty of a self-reflec­tive con­scious­ness. You have the abil­i­ty to devel­op an ever more objec­tive under­stand­ing of your­self and your thought-forms. It is from this won­drous self-cor­rect­ing con­scious­ness that you can learn the con­se­quen­tial con­nec­tions between how you think, how you act and the result­ing real­i­ty you make for your­self. Over time, you learn to choose bet­ter, to cor­rect mis­un­der­stand­ings, mis­con­cep­tions and devel­op a more inclu­sive and com­pre­hen­sive view of the Greater Real­i­ty in which you reside.

Mer­cury ret­ro­grade is mere­ly, but won­der­ful­ly, this fac­ul­ty of self-cor­rec­tion/­self-improve­ment work­ing to a high­er degree. It is your time to be ever more intro­spec­tive and con­tem­pla­tive, to review, revise and make more true your inner world view since your mind is bend­ing back upon itself more read­i­ly now.

But of course this often does bring about dif­fi­cul­ties in the day to day of pay­ing atten­tion to the out­er world, for you are more like­ly to be engaged with­in and not as aware of what may be hap­pen­ing around you. More­over, every­one else is so dis­posed as well. So you may not con­vey your thoughts/intentions to oth­ers as well as you might nor­mal­ly; and they may not be receiv­ing as read­i­ly either. And of course the same applies in reverse.

As a con­se­quence, mis­un­der­stand­ings may mount up in both per­son­al and busi­ness mat­ters. You have to make use of this won­der­ful time, yes. But you need to be as mind­ful of the trou­bles it may bring in its wake and do what you can to min­i­mize these.

First­ly, most­ly, have a sense of humor, for your own dis­tract­ed­ness and mis­per­cep­tions, and be equal­ly for­giv­ing of those around you too. In order lim­it the neg­a­tive side effects, do set aside more time in your day for moments of soli­tude and con­tem­pla­tive spaces in order to make use of ret­ro­grade Mercury’s gifts for you. Encour­age oth­ers by your exam­ple to also see the oppor­tu­ni­ty here to reduce ill-advised thought-forms and help them to engage in more self-crit­i­cal think­ing too.

Mer­cury ret­ro­grade should be a time for the quick­en­ing of one your most astound­ing qual­i­ties: You Know…and You Know that you Know!

Let Her­mes, the “mes­sen­ger of the gods”, take you on an inner jour­ney now.

Shift you focus, chal­lenge and change your assumptions.

See what you were “miss­ing”, always be humble.

Expe­ri­ence the won­der of the “Ah-Ha” moment,

And Smile!