It is that time, to slow down, step back and con­sid­er once again your most pre­cious gift, your self-aware­ness, the lev­el of your con­scious­ness, what you think of as “you”.

Yes, it is always good to take time to reflect and revise, (but espe­cial­ly for the next three weeks), so that you may be more able to under­stand your­self, as well as under­stand one anoth­er. Use that space “in-between one moment and the next”, a most pre­cious time, before you react to what was done or said, because you will always ben­e­fit great­ly by paus­ing, reflect­ing and being ever more mind­ful of your own men­tal atti­tude and how that influ­ences your demeanor or tem­pera­ment, as well as how that affects those around you most cer­tain­ly as well.

All you can con­trol is you, and this is prin­ci­pal­ly estab­lished by your Mind­ful­ness, by your aware­ness of your Aware­ness. Yes, it is time to take the next step in being a bet­ter per­son by tak­ing a firmer hold of your own mind. This is what Mer­cury ret­ro­grade offers to you now.

Mer­cury is turn­ing ret­ro­grade once again, and it is a most nec­es­sary and won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er: What you know, how you know it and in what man­ner should you (or should you not) share it with others.

Take even more time, be much more care­ful in lis­ten­ing to and speak­ing to others.

Much like the weath­er, if we do not pay atten­tion to the con­di­tions around us, we will most cer­tain­ly be unpre­pared for what befalls us. Know­ing about this “Astro­log­i­cal Weath­er” of Mer­cury, which affects our own men­tal dis­po­si­tion as well as our com­mu­ni­ca­tions with one anoth­er, we can avoid many problems.

Make use of this time, which ide­al­ly is a time for intro­spec­tion, con­tem­pla­tion, and for a deep­er recon­sid­er­a­tion how we know and what we know. By going deep­er, and being self-crit­i­cal, we can make cor­rec­tions, refine our under­stand­ing and open our minds to oth­er pos­si­ble ways to com­pre­hend the world around us, and be more con­sid­er­ate and mind­ful about one anoth­er too.

Mer­cury ret­ro­grade is for review, revi­sion and renew­al. From July 7^th till July 31^st, mat­ters may become more chal­leng­ing, progress in your affairs may seem­ing­ly slow down or become even reversed. This is per­fect­ly fine and is quite tru­ly an oppor­tu­ni­ty. It is very like­ly that the mat­ter need­ed fur­ther study or revi­sion. Though you might wish that you could always go for­ward in straight lines, you must under­stand that your jour­ney and life are more cir­cuitous, (and more inter­est­ing and mean­ing­ful for that in the end).

Yes, if it is pos­si­ble, avoid sign­ing an impor­tant con­tract or oth­er doc­u­ment. But in the mod­ern world life does go on, so just be pre­pared that when Mer­cury moves for­ward you may find the need to revise that agree­ment. The key as always is to main­tain your own cen­ter and self-con­trol, because that is all you have.

By tak­ing this time, by pay­ing more atten­tion, by being even more pre­cise in your com­mu­ni­ca­tions, (and like­wise encour­ag­ing those you are con­vers­ing with to make this same attempt too), you will be able to nav­i­gate the unin­tend­ed pit­falls and prob­lems that Mer­cury ret­ro­grade seems to bring. Real­ly, it is just our own mis­un­der­stand­ing of the change in ener­gies that is to blame. As the great observ­er of the human king­dom Shake­speare wrote:

“The fault, dear Bru­tus, is not in our stars / But in our­selves, that we are underlings.”
(Julius Cae­sar, Act I, Scene III)

We have lit­tle to no con­trol as to what takes place around us; but we have the capac­i­ty through the devel­op­ment of Wis­dom and Humil­i­ty to be mas­ters of our own mind, and by this we will forge an ever more pur­pose­ful life lived in “Right Think­ing and Right Action”.

Mer­cury is ret­ro­grad­ing from around 4 degrees of Leo back to about 24 degrees of Can­cer. The first 12 days of the ret­ro­grade in Leo will bring to focus ques­tions regard­ing respect, hon­or and integri­ty. You will be remind­ed to under­stand that you should expect to receive what you bestow; give oth­ers their due, respect their posi­tion or point of view and they may be more inclined to show you the same consideration.

The sec­ond half of the ret­ro­grade, from July 19^th to July 31^st, Mer­cury will move back through Can­cer, and the focus will shift to ques­tions about your home, fam­i­ly, nur­tur­ing, and secu­ri­ty. The prin­ci­pal oppor­tu­ni­ty here will be to more deeply con­sid­er what is at the root of you, what makes you feel “cen­tered” and secure. Ulti­mate­ly, it should remind you that all our cen­ters come togeth­er and so we find that by our ori­gin in the One “we are all relat­ed”. From this we will estab­lish our own well-being through our com­mon cen­ter; tru­ly our secu­ri­ty is found­ed upon car­ing for one another.

The gift of Mer­cury Ret­ro­grade is to help you lift your­self ever high­er, and it will bring you that much clos­er to the most pre­cious thing you will ever know…“Peace of Mind”.

Peace is found with­in. By tak­ing this time for qui­etude and con­tem­pla­tion, you can move clos­er to the sacred space that lies with­in one and all. It is there, in your sacred cen­ter, that you will hear “the Voice of the Silence”, the gen­tle whis­pers of Wis­dom and Truth that form the Hier­ar­chy of Life and Love.

There, at the cen­ter which is every­where, and whose cir­cum­fer­ence is nowhere, it is there that you will become a mas­ter of yourself.