Woo-hoo! Mercury went direct on September 5! Did you feel it? Time to start going full speed ahead with your plans.
What does "go direct" mean? What's this whole Mercury Retrograde thing about anyway?
For a few weeks before September 5, we were in Mercury Retrograde. It happens three times a year and lasts about 3 weeks. Mercury Retrograde is when the planet Mercury slows down, and appears to stop (station) and move backward (retrograde). It's an optical illusion, since there is forward movement, like speeding by a slow-moving train—as it recedes, it appears to go backward.
It's usually a time when we go inward, a time to re-evaluate things in our life.
Cal Garrison's weekly Sunday astro post gives a refreshing perspective on Mercury Retrograde. Here is some of what she says...
"Mercury governs a lot of things. In the main it controls the linear functions of the Left Brain. Secondarily it rules maps, mail, conversations, plans, schedules, planes, trains, automobiles, newspapers, writing, trickery, lies, small motor skills, puzzles, gossip, computers, mechanical objects, highways, youth, elementary school, pens, paper, television, and a host of other things - all of which have something to do with communication in one form or another.
The most common manifestation is car trouble. It is also pretty likely that things that have been on the schedule for months will be called off. Very often the mail gets held up, and the checks that were supposed to arrive on time, don’t show up until Mercury turns direct. People bitch and complain about these things without really understanding why their everyday lives are being turned upside down.
If it seems as if God is just messing with our heads, that is not the case at all. You see, our so called ‘plans’ are all ego based ideas of what we think we need to be doing. We get these bright ideas and proceed to bring them to life: but what we forget is that there is always a huge gap between what our ego thinks is going on, and what our Higher Self needs us to be aiming at.
During the retrograde Mercury period the left brain functions shut down and things appear to go awry, because during that three week interval, the Higher Self has to step in and create adjustments that redirect us onto pathways that are more in keeping with who we are, and that have something to do with our real purpose. In effect, retrograde Mercury is a regulating mechanism. The seemingly pain in the ass changes that occur make room for a whole other realm of possibilities to alter our course, and steer us in the right direction.
...do whatever it takes to stay centered in the intuitive, instinctive region of your Right Brain. It is from that place that the Higher Self guides all of us. Listen to it with all ears and let IT be your guide. If you succeed at this, the next few weeks, rather than being a string of unwelcome changes and stones in the road, could turn out to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys."
see Cal's Facebook page from August 13: https://www.facebook.com/CalGarrison/posts/1527324043991321