Mercury's Out of Office: A Curious Spirit's Retrograde Calendar (July 17th - August 10th)
Practical - and magickal - actions for Mercury Retrograde
Mercury is Out of Office July 17th - August 11th
Mercury Retrograde is, incidentally, an excellent time for a staycation!
Greetings, Curious Spirits!
Mercury Retrograde is on us on July 17. It will stick around until August 10. For the unfamiliar, Mercury appears to move backwards through the sky. During this time, human activities ruled by the planet Mercury (or the Roman deity) appear to go awry.
Mercury is associated with commerce, theft, communication, and technology. Astrologers advise against haircuts, signing contracts, or making any big changes. It's like when the boss goes on vacation and everything falls apart!
Mercury Retrograde is, incidentally, an excellent time for a staycation!
I’m not an astrologer. I barely remember to check the moon phase by looking up once in a while. Yet I do pay attention to Mercury Retrogrades. Whether it’s real or collective confirmation bias doesn’t matter. It’s a good time to slow down, think, organize, and reflect. Living constantly on the go leads to burnout and ill health. As a US American, we suck at those timeouts, so if things have to break to get us to reboot like we need, I’m OK with it.
Mercury Retrograde can frustrate when attempting to do things like get paid, hit deadlines, and drive. These retrograde periods tend to bless the verbs starting with a “re” prefix. It’s a great time to reflect, to do reconnaissance, to rewrite, to reconsider, and so on. I’ve found that every Mercury Retrograde has secrets come out, and secrets get buried. It invites introspection. If you lean into the slowdown, you emerge with more energy. Often, the pause shows you something you would have missed without it.
Shadow Periods
In most of the world, the seasons don’t snap to so much as they roll in. Astrological periods also have a shadow period coming in and leaving. If you've already noticed weird fights and contracts with concerning loopholes, you’re noticing the shadow.
It may take a week or two for the all-clear after August 10. When the boss gets back from vacay, there's always a scramble to get back on track!
The Mercury Retrograde List
Many years ago, when the blogosphere was more spherical, I created a Mercury Retrograde series. It contained practical directives, such as "pack up your journals." Most of my readers were personal friends, some not at all witchy.
They still asked me to make another list.
The list contains practical steps. It doesn't need to be Mercury Retrograde to do any of these things. But you might get more oomph/long-term benefit from these actions during a retrograde. I have added a “make it magickal” option for those who need the magick to be more obvious.
Here’s a sample or two for my free subscribers. To see the whole list running until August 10, consider subscribing. You can also purchase a PDF of the calendar/list a la carte on The Spirited Witch Patreon.
Mercury Retrograde is also a good time to get answers about a relationship; it's just a bad time to act on it. Want to know more about your relationship situation? Book me for a tarot reading!
Mercury Retrograde Calendar of Chaos Accepted
July 17
Clean your devices. We use them so much we forget they are not, in fact, extensions of ourselves. Get out the compressed air for laptops, the rubbing alcohol, and Q-tips for everything else. Pop the phones and tablets out of those phone cases, too. Unless you’re messed up, it only takes about five minutes.
Make it magick: Rubbing alcohol is fire-associated. Imagine a wall of fire surrounding your device as you clean. Anything meaning trouble gets burned up before it reaches you.
July 18
Laptop folks: Check for programs you haven’t used in years and uninstall what you can. Take a little bit of the load off your machine.
Make it magick: Speak a little chant during program removal. "As you go, I close the wall behind you - let my data travel light and my processor be swift!"
July 19
Check all your devices for security updates and program updates. Go through tablets and phones and remove apps you no longer use.
Make it magick: Light a candle or some incense for the protection of your digital life before you begin.
July 20
Do you have a password vault? OMG, GET A PASSWORD VAULT! All those lost password moments will stop. I recommend turning off any auto password features in your web browsers if you use them.
Here are three good ones:
Make it magick: Create a sigil for Internet security. Use the phrase: I lock my doors in the aether, only I hold the key. (Sketching a key on the back of your device also works for this.)
July 21
Suppose you have the means to get yourself a RoboCaller app. Here’s a good article from PC Magazine on how to stop the madness.
Make it magick: You can ward your phone, or you can turn it into a ward. Here is how to turn your phone into a ward:
Hold it in your hands, and think about each component as something alive. Glass, silicon, the electricity that flows through it. Imagine it coming alive in your hands - imagine a face, or even little hands and legs. Exhale on your phone three times. Instruct it to only the healthy, good, life-protecting, provision-allowing energies to pass through.
Note: I did this to my second cell phone in 2002. I could not have a phone call with a toxic relative who didn’t drop before twenty minutes had passed.
Paid subscribers get the complete calendar. You can also purchase the Mercury Retrograde calendar a la cart at The Spirited Witch Patreon.
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