I like to reprint this from time to time, since the years have brought me many anecdotes about how Mercury retrograde manifests in some very strange ways. Today I’ll share some strange retrograde occurrences.

In one of 2019’s Mercury retrograde periods, a whole bunch of people in a FB pop astrology group griped about many of the usual things, like unexpected moves, electronics dying, reversals in relationships, flashes of insight from the subconscious mind about things previously veiled, unexpected expenses, unexpected car problems coming to light. These are classic examples of things I listed specifically in my book A New Look at Mercury Retrograde! You’ll find an entire chapter and more dedicated to all kinds of strange things I’ve heard about over the years, as well as a list of Mercury retrograde events that amazed me when I was assembling them.

One classic Mercury retrograde manifestation involved someone who had just planted her garden, and then an unexpected hard freeze happened, meaning she would have to re-plant her garden. This happened in April 2018 during planting season, when there were numerous freezes across the US, including tornados, furious storms, sleet and snow. Thousands of gardens needing to be re-planted is a classic Mercury retrograde of having to undo to re-do, or having to do something two or even three times.

As an aside, that happened to my garden twice when I lived in New Mexico. While I try not to plant during Mercury retrograde, some years it wasn’t possible to plant far enough out or wait until after the retrograde. I remember one year thinking I had outwitted Mercury retrograde, since I had planted about a week before it went retrograde. So of course, right as it went RX an unexpected windstorm came through with gusts up to 60 mph, and it literally ripped ALL the branches and leaves off my plants! I replanted again, but it still didn’t turn out well due to unforeseen weather anomalies.

Other events from past retrogrades: Mercury, ruling my 2nd house, while retrograde has at times brought me money from the past I had forgotten, as well as from unanticipated sources, like the time I was unexpectedly asked to write an article (Mercury) which I got paid for. Often my writing schedule (Mercury) gets somewhat scrambled due to personal priorities, it usually works out as long as I'm flexible (Mercury RX).

Last year I returned to writing my book about Soul Mates and Twin Flames, and made more progress in 3 weeks than the previous 6 months! Since then I’ve made several attempts to finish it, but each time unexpected delays happened, so I suppose that’s what happens when you pick something up during a retrograde! It may take a while to finish whatever it is you’re picking up!

In past retrogrades I didn't go on trips I thought I would, no matter how many times I tried to reschedule them. Last Autumn’s retrograde involved a trip I had postponed earlier in the year, and another unexpected trip got scheduled to do something I really needed to do in 2018. One retrograde I found out I had to do my taxes at least 2 months before I would ordinarily do them. Other retrogrades I found out I was owed much more of a refund than I thought. Again, Mercury rules my second house, so resources often show retrograde associations when Mercury is retrograde!

I’ve had video conferences unexpectedly end because of equipment malfunction, and one phone call turned into a Marx Brothers routine when the other person answered just as their answering system kicked in, and so there were two voices at the same time, and no way for me to get out of there without hanging up and calling again. That’s happened twice in last Autumn’s retrograde. In one instance, my next call to them went out as they were calling me, and neither of us could answer the other call since both rolled over to voice mail. I finally got through, but the person on the other end of the line was immediately called to do something so we had to postpone our talk.

One very peculiar retrograde occurrence involved my word processing and blogware software. I began doing a musical tribute, and found that the previous year’s tribute had all busted links! So I had to re-check all the links, found all the you tube videos were good, and tried to fix the code, but for some reason I couldn’t use my usual word processing commands, since each time I did it made my links unusable by removing good code and inserting unwanted code. (It’s complicated….)

It seemed that if something (which I still don’t understand) happened, it inserted code I didn’t want, creating a “veiled link” which won’t work because it scrambles the you tube link. It displayed perfectly but wouldn’t work! That’s pretty retrograde. So I used one of my techniques to “trick” my word processing program enabling me to cut and paste entire good links directly into the code, and so didn’t have to create them from scratch.

That worked fine, until I went to insert the article into my blogware program for posting. At that point, I found that the entire first half of the musical tribute had different code I had never seen before inserted into the links! I still have no idea how that code got to be there. So I redid it on the blog platform, line by line, until it finally displayed as it should. That meant an article that usually would have taken 15-20 minutes at most wound up taking me an hour and a half to complete!

As I also noted in my book, often unresolved problems from the past come back up during a retrograde, and miscreants are busted during retrogrades. One retrograde a while back involved a conflict I had on a FB “astrology site” which was toxic with sexual putdowns and violent sexual imagery. I kept pointing out that what was posted was not astrology, and finally sent a private message to the moderator. Then, instead of anything productive occurring, the aftermath involving my private comments to the moderator turned into a public discussion about my “lack of enlightenment” and some ugly personal attacks by two mean people on that site.

Shifting the focus from the main point to an off-topic misdirection and misrepresenting what was said is another classic Mercury retrograde manifestation. I also later found out many of my internet friends left that site in the past due to nasty people there, so again, revisiting the past often happens during a retrograde, when hidden things come to light!

I’ll leave you with one of many classic anecdotes of Mercury retrograde events which I gave you in my book A New Look at Mercury Retrograde. From Chapter 2:

One client told me (after several days where we kept missing each other just as Mercury was about to go stationary direct) about something that had happened to her earlier that day. She had been in a store next to a busy intersection, doing some shopping. Someone walked into the store and bellowed, "Who owns the green Volvo that just hit my car?"

After no one answered, he yelled it again, and a person paying for something at the counter said "I have a green Volvo, but it's parked right over ..." stopping when he realized his car was not where he parked it on the street. He ran outside to see it sitting it down the block.

What had happened (talk about retrograde!) was that his car had slipped its parking gear, rolled backwards down a one way street, crossed the major intersection in reverse, hit the car of the man who was so upset, then wheeled itself backwards into a new car lot! Nobody got hurt, but the vision of a car rolling backwards down a one-way street is a classic Mercury retrograde picture!

I’m sure there are ten thousand more strange Mercury retrograde experiences out there. One thing is for sure: many things don’t turn out as expected, but it can bring some delightful roundabout experiences teaching us to reflect, take a new point of view, and adapt to a different flow. Even though we all make plans, sometimes we have to do things in a different order, or wait for a new time. And if something is postponed it clearly conforms to the retrograde quality of the moment, and so it’s futile to try to “push the river.”

On February 25, we’ll have the Inferior Conjunction and from that point, Mercury will gradually begin to speed up until it goes stationary direct on March 9. So while you’re looking back, remember that you’ll soon begin to have opportunities to hear your inner voice and know things you haven’t known before now. Until then, enjoy the favorable aspects in play as we move through the Great Compression beginning the Grand Mutation in Aquarius launching a new 200 year period in history!

© Copyright 2020 Robert Wilkinson - https://www.aquariuspapers.com
Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with persmission from Robert Wilkinson.