So… apparently Mercury has been in retrograde.
Which is strange to me because I don’t understand what much of that sentence means. I don’t know what retrograde actually entails and I am not sure what Mercury’s pastimes have to do with life on Earth.
Those who know me will vouch for my excessive organizational skills and attention to detail. And yet, last week I don’t think a day went by when I didn’t send my husband a text along the lines of, “I forgot deodorant today”, “I left my lunch in the fridge today”, “I forgot to shave the 580 pound gorilla”.
Finally, after about 5 days, my husband replied to my text of, “Today I totally forgot underwear” with, “Mercury is in retrograde” instead of his usual, “Hah!”
I would have done a spit take if there had been liquid of any kind in my mouth. My husband and astrology are like Snooki and common sense – the two just do not go together.
It turns out one of his co-workers has indoctrinated him in the language of planetary angst and he spread it all over me like sneeze goo.
So, there you go. If you too are experiencing any sort of absent minded-professor type behavior or suddenly hippy-tized spouses, now you know why.
For more info on just what the ‘wait, what?’ Mercury in Retrograde is, here are some informative words from our friends at Astrology Zone (a site I just googled):
Mercury Madness
Mercury retrograde dates:
2012
March 12 – April 4
July 14 – August 8
November 6 – November 26
At several points throughout the year most of us will be bombarded with the maddening effects of Mercury in retrograde. Mercury is a planet, which governs all transportation and communication issues. Mercury is not an emotional planet, but rather a highly objective, truth-seeking one. It rules intelligence, education and truth. When it is in retrograde, some of its power is held back.
When Mercury starts turning in an apparent backward motion, we will start to feel the effects of this event days or even as far as two weeks earlier. When the planet normalizes we will see the tempo of events pick up in our lives as the planet becomes “stationary” and then speeds forward.
This, of course, only led to more questions, like what does retrograde actually mean? And that took me to Wikipedia, the site for those who want to research stuff, but not that thoroughly:
At certain points on Mercury’s surface, an observer would be able to see the Sun rise about halfway, then reverse and set before rising again, all within the same Mercurian day. This is because approximately four Earth days before perihelion, Mercury’s angular orbital velocity exactly equals its angular rotational velocity so that the Sun’s apparent motion ceases; at perihelion, Mercury’s angular orbital velocity then exceeds the angular rotational velocity. Thus, to a hypothetical observer on Mercury, the Sun appears to move in a retrograde direction. Four days after perihelion, the Sun’s normal apparent motion resumes at these points.[13]
Mercury attains inferior conjunction (near approach to the Earth) every 116 Earth days on average,[3] but this interval can range from 105 days to 129 days due to the planet’s eccentric orbit. Mercury can come as close as 77.3 million km to the Earth,[3] but it will not be closer to Earth than 80 Gm until AD 28,622. The next approach to within 82.1 Gm is in 2679, and to within 82 Gm in 4487.[72] Its period ofretrograde motion as seen from Earth can vary from 8 to 15 days on either side of inferior conjunction. This large range arises from the planet’s high orbital eccentricity.[13]
What I gathered in my clearly thorough searching, and even more clearly thought out late-at-night, deep-in-a-glass-of-wine logic, is that when Mercury is in retrograde it appears to spin backward and that leads us little critters on Earth to act like total morons. Good times! Looking forward to November, that’s for sure. It’s right around election time, so that means we may just be stupid enough to vote for the Koch Brothers’ stool pigeon.