[imagesource: Women’s Health]

I’m a big fan of blaming all of my misfortunes on external factors.

When things don’t pan out as planned, it definitely wasn’t my fault.

Enter Mercury Retrograde, which basically gives everyone a three-week period to blame a distant planet for their failings.

The planet went into retrograde on September 27 and will continue through to October 18.

Have you noticed that nothing seems to be going right at the moment?

What does this mean? Not much, to most of us, but if you’re astrologically inclined then get ready to make some really tenuous connections.

Sorry, but Cosmopolitan told us so:

In astrology, Mercury rules technology, so technological glitches are to be expected when Mercury is retrograde (which, FYI, happens around three times a year). But this Mercury Retrograde is *especially* bad for Instagram—because this Mercury Retrograde is in Libra.

Woah.

Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp were all down this week.

It definitely wasn’t “the result of a configuration change to its routers” as the company would have us believe.

You see, says the incredibly aptly named astrologer Lisa Stardust, “everyone knows that when Mercury is retrograde, communication and technology get wonky”:

“But let’s look at Instagram’s chart: The Sun was in Libra, Mercury was in Libra, and Saturn was in Libra” when Instagram was created.

Yes, Instagram is a Libra. In astrology, apps—and buildings and countries and pretty much everything else you can think of—have birth charts, just like people do.

Instagram launched on the App Store on October 6, 2010, making that its “birthday.”

Cool.

I would love to be a fly on the wall at Facebook headquarters when somebody suggested during the outage crisis that Mercury was to blame.

But wait, there’s more:

The fact that Venus is in Libra *also* sheds some light on our current technological chaos. In astrology, every zodiac sign is ruled by a planet, and Libra is ruled by Venus. Venus is associated with beauty, pleasure, money, and creators (which explains why Libras are so stylish and flirtatious!), and the Instagram/Facebook outage is affecting the business of social media creators.

Ofc Instagram, Facebook, & WhatsApp are all down…#MercuryRetrograde pic.twitter.com/KJEavFmnc7

— Lisa Stardust (@LisaStardust_) October 4, 2021

“Mercury Retrograde is in Libra, Libra is ruled by Venus, and Venus rules over creators and money,” Stardust says. “There’s nothing more direct than Mercury Retrograde in Libra and people complaining that they can’t make money through creating.”

It also knocked tens of billions of dollars off the net worth of Mark Zuckerberg.

What more proof do you need?

At this point, I encourage you to hold those dearest to you a little tighter.

According to Refinery29, the year’s final Mercury Retrograde is coming for your relationships:

During this transit, we’ll be asked to consider how we relate to all of the people in our lives, including romantic partners, friends, family, and even our coworkers, and how we can make our communication more harmonious…

“This will expose a lot of existing relationship patterns that are up for renewal,” says [senior astrolger Narayana] Montúfar.

“Suddenly, we will feel the need to reshape the way we interpret and communicate information, and therefore, transform how we express our needs with our partners, our bosses, and other important people in our lives.”

Now you can blame your relationship failings on Mercury, too.

Look, you can believe whatever you want. I think it’s a stretch to say that Facebook’s outage is linked to Mercury, but it’s not my area of expertise.

Just checked my horoscope and it predicts that I’ll be faced with a tricky decision today, so I have enough on my plate, thanks.

[sources:cosmo&refinery29]