[imagesource: Flickr / Stuart Rankin]

This is a part of that safe space on the internet where we blame all of our personal problems on a planet a million light-years away.

Our smallest planetary neighbour has proven to be capable of chaos, and astrologers are the ones we have to turn to in order to make sense of it all.

Mercury is regarded as the messenger, ruling over our communication, commerce, commutes, and logistics.

Around three or four times a year, it appears as if it has turned around in the sky, and it is this optical illusion of retracing its steps through the degrees of the zodiac, AKA retrograde, that astrologers use to track their charts and tell us what’s up.

So we’re relying on something that isn’t actually real to predict our lives moment by moment. Hear that munching? The white girls of the world are eating this right up.

When Mercury is in retrograde, Earthlings are said to suffer technical errors, miscommunications, and delays.

The planet twist also signals a period of reversals, swaps, or revisitation so astrologers don’t recommend anything new as the terms and conditions might change later. However, anything being re-done, reworked, or re-considered, is retrograde appropriate.

This also means that it is a time when the past has a knack for jumping on you again, making you revisit people, conversations,  things and places from way back when.

VICE has done us the service of looking at when Mercury will be in retrograde in 2023, allowing us an opportunity to prepare for what is to come in the new year.

Pay particular attention to “reconsidering your responsibilities as a communicator”, as well as “discussions about values and expectations”, along with “possibly inspiring a bit of a flirtatious or friendly atmosphere” from December 29, 2022, to January 18, 2023.

Whatever that means.

Apparently, this retrograde is very in sync with all our typical new year’s resolutions and past year ponderings:

Capricorn can be quite a traditional zodiac sign, or set in its ways. Remembering the “good old days” may be a theme as this retrograde covers the new year celebration, finding us looking to the future and imagining our resolutions and expectations.

By the time this Mercury retrograde ends on January 18, the sun will be sitting with Pluto in Capricorn, which may find us tapped into a huge well of inner power and resources as we confront the future—and thus, our fears of the unknown.

Ah yes, very insightful.

The next Mercury retrograde will be from April 21, 2023, to May 14, 2023:

This Mercury retrograde takes place in Taurus, which may find us misplacing things… and perhaps rediscovering what was once lost!

Again, values and valuables may be big topics of conversation, among other, overly general things:

2023 brings radical changes to the sky, astrologically: Pluto will be in Aquarius after being in Capricorn since 2008. Saturn will be in Pisces after being in Aquarius since 2020. It may be a whole new world! Pluto in Aquarius means the shadow of our social relationship to technology may be revealed, Saturn in Pisces may find us confronting limitations or discipline in spirituality.

There’s more about your feelings and such, too.

Then, the next retrograde from August 23, 2023, to September 15, 2023, is expected to have us reanalyse details in terms of authority, control, and big business (very Virgo).

Then, lastly, the December 13, 2023, to January 1, 2024, Mercury retrograde will have us stuck in a middle ground between optimism and apathy, again allowing us to reevaluate the new year by “redirect[ing] our goals and aims and rethink[ing] the responsibilities we want to take on”.

We are also warned again to be careful not to overlook details.

You can keep track of these airy-fairy predictions as you go alone. This safe place on the internet isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

[source:vice]