Swimming Against the Sky

When Mercury Slows

I didn’t really understand Mercury retrograde the first time someone explained it to me. It sounded dramatic. Backward motion. Cosmic interference. As if the planet itself had decided to misbehave.

But nothing in the sky is that theatrical.

If you watch long enough — and I mean actually watch, not read about it, not scroll past it — you start to notice how much of what we call “movement” is just perspective. Every day the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The planets do the same. The whole sky seems to sweep overhead like a great river carrying everything with it.

That’s the Earth turning.

But layered underneath that obvious motion is another one, quieter. The planets are also inching their way from west to east over the course of the year. That’s how they move through the zodiac. That’s how Mercury eventually leaves one sign and enters the next.

So we’re always inside two currents at once. The loud one and the subtle one.

When Mercury goes retrograde, it doesn’t actually reverse course in space. It only appears to from where we stand. It slows in that west-to-east crawl. It stations — which is such a strange word for a planet, as if it pulls into a platform and waits. And then it seems to drift the other way for a while, carried by the daily river instead of pushing against it.

I like the image of a fish swimming upstream. Most of the time Mercury is that fish — quick, alert, cutting against the current. Retrograde is when it tires and lets the river carry it.

Not rebellion. Not collapse. Fatigue.

Mercury governs what moves quickly in us: thought, analysis, the constant exchange of information. Not communication in the romantic sense — not intimacy, not bonding — but transfer. Data going from one point to another. Signals through wires. Words through air. Notifications lighting up a screen.

It rules the systems that make exchange possible.

That’s why retrogrades get blamed for technological glitches. It’s not that the planet is knocking satellites out of orbit. It’s that when the archetype of transfer slows, we notice how dependent we are on seamless flow. Email misfires. Text messages are misread. Meetings are scheduled twice or not at all. The tiniest disruption feels enormous because we’ve built a world that assumes uninterrupted exchange.

I remember sending a message once during a retrograde that felt warm and clear in my head. When the reply came back, it was defensive. Confused. I reread what I had written and felt that hollow drop — that’s not what I meant at all. The tone had thinned somewhere between my intention and their reception. Nothing catastrophic happened. It just exposed how fragile transmission really is.

That’s Mercury.

In myth, Mercury — Hermes — was a psychopomp. A guide between realms. Messenger of the gods. The one who could cross thresholds others couldn’t. That image has always made more sense to me than the pop-astrology panic. He moves between worlds. He carries things across boundaries.

So when Mercury appears to move backward, I don’t see sabotage. I see the messenger catching his breath.

Retrograde periods often feel like mental friction. Plans need revising. Conversations require clarification. Old threads resurface. Not because the universe wants chaos, but because whatever was rushed forward now asks to be reviewed.

We don’t like review. We prefer momentum.

People often ask whether Mercury retrograde affects sleep. In my experience, the Moon dominates that territory. Full moons make everything restless. Dark moons bring a kind of depth. I’ve watched animals respond to it without ever being told they should. There’s something tidal about the Moon that bypasses belief.

Mercury’s influence on sleep, when I notice it, is cognitive. A chattering mind. Or, if the Moon is dark and Mercury is retrograde, an odd heaviness — as if thoughts sink instead of scatter.

But the Moon is louder. Always.

As for how Mercury retrograde affects the signs — that question is never as simple as people want it to be. It depends on houses, aspects, natal placements. Astrology resists shortcuts. Still, if Mercury were retrograde in someone’s rising sign, I would expect it to feel personal. Close to the skin.

An Aries rising might feel their usual decisiveness snag on invisible threads. Not gone — just less clean.

A Taurus rising could feel it in the body first. A tension in the throat. A craving for slower, more tangible exchanges instead of rapid-fire messaging.

Gemini rising tends to notice immediately. When Mercury slows, the mental tabs multiply. Then, abruptly, everything shuts down.

Cancer rising might feel misunderstood in subtle ways. Words failing to carry the emotional weight behind them.

Leo rising can experience a peculiar kind of invisibility during retrograde — not rejection, just being slightly misread. That can bruise more than open criticism.

Virgo rising often becomes acutely aware of inefficiency. Systems that normally run smoothly suddenly require maintenance. The irritation isn’t dramatic, but it’s steady.

Scorpio rising might feel their usual perceptive sharpness dull just enough to be unsettling.

Sagittarius rising can struggle to articulate the larger vision. The philosophy is still there; the language feels clumsy.

Capricorn rising may revisit boundaries. Agreements need restating. Structures show hairline cracks.

Aquarius rising sometimes finds themselves unexpectedly tangled in details they would normally observe from a distance.

Pisces rising can feel fogged — intuition present but harder to translate into something precise.

Even writing that list feels too orderly. In reality, retrograde periods are uneven. Some people barely register them. Others feel like they’re wading through thick water. Often it exposes what was already fragile. If communication is strained, it frays. If systems are overextended, they glitch. If the mind is exhausted, it falters.

Retrogrades don’t invent weakness. They reveal it.

I used to think of Mercury retrograde as something to brace against. Now I see it more as a recalibration point. A slowing that makes the mechanics visible. When the transfer stutters, you finally notice the machinery.

And maybe that’s the gift, if there is one.

Not that things fall apart.

But that we get to see how they were held together in the first place.

Mercury will station again. It always does. The fish will turn back upstream. The river will keep moving. None of it is as dramatic as we make it.

Still, I find myself paying closer attention when it slows.

Not because I’m afraid.

Because the pauses show me where I’ve been moving too fast.