Natal Mercury Retrograde: The Brilliant, the Bizarre, and the Blockages
In this article you’ll find:
☆ What does Mercury retrograde mean?
☆ What does natal Mercury retrograde mean?
☆ Pros and cons of having Mercury retrograde in your birth chart
☆ The 5 phases of Mercury retrograde in a person’s life
☆ Do Mercury retrograde transits affect people with natal Mercury retrograde differently?
☆ Mercury in retrograde or Mercury retrograde?
What is Mercury retrograde?
In astrology, Mercury retrograde (often abbreviated as Mercury Rx) is a period of time during which the planet Mercury appears, from our position here on Earth, to be traveling backwards–or retrograde–in the sky. Mercury has not actually changed directions, but because of the way the Earth’s path around the sun interacts with Mercury’s, it looks like Mercury has changed directions from where we are. This happens when Mercury is physically as close to the Earth as it can get (as is the case with all retrograde planets), a fact that beautifully illustrates how intense and immersive a planet’s essence can feel when that planet is retrograde. Mercury, the cosmic comedian, infuses that intensity with a bizarre punch of humor.
Mercury travels retrograde three to four times a year for about three weeks at a time. This means that Mercury is retrograde up to around 20% of the time. Assuming the same number of babies are born week to week, that means about 20% of all people are born during Mercury retrograde – close to 1/5 of us have natal Mercury retrograde!
Mercury moves fast, typically spending only two to three weeks in each sign. But when it’s retrograde, Mercury can spend up to 60 days in a sign. This demonstrates the purpose of Mercury retrograde too — with Mercury retrograde, we are spending more time than usual focusing on certain themes. Retrogrades are about introspection, reevaluation, and integration. Mercury retrograde transits in particular remind us to have a sense of humor — life doesn’t always have to be so gloomy and serious. It is associated with almost-comical errors, disruptions, and confusion in communication, thought, writing, paperwork, transportation, business, purchasing, and technology (all things associated with Mercury). It is a time when we are slowing down and taking a more focused, zoomed-in approach to our lives. We are evaluating our social lives, communications, relationships, work and more. Mercury retrograde periods ask us to slow down, reflect, edit, review, and make plans.
Natal Mercury Retrograde
Natal Mercury retrograde shares some of these characteristics, but it feels a bit different. The natal chart is like a collection of transits that we have our entire lives to figure out how to best navigate. We are a snapshot of the heavens at the moment of our birth, a story that loops and expands as we tell it. While we may struggle during certain transits in our lifetimes, we only have a limited period of time to work it out and find ways to flow through it with greater ease, and the shorter a transit is, the slimmer the odds of figuring out how to make the best of it are. But when we have our whole lives to figure something out—like we do with our natal placements—we usually figure out how to make the best of it. If Mercury is retrograde in your birth chart, you have your whole life to figure out its secrets and navigate it well, and many people with natal Mercury retrograde become absolutely amazing at all things Mercury as life goes on.
Mercury is the planet that is closest to the sun and can thus be seen as a liaison for our core identity (the sun). It takes what and who we are inside — the molten core of our being — and translates it into something that can be comprehended and taken in by other people. It helps us to make sense of who we are and to communicate that self to other people in order to establish, sustain, and alter our relationships (Venus, the planet of relationships, is the next planet in the solar system after Mercury and before Earth). Mercury transmits important information.
This is symbolized in the mythological archetype, too: Mercury is the god that transports souls to the underworld, the god that can traverse both the visible world and the underworld, moving seamlessly between the two unscathed. Mercury is the bridge between the inner world (the underworld) and outer world (the visible world). Mercury is associated with all forms of exchange and movement: communication, information, commerce, trade, travel.
Mercury retrograde is a refreshing tonic. People with this placement help us all to free our minds and think - and live - outside the box, making space for all of us to wander through worlds untethered. You’re able to follow or help guide our minds to the shadowy bottom + back up to the visible world again, creating new maps with your intuitive sense of direction. You are the power of Mercury at its strongest; you are learning to navigate the immense, frenetic power of Mercury, eventually becoming fantastic communicators and innovators. Your inner chaos is what makes you so magical. Your bizarre is your brilliance.
Mercury Retrograde in a Birth Chart: The Brilliance
As illustrated by its proximity to Earth, Mercury’s retrograde phase is like putting Mercury under a microscope, and going over Mercury-related things again and again and again. That’s what people with Mercury retrograde in their birth chart are doing. The power of Mercury is felt deeply and themes of expression, communication, thought, understanding/being understood, and exchange are major lifelong focuses. Natal Mercury Rx emphasizes the presence of Mercury so much so that it can even make an otherwise not-so-Mercurial person (with no planets or angles in Gemini or Virgo, no Mercury in the 1st house, etc.) feel and appear much, much more Mercurial than they otherwise would.
People with natal Mercury retrograde think in ways that are different. Thought patterns may feel chaotic or spiralic. Linearity is foreign. The mind is open and deep (like the ocean, or a mine). For some people with Mercury retrograde, the mind works lightning fast–unstoppably fast, even–and for others, the mind feels hazy or sluggish. They are able to think way outside the box and zigzag through conversations and thoughts to come up with incredibly unique solutions to complex problems. Their sense of humor is unmatched because they think so strangely, so outside of the box; their minds are spontaneous and bizarre in the most fascinating, glittering way (again, like lightning – fast and bright; something we can rarely capture but are always awed by). They often have an incredible amount of mental and/or emotional energy, impressive ability to multitask, and many have found ways to use humor to connect with people.
Whether it’s skills, knowledge, or conversations, people with Mercury Rx in their birth chart can often pick things up very quickly, often with little honing needed. Former NBA player and Mercury retrograde native Allen Iverson famously (and hilariously) scoffed at journalists for asking him about his attendance at practice, in a very Mercury-retrograde-esque interview in which he repeated the word “practice” 24 and a half times in two minutes and 22 seconds. Funny, literally repetitive, and baffled by the supposed importance of practice – all emblematic of Mercury retrograde.
In a 1997 interview with Jay Leno, Fiona Apple said that she was dreading the interview and when it was implied that she’s shy, she replied, “That’s a big misconception about me. I’m not shy, I just don’t speak if I don’t have anything to say.” Fiona has Mercury retrograde in Virgo, in addition to being a Virgo sun and moon (a true Mercurial queen!). People with natal Mercury retrograde can be very poignant, and to use Fiona’s own words, tactful. Especially as life goes on; they really know when to speak and when not to, because they have spent so much time with their focus on Mercurial things, especially speaking.
Mercury Retrograde in a Birth Chart: The Blockages
Mercury retrograde is Mercury to the max; its power is immense and often overwhelming. For people born during Mercury retrograde, there is a lot to learn about Mercury. Its lessons are often difficult, and come in stages. (More on this in the next section!)
For people with natal Mercury retrograde, the planet that acts as the liaison between the sun (self) and Venus (relationships with others) is behaving differently from what we expect. Strangely, even. These people simply express themselves differently. They take a different approach to communicating, translating the inner world into something the outer world can understand, and processing information from the outside world. This can be beautiful, and it can be challenging.
These people are the dictionary definition of the word “mercurial.” They are naturally inclined toward a state of movement and flux, and during childhood in particular that may show up as a being hyperactive and visibly restless, or bored and anxious, because the world around them is not meeting their different and varying needs. Oftentimes, the people around them are overwhelmed by their mercurial energy.
As time goes on, many people born during Mercury retrograde are taught by the systems around them that their energy and fluctuations or simply their different ways of thinking are something of an ‘inconvenience’ to others, and many learn to keep it inside. As a result, many Mercury retrograde people feel a frustrated, anxious restlessness running through them, like there is something that badly wants to be let out but they cannot get it out. As a result, that brilliant Mercurial energy can become anxiety.
Sometimes this shows itself in a purely psychological way where one struggles to speak their mind and externalize their thoughts, feelings, and desires; other times this shows itself in not-so-conscious ways or as physical issues, through things like speech impediments, dyslexia, or even disorders of or issues with the mouth, throat, or vocal cords. Someone close to me who has natal Mercury retrograde even has a geographic tongue! This placement can show itself in all kinds of ways, but one way or another, it tends to feels like people with this placement have thousands of little lightning bolts bouncing around inside of them just dying to be let out. and it can be hard to let them out. There are major bird-trapped-in-a-cage vibes with this placement.
Throughout life, people with Mercury retrograde in their birth charts are learning to allow that electric internal current to manifest outwardly again, or maybe even for the first time, and creating flow between inner world and outer world in all kinds of ways.
People with Mercury retrograde natally are asking, again and again:
• Am I being seen? Heard? Understood?
• Am I making my inner world visible to the world around me? Do I want to? Am I safe to? How can I take my inner world and share it with the external world in the clearest way possible?
• How can I prevent misunderstanding, and therefore protect myself (sun) relationships (Venus)?
• What information is most important? Does what I have to say actually matter? Is it important? Is it clever enough, smart enough? Have I worded it eloquently enough?
• Is the way that my mind works okay? Is the way that I speak okay?
The 5 Phases of Natal Mercury Retrograde
It’s interesting to think about where all natal placements came from. They didn’t sprout up out of the ground from nothing – they were created and built through life experience. Something either overtly or subtly taught us to become the people we are. Mercury retrograde often comes from being censored. People born during Mercury RX tend to have stories of being told to shut up and settle down, and how it’s fucked them up long-term. But this isn’t a flatlined, stagnated life experience. It’s an ever-evolving plant that does eventually flower, and there are phases that many people with natal Mercury retrograde go through. This is not to say that all people with this signature in their chart go through these phases, or go through these phases in this order, but a lot of them do! I’m not too big on gendered astrology, but these phases tend to show up more prominently in Mercury retrograde men.
Phase I: A brilliant, expressive, and sometimes high-energy childhood. Mercury retrograde children are excited, emotive, have a lot of energy, lots of thoughts, are fairly talkative – the dictionary definition of mercurial, in many different ways. Sometimes adults with Mercury retrograde don’t even remember this phase.
Phase II: Sometime before mid-adolescence, Mercury RX kids get the message (one way or another) that they’re too much and had better quiet down, calm down, and start self-censoring. Slowly (heartbreakingly, really), all of that brilliant, exciting mercurial energy dims and turns inward, and in some cases anxiety and/or depression sets in and are expressed in all kinds of indirect ways. Indirect expression in general becomes the main mode of communication. Throat- and mouth-related issues can show up too–recurring strep throat, teeth-grinding, tooth/mouth issues in general, random injuries to the neck–as if to signify that something is trapped in the throat or mouth.
Phase III: A kid who doesn’t know how to express and is afraid to try. They’re dancing around, trying not to say too much, just like they were taught to, which of course only results in more problems, especially in relationships, and painful associations with communication continue to proliferate.
There tend to be so many “miscommunications” in the lives of people with natal Mercury retrograde because they are trying to stifle themselves while also trying to navigate relationships; trying not to say too much or say as little as possible so as to not get the backlash they were taught to expect, but healthy relationships can’t exist without free communication, so relationships stagnate or are strained.
Often, they eventually meet someone who encourages them to express by creating the safe, loving, supportive environment they never had as a child. Their words are embraced rather than shunned. Their energy is adored and rolled with instead of fought against.
Phase IV: Opening the door and testing the waters of direct communication. Finally, they let their energy out. Little by little they open like a clam shell and return to themselves, reconnect to their feelings, unlock their mind and mouth, express thoughts and feelings, and tell the truth. There is no concrete timeline for this, but it’s common to see phase three beginning in one’s early 20s. By 30 or so, things are running more more smoothly.
Phase V: Blossoming into a marvelous communicator. Because there is such a lifelong focus on communication, natal Mercury retrogrades end up being very skilled communicators. Honest, direct, clear, and a lot of thought put into everything they say.
People born with Mercury retrograde don’t actually ever lose their sparkling, brilliant energy. It is just suppressed, or expressed in indirect ways. But when you really flow with someone with this placement, their glow is unmatched. Absolutely magical beings, they are.
Is a Mercury retrograde transit different for someone who was born with Mercury retrograde?
For some, yes!
Some people with natal Mercury retrograde do report that they feel more like themselves, like they communicate better, or like the world has come to their level when Mercury is traveling retrograde in the sky.
For others, no!
For some Mercury RX natives, Mercury RX transits feel just like they do for everyone else.
This is also, like all transits, liable to vary over time, and is somewhat dependent on how each Mercury retrograde period interacts with an individual’s chart. It might feel more disruptive if it Mercury will be making conjunctions, squares or oppositions to personal planets while retrograde, or transiting an angular house (the 1st, 4th, 7th, or 10th house), or if Mercury or the house it’s transiting is otherwise emphasized at that time for that person (such as by annual or monthly profection). If none of these conditions are present, it may be a bit smoother. But Mercury is funny – it likes to fuck with us. It likes to be unexpected and strange and surprise us. Mercury doesn’t always play by the rules, especially when they’re retrograde.
Mercury in retrograde vs Mercury retrograde
It is incorrect to say Mercury is in retrograde. Mercury is retrograde, or Mercury is traveling retrograde. Saying “Mercury is in retrograde” is like saying “Sally is in walking” instead of “Sally is walking.”