Why I love Mercury Retrograde
No, really. And you can, too!
Mercury, the planet of technology and communication, is now retrograde through September 15th.
And, if you want to know the truth, I’m pretty stoked for it.
I know, I know. That doesn’t make any sense. I mean, what kind of psychopath loves when Mercury is retrograde? When their hard drive crashes or they get into a fight online over a stupid miscommunication or when a toxic ex crawls back from the annals of distant history?
General sentiment seems to indicate that Mercury Retrograde sucks the big wet one: a life-destroying dystopian nightmare of unmitigated proportions. A veritable demilitarized zone in our lives. Chaos. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
In fact, here in Shaman Land, we love the unique opportunities that retrogrades offer.
This Mercury Retrograde in particular seems like the optimal time to undertake a spiritual diagnostic: a kind of x-ray of our energy bodies, our energetic habitat, and what— if anything— needs adjusting before diving back into the fray of life.
This diagnostic asks: How are we doing? How are we feeling? What needs addressing? What has been ignored as we work and strive and stay busy? What are our open emotional or energetic items? What systems, spiritual or otherwise, need an overhaul to better serve us moving forward? What needs to be released? Thrown out? Reorganized?
And, perhaps most importantly, this spiritual diagnostic will recalibrate our inner compass, ensuring we don’t go too far afield from our goals or life’s purpose when Mercury goes direct again.
After all: when life isn’t moving so far and so fast, we can take a minute to breathe. When progress on goals or projects seems stymied, we can reconnect to ourselves, our hobbies, and our loved ones. When communications and technologies break down, we can— as Depeche Mode urges— enjoy the silence.
There is so much wisdom— and data— in the silence.
The spiritual diagnostic
Mercury Retrograde is a great time to get a spiritual diagnostic.
Why?
Well, because retrogrades are about both going backward and going inward. They are, for lack of a better word, a retrospective: a journey through time and space and material reality that can highlight key themes, open items, and crucial to do’s.
After all, if life is full of noise and chaos and progress against goals is unmanageable as during a Mercury Retrograde, why not take a bit of a breather? Stop white-knuckling it? Instead, sit in a quiet space to get your cards read? Or lay down for some energy work? I mean, what do you have to lose? Might as well do something valuable while the chaos swirls around you.
If we can’t move forward, we might as well move inward.
At TOTEM, I always notice a pronounced uptick in client sessions during Mercury Retrograde, indicating that clients intuitively understand the inherent opportunity in this moment: to check in, to cultivate a bit of peace and reflection in the eye of the retrograde storm, and to take advantage of the retrospective energy.
If you are feeling the drag and pull of Mercury Retrograde’s energetic quicksand, consider scheduling a psychic reading with a trusted professional. You can also read your own tarot cards, perhaps even establishing a daily practice of pulling a tarot card on which to reflect throughout your day across this particular Mercury Retrograde.
I know I’m biased, but I really think our TOTEM Tarot Deck is optimal for an accurate spiritual diagnostic, offering Rorschach-like, nebulous and meditative images that stimulate (rather than supplant) your intuition and engage your subconscious mind. The TOTEM Tarot Deck is currently on sale on Amazon HERE and Etsy HERE.
During this time, simplicity is your friend, so if you pull your own cards try to honor the “edit”. Focus on the negative space: What are the cards that did not show up in your reading.? What is absent? What is being brought forward as a key focus?
And spend some time with your reading. Quiet your mind. Journal any thoughts that bubble up during your reflection. The more peace and quiet you can muster, the more insights you can get about the diagnostic.
And remember: tarot cards are a spiritual technology. As a result, a tarot reading is a way to obtain access to your own spiritual data, presented in a a cogent dashboard that provides a crucial snapshot of past, present, and future.
Think of it as your energetic x-ray!
What lies beneath
This Mercury Retrograde promises to give us line of sight into what lies beneath the obvious: the energy in our home or work space, how our chakras and energy bodies are doing, and what emotional or psychological issues are bubbling just under the surface.
A great activity to undertake during Mercury Retrograde is to painstakingly go through every room, closet and drawer in your house and donate or dispose of anything that no longer serves you.
As Marie Kondo outlined in her incredible book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, the objects that surround us often trigger memories, emotions, and impact us in a variety of subtle, subconscious and energetic ways. By pulling them out, assessing them, and working through the emotions that come up, we can not only clear out our house— we can also clear out our emotional body and psyche!
It’s also a great time to assess our energy bodies. If you can’t get in for some in-person or remote energy work with a practitioner during this Mercury Retrograde, try to get a snapshot of your chakras— using a tarot deck!
This coming weekend, I’ll be sharing my “Personal TOTEM Pole” reading with those of you that signed up for our online tarot card workshop (I can’t wait to catch up with all of you on Zoom!). Essentially, this “spread” is just a way to pull cards for each of the chakras to gain some insight into how each area of your energy body— and, in turn, your life— is doing.
I use this Personal TOTEM Pole tarot reading at the beginning of every remote TOTEM Energy Session I do for clients, both in-person and remote. It gives me an initial diagnostic to reference before digging in and moving heaps of energy around.
After all: you wouldn’t get a surgical procedure without having some scans done first, right? The same applies to energy work, so take a moment to pull a few cards and check in with yourself!
Flower Essences for Mercury retrograde
The key to flower essences for Mercury retrograde season? Keep it simple.
The goal is not to get busy with a ton of work or sign new contracts or start new relationships or make any big, sweeping changes. Rather, it’s about the little things: getting good sleep, tuning into your psychic downloads, and reorienting yourself towards your goals, all while cultivating self-awareness and cleaning out the clutter:
Sweet Dreams, made with Valarian
Sure, Lucid Dreaming— and our same-named TOTEM Flower Essence— is fun and all, but have you ever tried just actual, basic, deep and restful sleep? Whoa boy! That’s the good stuff!
We just listed Sweet Dreams TOTEM Flower Essence, made of Valerian, to our Etsy shop yesterday. This tincture supports relaxation and deep, restful sleep.
During Mercury Retrograde, outward progress is going to be slow and frustrating. One thing you can always make progress on, regardless of which direction this planet is moving? Sleep.
You’d be amazed what healing can take place when we give our nervous systems’ a few nights off of flight or fight. In this way, deep sleep is the proverbial retreat to move forward, and Sweet Dreams TOTEM Flower Essence is here to help.
Check it out and/or order your own bottle HERE.
Oracle, made with Delphinium
Mercury Retrograde isn’t about whiz bang, big jazz hands moves. Rather, it’s about the subtle stuff that otherwise might go unnoticed.
Our TOTEM Oracle Flower Essence, made of delphinium (and named after the Oracle at Delphi) is one such subtle tool, helping you to open your third eye and crown chakras to receive divine guidance. Oracle Flower Essence supports psychic work, including: channeling, divination, mediumship, prophecy and astral projection— all activities that require peace and quiet to undertake effectively.
Hard drive crashes? Work is getting chaotic? Miscommunications on the dating app? Maybe take a psychic health day, dropping out and tuning into the ether instead of the noise here on planet earth.
You can learn more about Oracle or purchase it on our Etsy store HERE.
North Star, made with Indian paintbrush
If you take advantage of this Mercury Retrograde to recalibrate your personal compass, our North Star Flower Essence might just be the perfect helper.
Made of Indian Paintbrush, North Star TOTEM Flower Essence can help act as your energetic guidance system, reminding you of your core goals, objectives, and principles as you take a Mercury Retrograde time-out.
In need of a system re-set? Need to get in touch with the “so what” of your daily grind? Do you need to clear the decks, start saying “no” and get refocused on your life’s mission? Try North Star. It works.
You can learn more or purchase it HERE.
Take a beat
If nothing else, use this Mercury Retrograde to slow down and take a break from the mania pervading our modern world. It’s not like you’re going to get all that far during this planetary backspin in any case, so you might as well chill out and kick back.
Besides: inner work is work. I know that our society doesn’t value it or pay money for it or otherwise encourage it at all, but quiet contemplation and personal reorganization does pay dividends in other ways. This really is the retreat to move forward. The excuse to clean out the house. The opportunity for a psychic session or energy work experience.
And remember: the less we thrash around during this retrograde, the more energy we can conserve for big moves on the other side. There is a strong undertow right now, so just let the current take you out far enough to evade it.
No need to struggle or freak out.
It’s only Mercury Retrograde.
-Rachel