Mercury retrograde and learning to listen
- klkessaris
- Mar 15
- 7 min read
What do we hear when Mercury travels through a series of fire signs?
Mercury's retrograde cycles traverse through the elements, moving in recent years from earth in 2023 to predominately fire in 2024 and continuing predominately in fire for much of 2025 before moving into water. While most elemental cycles last about one year, this fire cycle is extended. It seems particularly significant for the current season that Venus is retrograde in Aries/Pisces and that Mars has been retrograde in Leo/Cancer and is now direct in Cancer. This will be followed by Neptune and Saturn traversing the 0 degree Aries world point multiple times between the end of March and February of 2026.
Dates for Mercury retrograde passages through fire:
12/13/23 -- 1/2/24: Capricorn 08°29’ traveling back to Sagittarius 22°10’
4/1/24 -- 4/25/24: Aries 27°13’ traveling back to Aries 15°58’
8/5/24 -- 8/28/24: Virgo 04°06’ traveling back to Leo 21°24’
11/26/24 -- 12/15/24 : Sagittarius 22°40’ traveling back to Sagittarius 06°23’
3/15/25 -- 4/7/25: Aries 09°35’ traveling back to Pisces 26°49’
7/18/25 -- 8/11/25: Leo 15°34’ traveling back to Leo 04°14’
11/9/25 -- 11/29/25: Sagittarius 06°51’ traveling back to Scorpio 20°42’
Because fire and air are polarities, we will never see fire passages syncing with air during a retrograde cycle. However, with air as the polarity, we can think of fanning the flames as a component of any fire experience. Without oxygen there is no fire.
Mercury, however, inherently contains air and earth, Gemini and Virgo qualities. If Gemini represents the more social Mercury, the one more typically alluded to in Mercury retrograde stories (think of communication mishaps, contracts requiring a redo, etc.), then Virgo calls to mind the inner Mercury--the critic, the concerns about health, the need to sort and simplify, the processor. It has also been said that Mercury direct is more extroverted or Gemini like and Mercury retrograde is more introverted or Virgo like.
Some of these distinctions are arbitrary, in that our inner voice is developed through a long conditioning process, and involves both external influences and internal processes. We can reflect on experiences in the womb (was the environment loud or quiet; did our mom listen to music?) as well as the languages we were exposed to growing up. What was our early schooling like? How were our interactions with siblings or friends? Did we move houses, travel, or stay close to home? Did we learn how to be in our body; did we develop a felt sense? Were we treated fairly and with respect or did we grow up in an abusive environment where our sense of self was diminished or depleted?
What does it mean that I am writing this during a Mercury station retrograde in the degree of an upcoming solar eclipse in Aries conjunct my natal Sun? What does it mean that I am writing this with a 10 week old puppy sleeping next to me? What does it mean that this is the first time in my life that I have parented a being this young? What does it mean that it took most of my life for me to learn to be my own parent? To learn the boundary between you and me, and to learn that ultimately that boundary is an illusion, here to help us learn, to feed our Soul, so that we can be consumed and ultimately recycled, as the Soul continues to grow?
It took years for me to distinguish my voice from all the voices I had internalized, all the voices that commandeered my experiences and dictated my choices, loudly and often compulsively. The compulsions embarrassed me, which just made the process harder to bear and longer lasting, because in hindsight, I see it was the compulsions that were trying to get my attention!
It took years for me to hear my own voice, which ironically came about as I learned to hear the voice that ultimately created me, the voice of my Soul. Because my voice is really a composite of voices, a composite of all that I have taken in during this life, all that has imprinted on me. This voice is loud sometimes and silent at other times. This voice speaks with words but also images and aromas and is sometimes just a feeling in the body or a knowing in my heart. When the Soul speaks, it has a bass sound, it is rhythmic and pulsing. It is certain. This is the catch, though. The Soul is also growing. There is another voice, a whisper, often times coming in a temperature change or a ringing in the ears. This is the Divine calling the Soul. This is the One speaking to the Elements. Even this voice is changing and morphing as it experiences everything through all of us.
I have a natal Mercury that is in station, stationing direct in Pisces. This can feel like a mind that is completely overwhelmed by experiences both external and internal. This is sensory and information overload, this is everything all at once. This is a mind that imagines every possibility, especially the fearful ones (first quarter square with Neptune in Sagittarius and disseminating square with Saturn in Gemini). This is a restless mind drowning in fire situated in a natural earth (6th) house. All of the elements are at play.
Fire and water are particularly destructive elements. We have seen this recently with multiple natural disasters. (I write from WNC, the epicenter of hurricane Helene.) It took thousands of years for humans to learn how to work with fire and how to manage water. Unfortunately, we have allowed our greed to take over and the result is an imbalance in our relationship with the Earth. We are realizing that we do not have control after all.
Mercury traversing the fire signs via retrograde beckons us to go inward and imagine a new relationship with our instincts and with our creative capacity. Can we learn to create in a way that is not inherently destructive? What is the relationship between creation and destruction? What happens when our creations have the potential to destroy everything (nuclear weapons)? What happens when our creations become smarter than we are (AI, quantum computing)? What does it mean to be smart? What is intelligence? If Gemini is information and Virgo is processing, is there more to information processing that what we have coded thus far? Is there more to processing than zeros and ones or qubits?
As an earth sign, Virgo is also about digestion. What does it mean to digest the information we take in? What does it mean to make sense of things? What does it mean that we spend our whole lives making sense of things and we still never have the whole picture as long as we try to use our mental capacity in order to understand? We neglect the understanding that happens through digestion, when we take something in and it becomes part of us. The old adage that we are what we consume. We neglect the understanding that lives beyond understanding. That lives on the inner plane, that lives beyond conception. That breathes with us and through us. The air that fans the flame. Or the ether. Where in astrology is the ether (a topic for another day)?
If Sagittarius is the fire out of control, the forest fire, the LA fires, then Leo is the campfire, the fire of our creation, the imagination that unleashes its vision. What then is Aries? Aries is pure instinct. Aries is fresh out. Aries is the spark, the yet to be manifest, the yet to take form, the yet to inhabit a body. Aries is potential. Aries is quick. Aries plays hide and seek. Aries can't be caught or contained. Aries knows nothing outside its own experience. Aries is a force.
The thing about parenting a puppy is that my time is no longer my own. My schedule is synced with her needs. The writing that used to come in one fell swoop, now comes in fits and stages. When she is sleeping or chewing on a toy in my lap. I am not sure whether there is a through line. I am flitting from here to there. And, yet, I keep coming back to it, circling back, and eventually this too shall come to a close.
Do you hear the rush of Pisces about to wash over us, about to take us out to sea, to cleanse everything so we can start over? Another day of learning to stand tall like a tree while the puppy nips until she loses attention and goes for the squeaky toy instead. Aries has a short attention span, is easily distracted by this and that, by the next shiny object, by the spark over there.
For now, as Mercury is still in the sign of speed, we can rest in the contradiction. The paradox inherent in all things. Mercury will eventually fall back into the lap of the Sun, momentarily losing its functioning, finding renewal in the warmth and radiance that feeds us.
On the day of the solar eclipse (March 29), Mercury dips back into Pisces to join Neptune for a final disappearing act before Neptune moves into Aries for the first time since 1861. What can we imagine Mercury is going whisper in Neptune's ear? What of the fire that is the 21st century? What do we imagine Neptune washing away for us? Something that seems so big, something that we are unable to handle? Mercury can carry that back to Neptune. If we can hand over the hard to digest bits, they too will be consumed by the ultimate force. Our time to create will come later this year, in July, when Mercury's retrograde is encased in Leo. Perhaps we can begin that creative cycle with a different perspective and a different relationship to the Source of our resources.
What do you hear when Mercury retrogrades through fire? Each one of us will be carrying what we hear back to Neptune to be cleansed. Now is the time to listen. Listen with your whole body. Listen with your heart. Listen with your spirit. Just listen.
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