Astrology. Maybe it’s nothing more than a pseudoscience to you. Maybe—on the other hand—you use it as a tool to plan your life. Others are more in the middle, a little “astrology-curious,” perhaps. There’s one astrology concept WUWM staffers wanted to know more about. It’s called “Mercury retrograde.” So, we called up local astrologer Brett d’Arras to learn more.
d’Arras has been into astrology ever since he was a kid, back when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had its beloved “Green Sheet.” It was a spearmint green section of the paper that had lighter fare, like cartoons, celebrity news and … horoscopes.
"My mom and I would look at our horoscopes like, 'Oh, what's going to happen today? How is today going to transpire? Just out of curiosity.'"
Later in life, d’Arras found himself at an event in Waukesha. "I was like, ‘You know what? They have an astrologer here. Why don't I just take some time and sit down with her and see, you know, what this is all about.’ And I was totally blown away—totally blown away at the accuracy, the detail, and just her knowing things about me that I never would have expressed."
d’Arras was hooked. He found classes to better understand the practice. "Because astrology is, I like to think of it as like a divine blueprint of how you're created. So, it is a map of your strengths, your weaknesses, your challenges, the progressions that you go through in life, and how you change as a person," he says.
Many people are skeptical about astrology. They say it’s too difficult to test scientifically, it’s impossible to prove, and sometimes it seems to offer conflicting information.
Others love it.
What everyone can agree on, though, is that planets do exist. Mercury is one of the closest planets to Earth. According to NASA, it orbits the sun in less than 90 days. At points of the year, it looks like Mercury is moving backward in its orbit around the sun. That’s what’s referred to as Mercury retrograde.
That happens about three to four times a year, lasting about two to three weeks each time. It’s caused by all the planets moving at different speeds from one another. "So, it does create the optical illusion of Mercury moving backwards in the sky," he says.
National Geographic reports that Mercury retrograde was probably first documented by Babylonian astronomers around the 7th century B.C.
There’s no scientific evidence that Mercury retrograde affects us—but astrologers believe it does. Astrologers say that Mercury, like all planets, represents an aspect of our lives.
"Ultimately, [according to astrology] Mercury as a planet is the planet of communication, and it goes back to the myth of Hermes and Mercury being able to travel between the world of Olympus to the underworld," says d’Arras. "Mercury was the only planet that could do that. And, so, when Mercury moves backwards in the sky, or appears to move backwards in the sky, sometimes the signals can get a little crossed."
d’Arras says that when a planet looks like it’s moving backwards, or “in retrograde,” astrologers posit it signals a state of change, a bit of impermanence, unstable foundations. With Mercury, astrologers say that means communication mishaps.
We just went through a period of Mercury retrograde, from Nov. 25 to Dec. 15. And I felt like lots of weird things happened to myself, my friends, and coworkers. So, I decided to quiz d’Arras with a few of those situations, asking him if astrologers would attribute them to Mercury retrograde.
Ordering the wrong drink, for instance: "Possibly, it could be a communication mishap," says d’Arras. Problems with your employment contract?
"That could be it too. Contracts, because Mercury does relate to communication. Yes. Sometimes, with the Mercury retrograde, you just have to double-check to make sure your i’s are dotted and your t’s are crossed, and so, yes, contract errors can be very Mercury retrograde related."
What about scheduling an appointment and having that person not show up multiple times? "No, no, that’s not Mercury retrograde," assesses d’Arras.
"No, if it’s a repeating pattern like that, no."
Okay. What if it happens once?
"If it happens once, and it is due to a communication mishap, like, let’s say your reminder didn’t go off on your phone, that can be very Mercury retrograde related."
As an astrologer, d’Arras has a way to deal with that.
"Well, I think it’s best to always stay out of your fear-based mindset," he notes. "If opportunities come up during Mercury retrograde, just be prepared to look over contracts once or twice. Have somebody else look over a contract. If you’re, let’s say, buying a car, have somebody else look at the car. It just means you have to go over it multiple times. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s totally going to be, you know, an ultimate failure and everything is going to go wrong. It just means that it needs another set of eyes on it."
d’Arras advises people during Mercury retrogrades to look at things more carefully and be more adaptable to change, to allow a little bit more space and time instead of rushing. "That would be my biggest advice for how somebody would deal with a Mercury retrograde or any planetary retrograde," he says.
It turns out that besides Mercury, there are a lot more planets that can retrograde, and astrology has something to say about all of it.
"There’s a Mars retrograde and Jupiter retrograde that go into 2025, until about February, and then in March, Venus goes retrograde. And so that extends that retrograde season. So, adapting to change and being flexible, I think, is really going to help us in the coming year."
