No secret: I grew up in a New Age household.

My mom was a world-famous astrologer and when I got picked on by bullies at school there was never the typical, “Oh, honey, they’re just jealous.” No, no. The response I always received was, “Oh, honey, you know your Venus is afflicted in Leo.”

Somehow, this was incredibly comforting for me.

The planets were in some kind of position at the exact moment I was born and that means I have karmic lessons that will continue to present themselves ’til I actually get ’em learned.

Mercury retrograde is a lesson we get served at least thrice a year!

Even if you’re clueless about your rising sign, you’ve never picked up an ephemeris, and you roll your eyes when anyone mentions that your chakras may be out of alignment, you’ve felt the effects of Mercury retrograde.

Most of you just groaned at the thought of it.

Because even those who pooh-pooh the woo-woo have at times raised an eyebrow and asked, “So, Bon, tell me a little bit more about this retrograde thing,” after they spend a frustrating few weeks running late to important meetings, losing their keys, or crying over complete data loss on computers they thought they had backed up.

Since Mercury rules communication, everything from confirming audition times and missing important details to misreading parking signs and getting expensive tickets seems to just go a little wonky these few times a year when the wee planet — from our perspective — appears to reverse orbit. When does this happen? Welp, a favorite commercial agent friend of mine shared this “Is Mercury Retrograde?” site with me years ago and I freakin’ love it.

Yep… the industry leans heavily toward buying into the woo-woo and they’re less shy about saying so than ever.

I’ll never forget when I was very young and heard a very famous TV actor being interviewed by Johnny Carson say — when asked about her next project, about which she was being stubbornly tight-lipped — “Well, Mercury’s still in retrograde so we haven’t signed the contracts yet.”

*blink* *blink* *blink*

I was floored! I was just old enough to know that people don’t go around talking about their WOO like this (or at least didn’t back then) and I became a forever fan of that actor because she showed me in a very big way that the language we spoke in my home was normal, not witchery for which to be shunned.

More importantly, she knew you don’t get started on something NEW during Mercury retrograde. Well, you *can* of course, and people *do* all the time, but you can bet that you’ll miss something in that contract and there will be some little detail overlooked and there will be clean-up to do later.

So what is Mercury retrograde GOOD for?

Oh, man, it’s good for SO much!

It’s a spectacular time to revisit old relationships, connect with long lost friends, return to negotiations that have stalled out, pick up a project that has been sitting dormant for a while, get back in class after a break. Mercury retrograde is a flawless time to get organized, to tidy up things, to wrap up loose ends, to recommit to a goal, to close off relationships that have needed termination but have lingered a bit too long for whatever reason.

• Have a project stuck in post? Get thee to the editing bay and FINISH the damn thing.
• Ready to make it official that you and your agent are no longer in business together? Write that drop letter.
• Wondering, “What ever happened to…” about someone no longer in your social circle? Reach out. Say hello.

Whatever you do, just be sure you read every line of every correspondence not twice but three or even four times. Give everything a lot of time and space and breathing room for being sure it sits right in your gut before you move forward with it.

And if you MUST initiate something brand new during Mercury retrograde, please for the love of all that is woo-woo, communicate more clearly — and with more backup for good measure that the clarity is understood by all parties — than you ever have before. And *still* be ready for snags to reveal themselves later.

Having always known the pitfalls of Mercury retrograde, I find these blocks of three weeks or so every few months to be incredibly productive in my life and business. No, I won’t launch a new class or travel extensively (Hellooooooo, lost luggage?!?) on Mercury retrograde, but I will absolutely take meetings, discuss possibilities, develop concepts, revisit once-thought-dead projects, and make plans like crazy! I will also give myself a lot of extra time to get from point A to point B, give crazy frantic drivers a ton of room to be maniacs in traffic (they don’t have the advantage of understanding why they’re running so late and getting EVERY damn redlight right now), and OF COURSE back up all my technology WAY before we even hit the big retrograde’s first day.

Because everyone else is running around losing their shit over how much is going wonky, I actually move very far ahead during periods of Mercury retrograde because I’ve already planned for this energy that’s all too EXTRA. 😉 I move forward by staying still a bit.

Now, as you know, I mastermind with some of the most spectacular creatures on the planet. A few of my clients involved in regular masterminding have been with me for three and a half years STRAIGHT now (that’s a lot of fortnightly goodness, I tell ya). Welp one of my glorious long-term masterminders said a while back that she sees Mercury retrograde as a lovely opportunity to exhibit a great deal of GRACE.

In fact, she coined the term “Mercury retrograce” during one of our meetings.

Holy crap.

The moment she said that, the other masterminders and I giggled with glee and smacked our heads at the power and simplicity of this phenomenally cool phrase.

Mercury retroGRACE.

Wow.

So simple. While everyone else is shaking their fists at a tiny little planet whose illusion of reversed orbit is somehow snagging communication, technology, and the natural order of so much on OUR planet, with just a little GRACE woven into our choices — during these weeks and, dare I suggest, at other times as well — we can make so much more magic happen than ever before.

And isn’t that always true?

When there’s chaos all around us — in our personal lives, in this business, in the world itself — isn’t GRACE a solution to easing some of that tension, lowering those stakes, putting things into perspective for why we’re all here to begin with?

Ahhhh…

I feel better already!

If you haven’t backed up your gadgets and computers and verified all communication about what’s happening in the coming days, take a moment to do that now. Mercury goes retrograde soon and we get to practice a lot of grace for a few weeks.

Yay, us!

Love you beautiful people!

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All my woo,

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!