MERCURY RETROGRADE INFOGRAPHIC: Dates, times, degrees, and how to figure out if, how and when it will impact your chart. (Rx: Sep 27 to Oct 18 in Libra)

MERCURY RETROGRADE INFOGRAPHIC

The main thing to know: only your natal placements between 10 and 25 degrees of any sign will be aspected by transiting Mercury Rx.

The chart in the infographic is showing us where transiting Mercury Rx is now (the big red dot), and which degrees it will travel across during the next weeks. (This is a chart with no houses, just the signs.) The arrows fanning out from Mercury’s position in Libra show us what aspects it would make to planets in the other signs.

The retrograde cycle:

• Pre-Shadow Begins: Sep 6, 4:06pm EDT at 10 Lib 07
• Retrograde Begins: Sep 27, 1:10am EDT at 25 Lib 28
• Retrograde Ends: Oct 18, 11:17am EDT at 10 Lib 07 (goes Direct).
• Post Shadow Ends: Nov 2, 9:07pm EDT at 25 Lib 28 (Nov 3, 1:07am UT)

HOW TO USE THE CHART

RED DOT: The big Mercury Rx symbol in the red dot outside the chart wheel is where transiting mercury is now, in Libra.

GREY HIGHLIGHTS: The little grey-shaded area on those Libra degrees show the range that Mercury retrograde will travel across (from 10 to 25 degrees). The grey-shaded areas on all the other signs, highlight those same exact degrees.

Imagine placing your natal planets (just those between 10 and 25 degrees) onto the appropriate signs on the infographic chart.

If you have any natal planets in that grey degree range (10 to 25) of any other sign, then those planets will receive an actual aspect from transiting Mercury Rx. If you don’t have any natal planets or angles at 10 to 25 degrees of any sign, then you will not be directly impacted by any Mercury Rx aspects, other than transiting mercury just traveling through your Libra house.

Example on how to use the infographic chart:

Say you have natal Mars at 19 degrees Capricorn.

1. Look at the chart on the infographic. Find Capricorn.
2. Find the 19-degree spot in that Capricorn area.
3. We see a red arrow, labeled "Square" pointing from Libra (from transiting Mercury) to Capricorn. That tells us that your natal Mars at 19 Capricorn would receive a square from transiting Mercury in Libra.

What if your natal Venus is at 22 degrees Aquarius?

1. Find Aquarius.
2. Find 22 degrees.
3. We can see that a blue Trine arrow points from Libra to Aquarius, so your natal Venus would receive a trine aspect from transiting Mercury in Libra

You could just think of this chart as transparent, and imagine placing it over your own natal chart, lining up all the signs carefully (not houses, just line up the signs). Now, see all those arrows fanning out from Libra? Those arrows tell you which type of aspect transiting Mercury would make to a natal planet in the sign the arrow points to in your natal chart. (Note: At bottom of this post is a printable Aspect Finder you can use if you wish.)

WHEN WILL TRANSITING MERCURY ASPECT MY PLANETS?

If you want to know when transiting Mercury might reach one of your natal planets that you know it will aspect, then use the ephemeris at the bottom of the infographic (the 3 big, colored boxes). The first number is the degree, the second one is the minute. (These are positions, not “time”. Saying 20 Lib 45 is sort of like saying someone is 5 feet 7 inches tall. Inches make up feet. Minutes make up degrees.) Keep in mind that if you do have a natal planet in that 10 to 25 degree range, it will get 3 hits from transiting Mercury:

1. First hit: during the Pre-Shadow Period, while Mercury is still going direct.
2. Second hit: during the actual retrograde period when it is traveling ‘backward’.
3. Third hit: during the Post-Shadow Period, after the retrograde is over and it’s moving direct again.

(There are exceptions and sometimes two hits will occur in the same phase, very close together.)

HOW TO USE THE EPHEMERIS

Example: Let’s say you have your Sun at 18 Cancer 25.

1. First Hit: Look at the first column, the Pre-Shadow Period. Look at Sep 15th. Don’t worry that it all says “lib” on each line in this ephemeris (that just tells us where mercury is). We’re only going to look for 18 degrees 25 (no matter the sign). You can see that from midnight on Sep 15th to midnight on Sep 19th, Mercury moved from 18 Lib 03 to 19 Lib 00. Your Sun at 18 Can 25 is within that range. So, now we know that transiting Mercury first squared your Sun on Sep 15th. We know it’s a square because libra squares cancer (and see the chart with the aspect arrows in the infographic that tells you what kind of aspect each sign would receive from Libra).
2. Second Hit: Now we look to see when it hits it again. Look at the center Retrograde Period column. Find where 18 degrees 25 would be. Note that now Mercury is retrograde, and it has backed up to hit that 18 degrees 25 again on Oct 8th. We can see that it travels across that 18 degrees 25 we’re looking for between midnight on Jun 8th and midnight on Jun 9th. Note that here, the degree positions are going down, not up, because Mercury is retrograde (it’s “counting backward” in degrees).
3. Third Hit: There’s one more step. We have to look at the 3rd column, the Post-Shadow Period. Here, Mercury is now going direct again; it’s no longer retrograde, but it’s still part of the cycle until it reaches and passes that degree that it first went retrograde at back on Sep 27th (ie, 25 Lib 28) . We’ll do the same thing – look for what day it hits that 18 degree 25 mark. We can see it happens on Oct 29th, within that 24-hour period between Oct 29th and Oct 30th.

Just repeat that for any natal planet you have that is within that 10 to 25 degree range. Do not expect every aspect to be noticeable. Often these things are very minor, if noticeable at all. Or they may be larger – just all depends on a lot of other factors. You can make use of this information by just being aware - perhaps don’t have that touchy conversation when the aspect to your natal mars or mercury is exact. Maybe don’t make that huge decision when mercury is opposing your natal neptune. Just be thorough in matters: re-read, re-write, re-assess, re-check, re-consider anything you are doing.

PRINTABLE ASPECT FINDER AND HOW TO USE IT

I’ve included a printable “Aspect Finder” below, good only for this Mercury Rx event, for those that have access to a printer. This doesn't have the arrows, but instead states around the outer edge what aspect type transiting Mercury would make to each sign. You are going to place your printed natal chart on top of this printed aspect finder, and rotate it to match up the signs exactly.

Before you get started: You’ll need to use the Extended Chart Selection page on astro.com to print your natal chart (see settings instructions below). You can find it by going to the Horoscopes tab at top of page, then under the Drawing, Calculations, Data heading, click on Extended Chart Selection.

• Please use THESE SETTINGS on the Extended Chart Selection page. Be sure to set the size to 75% or smaller (red arrow on the screenshot). While other chart types may work also, I strongly recommend you use the Chart Drawing Style in the instruction sheet screenshot, as it has the degrees of the planets clearly displayed, and other chart types may not. Print your chart and cut it out.

Now, print the Aspect Finder:

• Aspect Finder Printout (Standard US 8.5" x 11" paper. Make adjustments as needed for other countries.) Take the cut out of your natal wheel that you've printed, and place it over the Aspect Finder, rotating it to match up all the signs--not houses--and you're ready to start looking for any transiting aspects from Mercury to your natals.

See what it looks like put together:

• Image of placing natal cutout on top of Aspect Finder. In this example made with a random sample chart, you can see that natal Mars is at 22 degrees Pisces. We can also see from the Aspect Finder that anything in Pisces will be squared by transiting Mercury in Gemini. So, the aspect finder tells us transiting Mercury Rx will square the natal Mars. That is the only natal planet in this sample chart that receives an aspect. The nodes do receive a semi-sextile and a quincunx, which I’d not consider important.

There are instructions on the Printable Aspect finder sheet. Of course, you can also use the jpgs in a photo-editing program if you don’t have a printer and just place your own natal chart image over it, adjusting size and transparency as needed. Or, just use your imagination.

Hopefully all that makes sense. If not, just ask and I'll do my best to clarify. Give yourself time and patience to really read and study the images and instructions in this post. This post is not about interpreting the meanings of aspects from transiting Mercury Rx for everyone. It’s just about the technical part of how to see what is happening for you. You can easily google transit meanings. Just make sure you do it like this, for example: “transiting mercury” square mars. Putting those two words in quotes helps you get meanings for a transit, rather than a natal aspect. Or, go to astro-seek.com and look up transits for various days to read the meanings of any transiting mercury aspects. You would need to do this daily, likely, to catch any aspects. (Or use the infographic's ephemeris guide to more closely pinpoint the days mercury would actually make an aspect.)

Apologies for being late in getting this ready and posted.

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