Flavor of Mercury retrograde February 26 – March 20th 2026

Posted on February 16, 2026 by juliesimmons

That’s a big question. A rather large ask. Still, somewhere in the drawers or cabinets of our minds we have an idea of what the Age of Pisces was about. While Mercury is retrograde in Pisces we might find ourselves ruminating about our past. Our time would be better spent considering the collective past over the last 2000 years or even just since you were born. How has the world changed? What does the word ‘evolution’ mean to you? How does it feel to be carried along the tides and turns of a world you most definitely didn’t create? These are Pisces questions. They don’t necessarily have answers. In fact, they often give rise to more questions.

For our personal considerations, this retrograde will conjunct Venus, only once at the beginning, trine Jupiter, and conjunct the North Node, all aspects of hope and possibility. The effort of looking back and considering is meant to increase our connection to the soul, to help us grow in faith rather than belief. Which is to say, not the blind kind, more the felt kind. The faith we have when we smell spring coming around the bend, when we watch little ones take their first steps or learn to talk. Faith in the power and desire of life itself to rise up and become what it needs to, so it can keep on keeping on.

The essence of any Mercury retrograde is when it conjuncts the Sun (March 7th). That is when the winged messenger (Mercury) offers messages to us to use or ponder as we turn to the second half of the retrograde journey.  What form of meditation will you use to still yourself and listen for such a message?

Warm regards, 

Julie  

juliesimmons.ca   /  Town Crier June

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Outsmarting Mercury Retrograde: Dealing with the Technology Tinkering Trickster

Posted on November 7, 2025 by Carolyn Winter, Life Repatternign Coach


During Mercury retrograde—especially when it rubs against Uranus—we feel the paradox of tech: it empowers our work and relationships, and it can destabilize them in a heartbeat. Frozen screens, lost files, misfiring emails, and video call chaos are invitations to set boundaries, slow down, and choose consciousness over reactivity. The goal isn’t to fear retrogrades; it’s to outsmart the meltdowns with practical rituals and a sense of humor.

Start with intention. In energy work, intention organizes outcomes; what we focus on grows. Imagine your systems “Teflon-protected,” then translate that energy into basics: commit to caring for your setup, learning a little more each week, and staying vigilant. Empowerment here is practical—small habits that keep destabilization at bay.

Practical habits make the difference:
• Don’t ignore update prompts—schedule them at day’s end so you’re never caught mid-meeting.
• If you click a link and your intuition pings “suspicious,” pause and investigate; change passwords and run a quick security scan.
• Clean up files weekly, run backups, and book a quarterly tune‑up with your tech support.
• Review credit card statements for unused subscriptions and cancel them—free your money and your mental bandwidth.
• Read critical emails twice, then once more aloud before pressing send. Retrogrades love rushed messages; you don’t have to feed them.

When things go sideways on a video call, breathe. Name what’s happening, offer a quick plan (“I’m switching audio; give me 30 seconds”), and keep your humor. Establish a backup: a dial‑in number, a co‑host who can screen‑share, or a pre‑sent slide deck so the room stays anchored.

Keep Your Sense of Humor: I remember my colleague Jennifer Johnson, tentative about technology, hosting one of her first World Peace Hologram repatterning sessions as a YouTube live stream. She did everything right—or so she thought—and began her monologue using Hearing Repatterning to tune the group for world peace. Unfortunately, she forgot to unmute. It took 20 minutes for participants to sleuth her number and reach her husband to get the audio back on. The irony wasn’t lost on viewers who sent multiple LOL messages. The lesson: build a ritual pre‑flight checklist—audio, video, screen share, links, backups—and laugh when retrograde reminds you you’re human.

To protect family well‑being during these cycles, set “digital sabbath” windows where devices live in another room, create household norms for respectful texting and response times, and agree on a bedtime tech cut‑off that honors nervous systems. Uranus may jolt the system; your boundaries give it somewhere safe to land.

With love and light

Carolyn

Carolyn Winter, Life Repatterning Coach

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Navigating Change with Curiosity- Just in time for the holidays!

Posted on October 31, 2025 by Carolyn Winter, Life Repatternign Coach

Mercury retrograde is back Nov 9–29, and before you clutch your pearls and your Wi‑Fi router, hear me out: this can be a really good time to get curious. Not doom, not drama—just a season for asking better questions and noticing what wants to shift. Curiosity takes the edge off change. It turns “why is this happening to me?” into “what if this is giving me a nudge?”

The timing is chef’s kiss because it lands right as holiday plans kick in. Traditions are wonderful—until “that’s how we’ve always done it” becomes the house rule no one remembers voting on. Menus, game-day requirements, decorations, the exact placement of the nutcracker brigade… these expectations can help us connect when we don’t see each other often. They give the gathering a backbone. But rituals were born from circumstances, not commandments. The pan was smaller once. The kids were younger. Aunt Lisa worked nights. When someone suggests a tweak and everyone gasps in unison, that’s your retrograde bell ringing. This is the perfect window to review what stays, what softens, and what can gracefully retire. Mercury’s trickster energy actually helps here—curiosity loosens the rules just enough to let something new slip in.

Case in point: the classic ham story. A newlywed follows a tattered family recipe and asks, “Why do I have to cut three inches off the end?” One aunt says it braises better. Another swears it’s all fat. A third shrugs, “We’ve always done it this way.” Eventually she asks the original recipe author, a great‑aunt who wanders in after a few years away. The verdict: “Honey, I cut it off because it didn’t fit in my pan.” Tradition: explained. Curiosity: vindicated.

So, during this Nov 9–29 retrograde, try a gentle audit of your holiday habits. Not a courtroom cross‑examination—more like a curious tour.

Try this: name one ritual you adore and why it still feeds you; name one that secretly drains you and what tiny tweak would help; name one you’re ready to retire and what meaningful thing could take its place. If you’re feeling brave, ask the room: what tradition did we invent for a problem that doesn’t exist anymore?

Journal sparks for this Mercury Retrograde: where am I acting on autopilot? what am I scared will happen if we change this? what tiny action would make this a little kinder or a bit easier?

Retrograde doesn’t mean break everything. It means review, revise, and re‑align with what’s real right now. If you sprinkle in curiosity, even the trickster energy becomes an ally.

For more on the flavor of this retrograde, Julie Simmons has a thoughtful read: https://alignedformercuryretrograde.com/2025/10/14/mercury-retrograde-in-scorpio-insights-and-reflections/

What’s one tradition you’re curious to test‑drive differently this year?

With Light and Love

Carolyn Winter

Life Repatterning Coach

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Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio: Insights and Reflections

Posted on October 14, 2025 by juliesimmons

November 9-29th 2025

This Mercury retrograde will be busy, triggering planets in early or late degrees of their signs. The Trickster will step back and forth over various thresholds. Collectively, who can deny the sense that we are at the end and the beginning? Truly, we feel the cusp of a New Age calling as the old one dies.

Having been born in these times, it falls to us to take our world through this rather chaotic period. In Scorpio, Mercury reminds us that nothing is gained by pretending things aren’t the way they are, by denial or ignorance. Mercury may be a trickster but it is also a magician whose tricks are meant to wake us from the sleep of business as usual. Change is the only constant. Mercury loves that and so might we when Mercury is retrograde.

When we are armed with curiosity and consideration regarding the inevitable changes and thresholds of our own lives, Mercury retrograde becomes interesting rather than anxiety producing. Our contributions become more important than our conquests. Our relinquishments remind us that we are all part of the same planet. Everything we wear, eat, or create is made with materials as well as the sweat and effort of someone we might not know or ever meet.

So what can you do about it, with it, and for it? Can you build a bunker? Donate to the food bank? Vote? Mercury retro isn’t actually a call to action. If anything it’s a call to reflection. A time to listen, not simply to your own voice and the voices in your own head but to the noise in the commons. The din of a collapsing culture. Knowing how we feel is powerful medicine and great protection. Mercury in Scorpio knows that. As it goes back and forth into Sagittarius and back to Scorpio it asks us to feel deeply and envision the best possible outcomes.

Mercury retrograde in Scorpio will make trines to Saturn, Neptune and Jupiter. For those who can feel, who can sit with their feelings and allow them to cook, there is much empowerment in these aspects. The oppositions to Uranus are more challenging, reminding us that technology is a powerful and dangerous tool, easily weaponized. Our participation is the ammunition that allows it to harm as well as help. The second and third opposition remind us that there are consequences for how we participate and how we allow the children to participate. The conjunction to Mars at the start is a thrust, a challenge to take on the scary things, the feelings you don’t want. In mythology such a magic cauldron cooks a brew which in the end kills the liars, cowards and con artists, even as it strengthens the noble-hearted. The sextiles to Pluto shed light on which kind of person you might want to be.

As always, the most mystical day of a Mercury retrograde period is when it conjuncts the Sun on November 20th. This conjunction is quite close to the opposition to Uranus and trine to Neptune. Imagine you are an angel, standing on the head of a pin. You might count how many of you there are. More interesting might be why you are standing on the pin in the first place, what the pin is for, and the very nature of the predicament.

Warm regards, 

Julie 

juliesimmons.ca 

Town Crier for October

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