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 20^th. 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