Mercury Retrograde and the Profound Need to Lay Down the Sword for the Pen
(Originally posted March 14th 2025)
In just a few hours, Mercury stations retrograde at 9° Aries, retracing its steps back into 26° Pisces before turning direct on April 7th. This is a really unique Mercury retrograde as it’s happening in the weeks building up to a solar eclipse at the same 9° Aries on March 29th!
The fact that Mercury begins its retrograde at the exact degree of the upcoming eclipse suggests that whatever realizations, conversations, and internal reflections arise over the next few weeks are not just passing thoughts. They are preparing us for the eclipse, your lips to God's ears.
Change is never easy, especially when we are in the midst of healing. Last year’s Aries eclipse was conjunct Chiron, tearing open deep wounds around rejection, fear, loss, and abandonment. It forced us to see where we’ve been hurt during our childhood and adolescence, and where we might still be carrying those wounds like armor, defending ourselves against pain that has already come and gone.
Just two weeks after the solar eclipse, the full moon on April 12th the Sun will sit in exact conjunction with Chiron once again, bringing a culmination of energy from last April. Last year we planted the seeds, or rather they were watered within us, and this year we get to see those fruits after so much hard work. Wisdom, growth, integrity, accountability has never tasted sweeter. The Chironic Eclipse forced us to do some serious growth, blowing the lid right off the parts of us that are still making decisions and commitments reactively.
Some of the collective, unfortunately, will be left with unattended fields of rotten and wasted opportunities due to avoidance and denial.
Here's what I realized over the last year: We cant turn off our feelings but we CAN turn off the behaviors they drive.
We don’t always get to choose how we feel about something. Healing doesn’t mean waking up one day and magically feeling whole. It doesn’t mean that fear or grief or anger disappears overnight. What we can choose, however, is what we do with those feelings. We can decide whether they will drive us into the same old cycles of reaction, or whether we will change the behaviors that keep us trapped in patterns that no longer serve us.
As Mercury retrogrades from Aries back into Pisces, we are being asked: Where are we still at war with ourselves? Where are we lashing out against others in an effort to make ourselves feel better?
Where do we need to put the weapons down, and not just the ones we wield against others, but the ones we formed in our own minds?
Pisces rules the subconscious, the places we don’t always see clearly, and here we find the stories we tell ourselves that keep us locked in fear, resentment, or self-doubt. Aries wants to fight, but what happens when the fight is within?
This Mercury retrograde is about untangling those internal battles once and for all so we can get our head in the game. It’s about recognizing the difference between self-protection and self-sabotage.
And when the eclipse arrives, it won’t be gentle, it will demand action.
Will we be ready to step into it with clarity, or will we still be caught in a fight that is long over? Are you willing to lay down your arms in order to move forward? The pen has always been mightier than the sword, so what story will you write going forward?
