Mercury Retrograde!?!?

Many of my friends have been having strange and somewhat disconcerting things happening in their lives lately....

...including me.

Yesterday I couldn't seem to do anything right the first time and was quite frustrated with myself. The topper was when I headed to the drugstore to fill a prescription....got out of my car....and realized that my keys were locked inside.

A friend of mine said that her new car all of a sudden wouldn't start as she was trying to get to work to open up the store. And, then later on that evening her flight out of town was suddenly cancelled.

Another friend was supposed to meet a business associate for lunch and ended up going to the wrong place in another part of town and missed her appointment.

I could go on and on and while things like this can happen to anyone anytime...there just happen to be an overabundance of mishaps lately.

But, I think that I now have somewhat of an explanation...?

I was told by a friend that we are now in a stage called the "Mercury retrograde". This situation happens 3 times a year and lasts for about 3 weeks. This one is from October 12 through November 1.

Here is some information that I have gotten off of the Internet about this phenomenon:

"This is an important period, and we should be aware of the effects associated with this astrological influence. Since it is so often, we must learn what it means and how to take advantage of it.

There is no real backwards movement of Mercury; it's just that we see it this way from Earth, because of the combined movement of the Earth and Mercury around the Sun. However, astrologically this is very relevant.

Mercury rules over the mind's processes, studying, communication, businesses, travels and the like. When Mercury reverses its direction, all these areas are affected as well.

The mind turns naturally inwards and people tend to analyze more of their own thoughts and follow the common thinking patterns, rather then be curious and eager for new intellectual experiences or challenges. This helps the meditation or the thorough lonely long-term study of a specific matter, but it affects the study of new subjects, the communication with the others, the attention oriented outwards.

Businesses, travels and communications tend to experience delays and different problems. Computers and other processes that work with information may experience crashes, unexpected failures.

Don't enroll in courses, don't buy expensive Mercurian items (books, cars, mobile phones etc.), don't sign important contracts and do not marry.

What is this Mercury retrograde period good for?

It is definitely a very good period for some actions. No time is completely bad for anything, there is a reason in everything happens.

The key is the reversed direction of movement: take any known Mercurian action, reverse its flow, consider the keywords "re-doing something", "double-checking", "finish the old projects" and there you are, you've found the good side of Mercury retrograde.

For instance, you may want to read again a book you particularly liked, a subject you studied before, meet and discuss with old friends you haven't met for a long time, travel to places you've already been to before.

This is an excellent time to work on old projects that never got to be finished. So, think about the things you started and never finalized.

Next, you might wish to prevent any bad things to happen to you: so double-check your agenda, call your business partners to confirm that everything goes as planned, have everything ready before the deadline and leave some extra time for unexpected events. Make copies of your important files and documents, save your work more often.

The other solution is to go on vacation or at least slow down the pace of your projects. You will find that going slowly during the Mercury retrograde period will spare you many efforts of redoing the same action that wasn't performed right the first time.

Above all, be generous and compassionate: you are already aware about the influence of this period, but the others aren't aware of it or there may be uncontrollable events. That's why you should have more diligence with the others and give them some more time. It'll be your mental health that you'll be sparing actually. "

WHO KNEW!?!

Not to worry, the next one isn't until January 28-February 19 in 2008....... : O