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Symbolism and Mercury Retrograde

Mercury will be retrograde from August 3 to August 26, starting its retrograde pattern in Virgo, but sinking back into Leo before it’s all said and done.

The first clue is that Virgo is both associated with Mercury, the thinking and analytical side of Mercury, and Virgo is an Earth Sign.

Dirt. Grounded. Feet firmly on the ground.

From an earth sign, Mercury is slipping back into arguably the most demonstrative and outspoken of the fire signs, the Mighty Leo.

Here’s how it breaks down, with Mercury backwards starting in a dirt sign, then slipping into fiery Leo, the Mercury Retrograde problems, issues, whatever crops up as the issue of the moment? That, in good fashion, gets held onto by the mighty Leo fire and ire.

That, in turn, takes a small problem and fans the flames higher and higher, until there’s a fire of epic proportions.

Not always good.

Watch, during this next Mercury Retrograde while individuals get stuck on a single point then fail to relinquish a hold of that point, even when there is overwhelming evidence that the point is no longer valid.

The over-arching theme for this Mercury retrograde?

“I may not be right, but I’ll be wrong as loud as I can be!”

Blindsided by this standard Mercury synodic period, it will be easy to watch while other people are loudly, vociferously, and totally wrong.

The Virgo starting point will drill down on a single issue, focus on a single — perceived — problem. Hone in on that issue. With Virgo-like precision, pull it apart and work through the problem.

However, since this a Mercury Retrograde time, that problem being addressed, the chances are about 80 to 20 that the problem isn’t what is seems to be. Despite the full attention of the Virgo mind, the Mercury Retrograde, the Trickster, will probably point other issues. Again, this isn’t about the real issue, it’s a sideshow. A distraction. Smoke and mirrors.

Mercury up to its usual tricks.

Here’s where the problem gets compounded a hundred-fold: Sun and Mercury in Leo. Mercury slips back into Leo, and the whole time, well, most of the time, the Sun will be in Leo.

Watch, don’t say a thing. An open mouth gathers no feet.

Leo is great, perhaps the very finest of the fire signs (other fire signs are Sagittarius and Aries). Leo is usually the loudest and quite frequently the center of attention. As they should be.

This little Mercury issue, though, it is where a slight perception gets warped out of the shape and then the whole thing is blown way out of proportion.

Worse yet, this is almost certainly an issue where the original problem is misunderstood.

Doesn’t it hurt to be wrong about being wrong?