It might be super easy to blame all your shortfalls and fuck-ups on where exactly Mercury is on its trip around the sun – and whether or not it’s in retrograde – but Chani Nicholas, the astrologer to the stars on Earth, doesn’t think you should live in fear of the times when the evening star is shifting backwards.
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Chani spoke with PEDESTRIAN.TV about why living in fear of a Mercury retrograde is an unhealthy way to exist, and how it’s very likely not how astrologers wanted people to interact with the planet’s movements.
“I don’t think people should fear anything, it’s a really negative way to use astrology,” she said.
“It’s not healthy, I don’t think it’s productive, and I don’t think that’s what any astrologer ever intended for astrology.”
Chani told me, a huge Gemini, that each time a retrograde happens, it’s very different from the last and that each retrograde is very unique every single one of us because it’s all dependent on our birth charts – which is how the planets and stars were mapped out in the sky the moment we were born.
“Each [retrograde] is very specific. Each one will happen at a different part of your chart,” she said.
“Each one’s happening in a specific sign and it’s contacting specific planets, and each one has its own qualities. So it’s really about understanding how it’s moving through your chart each time it does, and that it’s different each time we have a Mercury retrograde – it’s a totally new experience.”
Considering Mercury enters retrograde multiple times a year, Chani believes the whole idea of being afraid of that particular shift in the planet’s perceived movements is a product of the capitalist society we exist in.
“It’s capitalism, it’s a machine that just wants to sell something, so it’s attempting to sell from fear around mercury retrograde,” she said.
“It happens three to four times a year. So it’s like, happening a lot. So it would be really silly to have to fear something that happens so much.”
So what does truth does a Mercury in retrograde hold for Chani Nicholas? Although each person can gain different things out of each retrograde, she accepts that it holds a lot of importance in the way we communicate with each other.
“It is a time where we might hear something in a different way, or learn something about our communication style in a certain area of our life,” she said.
So there you go – next time something royally fucks up in your life and you start to think about how maybe Mercury is in retrograde, get out of it. Don’t do that to yourself. Go brush up on your birth chart and figure out instead how that Mercury retrograde can work for you instead.
Chani’s also the spiritual sage behind those new Cosmic Playlists that have popped up on Spotify – they change month-to-month based on her reading of each star sign, and you can find ’em be searching for your own sun sign.
