Every three to four months, Mercury appears to travel backward across the sky and the internet becomes ablaze with worries about the mayhem that a Mercury retrograde has in store for us. Brands have even jumped on the bandwagon, offering Mercury retrograde merch, deals and sales.
To astrologists, this planet’s vocation is communication and tech; according to Roman mythology, Mercury was the god of messages. Therefore, a Mercury in retrograde is often associated with a range of misfortunes and miscommunications for those of us on Earth.
Yet we cannot blame the planet Mercury or its position in the sky for any mundane mishaps and communication issues we might be experiencing. If planets and stars affected life on Earth, things would be very different.
“I feel like life is chaotic as it is,” says Paul Byrne, an Earth and planetary sciences expert at Washington University in St. Louis. “I'd hate to think that the planets were having any kind of effectiveness, and I think we can pretty confidently say that they don't.”
