coming to you live from Mercury Retrograde (kinda)
Aries Szn time travel: part i
~ join me as we travel back in time ~
i wrote this (and the second part that is to follow) back in late March/ early April in the midst of an astrological fuckstorm and my resulting mental-emotional instability.
the two entries within this first part are kind of mirrors to each other, so enjoy the put together, rational beginning followed by the not-even-a-week-later devolution into madness!!!
☉11°Aries | 21.2 | 03-31-25
☿ 28°Pisces (retrograde)
i feel like it’s been a long time since i sat down to write. judging by the absence of checkmarks next to all the “writing!” reminders in my planner, it’s been about three weeks. boy do i feel it.
i’m happy that writing has taken this spot in my life: its rightful place as a form of self-expression that i cannot live without. writing has become necessary again, and for that i am thrilled.
so what has been going on since i’ve been away?
well, i spent about half of march somewhat bedridden with an endometrial flare-up. i suspected that a lunar eclipse in my fourth house—the womb of the zodiac—would inspire such a bodily response, so i was prepared (or, yaknow, as prepared as i could be).
the pain left me in quite a mental fog, one that felt exacerbated by the astrological movements: Mercury and Venus beginning their retrograde periods, sliding past dreamy Neptune as it was touched by the Sun before finally entering Aries yesterday.
so i lay in bed, spending most of most days cocooned in my own energy, melting, molting, reconstituting my being.
the Aries solar eclipse was two days ago. spring has fully sprung: flowers push up from the earth and decorate the tree outside my window. the air is warm and seductive; i practice my qigong outside again.
now that the pain is gone, i can feel just how much of the brain fog and mental pressure was, in fact, due to the planets. i am eager for this retrograde period to be over, and for the shifting planets to have their final conjunctions with Neptune, but i am also enjoying the lessons that this energy brings.
i had a birthday while i was gone (hbd to me!) and so i’ve entered a new profection year and have a new time lord. this year my Virgo fourth house is profected, making my time lord Mercury (which also happens to be my chart ruler).1
having a lunar eclipse in my profected house three days after my birthday, and my time lord going retrograde the very next day, has given me a lot to play with. i wasn’t sure how a retrograding time lord would feel, since the last two years (the only years i’ve been aware of profection) have been ruled by the Sun and Moon which never change their direction. part of me was naively hopeful that, because of the strong connection i have with Mercury, i might feel its retrogrades less while it is my time lord. LOL. i know that everything is heightened because of our proximity to eclipse season, but this retrograde is surely packing a wallop.
i’m glad to have experienced my first time lord retrograde right out of the gate, so that i can prepare for this energy better in the future. i had planned to start recording my first online course2 during this retrograde and, shocking no one, that plan isn’t working out.
i also wanted to keep my writing schedule (LOL) and start posting 3-5 tiktoks a week (LOL). lots of laughs to get through every plan i made crumbling around me.
this birthday also ushered me into a Year 5. something i didn’t want to acknowledge about a 5th Year was the necessity of adaptability. i had a plan for my course to be released by a certain date and now i’m being forced to face the reality that that might not happen. it might not happen and that’s okay.
i also had a plan to start a series on tiktok. well, i started it, but i’m sure as hell not finishing it. and that’s okay, too.
where the Year 4 taught me about stability and structure and commitment, it seems like my Year 5 will be teaching me a lot about surrender, acceptance, and openness to change. i’m here for the ride, and excited for what will unfold!
it’s interesting what taking an unplanned three week break from writing will do. i had gotten my stamina to about two hours, and now it’s been 40 minutes and i need to tap out.
i’m grateful to have a space to come back to. i’m happy to be sat down writing again. & i’m excited to share more of my meanderings through this lifetime.3
☉16°Aries | 51.2 | 04-05-25
☿ 26°Pisces (retrograde)
i don’t even know if i’ll upload this.
that sounded dramatic—it’s not because i’m like spiraling or anything. it’s just that i’m high, and i’m at my new desktop (getting used to a new and somewhat impractical keyboard), and i just wanna ramble.
i wanna talk to someone and as my pen pals, well, you’re always available when i need an open ear.
so this retrograde has been… hard. it’s been intense. people i thought i knew have flipped switches and made huge pivots and it feels like everything is crumbling around me. i said that i was excited for my Year 5 but i didn’t anticipate the open-handedness that would be necessary to move gracefully with all of the restructuring that a Year 5 brings.
i also didn’t anticipate what a Mercury retrograde would feel like with Mercury as my time lord, while the season’s eclipses and retrogrades all happened right beside my natal Mercury in Aries.
i’ve been sick for most of this retrograde, beginning the night before and letting up only for a few days last week. after my endometriosis pain lapsed, i caught a bug and have been bleary headed and highly fatigued for days. it doesn’t feel like it’s lifting even now.4
some silly part of me thought to plead with Mercury as my Time-Lord-Chart-Ruler to go easy on me: c’mon, we’re close, right? think you could totally abandon whatever lessons you had planned to teach me and instead help me weasel my way into shortcuts by doing things i know i shouldn’t be doing? no? …ya sure…?
but, all that said—
i have been struggling to write and here i find myself in a situation i never would have concocted on purpose: i’m high (i like to write sober these days); i’m in an unusual spot using unfamiliar equipment (i usually write on my couch with my laptop); and i’m with my Honey (i prefer to write alone).
yet i am writing.
i’m fulfilling a promise to myself that i’ve been struggling to fulfill. i’m breathing life back into myself by engaging with my creativity. i’m allowing the expression of deeply pent up emotions that can only be released via this medium.
this Mercury retrograde, for as difficult and lackluster as it’s been, has certainly showed me that my “best way” isn’t necessarily the “best way”—or perhaps more truthfully, that there is no “best way”.
i’m having fun right now. i feel more than ever the energy that i wanted the FEWL Diaries to carry: me, sitting in the captain’s quarters of my starship, beaming an update about my adventures on earth out to the galaxy.
i’m in the right headspace and heartspace and i never would have chosen this set of circumstances (that were apparently necessary) for this to happen.
i’ve been trying to roll with all of Mercury’s punches like that lately. if something isn’t working, i assume that it’s because i’m meant to look elsewhere, toward another path that i might have missed with my vision preoccupied by what i expect, what i want.
beyond my writing practice, i’m also experiencing intense roadblock energy around the Aries Saturn Return course. i had an idea and it became impractical. so i came up with a new idea, and then it became impractical. finally, i had “thought of everything,” and found myself with a plan that would certainly cover all my bases.
the time to execute the plan swings around and whaddya know… all of the circumstances that i assumed i’d be working with have changed!!! nothing is what i expected it to be. now, at game time, fewer and fewer of my gameplans seem to be useable.
and i just have to be cool with that.
thanks, Self, for giving me all this experience up front. you said, you are walking into your New Year with a hardy understanding of the lessons you’ll be working with, whether you like it or not.
i’m honestly prepared to scrap this whole letter. (i hope i don’t accidentally delete it again lol.)
that’s another way this Mercury retrograde has affected me like never before!
i always pay attention to a Mercury retrograde because Mercury is my chart ruler. never ever ever before have i experienced the level of technological and communicative5 mayhem that i am experiencing now. wtfff????
the traffic, the shitty drivers, the machines breaking, shit deciding to delete itself, off measurements, misunderstandings…
speaking of! one last thing that i want to report on is the strength of this retrograde’s reflective energy—yet another aspect of a Mercury retrograde that i don’t normally experience in such a poignant way.
in the past few weeks, i have had the privilege of seeing the world from every perspective around me that i proclaimed not to understand.6
friends, family, my Honey—every moment of strange, i don’t get it or ugh i don’t know how you can’t see what i’m trying to show you! has found itself resolved.
sure, there are some perspectives harder to swallow than others, but i can see them now. i see how naturally and innocuously people held different viewpoints than me, and i’m so grateful for the insight i’ve gained through the frustration and confusion that preceded it. my own perspective has been refined by the addition of those around me.
okay i’m rambling, word salad-ing, and my tank is hurtling toward empty.
goodbye for now!
from earth, with love
xoxo Lizzie
because of this, i’m gonna start including Mercury’s information in the log date thing at the beginning of these entries.
a self-paced course to help people embrace their upcoming Saturn Return—coming soon to an internet near you! ;*
editing me (05-15-25) thinks it’s so funny how i’m speaking here as if i thought i’d never write again. to be fair to that version of me, there was a nearly monthlong dry spell and i hadn’t been able to start recording my course yet. i was stir crazy and feeling creatively stuck. i send love back to that Me. you got it dude, it all works out!
while writing this part i smashed some buttons on my keyboard and almost just deleted this whole essay. broh. can Mercury chill tf out??? (please?)
random side thought: is language a form of technology?
fall down the rabbit hole yourself because i think the answer is yes!
Happy super belated birthday