This week our smallest planet is making a quick retreat from the evening sky and into the notorious motion known as the "Mercury retrograde."
Mercury has been on the evening side of the Sun since the middle of July, though the planet always appears so close to the Sun from our perspective on Earth that it is not so easy to see it.
In former cultures, Mercury was known as the messenger between the worlds~sometimes seen in the evening sky, sometimes in the morning sky. The retrograde period, when it changes from evening sky to morning sky and back again signaled a significant moment in the sending and receiving of these messages between the worlds.
Think of it this way: When Mercury is an evening sky planet, as it has been nearly all summer long, it's been following the Sun through the sky all day, only becoming visible at the end of the day in the west, after the Sun sets. During this time it's like Mercury has been gathering up all the day-wake thoughts and wishes and dreams of humanity, preparing them for delivery to the gods that inhabit the starry worlds beyond the Sun.
This "message delivery" of human wishes to the gods occurs when Mercury begins its retrograde motion and retreats from the evening sky. This starts on Tuesday this week.
So all summer long, Mercury has spent its days gathering up all of our summer thoughts and dreams as though in a mighty celestial bottle which it is now going to deliver to the gods.
When Mercury emerges in the morning sky a few weeks from now, after the retrograde is over, then we can expect to receive a star-filled response in return. It just so happens that Mercury becomes a planet of the morning sky on September 22nd, the day of Autumn Equinox when day and night are of equal length.
This just might mean that the messages we receive at the end of the month, when we see Mercury in the morning sky, will help to balance out all our best summer dreams!