On Mercury hour on Mercury day during Mercury retrograde in my 3H of neighbourhood, I walked out on a sunny winter day, my first walk in over a week. I stop at a cafe and order a soy cap, then looked across the street.

Voice ⊹ Choice ⊹ Power

Three years ago, after a particularly intensive week of Somatic Experiencing training, I came to this same cafe one afternoon. I'd been crying all week, unable to place words to my experience of a big freeze in my nervous system melting into a wide gushing river of tears that didn't appear ready to stop. I remember looking across the street at this wall mural: two figures in yellow and black dresses like human bees amongst flowers, with the words Voice - Choice - Power painted across them.

I remember staring hard at this mural that day as a resource - feeling my tears flowing, feeling my tummy settling, feeling how I felt fragile and mushy but knowing then that new choices were emerging: my voice quiet but present, my power hidden but deep.

The healing work of building a life you cherish from the inside out, often begins with noticing What Is Different. Differentiating between this experience and that experience. Now I can see how a year ago me crumbled in shame when harsh criticism was leveled right at my face, today ago me can look the same person in the eye and say, that is your opinion and the truth is that we value different things.

Voice ⊹ Choice ⊹ Power

Untangling the holy mess of our trauma all bundled in one big sensation of yuck, of despair, of shame is not a one and done thing. It is a lifetime thing of plucking through the threads one by one, moment by moment, day by day. Some days it unravels into feeling you are riding the wave of your creative erotic flow, connected to love and the universe and the birds and the bees. Other days it looks like giving up to curl up in bed watching House of Dragons till 3am.

Expansion and contraction, ease and tension is part of the rhythm of life.

Of our bodies.

On and on forever.

꩜

Mercury retrogrades occur three times in 2026, and this year Mercury retrogrades all occur in water signs - Pisces, Cancer, Scorpio. The water signs relate to the realm of the subconscious, emotions, intuition. The rest of 2026 the energy is moving faster and louder with the outer planets all now in air and fire - external, yang, active.

Meanwhile, Mercury is re-churning us through watery terrain to return to shore anew.

Mercury retrogrades are spoken of as periods of the RE prefixes: rethink, review, revise, reflect, times for re-membering that detours and reroutes are part of the process, that the point of life is not to simply drive on the highest speed along a straight road to arrive at your destination.

What is the 'inconvenience' that is slowing you down?

Is it an inconvenience or simply an open gate to a re-trieve a fragment of you, left behind because it was too much to feel?

This Mercury retrograde in Cancer, in re-tracing your steps, may you re-visit somewhere that allowed you to come back home to yourself even momentarily - to the strength in your spine and softness of your heart.

♡
Rachel