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Upon entering a personal year ruled by Mercury late last year, and in a frenzy to make it count (Mercury), I somehow collected a whole bunch of new… notebooks. My rotating setup goes like this: digital Notes app for random notes, images, quotes and lists Notion for anything and everything Obsidian for writing
analog mini Muji notebook for observations on the go slim pink Rollbahn notebook from Japan for list-making pink Daycraft pleather journal for morning pages lilac Leuchtturn1917 notebook for business Honeycomb astrological almanac for forecasting and recording my days
On the weekend I procured a mini 2026 Moleskine weekly planner for $5, seven months into the year. I am using them all at once, still trying for some semblance of organisation: for documenting, for researching, for observing, for archiving, for list-making, for writing. Really, though, at the core of it - for remembering. ✎ ₊ 📓. ݁₊ ⊹ Some days I feel insane for fragmenting my life across so many different analog and digital notebooks. Like which one was for which again? I don't always feel organised. I constantly still feel like I'm always trying out new ways of collecting my thoughts, ideas and tasks. I talk to others for inspiration and try it on for size - a tip here, a trick there. The internet shows me more aspirational ‘journal ecosystem’ content on my algorithm. This Mercury retrograde in Cancer has prompted painful emotional reviews, but a more enjoyable reroute has been reviewing how I organise my days, weeks and months. I visited my friend's house for the first time recently, and during the house tour she showed me her notebooks with immaculate handwriting and drawings, somehow systematically organised even when note-taking live (babe, your journalling ecosystem is what the plebs aspire to!) then gave me a mini masterclass on using Obsidian (I think I need to take weekly classes on this). ✎ ₊ 📓. ݁₊ ⊹ Since practicing astrology, I have become relentless with documenting. Where previously I documented via photographs like a paparazzi, in recent years it's been through writing, always dated. Just yesterday I uncovered another personal pivotal date via archived messages and old photos on cloud, the revelation surprising me with it's timing. A break up during Venus retrograde? Groundbreaking! I haven't quite paused to contemplate how it all fits yet in the wider arc of my life, but the pattern alone reminded me how the Skies simply reflect what is occurring in our mundane, human lives. Astrology is a study of time. We are living through multiple collective cycles that span beyond our individual lifetimes, the humble act of recording and researching my own archives regularly helps me make sense of the enormity and simplicity of life as I grow and change as a person. Mercury the messenger planet knows that the human mind will forget. Jot it down so you can stop carrying it around like a floating weight in your mind. Mercury retrograding through Cancer in my third house of everyday environment and rituals reminded me that the sheer practice of capturing impressions of my day-to-day experience shapes how I relay my experience to others in conversation and connection. I see a meme and I forward it to someone. I listen to a podcast and I send it to someone it makes me think of. My daily rituals waxes and wanes like the Moon, and yet it is what I enact regularly over time that builds a life I love. How we spend our days, after all, is how we spend our lives (Annie Dillard). You can really start at any time. Buy a 2026 planner more than midway through the year. So what if more than half the pages before are empty? You know how many notebooks you never finished writing in. (oops... just me?) As the Sun moves into Leo in six hours and Mercury stations direct on Friday, may you summon the spoons to speak from your heart, even if you're still reaching for precise words to transmit your felt experience. ♡
Rachel p.s. - you can now read past mercury missives through the archives!
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