How Does Mercury Retrograde Affect Us In The Different Houses?

by Robert Wilkinson

This article is a brief sketch of several possible ways Mercury retrograde in the different houses of the birthchart could manifest. Obviously there are thousands of ways this influence could manifest based on what houses Mercury rules in the birth chart, what sign(s) and decans it retrogrades through and what aspects it makes, all of which make a huge difference in what manifests and why. Though all of these are important factors, a primary way we can know what's up and how to deal with it is through knowing the house it falls in. By knowing the house(s) affected, we can know the arenas of life we can expect to see “go retrograde,” or the sector of our outer world of affairs on which we will get a new point of view.

If you know where the coming Mercury retrograde falls in your birth chart, then read the appropriate house position. If it falls on a cusp (indicating the interface, or edge between two areas of life), then read both houses, as you will see both sectors affected in some way. If you do not know your rising sign (ascendant), then read where it falls in your Solar sectors, given in Part 2 of the article “Mercury Retrograde Astrology.” These Solar sectors also affect each of us, regardless of where it actually falls in our birth chart.

A much more comprehensive look at many other possible Mercury retrograde manifestations can be found in Chapter 5 in my book, "A New Look At Mercury Retrograde.” Though it's out of print, there are still a few copies floating around, and as I've said before, I will be offering it as an ebook for sale on this site in the near future. The important thing here is to remember than since astrology is a symbolic language, consider this an opportunity for your imagination to cut loose a little, getting a sense of the images and meanings behind what you’re reading. You may get some interesting insights on your own! No matter what you're about to read, remember that during a Mercury retrograde period, no matter how things may seem, by the time it’s all said and done there will be many twists and turns, and probably won't wind up the way it looked to begin with!

Mercury retrograde in the First house: You’ll take a new look at your self-image, and recent information about yourself, or who you think you are may need to be reconsidered. Old character traits and ideas may resurface in new forms. Re-think a new beginning you may have been offered recently, and/or finish up some old business so you can get on with a new way of perceiving, coordinating, or expressing something. You may find you know something about yourself that you want to communicate, but not know how. You can get flashes of insight into your subconsciousness. Great time for reworking your self-expression and the personality you are expressing.

Mercury retrograde in the Second house: You’ll take a new look at your values, what you have, or how you are using it. You may get an insight into your subconsciousness as to why you want what you want, why you hold on to things that you do, or why your self-image is supported by something. Money or goods thought lost may return, or your money supply may slow down because of peculiar circumstances. Great time for finding new and innovating ideas about how to make money or hold on to it. Also a great time to capture things in roundabout or indirect ways, and get insights into your partner's desires or ways they relate to joint resources.

Mercury retrograde in the Third house: You will think many thoughts, over and over, trying to figure out how to put them all together.  Try to see how they are all connected. You may know what you want to say, but not how to say it. You can notice things in your environment you never saw before, or meet someone in a roundabout way that is like a brother or sister to you. You can get insights into thoughts you’ve had before, but in new applications or unusual ways to use them.  Great time for learning non-verbal or indirect means of communicating, or renewing an old knowledge into a new skill or application. Great for seeing subconscious factors driving your partner's truth, philosophy, or morality.

Mercury retrograde in the Fourth house: There will be returns from your past, or you could get new information or a new perspective or way of viewing your home, family affairs, or an important impression from the past. You may get a new insight into some old need or something from your childhood that altered your perception. A parent could communicate in an unusual way, or someone could remind you of one of your parents. An old family issue could surface anew. Something you’ve been putting off around the house may become important during Mercury retrograde in this house. Great time for rearranging furniture, reconnecting with family, and doing research into your genealogy.

Mercury retrograde in the Fifth house: This can give insights into children, your creative expression, or a look back on some way that used to connect you to life's joy, and was an expression of your enthusiasm and playfulness. You may see a different way to express something, be your natural self, or play. Find indirect ways to express your creative self, and value unique insights into your many forms of self-expression. Great time for exploring the youthful, natural, spontaneous parts of yourself. You may understand why a child is having trouble expressing themself, or coordinating their affairs. Non-verbal communications will work better than instruction. New insights into your partner's friends, goals, or ambitions.

Mercury retrograde in the Sixth house: This could bring a new insight into an old health concern, or bring confused or muddled information about a health complaint that isn’t really what it’s supposed to be.  This is the time to do research into health matters, or return to an old understanding, or give an old way of working a new look so that other practical facets can be shown.  Find a new approach to all health matters, work matters, or ways of relating to plants and animals.  Great time for finding a new way to do a job, getting information about alternative health options, or finding new information important to your health not understood before. Insights into partner's motives, sorrow, and subconsciousness.

Mercury retrograde in the Seventh house: This is the time to explore new ways of communicating things to others without attachment to exact forms of what is being said. Great for getting new insights into old opportunities and finding new interpretations. Find a way to communicate insights you have about yourself within your relationships, without making too much or too little of those in your past. You may get interesting insights into what makes a present or past partner tick, or see a different facet to your partner, thus creating a new understanding. Great time for revealing deep parts of yourself or your partnering dynamic to others. Could also bring up old issues in new forms.

Mercury retrograde in the Eighth house: You need to review a past loss or death and take a different perspective on your experience of what was taken from you. Reclaim an old power in a new form, or reclaim some idea, feeling, or thing of value you once surrendered to someone in a defeat. Find a new way to see what you desire, or experiment with new approaches to getting it. You can get a flash on something of social value and a way to draw some opportunity to yourself. Great time for dropping something long overdue and shaking off the Soul sludge that is hindering you from flowering in some public way. Great time for new insights into your partner's money issues, or why they value what they do subconsciously.

Mercury retrograde in the Ninth house: You will take a new look at your future, path of Truth, life journey, or your quest. An old Truth may return in a new form, or you'll get a different take on some moral or ethical dilemma. You may see how another Truth or philosophy is related to your own, or get a new interpretation of the meaning of a higher truth. It's a time to notice the little things that will affect your future to come, and experiment with different applications of your Truths in a wide variety of situations. A great time to review something you learned in the past, or for going back to school. If you and your partner are having trouble communicating, look at possibilities without having to be too specific.

Mercury retrograde in the Tenth house: This can bring reversals in public position, or long overdue acknowledgment or recognition. You may need to do some things neglected up to now before you can move forward. This position may indicate miscommunications in the professional sector, or delays and misunderstandings in the workplace. Take extra care about any important decisions to be made, as they will probably be subject to change, and try to sign no important contracts during this period. A great time to take care of old business or use temporary experimental approaches to be finally evaluated later. Also a great time to see how your parents affected your self-image and what type of public standing you project.

Mercury retrograde in the Eleventh house: A time to get new insights into your friends, goals, and ambitions. You may reconnect with an old friend, or get a new insights into why you once wanted something and how this is related to some subconscious assumption. A good time for getting insights into why you have joined the groups you have been involved in, and what they taught you about your larger vision of world service. It’s a great time for forming some interesting public relationships, and harvesting something from the past in a new form. Find ways to recombine several old ambitions in a new package. New insights into why your partner plays the way they do, or if creative, you'll see their subconsciousness.

Mercury retrograde in the Twelfth house: This is a period for you to achieve closure on whatever ghosts and sorrows are still bugging you. Review and change your thinking, perception, affirmations, interpretations, meditations, or prayers to come to a more compassionate view of what is leaving and why things have happened the way they did. Unclear speech or recollection could cause trouble in unsuspected ways, so best to say little and forgive much. Get a new insight into an old sorrow or self-undoing behavior. A great time for taking one last look back before closing a chapter of the life that is already over. You'll get glimpses of the "movie of your life," and may need to re-edit your view of what happened and why.

Comments

[Clair Lavulo]

Hi Robert,
Your articles were very informative, and I appreciated them, I have a knowledge of astrology & use them in my readings, but I am not an astrologer per say. I can know a person's personality though, & I ask for their birth month.
Thank You for sharing your info with us all.
Blessings,
Clair - I am also on Keen

[Robert]

Hi Clair - Thanks for checking in. Glad the articles you read struck a chord with you. I definitely encourage you to learn as much as you can about astrology, since it is the "Alchemical Mother" of all metaphysical sciences. I hadn't heard of Keen, but after a short visit, it looks fairly sophisticated. Glad you found your way here.

[Don]

Thank you for the Retrograde in the Houses explanation. This article offers great guidance for my individual preparation, orientation, and focus, over the next 3-4. Very helpful.
Don.

[Robert]

Hi Don - Sure. As you know, there's even more in "A New Look At Mercury Retrograde." And of course, look to where it is in your Solar chart as well as natal, as it will yield even more insight.

[Don]

Absolutely. To be honest I'm having some difficulty reading the 'Sec.Prog.SA' specifically, how to approach reading it.
As I am learning each day, I find making a journal of experience with the moon for each day/month and then checking against it is fantastic. 1 month at a time for the planets and moon/sun/planetary aspects, I'm getting clearer and it is fantastic.
I'm getting into the experential/actual astrological forecasting.
To live by it is to be well prepared and helps me 'see where it all fits.'
With new understanding; A-papers, specialized material/books ie. "A new Look At Mercury Retrograde" etc., again, truly helpful and kind giving.
Be well all,
Don.

[Robert]

Yes, there are two ways to learn astrology. One is to read books and then try to draw analogies to what's happening. The other is to observe what's happening and correlate it to the transits, since what IS is what's going on, and there must be an astrological correspondence. Glad you're having fun learning the basics of the craft. It's wide and complex, but any knowledge whatsoever is worthy and useful in the future, both of this life and the next ones.

[Colleen]

Hi Robert,

I really find your site useful especially as I learn more about this topic. I've recommended you to several people who also think that you have a wonderful and unique website here! My sun sign is Aries and my ascendent sign in Scorpio. I was born with Mercury in Pisces 28.54 (I don't know if that matters). Which house should I be looking at in this article?

Thank you!!
~Colleen

[Robert]

Hi Colleen - Thanks for the recommendation. As for your question: If you're born in late March, it will RX from your solar 12th to your solar 11th. If you're born the first half of April, it's the 11th house. If you're born the third week of April, it will RX from your solar 11th to solar 10th house, so read both.

As for your Scorpio, it also depends on what degree it is. If your Asc is in the first 10 degrees, it will rx back from your 5th through your 4th. If you have an Asc between 11 and 25 degrees, it will be in your 4th house. If you're in the last few degrees of Scorpio, it will rx back from your 4th into your 3rd house, so read both.

[Ro]

As always, Robert, thank you for your wisdom and insights; specifically in relation this time to Mercury retro, and the difference between seduction and courtship - very apposite!

Ro

[Robert]

Hi Ro - You're very welcome. RX usually brings a new insight into old sitations. The difference between courtship and seduction is an important distinction, since if we don't know when someone is trying to seduce us into or out of something, we wind up in dire straits sooner or later. (Great band, lousy circumstance!) Then corrective action often brings out the seducer taking it personally, and trying to drag the seducee into further seductions through sophistical reasoning.

[Henry]

Hi Robert.

Well, I will be experiencing this Mercury Rx in my 12th house.

All your descriptions make sense. It feels like you know some chapter is about to end but don't grasp the when and the how. The ship is wrecking and you feel you wreck with it...but I must dettach myself, I know it from my Inner Self. Perhaps it will be clearer when Mercury will turn direct.

I've got a Mercurian-commercial profession, and certainly there's a lot of confusion and turmoil regarding paperwork and irrational expectatives from the bosses, which tend to increase madly for sure through October/November...and some secrets to be kept to fulfill and satisfy the demands of "powers" irrationality as some of us don't act the way they want us to, that is self-robotization.

So is this really a good period to keep things secret...or is a dangerous placement for up-covering things and have "inusual" surprises?. Perhaps is an incouncious desire to expect materialization of endings now, but...aha...there's this erratic Jupiter/Uranus square making things ill-thought.

By the way, I am yet preparing for a new professional future -extraordinarily increased compulsion to cut things loose with this Jupiter/Uranus square that certainly has marked a point of occult "rebellion" in my case and some others, but I hope Mercury will start to pave the way to leave the chapter afoot-. Being this Mercury Rx 12th in a trine with the Mars Rx in my 8th, it make sense things will show real/material opportunities for change and growing when this Mars will be direct next year if I start to work at a material level on present Mercury Rx mental/spiritual insights?.

Any other comments?.

Thanks Robert.

[Robert]

Hi Henry - Allow the process to take its strange twists and turns over time, as the result may be more satisfactory than you can presently imagine. That just happened to a client of mine, who turned an apparent frustrating situation headed for "defeat" into a triumph of adaptability and escape from a sinking ship. I believe that which has been covered will come to light, and much will not turn out as expected. And hang out with endings which will come at their own time. Do NOT try to push the river. Use your insights to detach from conventional thinking, and reconnect with people in your past who you feel connected with. And yes, overall, you're completing a major cycle and will open to something new next year.

[Sunil]

Robert,
Request a little time & advice.
I was born on 27-12-1962 at 16-45 pm in Bangalore.How will the Mercury Retrograde affect me?Sunil

[Robert]

Hi Sunil - Well, each Mercury RX affects you differently., depending on which sign it's in. We have another one coming in late January and early February in late Aquarius which is in your Solar 2nd house. It will fall either in your natal 8th, 9th, or both houses. Right now Saturn conjunct your Uranus and Pluto is far more important in restructuring your genius, and opposition your Jupiter shows that you need to get oriented toward something bigger while cutting back on old drifting tendencies. Saturn now quincunx your Saturn showing expansions through sacrifices in your sense of duty and responsibility, and you may need to play anew as you pull back from projections others have put on you, or you on them. Currently Mars is retrograde, which should be triggering your natal Mars RX pushing you toward self sufficiency. Read some of the Mars retrograde articles to get a sense of what's up in your life. It is opposition your Sun, so it's time to rework some of how you are or are not caring in your relationships.

[Helen]

Hi Robert,

Remember when I told you about the job when I got the job offer on November 3. (During the Mecury RX?) Remember the old astrology that never take a job during a Mercury RX? Well, I was let go today. The student of astrology that I am, I knew the job wouldn't be a long-lasting job.

I am just glad I got my computer fixed!

Now I just have to deal with the phone company.

Peace,

Helen

P.S. On to biggest and better things. I feel this has freed me to do what I am suppose to do.

[Robert]

Hi Helen - Well, it doesn't surprise me, though it could yield some unexpected results down the road. And yes, we sojourn at a place only as long as we need to.

[Helen]

Hi Robert,

Many thanks my friend. You are truly a blessing in my life.

Peace,

Helen

[Micheline]

i just checked mercury is retrograding back in forth over my dc (dc in aquarius at 23d) and into sixth house.

should be interesting to say the least !!!

[Henry]

Hi teacher!.

I'm glad of all cosmic phenomena, but this retrograde is exactly in span opposite to my LEO Sun (29º'51 Cancer)-Saturn-Mercury-Venus stellium in IX, both squaring my natal TAURUS Chiron VI and SCORPIO Uranus XII, and trining GEMINI Moon VII, TAURUS Jupiter VII, and LIBRA Pluto XI.

As I know the complexities of these specifics, I only refer to exploring the surface of the specific meaning of a retrograde Mercury in my 3rd House challenging my stellium in IX when I'm in a "9th House" situation (teaching abroad) -really meningful times I guess- of "natal inner ones" in 9th, being 3rd in Capricorn/Aquarius, but mainly the opposition is my natal Leo to this Aquarian Mercury RX. 3rd house transiting Mercury RX and Natal 9th receiving opposition.

Any insight will be appreciated, if there could be something meaningful,
dispassionately thinking by myself after reading all of your works.

Of couse, I know each path is different, but insights, your insights, are always surprising and beyond any value.

As you like, and me too, synthesis: why my Leo 9th house nature opposed by a Mercury RX in Aquarius in my 3rd?. Must I meld better individual energy into a larger "neighbours/communication" consciousness- I'm not sure of actual destinations in life, and so more being truly in this Great Irrationality-?.

Difficult (perhaps not). Any insight, as always, thanks so much.

[Robert]

Hi Henry - Oppositions exteriorize whatever they oppose. Perhaps in the 3rd you will remember some things from the past, or receive a message that will require some things get done before something else can move forward. Perhaps a new way of viewing and communicating something after the "surrender" of 22 Cap? And look to what Mercury rules in your chart, since those are the things that will be obviously affected or reworked through seeing/communicating from different angles of view.

[abha bansal]

Many many many thanks to you Robert. Your prediction shall really help us to know that how we should devise plans for getting better results and to control the current situation. i love reading astrology articles on web. The elaborated and highly informative aricles like yours are available on horoscope.futurepointindia.com too.

[Fredrick Brown]

interesting video on Indian Astrology. I thought I should let you know.
will something happen on 09.09.09?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEiRH5ikyt8

[Robert]

To anyone reading the above two posts: the former is standard predictive Indian Astrology. I left it because though I believe much about Vedic Astrology is flawed and deterministic, there is still much that can be learned, taken with a grain of salt.

The Youtube video is pure claptrap. Glamorous nonsense saying nothing, stimulating lower feelings through lurid imagery set to ominous tones. A true waste of time. Obviously a promo for a huckster. Lots of that out there in videoland. And yes, I'm going to do a post on the pitfalls of doomsday videos!

[Marie]

Good one Robert!
I have to confess the videos of this nature sucked me in for a time but now when people post them I just think why not do something better for yourselves!?!......but what? can be the question, for some!
Marie

[LB]

Hi Robert - I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated this post. I found your insights regarding Mercury's retrograde transit through the houses very validating. It helped to clarify and confirm what I already knew, so thanks.