Inferior conjunction time!

Two interesting things happening now:

• Mercury is between us and the sun, so it's really more of a conjunction with Earth from a sun-centric perspective ("heliocentric" for people who like using the right term). It's a seed time for new ideas, so pay attention to thoughts, feelings, and ideas about your next move over the next few days—let’s call it now through Monday, but don't act on this stuff until the retrograde is over in June. This is the best way to use Mercury retrograde, hands down, period. Inspiration can find you a lot of different ways: books, overheard conversations, media of various kinds. It's important to write these ideas down somewhere, too, so you have a record of them. Those are all Mercury things, by the way (having ideas, recording them, books, media, conversations). The inferior conjunction is the halfway point of the retrograde, also, for those of you who have a stopwatch going.

• Mercury will switch signs from Gemini to Taurus on Monday following the conjunction, so information may somehow move more slowly, or there may be a vibe shift in which you're thinking more about security and values all of a sudden. This would be normal. Also normal: people being overly picky and slow-moving out of nowhere, or deliberating over items you thought were a done deal (try not to strangle them when this happens).

Personally, I work in a Mercurial job, and I've been hearing from and about people from the past who (I thought) I had no current business with. I also have been revisiting really old information to update it for the present day. I also have one project on hold and another one that's going to go incredibly slowly, which I just found out about yesterday. Both situations are beyond my control. That's literally the meaning of the retrograde, so there you have it.

And just another PSA for Gemini and Virgo risings: please take it easy on yourself. One of my favorite Gemini risings has a sports injury right now, which is exactly what happens when you go hard with your chart ruler retrograde (exempt from this: Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Leo and Cancer risings). For non-Gemini and Virgo risings, specific areas of our lives go wonky during Mercury retrograde, but when *your* chart ruler is retrograde, the thing that represents *you* is appearing to move backwards, and unless you want to feel like everything in your life is backwards, slow down.

XO,J