Everything You Need to Know About Mercury Retrograde Shadow Periods
The effects of retrograde are far from over. Are you ready for what’s next?
Mercury’s retrograde through the sign of Gemini came to an end yesterday , June 22, but don’t breathe that sigh of relief just yet! It will take until July 7 to fully clear the retrograde energies. This is because Mercury retrogrades have two shadow periods: the pre-shadow period and the post-shadow period.
Mercury went retrograde in the sign of Gemini on May 29, but the pre-shadow period started on May 15 — an almost two-week introduction or building up of issues we likely confronted during the actual retrogradation. During this two-week period, Mercury was direct but slowing down in the sky. Let’s give this an analogy: You log on to check your email, but your Wi-Fi is a bit slow. You’re able to stay updated but with some delay or annoyance. That’s pre-shadow. The retrograde period, using this same analogy, is being unable to log on at all — suddenly your password has expired, and you need to jump through hoops to access your emails.
During the post-shadow period, Mercury is also direct but slow in the sky and traveling over the same degrees it retrograded over before. The post-shadow tends to be a time of incorporation, where the foibles of the Mercury…