We can’t blame everything on Mercury retrograde, because don’t forget there are four other planets retrograde as well. Today, astrodynamics.net went down and I’m in good company because Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, yesterday was “hit by technical failure” when its website went down.

Retrogrades turn our attention to the past – we tend to look back more than forward, and re-evaluate where we’ve been so we can be better prepared for where we’re going. It’s like the Sankofa bird from Africa which means “to go back in order to go forward.

Despite Pluto’s preparation to retrograde back into buoyant Sagittarius, the economic mood in the United States took a dive Friday as the job report punctured the bubble of optimism that was beginning to seep into the general pessimism of Pluto in Capricorn.

And in a stunning look back at the run-up to the war has included not only Scott McClellan’s new book, but also the release of a bipartisan Senate report on Thursday after years of wrangling harshly condemning the Bush White House for misleading the American public about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Still, Mercury is not all bad. My research shows that nearly half of all launches performed by NASA were done when Mercury was retrograde. From an earlier article:

The successful launch on July 4, 2006 as Mercury turned Rx is a good example of how Mercury retrograde can work. The failure of the shuttle to launch the previous July during a Mercury Rx period forced NASA to go back to the drawing board and revise their plans, leading to a successful launch in 2006. This example shows the way retrograde Mercury works, and why with all of astrology it’s important to view the larger context. Events that are disrupted during one Mercury retrograde period are completed during another retrograde period. The retrograde periods are great times for going back over something that needs more work. For redesigning your website, reviewing your goals and plans. We may find them frustrating, but they are essential to balance periods of growth and change. They help to deepen our understanding, and give us a greater sense of depth and balance.

The unfolding of life takes on a great and wondrous magic when we learn to adjust to the energy of the cycles of our lives. People that I work with, who don’t believe in astrology, find it comforting and useful to know that the communication glitches and mechanical failures are occurring for a reason, and that all we can do is go with the flow and work with the retrograde instead of against it!