Today my dear friend Cat Dean joins me to talk about astrological energy, and in particular the phenomenon of mercury retrogade, the most recent of which (at time of release) began November 25th, 2024.
Cat tells us exactly what mercury retrogade is, when it happens and why, and how it impact both us and our world. We both share our own experiences of mercury retrogade and Cat explains the power and influence of astrological energy itself.
Hi everyone and welcome back to the PowerMap Podcast. I'm James Prescott your host. Welcome back to the show. It's really great to have you here again and yeah I'm excited to welcome back to the show. A good friend of mine. He's been on the show quite a few times now. I actually lost count of how many times. It's got to be about four or five I think. But they are a dear friend and a tarot reader and yeah welcome to the show Kat Dean. Thank you James. I was just thinking actually same question. I was like how have you been on it's got to be. It's been four or five for sure. Yeah like when was the first time you were on it was like 2021 or something wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh that feels like a lifetime ago. I know right the pandemic feels like ages ago. I can't. Yeah. I mean like no sorry I mean the lockdown feels like ages ago. That's what I mean. Right. Yeah. So yeah another life time ago. Yeah it wasn't about 2021 I think. Yeah. We're now in 2024 and this is what it must be your fifth or sixth time then. I'm honored you keep having me back. You went on twice this year alone. So yeah this must be your stick I think. Yeah which is pretty good. Love that for me. Yeah I love that for you too. It's great. I love you on again. So anyway yeah welcome welcome to the show and we're going to talk about something today which I think is really really interesting and I've found something that's impacted my life and I want to I just want to learn more about it and you're kind of an expert on this stuff. So I'm sure listeners will learn more about it too and that's kind of the astrological energy and by that an example of that is something that a lot of listeners will probably be aware of which is Mercury retrograde right when and the energy that comes around then when things when technology doesn't work properly when communications don't work properly when you know emails don't send for some reason or like or email or text get blocked or text don't go through or internet doesn't work properly or whatever like for no reason whatsoever it just you know when your internet goes down or something like that like these sort of things just happen for no reason during what it's been retrograde right and there's loads of gifts around the retrograde that people use on Twitter. Oh yeah kind of a common it's kind of a common when it's not a scapegoat because it's like what it is but people talk about Mercury retrograde a lot and it's like I what we've been curious like what actually is the energy of that and where does it come from and how does that happen. Like we can use that as a kind of jumping off point and then go into other other things. I think that's great. So just give us a bit of an insight into that. Okay so one thing to know is I am not I'm not a professional by any means I would say I'm an intermediate when it comes to astrology. It's definitely something I've been studying for some years and there's so many different branches of it. It's it's just fascinating. I learn new stuff every day but Mercury retrograde actually happens multiple times a year usual three to four times a year. We had one in December that led us into January 1st. We have one from April 1st through the 24th and in August is our next one and then we have one more in November. So it's like ah you know girger lines it's gross but it's not the only planet that retrogrades though by the way it's there the Saturn the planet Saturn can retrograde. I'm trying to remember what else Jupiter can retrograde Pluto like all of the kind of major planets in the astrological chart go through a retrograde at some point but Mercury is probably the one that we're one the most familiar with but the one that also changes most often. So what does retrograde actually mean when when something is in retrograde? So when a when a planet is retrograding like the planet of Mercury which represents our communication with both with how we receive communication and also how we externalize it we you know communicate with others. That planet when it's retrograding it begins to turn the opposite way. So imagine like if you're saying you know the term like oh I'm spinning out or I'm spiraling out it's kind of like that you know the planet's just merrily rolling all along and then all of a sudden it's like ah and it starts kind of going back the other way and part of the ways that we see this happening like James said is through a lot of it is actually especially in our world in the digital age a lot of digital communication in my job I work remote and this is always a period of time where I have to like triple check did I send that attachment did I are those typos gone did I blah blah blah because things start to go wrong and it's like they're always like sort of tiny little inconveniences at first right and they start to like needle at you and then the more that you go the more annoyed you get and then you start getting all you know hasty and impulsive and feeling just like everything is out to get you or to go wrong you know because the more that the planet spends out the more that we start to kind of feel escalated as well and so it's um it's a it's a hard like it's not a fun transit to live through I mean at any time it's it's always a pain but I do always find that it teaches me something and that is part of the spiritual goal of mercury retrogrades is that it's supposed to shoot those times of the year when it happens it's supposed to make you stop and go oh I thought this was going well or I thought this was working and actually it's not how come how can I realign this um what needs to be you know it's like kind of like when you're building I don't know I'm trying to think of like an example like almost like you're building like a Lego set or something and you're like building all this stuff and it's your life right and then the mercury retrograde comes by and you go oh I thought that that that tower I built in my castle was really sturdy it's actually not the wind just knocked it over now I have to figure out how can I build this again and make it more sturdy what's missing where does my ego get in the way where did I have blind spots so you know you'll start to notice things even before the retrograde actually you'll start to notice shifts because you you made an observation James before we started the podcast where you said that the retrograde that we just had like even the week before it started you were feeling stuff right what were you feeling during that time well I could I started to notice that you know certain websites when working properly that you know my emails like won't get I thought I'd send emails and apparently I hadn't and you know I started to get I started to get overloaded with emails as well like overloaded with work like too much communication almost right and yeah it was and little just little things you're right it needed to do is better being little things you know and all my tabs got like on my phone got like deleted or something I had to open them all up again and the worst yeah just little things like that and having some you know and social media starting to go really slowly on my phone having me having to turn off my phone and turn it on again all that little things mm-hmm kind of it's just annoying but when you know it's make you retrograde you know it kind of adds to the kind of frustration like yeah right that's interesting you say that because when I so this past mercury retrograde every time that it retrogrades throughout the year it retrogrades in a different astrological sign and so the one that we just had and it just happened to coincide with the season we were in we were just an airy season we're now in Tari's season which is my favorite time of year much better but aries the mercury retrograde happened to also retrograde in aries so the sign of aries is a fire sign it's very passionate fiery can be very outspoken impulsive you know could kind of like see the target and just blindly go for it full speed ahead but like not actually check what's going on around them and that's how things get missed also it can incite a lot of our more powerful emotions whether that's for good or for bad you know and how we choose to use them and we saw it on a very interesting global scale with all of the college protests that started people became way more outspoken during this period publicly about what's going on in our world and what's you know not okay and just really began to sort of be the whistleblowers or like use you know the megaphone yellers like I don't know but just people were being very like you know I've had enough like we're fed up we're tired of all of the bullshit we're tired of all the lying we're tired of all these ways that our world is not operating properly so that was one of the powerful like aspects of that retrograde period that was useful because it informed people on what to actually be upset about this is one of the ways that you can take a retrograde and what's happening around it flip it to make it work for you if that makes sense yeah I mean that's interesting because I I definitely noticed that I've had more anger in me recently now I mean I want to kind of qualify that they had a major trauma anniversary the kind of the week before we recorded this so that was part of that definitely and there was no question about that you know the build up to that and then you know the day itself and everything that definitely heightened my emotions and my anger well grief really not anger but even before that I'd noticed I was a bit more emotional a bit more passionate than normal reacting to things in a way that I don't normally react to things and that was during retrograde so yeah that makes a lot of sense actually yeah and it was funny because every retrograde about two three weeks before it even begins we have what is called the shadow period and that is where the planet isn't completely starting to spend the other way but it's kind of like almost adjusting to do that and during that period that's when we start to pick up like oh like we're not quite sure if something's going to go wrong but our intuition is usually more heightened during that period or we're just noticing things that seem a little off a little suspicious you know or maybe even people we normally talk to seem a little more on edge like you start to pick up on all of those signals and then when the retrograde actually comes into play whatever sign it's in during that time we'll kind of inform you of some of the themes of what could come out of this retrograde so one of the valuable ones like I said before that we saw was the amping up of the collective anger that our you know our world is feeling and the just being fed up with the oppression and you know so it fueled a lot of resistance and anger and that can be a very powerful great thing but it also fueled a lot of like the whole the statement that just kept going through my head this retrograde was like enough I've had enough I've had enough this person's had enough like all of my friends were texting me like dude I this is the moment where I no longer have any tolerance for this thing I've been putting up with for way too long like those kind of things whereas if it had retrograded in Taurus it may have been more of a slow burn but with it carries it was like boom you know what no that was the last straw for me and I've been putting up with this for way too long and I'm gonna say something wow a lot of those kind of conversations going on too did you experience anything like that yeah I did yeah absolutely I mean like it was in a different part of my life that isn't that important in the big scheme of things but I definitely felt that about something that I cared about a lot yeah totally yeah and it's kind of calmed down now which is interesting like yeah like and that's why I'm curious how where does this energy like come from you know like what is what produces this different kind of energy like is it literally just the retrograding of these planets yeah right the planets that are going on and now I'm not a scientist and I'm not gonna be able to get into all the nitty gritty of it but think about it this way you know I say to people all the time that kind of like blow off astrology and like I'm not somebody it's like everyone has to believe astrology but if you're somebody that comes to me about it and then like just to make fun of it essentially I'll be like okay well our bodies are made up of I can't remember the percentage it's like 60 something percent water right the moon yeah thank you so the moon rules the tide that goes in and out every day which is of the ocean which is an entire body of water we're made up of mostly water we're not being affected by those shifts as they move through throughout the day that makes sense actually that makes a lot of sense yeah yeah and it was interesting actually when I was in the UK last summer because I was spending I was there on a work thing as you know and I was singing and cathedrals and traveling around it was amazing but one of the things that I was noticing at these different monasteries and cathedrals and stuff that I was visiting was how the the monks and the monasteries lived they would they would cycle their days like the planet with the planetary hours like whatever the transits were doing they were doing daily tasks that aligned with what was going to work best with that transit so like if it's the sun hour you know they would get up and they would do this that in the third and they'd have their breakfast and then you know oh we're in the evening hour and like now we're going to wind down and reflect and like we still keep some of those things today but you can structure it out even more than people realize like even our days of the week are ruled by astrological transits so like you know like Mondays are that's actually why traditionally a lot of you know people say oh god I hate Mondays I hate going to work on Mondays I did it well actually that's because we're not really meant to be working on Mondays Mondays are ruled by the moon and that is a day of spiritual rest and reflection and preparing Tuesday is ruled by the planet Mars which is fiery gets let's go get things done like you'll notice a lot of people often feel more like they're getting stuffed on on a Tuesday as opposed to a Monday it's funny thinking about my life I work at home I work at home on Mondays right right so it's a more relaxed thing like today it's a bank holiday so I'm not working at all but normally I work at home on Mondays and then I go into the office on Tuesday and Wednesday yeah and I work from home on Thursday and Friday and the days that I'm in the office say well I'm always going to get more done but I'm able to focus entirely on my work not because I'm in the office but just because it's you're aligned with the energy of that day the energy is different the energy is definitely different like you know I get work I get lots of work done at home like lots of work done I in fact I have to sit through like a six-hour meeting every two weeks at home a minute so I do have to do a lot of work at home but but the energy is definitely different when I'm on the Tuesday than it is to the Monday like that's what I say I do notice that so I'll give you a quick cheat sheet for anyone listening but yeah so Mondays or moon days that's when you want to kind of rest do your spiritual work if you have energy for it kind of mentally like spiritually physically prep yourself for the week this is a day that I and I'll kind of explain it how I do my week but like that's a day like I kind of reassess everything and like look at my calendar and be like okay this is how I want to map everything out do do do do do. Tuesdays are mars day again this is a great day for physical activity if you're somebody that wants to get your body moving I highly recommend that you know any big projects that are going to require a lot of like brain work focus physical focus like this is a good day to power through all of that it's also a good day for like your passion projects like anything that's going to ignite that fire energy essentially Wednesdays are mercury days they're ruled by the planet mercury so it's funny because in mercury retro grades I often notice Wednesdays can sometimes be more chaotic because they're already ruled by that but that's the day I actually plan a lot of my work meetings on Wednesdays if I can because I'm more naturally inclined to not burn out having to talk to people and listen to a lot of information being given to me and digested this is a good day for writers for writing stuff or mapping out outlines things like that that's also a day I like to try to reach out to friends and catch up with them Wednesday Wednesdays yeah mercury days that's a day that I have a this is so weird Wednesday evenings I have a zoom call with a group of friends of mine every week love that we have this little like we're really we kind of meet on Saturdays and Wednesdays longer on Saturdays we don't do anything like formal just conversations you know whatever sometimes we talk about writing and sometimes we talk about creativity but yeah we do that on Saturdays and Wednesdays and we do Wednesdays for like 18 months was it two years now I can't even remember but like yeah Wednesdays it's always on Wednesdays and so that's really interesting that we would just happen to schedule that on a Wednesday you know you're already you're already sensing it I love it yeah and Thursdays are ruled by the planet Jupiter which is the planet of expansion opportunities good fortune it's a great day to apply for a job shooting your shot it for something that you want whether it's like asking somebody out or you're applying to that grant or whatever it is it's also just kind of a more optimistic day like we're usually like oh you know one more day until the weekend like we're just kind of in more naturally high spirits so it's a good day to seek adventure and new opportunities of any kind good time to network all that kind of stuff Fridays are ruled by Venus the planet of art love music all the all the kind of creative pursuits right so this is a day that you can really lean into your self-care if you're somebody that's like a content creator or something like that like sharing personal things art photos and also like taking the time to ingest that you know like it you know taking the time to you know what I'm gonna spend some time researching that thing I've been wanting to know more about or that artist that I wanted to write an article about like there's there's so many things just speaking in art but also and you know community and music and beauty but also sharing it this is a day that usually like I do my whole like a big self-care routine I'm like okay I'm gonna do the face mask I'm gonna do the bad I'm gonna clean my room I'm gonna make everything look nice and you know I'm gonna play some music that puts me in a good vibe and like it's just yeah so it's great for that um or on Friday Saturday Saturday is Saturn day which Saturn is the planet that handles responsibility, karmic links, discipline, responsibility. This is a good day to like if it's the weekend sometimes this is when we tackle home improvement things or you know oh hey I said I wanted to do this I'm gonna get everything together to focus on this this week sometimes it's also a good time for harder conversations processing our feelings um you know just kind of getting down to the nitty gritty of what it is that we've been avoiding or need to do and Sundays are sun Sundays literally like yeah and that's it's supposed to be very like you get outside you're with your community um you know taking in like just enjoying the day essentially like there's not really supposed to be a lot of activity that's like labor um you know but just activities that bring you joy and connection with other people. I literally never do any kind of work on Sunday like I never I don't even do house work generally I do that on Saturdays if I'm gonna do it like um it makes sense sometimes I do it sometimes I do it well I'm ADHD sometimes I just randomly do it out of nowhere right um but I don't never I always and this isn't actually something I consciously did but it's just something that I've done I've noticed that I've been doing yeah I never do anything like that on a Sunday I'm always chilling out whether it's going out for a drink or going for a walk or going to go into a pub or something or um or just chilling at home like I don't do any kind of work on Saturday I don't even do any writing really uh or creative stuff really on a Sunday like yeah it's kind of like leaning into whatever most naturally feels good that day that you just want to do like just letting yourself guide yourself self-guided adventure that's a marvelous Sunday so that's gonna be fun oh beautiful yeah I love that um I'm actually quite glad I am now but yeah so I've actually found this been very helpful because you know I'm also neurodivergent and I've noticed that when I'm feeling overwhelmed um and sometimes I don't know like what to start with that day what task to start with um I'll kind of start thinking about well what's going on in you know I'll check the daily transits um on AstraSeq or something and be like okay well here's what the energy of the day is what can I do that's aligned with that because I know it's already going to be easier to work on and if I try to work on stuff that's directly opposed to that I'm probably just going to get a headache and be pissed and so yeah the retrograde amplifies kind of all of that in the sense that those like you know maybe you're going about your life and you're doing your stuff but there might be some things that you haven't been acknowledging some conversations that have needed to be had um and sometimes you're just going down a path that maybe isn't for you and the retrograde will be like oop we're showing up to redirect you and I when things start going wrong and I know a retrograde's happening like there is the very natural response to be pissed and be mad right and I definitely get that way sometimes but there's also a very big sigh of relief that occasionally comes to me because if something just starts like no I must have been meant to redirect today and I'm able to just sort of surrender what's happening in a way more intentional way than I could have if I if it's just a regular old day and I don't know what's going on so that's another way that I try to reframe it for myself I'll be like you know this is redirecting me for a purpose it's protecting me for something um but also I have to I'm I have to set uh what's the word road not roadblocks but kind of placeholders for myself where I know if if I look ahead and I know when a retrograde's coming I go okay I know I have to be these places traffic's probably going to be a nightmare everyone's going to be angry there's going to be honking there's going to be roads closed like I need to build an extra time to get to the from this place to the next make sure all my apps are backed up my tech you know I work with crystals as well my computer sometimes glitches I tend to set a black-up city and crystal on my laptop at night before I go to bed because it helps with cleansing and purifying and protecting stuff and so I I've noticed that sometimes there's been a few times where my laptops flipped out and I've just shut it off and I've put a crystal on it and then it's just like fine you know so I have these little I've made my own cheat sheet of what works for me when a retrograde comes around and of course you can't avoid everything like that's sort of the point is it's to bring up what is no longer avoidable um to be able to truly deal with it and process it however um there are some things that you can do to help yourself to make it a little easier and that's going to be very depending on the person you know but it's definitely over the years the more that I have leaned into it and embraced it for what it is it has gotten easier to handle but I am not going to lie this last one really nearly did me and this one was the worst I've experienced in all time absolutely same I can't it was like every day something was like I can't even remember it or there was so many incidences right and it was just getting it was actually getting beyond the joke at one point I was just like I've had enough like just leave me alone yeah just like you know this isn't funny anymore you know and I was just like yeah I couldn't deal with this one I think I was it kind of coincided with a stressful time in my life as well to be honest because I was dealing with a lot of stuff in therapy and dealing with a lot and you know organizing a wedding and then it was my mum's anniversary and stuff like so it was all that as well well you know just happened to coincide with it so it was yeah it wasn't a good mix like yeah yeah and you know if you notice I don't remember in your birth chart because I've looked at James's birth chart before I don't have any planets in my personal zodiac chart that are in Aries so the fact that it was retrograding in Aries and it was affecting me on such a deal like I almost honestly thought like oh this one won't affect me that much because I don't really have placements that are in Aries so like maybe it won't hit me as bad as it will it seemed to affect me more which I found interesting and so I was started thinking okay well I don't have there's a lot of things in that sign that I admire I have friends that are Aries like things that I look at and I almost envy that they naturally have the ability to do that I don't and I was I decided to try to reframe it that way where I was just like okay well why is this pissing me off that much why is this making me feel that helpless what do what do I secretly want that I'm not admitting to myself because that's one thing I will say about Aries placements they have no problem admitting what they want and they have no problem telling you and I often have I have a little hard time as a very earth and water based person in my zodiac chart of like admitting even to myself what my desires are and then when I try to communicate them it that's a whole other thing right and so I just kind of boiled it down I was like okay well we got to get down to the bare bones like I want this I don't want that I love this I hate that I just kind of got very very basic with what was going on around and I was like well okay now some of these things are not in my control to remove right now but what is okay let's look at that hmm don't really like that anymore it's outdated it doesn't fit me anymore tossed it away you know and so I just sort of began kind of working through my brain and my daily routine and assessing but yeah it was it was a doozy I mean my worlds was it was not a fun time and then what's even more annoying because I mentioned the shadow period then we have the retrograde then we have the post retrograde which is another two weeks after it ends which we are currently in kind of we're wrapping up the final shadow period of this last retrograde and what that means is let's imagine a tornado right the shadow period is the tornado gaining more and more and more and momentum it's getting bigger it's coming closer to your town the retrograde is the tornado itself what everything it wipes out it clears at whatever then the final shadow period is you surveying the damage you're standing there with your hands on your hips going well this is what's left after all of that what are we going to do with the pieces how are we going to pick them up how are we going to replace them what do we want to do now and we're in Taurus season now which is my favorite time of the year for a variety of reasons and it's an earth sign it is the time of rebirth renewal planting seeds it's ruled by the planet Venus so it's a way more like just beautiful calm grounding time it's a very sensory experience like Ares was like I'm passionate and I'm mad and then Taurus season is like oh let's go and stop and smell the roses and like eat some really good cheese and have some wine and just like bask in everything that's good to be enjoyed you know and so that it's kind of encouraging us to find the optimism and the clarity of purpose and what's next while simultaneously staying present and enjoying what we now probably appreciate a lot more after all the weeks of drama we just went through you know like those simple pleasures like I've been thinking to myself every day I'm not in a fight with somebody right now that's a big blessing you know what I mean like yeah like there was a lot of conflict going on in my personal life and you know and we've sorted a lot of it out and I'm thankful that it taught us something but it's also like wow I'm just so glad we're having a night in and like enjoying a movie and there's nothing going on and maybe that's kind of boring but like right now I'm so thankful for that you know those just little everyday things and so yeah I mean I've just been spending this period trying to figure out like what lessons I took away from the retrograde and where I want to apply them next and thankfully we have the ability to look ahead with technology and see like the next one I don't know what it's retrograding in but it is in August and you know so you can look ahead this time James if you want and see what sign it's in see how it correlates to your birth chart what you want to prep for ahead of time and well August you know it's gonna be my first month in America after I get married oh boy and oh yeah when I come back at the beginning of September like and then I'm going back in the back in October again so oh dear um if you're doing a lot of traveling definitely get that travel insurance and stuff in case there's flight that's another thing if I'm traveling it's already been changed yeah like literally already like um and then I know why like it's micro-retroted working ahead of time like yeah preemptive preemptive stuff if you can buy the traveler's insurance if did I went so it was funny because I went I don't think I've actually told you this yet but I went on a trip during the mercury retrograde which I try to avoid when possible but sometimes it's not and so I just plan ahead well I went to Salem Massachusetts where they did the Salem witch trials and all that and I'd never been before and here's what went wrong on my trip I got pink eye somehow um that was so random I my car had the emergency light on and they said it was safe to drive but the part that I needed to get fixed or whatever like it was going to be a couple days they're like you can go on your trip um but whenever you drive on hills it's going to be slow to accelerate so just stay in the slow lane and like give it time that's exactly what happened so it took us like two extra hours to get to where we were going just because of my car um we were trying to buy things and you know the internet wouldn't work when we were trying to pay for stuff with our debit cards and like it was just things like that but because I already knew I was like this this stuff's just gonna happen it's gonna happen like I went into it going I'm gonna have a damn good time I don't care and that's all me and my friend where we were both witchy people and she was like I don't care if something goes wrong we're gonna breathe through it and we're gonna redirect and we're gonna have a good time damn it because we never get time off and we want to appreciate this and we did we had a lot of little inconveniences but I think we had the right mindset going into it because some of those things normally would have wiped out my day you know in the past like I would have just let myself fixate on them and not have been able to move through it and I felt like this retrograde there was so much coming at me all the time that I really just got I was like well pivot oh another thing pivot you know I just kind of became a little bit devil may care about it because there was no other option so yeah what did you say oh sorry go ahead no you're not oh I was just curious what you felt like you learned from this retrograde for yourself besides thank god it's over oh dear I think that was a difficult one like to be better prepared I think to be better prepared for them like be more aware of how it's gonna affect me when I knew I was gonna affect I knew how it's gonna affect me but like not to the extent that you've just gone into like some of the things that like yeah I just got so like I got so immersed in the kind of energy of it like I was unable to kind of distance myself from it for a while like me too and I some other things I didn't even know were accurate retrograde things like the kind of anger stuff like I didn't know that was a retrograde thing like why is this extra anger in my body what is this about I don't know what it's about right and now I know although I know some of it was about grieving and you know grief anniversary stuff like that which is big but it wasn't all that it wasn't all of that so I had a lot of and now I know one of the reasons that might have happened because like yeah it was so I think that's what I've learned like to be better prepared like next time I'll be better prepared because I'm gonna be when I'm in America I'm gonna be working my job here but I'll be working from home over there two weeks two weeks of those of that month so connection's gonna be like and I've got meetings to go to and I've got a couple early in stuff like US time anyway for those so that's going to be a really interesting time yeah yeah and you know one of the other things too that as you said well this where is this anger coming from in my body and also you brought up that there had been like you know a grief anniversary for you one of the things that the retrograde also brings to pass is past people situations memories cycles because it's giving us an opportunity for some people it like we'll give the most basic example let's say somebody's had an on and off again relationship with someone in their life and the retrograde brought that person back around and they're like hey I wanted to talk to you I miss you can we start over you know you get to decide in that moment does this cycle continue because they're still behaving the same way and it's the same shtick different day or have they actually gone away and done some work and come back and now we're ready to both align differently with each other that's one of the very common things but it can also be like you said the thing about the grief anniversary it when it's really easy sometimes like for me it's actually easier for me to lean into anger when it comes to it to grief than sadness and maybe for you it's the opposite you may be more comfortable than sadness than the anger and maybe your body was telling you like hey I don't need you to you know I need you to know that some of this is in here and it's going to come out sometimes and that's overwhelming you know and there might be a bit of anger because maybe part maybe I had a part which I'm talking about internal family systems here a part that you know was angry with my mom for not being here told I wanted to hear you know and that would be normal and I wouldn't blame myself for that at all that would be a normal reaction that manager probably was formed when my mother died right but hasn't been hasn't been needed until now right because I wasn't getting married so I didn't experience any of those those things because it never it never happened but as soon as I'm getting married those things from like 24 years ago kind of like oh hi I'm still here so I have to go and do that and that's what therapy is for you know that's why therapy is so useful because I'm able to spot those things and we're able to deal with them so yeah absolutely so you can thank therapy rhetoric for bringing that to light in a sense exactly yeah so and that's weird that you can mention the kind of I knew the thing about like people from your past contacting you randomly or something or and or you contacting people from your past or whatever and I ended up doing that during retrograde for a completely normal reason but it was it was because I was arranging something and I had a spare ticket and I was like and I just got in touch with somebody that I you know that I thought would like to come and you know I didn't hear back but yeah so it was my tag tag so it was a guy that I used to know a few years ago and then then but I didn't get hear back from him and it turned out I didn't need to didn't need him to come anyway because we figured out a way anyway but yeah so that was kind of a thing as well like yeah sometimes it's even just random people like I had a couple random colleagues in the music world that just appeared back in my orbit and it was like oh hey and sometimes those people pop up and it's almost a blessing because it's you know you see them and you go oh my gosh like we've always meant to sit down and grab coffee and talk about that thing we wanted to do together right so sometimes it can be very helpful and it being in Aries that again that fire impetus gives us the passion of like I've had enough and I'm going to do the things that I've been wanting to do that I've not made time for like enough's enough you know like I even had that with some stuff where I just got really fed up with my own bullshit during the retrograde a little bit too and I had to sit myself down and be like you know what we need to re-examine some of your blocks here and why you deliberately get in your own way and like have that space and sympathy for myself of course but at the same time be able to like gently hold myself accountable to do what's best and next for me but I also had some you know it wasn't for me like X is coming back around but for me it was conversations like you know me and my partner had some conversations that we've never really finalized but they would be conflicts that we would that would come back around and we would sort of have the same script for every argument right and then we would kind of like neutralize it and move on but this time we had to be very clear with each other she had to say these are the things that I just know for me like I have to give my 100% focus to now and I need to be doing these things and these things are hindering me and the way that we interact in these ways hinders me and you and I had to do similar things and go you know you're right but also I have these very firm boundaries that I have not been enacting in my life when it comes to anybody not just you you know but like while we're on this I need to be clear and actually stick to these for myself because they're good for me right you know and it wasn't like all this like I hate you and I wish you'd leave you know it wasn't anything like that it was just kind of like these moments where we both realized oh we're actually not helping ourselves at all and since we can't do that we're also not showing up very well for each other right now because how can we when we're not doing it for ourselves so it I think it really clarified what we actually cared about deeply instead of more what we just felt like we should be doing if that makes sense so yeah I was one of those for me sometimes it's repetitive conversations that come back around to be like okay how can we look at this differently or tackle this differently this time yeah yeah there was a there was actually a time there was actually a friend from my school I'd not seen since we were at school 30 years ago I've been talking to vaguely on Instagram for a while and we just got coffee and we just saw that for the first time for 30 years and it was really good really good time and caught up like I'm gonna probably gonna do it again sometime like so that was again all these things like coincidences or not I don't know but this is really really interesting I've learned a lot today and I think it's going to help me a lot I think there's a lot of people as well who know what Mercury retrograde is maybe but don't have the full understanding of the energetic nature of it and it's in vat so who will probably be really helped by today as well I think I know there's a lot of listeners to this podcast who know all about Mercury retrograde and I'm fully immersed in it and have experienced it and and have been through all the things that we've probably been through with retrograde so yeah thank you Kat that's really cool yeah um you know I love your ramble really like but it's not rambling it's wisdom so it's great so where can people find you in your your work and you know all the things you do oh oh my goodness you can find me on everything all socials instagram tiktok twitter @catwiththecards that's c-a-t with d-a cards with the cards um I also have in there's letter called cat with the cards on sub stack I have been neglecting it I'm actually trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it I might turn it into a podcast myself I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do with it but yeah but that is there for any who's free and there is a lot of stuff on there already if you like that but yep that's where you can find me fantastic do check all that out my friends it's really really good content and uh cat does tell really to me quite regularly as well they're very good and they're relatively cheap as well inexpensive I would say but very very good value for me um good very helpful for me so yeah of course um so thank you for listening everybody and have a great week!
