What is a Mercury Cazimi and how does it help you follow your intuition?
January 21, 2026
Today there is a Mercury Cazimi. The planet Mercury is as close as it gets to the Sun, from our perspective. Mercury and the Sun aren’t literally touching, or poor little Mercury would burn up. Also, that would mean our Solar System has some real issues.
The energy I pick up from every cazimi, a word that means “in the heart” in Arabic and is when any planet conjuncts the Sun within a few degrees, is that the planet is infused with its own life force energy.
Ancient people believed the planets were embodiments of the gods and goddesses, not just representations, but gods could shapeshift into any form.
The planet Mercury is named for the Roman god Mercury, who was similar to and derived from the Greek god Hermes.
Mercury is often depicted with wings on his helmet, and he also has wings on his sandals. He is best known for being the god of communication, technology, and trickery. In fact, he has a very long list of things within his Divine care. His staff, which has two snakes, gets confused with the staff of Asclepius, the god of medicine, which only has one snake, so sometimes people tack on medicine to that list.
I bet Mercury could be a really good god of medicine if he tried. A real Jack of All Trades.
Mercury, the planet, has three or four retrogrades per year, when it appears to stop its progression in the “normal” direction around the Sun and go backwards in the sky. (Again, big problems if this really happened in the actual orbit of the planet. It’s all about the perspective from Earth.)
The media has done a great job of making us scared of Mercury Retrogrades, but I’ve grown to love and make use of retrogrades.
Mercury moves so fast that sometimes he needs to backtrack a bit to fill in gaps.
Kind of like everyone who lives in our modern world.
We all go, go, go nonstop all the time, checking our phones or turning on something to consume every time we stop moving for more than a minute, unless we’re countercultural weirdos. (Like me. Hi! I’m Amanda. Welcome.)
It’s not surprising that we would miss our intuition’s cues when we never stop to take a breath or listen to our own hearts.
Then one day we look around and wonder where our life has disappeared to, and where all those wrinkles and grey hairs came from.
(Someday we’ll discuss reverse aging, but not today.)
Whether or not you believe the planets are literal Divine Beings, nature always teaches us important lessons.
Some planets move quickly and some move slowly, and that’s okay.
Venus needs a retrograde every 18 months, like clockwork. Mars gets away with more time in between retrogrades. Mercury needs a retrograde every couple of months, and most planets need to retrograde for around half of the year every year.
There’s nothing wrong with backtracking. We all have to do it sometimes.
Write that down and make it your mantra today: “There’s nothing wrong with backtracking.”
When Mercury goes into retrograde (or Gatorade, which is funnier), you’ll feel a disconnection from your ability to communicate, use technology, or get to where you need to go across the land, the sea, the sky.* It’s nature’s call to slow all the way the f down and be a little more intentional. Ignore this call and you may feel yourself paying for it by being constantly annoyed for 12-16 weeks per year, or have worse symptoms.
When Mercury has a cazimi, on the other hand, it’s a wonderful time to receive awareness of truths that have been hidden, even if you were only hiding them from yourself.
For example, last week, as this cazimi was arriving, I had a “Hey, wait a minute!” moment. I’ve been in a vicious circle for decades in which I see a problem regarding one person or group being super mean to someone else, and then I speak up for the other person, and then literally all the mean girls (grown women) and the men they control turn on me. Otherwise the men in control gather all the mean girls (full adult women) who want their attention to come for me. It’s one or the other. Or sometimes both.
Meanwhile, if I was standing up for someone else (sometimes the someone I’m standing up for is me), they’re nowhere to be found when all hell is breaking loose in my direction. It’s reasonable, really. They know the bullies will come for them too if they stand beside me or, worse, stand up for me.
Time and time again, I build something beautiful—lots of beautiful connections with others or services to the world—and have to leave it behind.
Good thing I’m a phoenix.
Last week I thought I had done it again. I sent an email to a person who was involved, just stating what I thought might have happened and encouraging her to share her own feelings with the leaders of our group and not rely on me completely. I asked for a response.
Today, on the Mercury Cazimi, she responded. She explained why she’s not going to say anything, and it’s certainly possible that I’ll end up in the same boat I’ve been in time and time again.
But I don’t think so. I think I healed something in me by reaching out to her directly when I had that “Hey, wait a minute!” moment.
I’m not afraid of the fallout this time. If I have to leave the group, I’ll go in peace. I’ll trust that I learned what I needed to learn.
I told the truth, as usual. The whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But this time I said it fearlessly, directly to the person who most needed to hear it—one of the group’s leaders. (It helped that she was willing to listen and have the conversation, on her lunch break, no less.)
The growth and self-trust that came from these ongoing repetitive cycles, because I allowed myself to look back, reflect, and make adjustments, is absolutely irreplaceable.
That’s the beauty of retrogrades, and of life in general. We get to retrace our steps again and again until we figure out the solution. Then we get to move onto a new challenge.
Don’t get me wrong: we are usually handling several challenges at once. But I do see how I’ve graduated from many vicious circles in the last couple of years, just by following my intuition step by step.
Sometimes it’s “three steps forward and two steps back,” and occasionally it’s two steps forward and three steps back, but either way I’ve now found myself all the way back in second grade singing along with Paula Abdul.
As Brené Brown says all the time, “I’m not here to be right, I’m here to get it right.”
Regardless of how right you are, we can all use retrogrades to reflect and backtrack as necessary.
Then when a cazimi comes along, use it to shine a light on YOU and where your intuition is leading YOU specifically.
Let the sun’s rays infuse you with your own precious energy, and use that energy to make a difference in your life and in the world.
Whatever you do, be like the planets and “keep dancing, baby.”
*Whenever I can quote Taylor Swift smoothly, I do. This one’s from “The Fate of Ophelia.” I also refer to “Opposites Attract” by Paula Abdul and “Bam Bam” by Camila Cabello and Ed Sheeran.
