The first Mercury retrograde of 2026 begins on February 26 in the sign of Pisces (22º33’). Mercury will be retrograde until March 20.
In the realms of modern pop-culture astrology, nothing tends to stoke more fear than Mercury retrograde.
Mercury is the planet of communication, travel, data, commerce, thinking, learning, logic, and reason.
For this reason, Mercury’s retrogrades have become associated with technological snafus, travel delays, and miscommunication. This can be especially the case in Pisces, where Mercury’s analytical and detail-oriented nature are already dulled by the oceanic waters.
Read: What to Know About Planetary Retrogrades
Mercury in Pisces, even when moving direct, is already hazy on the details and delineation that its known for. It tends to be better suited to poetry than insightful analytics, intuition over logic and reason.
Read: 5 Ways to Work With Mercury in Pisces
Mercury retrograde isn’t just about your daily communications and travels. In the context of your year, this is a period to engage in a more meaningful period of review and recalibration of the Pisces part of your chart.
This particular Mercury retrograde in Pisces is particularly important in that regard.
This isn’t just about miscommunications and missed emails; it’s about reflecting back as we close a chapter of disruption, dissolution, and restructuring that has been happening for over 2 decades.
Why Mercury Retrograde in Pisces 2026 is Different
On February 20, Saturn and Neptune started a new cycle together at the first degree of Aries. This was a major initiation — the start of a new 37-year cycle.
As we cross the threshold into that new chapter, it’s important to look back at that era that is coming to a close. And that era happened in Pisces.
For the past 14 years (2012–2026) Neptune has been transiting Pisces, bringing fog, haze, idealism, dissolution, and delusions to this area of your life. Neptune in Pisces has been like floating in a boat on the ocean without any oars.
When Saturn entered Pisces in 2023, it attempted to bring structure to rebuild what Neptune dissolved. Saturn teaches us lessons about time, maturity, and boundaries — the latter of which doesn’t come easily in the porous oceanic waters.
But the Pisces transformation actually extends further back. Prior to Neptune’s arrival in Pisces, Uranus brought its disruption to this area of the chart from 2003 to 2011.
In total, the Pisces area of your chart has been enduring 23 years of outer planet transits that have brought disruption, dissolution, and division.
This Mercury retrograde offers an opportunity not just to review, but to reacquaint yourself with this area of your life, and any planets you may have in this part of your chart.
For the first time in over two decades, you have a blank slate here — a chance to completely reorient and redefine how to live this part of your life.
How to Work With Mercury Retrograde in Pisces
This Mercury retrograde isn’t just a quarterly review — it’s a 20-year review.
Welcome the pause.
Use this period to reflect back on the area of your life that falls in Pisces, and how it’s played out over the past 2 decades. What have you learned? Where do you go from here?
Embrace the nature of Mercury in Pisces and let go of rational thoughts, analytics, attempts to solve problems with data, or using pro/con lists to make decisions.
Instead, get quiet. Listen to the silence the still, small voice within. Feel into your deep inner knowing to reorient to an aligned path forward.
You might even try free-form art or journaling to uncover hidden insights. Pisces is all about the mystery, so lean into it.
If you allow it, intuition can be your strongest guide. For the first time in over 20 years in this area of life, nothing is standing in your way.
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