Mercury Retrograde is Pisces. Restoration of the Word

Restoring the Word

Mercury Retrograde in Pisces and the Return to Hod

On February 25th, Mercury begins its retrograde descent in the sign of Pisces, moving backward through the celestial waters until March 20th. To the ordinary mind, Mercury retrograde is a period of disruption, miscommunication, delays, technological failures. But to the soul, it is something far more sacred. It is a return. A reversal from the exiled word.

In the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, Mercury corresponds to the sefirah (dimension) Hod (הוֹד), the eighth emanation, whose name means Glory, Splendor, and also Resonance. Hod is a dimension of consciousness within us. It is the chamber where divine intelligence becomes language, where vibration becomes meaning, where revelation becomes sound.

Hod is the vessel that allows that wisdom to be spoken, written, sung, and transmitted into the world. Hod governs communication, symbols, letters, prayer, incantation, and sacred language. It is the temple of the Word.

Through Hod, the Infinite speaks itself into form.

But something happened.

In the primordial story of humanity, there was once a unified language. The Book of Genesis tells us that “the whole earth was of one language and one speech.” This was not merely a linguistic unity, it was a state of direct resonance with divine intelligence. Humanity did not invent words; words emerged from direct communion with the Source. Speech was creative. Language was alive.

This was the state of Hod fully open.

The story of the Tower of Babel is often misunderstood as a punishment for arrogance. But mystically, it describes a fracture in consciousness. Humanity sought to ascend through structure rather than surrender, through control rather than communion. The result was not simply the multiplication of languages, but the fragmentation of resonance. The Word lost its unity. Speech became separated from its origin in divine vibration.

We were cut off from Hod as a direct channel.

Language became externalized. Words became tools rather than living presences. Communication became prone to distortion, misunderstanding, and illusion. Instead of speaking from revelation, humanity began speaking from the surface mind.

Mercury governs this threshold.

Mercury is not merely the planet of communication, it is the psychopomp, the messenger between worlds. In Hermetic tradition, Mercury moves freely between heaven, earth, and the underworld. It is the intelligence that carries meaning across dimensions. In the Tree of Life, Mercury is the current that activates Hod, allowing divine intelligence to descend into human awareness and allowing human prayer to ascend back to the Divine.

When Mercury moves forward, communication flows outward. When Mercury moves retrograde, the current reverses. The messenger returns to the inner temple.

Retrograde motion is a withdrawal of the Word from external expression so it may be purified at its source.

This is why misunderstandings arise during Mercury retrograde. Distortions become visible. False words collapse. Communications built on unconscious patterns dissolve. The soul is asked to listen again before speaking.

Mercury retrograde is not a disruption of communication. It is the restoration of sacred communication.

And this retrograde occurs in Pisces.

Pisces is the primordial ocean, the field of undifferentiated consciousness that precedes form. It corresponds to the cosmic waters that existed before creation, the deep unconscious, the womb of the Divine Feminine. If Hod is the vessel of language, Pisces is the ocean from which language is born.

When Mercury retrogrades through Pisces, the Word returns to the waters before it becomes sound.

This is a return to the pre-Babel state,  by remembering the vibration beneath all languages. In Pisces, communication is not linear. It is symbolic, intuitive, dreamlike. Messages arrive through images, sensations, visions, poetry, and silence.

This is why during this period, logic may feel less reliable, while intuition becomes stronger. The mind loosens its grip so the soul can speak.

Hod, in its highest expression is revelation. It is prophecy. It is prayer spoken from direct union.

But Hod has a shadow.

When disconnected from its source, Hod becomes empty language: words spoken without soul, communication driven by ego, manipulation, illusion, or fear. This is the fallen state of Hod after Babel: speech that no longer remembers its origin in divine vibration.

Mercury retrograde is the descent into Hod’s hidden chambers to recover what was lost.

It asks you to listen to your words. To notice where you speak from fear, where you speak from habit, where you speak without presence. It reveals the places where your voice has been fragmented, silenced, or distorted.

Because the Word is not neutral.

In Hebrew mysticism, creation itself occurs through speech: “And God said, Let there be light.” The universe emerges through vibration. To speak is to create. Every word carries formative power.

To restore Hod is to restore the creative power of our voice.

And Pisces brings this restoration through water.

Water dissolves rigidity. It softens the structures that confine expression. It allows what has been frozen to flow again. During this Mercury retrograde, words that have been buried in the unconscious may rise to the surface. Memories may return. Dreams may intensify. Old conversations may reappear, not to trap us in the past, but to liberate the Word from distortion.

This is a seeding.

Before a word is spoken outward, it must be conceived in the inner waters. Pisces is that inner womb. Mercury retrograde in Pisces allows you to conceive a new relationship with language itself.

To remember that your voice is a channel.

Hod is the sefirah (dimension) of the sacred priest and priestess who transmit divine intelligence through sound. When Hod is restored, speech becomes aligned with the soul. Words carry healing. Prayer becomes alive. Chant becomes a vehicle of transformation.

This retrograde asks you to return to that alignment.

To speak less, and listen more.

To listen not only to others, but to the subtle currents within yourself. To the whispers beneath thought. To the intelligence that speaks through silence.

Because the restoration of the Word does not begin with speaking.

It begins with listening.

Mercury, as the messenger, does not create the message. It carries it. When Mercury retrogrades, the messenger returns to the Source to receive the message again in its original purity.

In Pisces, this message emerges from the waters of the Infinite.

This is why poetry, prayer, chanting, and sacred sound are especially powerful during this time. They bypass the fragmented surface mind and reconnect you directly to Hod’s deeper current.

Each time you speak from truth, Hod is restored.

Each time you chant with presence, the fracture of Babel is healed within you.

Each time you listen deeply enough to hear the soul beneath the noise, the Word returns to its throne.

And here is the revelation:

The Word you are restoring is not only the words you speak.

It is the Word you are.

Your body is a letter.
Your breath is a syllable.
Your soul is a living utterance of the Infinite.

When Hod is restored, you no longer search for the right words. Your presence becomes the transmission. Your voice carries coherence. Your prayer carries creative force. Your silence carries meaning.

Mercury retrograde in Pisces is the return of the messenger to the womb of sound so that when it emerges again, it carries the original frequency of Union and Divine Essence. And when we speak from this place, even a single word becomes creation.

Embodied Practice: For those of you who like to experience these sacred energies through embodied practices, I have shared below a Neshama Yoga practice.

Ahava,

Ana Otero

Artwork by Lars Doerwald.