A name you had put away lit up your phone this week, and you want to know whether it is them or the sky. Here is the honest shape of Mercury retrograde and your ex: more of them reach out, because the season makes people look backwards and lowers the fear of the first message. Whether it means anything is a separate question, and it is the one worth asking.
Mercury turns retrograde on October 24, 2026 and goes direct on November 13, all of it in Scorpio, the sign that deals in what people bury. I am a candle worker and a reader, not an astrologer, so take the sky part from someone who does that for a living. What I can give you comes from my inbox, which fills every retrograde with the same message in different words: he texted, she unblocked me, what does it mean, what do I do.
Why do exes come back during Mercury retrograde?
Because a retrograde is review season, and you are in the review. People audit their lives when Mercury looks like it is running backwards: old threads get opened, old photos get looked at, and the message that would have felt like too much in September feels like nothing in late October. Four reasons cover nearly every retrograde message I am told about, and from the outside they look identical.
- They are reviewing, not returning. You came up in the audit. A message is how they check what is still there, and sometimes that is all it is.
- Their present stopped working. A new relationship cooled, a job went sideways, the dark part of the year set in. You are the known warm thing, and known warm things look very warm from a cold room.
- A loose end bothered them. Scorpio is hard on unfinished conversations. If the two of you never had the last talk, they may be writing to have it, not to begin again.
- They miss you. It happens, and the retrograde was the excuse they were waiting for. This is the one you were hoping for, and a hey from this person looks exactly like a hey from the other three.
Mercury retrograde and your ex: the 2026 dates and the shadow
The dates matter less than the shadows around them. Mercury is retrograde from October 24 to November 13 this year, but the shadow before it began in early October, and the shadow after runs to the end of November. If an ex has been surfacing since the first week of the month, that is the shadow, and if they vanish by Thanksgiving, that is the shadow too.
Nothing moves backwards. From where we stand, Mercury appears to reverse for about three weeks because of where the two orbits sit, and astrologers have read that as a season of return and reconsideration for a very long time. Believe the sky or not, the pattern is there in how people behave. Phones come out at one in the morning. The search bar fills with old names. The ex who has been silent since spring sends a photo of a place you went once.
The earlier two retrogrades this year, in late February and late June, ran the same way through my inbox, and so will the next. Which is why the question is never whether an ex will surface in one. Some ex always does. The question is what to do with it.
Is my ex coming back for real, or is it the retrograde?
One test, and it has not failed me: does it survive the station. Mercury goes direct on November 13. Whatever they started in the retrograde, watch what they do with it in the two weeks after, when nothing in the sky is pushing. A real return keeps walking. A retrograde one stops at the door, looks in, and goes quiet by the end of the month.
Until then, these are the things I would weigh.
| What it looks like | What it usually is |
|---|---|
| Hey at midnight, nothing after | The door being checked. It was still there. They know now |
| A photo of a place you went, no caption | A review. Nostalgia, which is a feeling and not a plan |
| A question about your life, in daylight, followed up when you answer | Interest, and the kind that can survive a station |
| An apology for the one specific thing that ended it | A real review, with a conclusion in it |
| A message that picks the old fight back up | The loose end, writing to be finished. Finish it or decline it |
| I had a dream about you | Their own head at night, and the season. What that means is in dreaming about your ex |
| An unblock with no message | Watching. It goes either way, and it is not yours to push |
| A plan with a day in it | The only row in this table that is a return rather than a visit |
Not knowing is uncomfortable. It is also the only honest state to be in for three weeks, and I would rather you sat in it than decided in it.
Should I text my ex during Mercury retrograde? What to send back
Short, warm, and without the history. A retrograde is not a curse on talking; it is a season when a plain hello lands softer than usual, and if you want to send one, send one. What you do not do inside the window is have the big conversation or make the big decision. Reply, meet for a coffee, let it breathe, and decide after the 13th.
The mistake I see most is answering a one line message with the paragraph you have been drafting since summer. They sent a pebble and you sent the wall, at midnight, with everything in it. Even a person who meant it steps back from that. So reply the way you would to a friend you like and have not seen in a while, and let the next move be theirs.
- To hey: Hey yourself. How’s the dog? One line, one easy question, and you have handed the reaching back to them.
- To I’ve been thinking about us: That’s a big sentence for a Tuesday. I’m around if you want to say more. Warm, and it asks them to do the work.
- To I had a dream about you: Hope I behaved. Nothing more. The dream is theirs.
- To a message that reopens the fight: I’d rather not do this by text. If you want to talk properly, I’m open to it. Then let them choose.
- To an unblock with no message: nothing. Watching is not a message, and answering it makes you the one who moved.
If you were already working on getting them back before the season turned, the plan does not change, and it is in how to get your ex back. If you are not sure you want them back at all, read should I get back with my ex before you answer anything.
Mercury retrograde and your ex in Scorpio: what this one digs up
This retrograde sits in Scorpio, and I would not ignore that even if you ignore the rest. Scorpio retrogrades dig. They bring up the relationships that ended without an ending, the ones where somebody left by text, where the last conversation never happened, where one of you is still having the argument in the shower. If there is an ex you have unfinished business with, this is the window in which they are most likely to have it with you.
What that means in practice: the message that comes is more likely to be about the thing that ended it than about missing you. That is not bad news. A finished ending is worth more than most reunions, and a conversation that closes the last loop can be the thing that lets a real return happen later, or the thing that lets you stop waiting. Either way the season is offering you an ending you did not get the first time. Take it in daylight.
How to do a three card pull for a retrograde message
This is the pull I would do before replying to anything that arrived in the window. It takes fifteen minutes, and the point is to read the message rather than the mood you were in when it landed.
What you need
- A deck you know. Any standard deck you have shuffled before.
- The message, written out by hand on a scrap of paper. Not the phone. The phone will keep showing you the rest of the thread.
- A pen and a page for the question and what you saw.
- The phone in another room for the fifteen minutes.
1. Write the question with the date in it
What brought Sam to my phone this week, what do they want from it, and what does it look like after the 13th? Their first name and the station date, so the reading is about this message and not about the whole history.
2. Shuffle with the message in front of you
Shuffle until the question stops rewording itself. Decide now whether you read reversals. Deciding after you see the Six of Cups upside down is how readings go dishonest.
3. Lay three cards: what brought them, what they want, what it looks like after the station
Left to right. The first is the reason they wrote, which is not always the reason they gave. The second is what they want from the contact: an ending, a visit, a return, a check on the door. The third is what is left on the 14th if nothing changes, and it is the only one of the three that matters for your decision.
4. Read the third card against the first
A nostalgic first card and an empty third card is a visit. A loose-end first card and a Judgement or a Four of Wands third is a conversation worth having. A heavy first card with a court card you do not recognize in the third is somebody else in their life, and the message was not about you.
5. Write it down and reply tomorrow
Write the three cards and the first thing you felt about each. Then put the deck away and do not reply until morning. Nothing decided after midnight in a retrograde is decided.
What the cards show for a retrograde return and a real one
A retrograde return reads as memory without movement. A real one reads as movement with a direction. The cards that land in the first position, what brought them, tell me which I am looking at before I turn the other two.
- The Six of Cups in the first position is the retrograde itself: the old sweetness, looked at from a distance. Nostalgia brought them, and nostalgia goes home when the season does.
- The Page of Cups reversed is a message that goes nowhere. A feeling sent without a plan behind it. I write that it was real and that it was small.
- The Seven of Swords is checking the door. They wanted to know it was still there. It was. That is all they came for.
- The Knight of Cups is the one that means it: a message carrying an offer, and a person who will still be there on the 14th.
- Judgement is the owed conversation. The season handed them the courage for it, and it is a conversation worth having whatever comes after.
- The Wheel reversed is the same turn coming round again. If this is not the first retrograde they have written in, this card is usually sitting there, and I say so.
The readings I wrote in the last retrograde had the Seven of Swords in the first position more than any other card. Most of the people who sent those questions already knew what it meant. They wanted it in writing, so they could stop hoping, and that is a fair thing to buy.
Can I cast a spell during Mercury retrograde?
Yes. I cast through it, and I would not stop for three weeks a year any more than I would stop cooking. What I change is which work I take on, because the season pulls in a direction and I would rather the candle pull with it than against it.
Work that sits well in a retrograde: anything about going back, returning or reopening. A contact me spell when they surfaced and went quiet again, a reconciliation spell when the road between you is what needs clearing. The candles I burned for returns inside the last window were steadier than the ones either side of it, with less soot and fewer flames that lay down, as if the work and the season were pulling the same way. I cannot prove that. I can tell you the glass was cleaner, and how I read what the glass does is in how to read a candle burn.
Work I hold until it goes direct: new beginnings. A road opener for a fresh start, a candle aimed at someone you have never spoken to. The person on the other end is looking over their shoulder, and I would rather light that one when they are facing forward.
Work that does not care either way: cord cutting, cleansing, return to sender. If an ex has come back to stir the pot rather than to stay, a retrograde is a perfectly good time to cut what they are tugging on.
If you order inside the window I cast inside the window, the same day, and your report says what the burn did. If I think the work should wait for the 13th, I tell you before I light anything, and you choose.
The mistakes people make in the three weeks
- Making the big decision inside the window. The spare key, the moving back, the let’s try again. Talk, meet, breathe. Decide after the station.
- Sending the wall. One line came in. A paragraph went out. Even a person who meant it steps back from that.
- Chasing the second message. If they go quiet after the first, let them. Three unanswered texts in a row inside a retrograde hand back every inch the season gave you.
- Reading the dream as a sign. Yours or theirs. It is the month at work, not a thread between you.
- Treating the unblock as a conversation. It is a window opened an inch. Answering it makes you the one who climbed through.
- Casting at an ex who asked to be left alone because the season felt like permission. It is not. No season is. I will not cast it and I would ask you not to either.
When the retrograde is not your problem
When the same ex comes back every retrograde and leaves every time it ends, the planet is not your problem. The pattern is. You have become the page they turn back to, and the kindest work is a cord cutting on your side, so that next time the season turns, you are not the one looking over your shoulder.
When they are still there on the 14th, asking about your life, making a plan with a day in it, you have something, and it is not the sky’s doing. It becomes an ordinary question from here, the one in will my ex come back, and it does not need a planet to answer it. When they go quiet on the 14th, you have your answer too, and it is kinder than it feels: they were reviewing, and you were a page. Do nothing for a week, and then, if you are still checking the phone, cut.
When I read it for you
Send me one real question, the first names of the people in it, and what you actually need to know. The one that works best in these weeks is the plain one: is this real, or is it the season, and what do I do with it? Leave out the birth dates and the charts, and tell the story only if you want to. If it is in before 6 pm ET, the reading is written that day and sent to your email.
What comes back is the cards in the order they land, what each one shows for the message you received, the parts I cannot place said as such, and what to do before the 13th and after it. If the cards say it is a visit, I write that it is a visit, and then what they show instead, which is usually the useful part.
- Standard, about 900 words, answers whether this return is real and what to do with it.
- In Depth, about 2000 words, goes into the people around it, the one who wrote and whoever else is in their life now. Take it if this is not the first retrograde they have come back in.
Reply with questions and I answer them. If the cards give me nothing, I say so.
Ask your question, or read about the reading first.
Paying someone to read it? Read how to tell a real spell caster from a scam and what spell casting costs first.
