If anyone was warned off the internet by Google’s malware message yesterday, you were caught in a temporary glitch, popping up during the Mercury storm.


Mercury storm is described here as such:

The “Mercury Storm” is that period right around the station — either station! — when Mercury is moving very slowly. Normally Mercury is the fastest-moving planet (other than the Moon, which is really a satellite of the Earth), and it is helpful to think of Mercury as being “happy” when it is moving fast, and “unhappy” when it is moving slowly. My working definition of the Mercury Storm is any period in which Mercury is moving less than 40′ (minutes of arc) per day, since experience shows that the SNAFU’s tend to peak at those times. … The number of days in the Storm is highly variable, which is at least consistent with the fluid nature of Mercury!

The current retrograde is nearly over but don’t be complacent. Mercury storm phases are highly sensitive times, as noted in the Planet Waves blog a few days ago:

Mercury is in storm phase, just four days from stationing direct on Sunday. What that means is that the retrograde is nearly over, and Mercury is in a sensitive point of changing directions; and with that, commitments can change, the truth can come out, agreements can find a new place, and we can start to see where we agree or don’t agree — and do something about it.

This is not the time to mess with your computer or take apart the engine on your car. I suggest waiting even to make even simple change, and that if you do a backup, that you really know what you’re doing. Just about everything that caused a disaster during Mercury retrograde could have waited a couple of days or weeks. And yes, the chances are, it would have been less complex, cheaper and gone better.