Week of November 9, 2025

Mercury Retrograde has officially begun — but this one feels different.
 Instead of chaos, this cycle is a clean-out. A healing retrograde. A chance to reclaim time, energy, and clarity — especially around who’s really in your corner.

This week’s reading digs into that theme with the This Might Hurt Tarot by Isabella Rotman, a modern, inclusive deck rooted in the Rider-Waite tradition. The cards mirror the cosmic weather perfectly: fire and earth for momentum and grounding, water reversed for emotional conservation, and not a single sword in sight. The message? It’s time to act from embodiment, not analysis.

We explore how Mercury Retrograde in Sagittarius is reshaping communication, collaboration, and creative alignment — and why the emotional detox you’re feeling is actually good news.

Tarot Spread — This Might Hurt Tarot (Isabella Rotman)

• Base of the Pyramid: Queen of Wands (upright), Strength (upright), Ace of Cups (reversed)
• Middle of the Pyramid: Page of Cups (upright), Nine of Pentacles (upright)
• Top of the Pyramid: Page of Wands (upright)

CEO Pillars

• Earth / Body: The Star (reversed) — Slow healing is still healing.
• Air / Voice: Three of Cups (reversed) — Choose depth over noise.
• Fire / Energy: Ten of Pentacles (upright) — Build systems that last.
• Water / Nervous System: Five of Cups (reversed) — Recover your focus through forgiveness.

Themes:
Mercury Retrograde = healing review, not disaster.
Reversed Cups = emotional containment, not disconnection.
Missing Swords = less overthinking, more embodiment.
Fire + Earth = grounded confidence, steady rebuilding.

Journaling Prompt:
Where have I been over-watering relationships that no longer grow anything — and how can I redirect that energy toward my own creative soil?

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Transcript

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Hello, welcome back to your Sunday Woo Crew Private podcast. This is going to be for the week of November the ninth through November the 15th, 2025, and this week we are going to be using the deck. This might hurt Tarot by Isabella Rotman. If you have this deck, you will have a ton of fun with it this week. If you don't have this deck, remember you can always use whatever deck you have on hand. If you like to have the visual alongside your podcast. So with that, let's talk about what's going on this week. We are officially in a Mercury retrograde, my friends. It's stationed today the day that this reading hits your RSS feed and um, it's stationed this week retrograde in fiery sign of Sagittarius. And you can already feel a collective sigh. We're really gonna unpack this. There's some really cool energy coming out of this retrograde. Never thought I would ever put those words with a Mercury retrograde, but here we are. And, and the thing is, is it doesn't feel like chaos. It feels like clarity. This retrograde, honestly, it like, you could think of it like a rinse cycle in the washing machine. Yes, we're still being tossed around in the washing machine, but we're rinsing, we're not. We're rinsing, so it's not a demolition. There have been retrogrades many in the past where it just feels like everything's coming down and that is not the feeling for this cycle. It does feel like it's pulling cords, it's cleaning inboxes and helping all of us separate things like these are my true collaborators from, these are just companions, and that is a really big theme that is showing up. We're gonna unpack it together. And that distinction, friendship versus partnership is definitely the curriculum of the week because so many business spaces have blurred the line selling masterminds as friendship clubs and dms dressed up as mentorship, and this mercury cycle really wants discernment. This last of discernment has been stalking us, I would say in a healthy way. All year long. It has been stalking us all year long, and this nine universal year of 2025 wants us to complete the year. Having made this discernment and understanding it a lot more clearly as we walk through the gates into 2026 into that one universal year, so the outer planets are really reinforcing it. Pluto and Aquarius restructures communities. Uranus is back in Taurus. It shakes loose what is really fake stability, and then Neptune in retrograde is stripping illusion from influence. Thank you, Neptune, for your service. So the short version is less noise, more truth. So let's dive deeper into our astrology weather so we can really look at what's going on here. We've got Mercury and retrograde and Sagittarius from November the ninth to the 29th. If you just went, oh man, that's like the whole month. Yes, you would be correct. And then don't forget that there is a post retrograde shadow, so you can really think about throughout the rest of the year. We're just sort of like cleaning up after the truths that come out during this retrograde Sagittarius. Wants truth. That is a hallmark of the archetype of Sagittarius and a Mercury. The Communicator planet is in retrograde and it wants revision. So when you put these two puppies together, they deliver perspective for you. So you can really expect, especially this month of November. The ninth through the 29th, you can expect clarity around communication patterns, learning processes, and professional networks. And remember, things go both ways. So it could be that you get clarity, but could also be people get clarity about you, pretty nifty how that works. So misunderstandings though, are Mercury's favorite diagnostic tool. And I feel like this is where people start to get a little ooky about mercury and retrograde, because misunderstandings can sometimes feel kind of crunchy, but you wanna really want to start reframing this, that every single glitch shows you where your assumptions are living. Or other people's assumptions about you are living, imagine going through Mercury retrograde and you discover that other people like, like you put out some messaging and it's kind of glitchy and you discover through that, that other people make assumptions about you and you're like, oh my goodness, I'm not communicating as clearly. What if I test it more like this? We talked about being more curious. Last week. What if I test it like this? And you try it again and it gets clear. That is such a great way to utilize this energy of mercury. It's a really positive example. So instead of dreading it, we really wanna treat this retrograde as a healing review. You're gonna continue to be curious and ask. Questions, listen twice before responding. I would definitely recommend wait 24 hours before you send important emails, and Mercury is in conversation with Neptune and Pisces. So we're getting imagination meeting realism. This is where all your dreams and visions that you have about what you're doing in your business, they get to sharpen into actual usable data, which is exciting. So the outer planets, we have been talking about outer planets for weeks now. They have really been holding the floor in the picture of what's going on in the sky when we're talking about the overarching energy that all of us are subject to. We've got Pluto and Aquarius, which continues to deinstitutionalize power. We're talking group dynamics, tech platforms, and audience ecosystems are all shifting right now. I dare say that in this Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius. Season. I do believe we are going to see, as we come out of it, people doing things like leaving platforms. Maybe it's social, maybe it's something else. I don't know. We'll see it, it feels very social to me. It, it, it could also mean people not, not really hopping onto, you know, sort of the guru bandwagons of the past, um, certain terms. Finally really hitting like a soured expiration date. Terms like Boss Babe, that came back into my world recently. And, um, there's somebody who is listening to this podcast and she's gonna laugh and, and, and I just, it really stuck with me and I was like, oh, it's these little signs that come in where you're like, I haven't thought about that word in forever. And then somebody brings it up. And then I'm doing the, the reading here and I'm like, oh my God, it all plays together. And these terms where it's just, it's stale, it's outdated. You might see people rebrand in the new year because of things like that. So you might wanna rebrand something because of something like that. It, it might not be a total rebrand on your business, but it could be like maybe you renamed. Something where you would've named it something yesterday and then tomorrow you're like, uh, yeah, that name's not really great. So, so that can happen because of everything that's going on. But Pluto and Aquarius is highlighting that in a big way. And then we've got Uranus still retrograde and Taurus. It destabilizes outdated value systems. Again, just. Backing up what we just talked about, what you charge, who you serve, how you measure success. They're all up for redefinition. So if you really feel like, man, I feel like I'm back to the drawing board on everything, you would not be alone. And and also, congratulations. You're right on time. So then we also have Neptune, which is retrograde in Pisces, like everything was retrograde in the past week. And a lot of it is still retrograde this week too. And, and it's just, it's just, it's a lot y'all right now, but Neptune is still retrograde in Pisces, and this one is a bit of a doozy because Neptune as an archetype and an energy is a lot of dreamy. The shadow side of it is, uh, a little bit delusional. So when we're talking about Neptune, retrograde and Pisces, which, and, and they're happy together. By the way, um, because Neptune is Pisces ruler, so we're talking about completing the total clean out. It's your full intuition on full display without the delusion in that part. I love. So really pay attention to what your intuitive notes are saying. We've talked a lot in past episodes for my newbies, I will give you a little spiel. Um, but we always wanna make a distinction in our intuition. Is this my intuition? Or is it my ego with the keys to the car in the driver's seat? And so we really wanna check that for just a moment. And the more you do intuitive practice and do readings for yourself, if you do a lot of readings like me, for other people, you get to practice this all the time. And so it just becomes sort of automatic. But if you don't automatically do it, it does take a little practice and taking a breath moment, literally a breath to just. Check yourself, wait, is this ego or is this me? You'd be amazed how many times you catch yourself. I do readings and sometimes I'm like, I really want it to say blah, blah. And I'm like, but that's not the message. It's what I would desire. And it definitely tells me where some of my boundaries lie, but that's not the intuitive reading. And so that helps you separate intuition from delusion. And then we've got Jupiter in cancer. And also Venus and Libra and both of them are reminding us that nurturing and beauty are indeed business strategies, not indulgences. And dare I say, I really felt like with the astrology, I felt so justified that luxury is one of my core values at Sasquatch Media grads. It made me so happy. All right, so let's talk about the energy translation in general. Just to sum it all up.'cause that is a lot of information. If you're like, Mary, I'm drinking from the fire hose right now. Yeah, yeah. So here, let, let's kind of boil it down. This week's cosmic weather lines up perfectly with your terror, which we're about to get into. It's less about panic, more about purification. We've got Earth and Fire dominating this. Skies and also in our tarot spread. So we're talking stability and willpower in our tarot spread. You're gonna notice that there is an absence of air this week in our cards, and it just really doubles down on stability and willpower because if there was air in there, the air would be fanning the flames of. Fire and we don't have that. So we're thinking less, feeling less, but also doing more. And the universe wants grounded action and embodied reflection, not just endless analysis. We're leaving the analysis paralysis place. We are going into the action place now. So with that, let's move into our tarot spread. And if you have your deck in front of you, you can pull these cards along with me. You can also pause here and go look at the show notes. For the podcast episode, and they're all listed there so you can go find the cards in your deck. So let's start with the base of the pyramid. We have our Queen of Wands in the upright position, the strength card also upright, and the Ace of Cups reversed. There's our first cup card that is reversed, so here's your confidence trifecta. We've got charisma, endurance, and emotional discipline. The Queen of Wands says. Lead visibly. I love the queen of wands. And then we have the strength card who's reinforcing that grace Under pressure is the real flex. I mean the real flex and then the Ace of Cups reverse steps in like the wise elder saying, careful don't pour everything out all at once. The emotional sweet, the Ace of Cups being in reverse here isn't repression, it's containment. You're learning to hold your emotional water until it's useful. And then we have the middle of the pyramid. We've got the page of cups upright and the nine of Pentacles upright. And you know what I just realized when I put together the script, I was like, all of the cups are reversed. No, we have one cup that is upright and it is the page which brings emotional intelligence. With the two of these together, the page and the nine, we have curiosity, meeting competence. So the page brings emotional intelligence. The nine rewards, self-reliance. When they are together like this, it's like they're whispering. You already know how to nurture yourself. You just forget when you're tired, like you need to give yourself a break. This combo also highlights your intuition about money, that you don't need a new program, you need rest. And you need refinement. You might just need an app. I really love that. Of all the cups. Everything else is in reverse. All the cups except for this page of cups. And what I'm really loving is that the page is about emotional intelligence. All the other cups are like, yeah, boo. Like we're done with that. We're pouring the water out. And this page is like, but the one thing we're keeping is emotional intelligence. And that I think is super powerful for your reading this week, especially sitting on top of the base, which includes the strength in the center of that pyramid, and the strength card is. Such a great archetype to work with for this week with the other cards around it, literally in support. Because strength is really about making peace with your shadow side, making peace with, you know, the, the difficulties and the hard things that you go through. And being able to tame the beast. And we are, you know, moving through a time right now. Where there's so much coming at you, whether you are just dealing with what's going on at home and having to navigate a lot of, you know, increasing complexities that make a household run with budgets and you know, your food budget and trying to get your business done, and time math and making sure there's enough time to do everything, or if you're getting really activated in the political. Basis and really trying to, you know, help make change in the world. There is a lot that requires you to make peace and maintain peace and be, be not in control, but be in harmony with all the things that go on around you. And that is such a leadership moment. And to have the page of cups. Really highlight the emotional intelligence of that. I think it just shows us a glimmer of what we are really going to be dealing with when we hit the new year. So then we get to the top of the pyramid. We've got the page of wands in the upright position. This is where the student becomes the messenger. Inspiration is returning, but slowly, and this is Mercury Retrograde's gift here is rediscovering enthusiasm for your own voice. And I love that so much. Not just because I'm a nut for anything that goes on a microphone these days, but because, uh, it, to find your words again and to find the passion for what you do and not try to make it fit a mold of somebody else's thing is really exciting. If there is anything that is chaotic going on right now, it is the dismantling of old systems, which we talked about in the astrology, and we do see it reflected a bit in our tarot, but on a more local level for yourself, micro level. But, but when you're, you're living in an era like that, it can feel destabilizing. And I'm not using the word chaotic because it's not chaotic. I think unless you're in the midst of actually being laid off, say in the entertainment industry or something like that, or in tech, which is happening to a lot of people, the the, the thing that you're really going through is being part of an ecosystem where everything, the molecules are all being rearranged and you have an opportunity to be like. How do I wanna play in that space? You know, these system changes come in cycles. You can look in a history book and you can see how those things have happened before. There have been disruptive technologies that have come and go for, you know, a long time here. And, and it does keep getting faster and faster because, um, Silicon Tech is faster than say, you know. Carving wheels out of stone. And so it does move faster and, and I really feel like this is where you get to find out that it's okay to play a little bit, that you can make money from doing that, that it can actually be sustainable, and that it also allows you to show up and represent. What needs to be represented from your energy and that that is a really important thing, and to learn to feel safe doing that. All these things are coming together and how cool that it's the, at the end of a nine universal year, heading into our one universal year. So let's check out our CEO pillars because they do have a bit of homework for this week, which is gonna be helpful for you on a local level. You've got your earth pillar for your body. This is the Star card in reverse, and when I was looking at all of the water cards, I lumped the star in here as well because in this deck. Your star might look different in your deck, but this deck is rooted in the rider weight and the star is pouring water or a liquid out of vessels from the pool of knowledge in the pool of inspiration and in its reversed here. And so it felt very watery. It felt very. Tangentially attached to the emotion suite. So when we're talking about your earth pillar for body with a star reversed, we're saying that healing is happening behind the scenes and to trust the slow medicine, that it's okay to take a little time. I will just tell you a lot of you know, I have been going through. Deep, deep burnout, recovery, and, and as this Mercury retrograde has kicked off, um, my body has been suddenly like, literally cracking open. And, and it has been wild. And also it's like I cannot move quickly right now. It just can't. And, and I usually find that my body will give me clues as I am reading for collective readings and. You know, I record these readings a few days ahead of when they hit your RSS feed. And, and I, I feel like I got a preview of that. So if you notice that your body is doing something where you're like, I just can't move faster right now, I've got someone's guide saying that one of you in here is definitely already been feeling this and gonna feel it more. And it's like, you're not, you're not crazy, you know? There's nothing wrong with slow medicine. There's nothing wrong with letting nature take the timing that nature takes and not the timing of, you know, something that's false or is trying to push you faster than it really needs to. And I feel like this, there's something very beautiful and being able to be a little quieter and do that for yourself, and then you have your air pillar for your voice. This is the three of cups reversed. We're talking about limiting over socializing, especially for this week of November the ninth, so too many voices will dilute your signal. When we talked earlier about hearing your intuition and you know, determining the difference between intuition and ego by limiting over socializing, it's going to allow you to hear that intuition just a little bit clearer so that you're not getting, you know, too many mixed signals in there. In can be really, really hard to hear your signal when someone else's signal is maybe actually chaotic a little bit just too, like, I wanna use the word. Bamboozle and I'm like, where is that? That might belong to one of you. I just, I keep hearing it. I, for this message, and I don't know why somebody's bamboozling you, I don't know. It is bombastic, like, something like that. Um, and, and it's just like, you know, it's just, it's just too much and it's like, so it's okay this week to clear your calendar, I would argue it's okay to clear your calendar. Through, you know, the end of the month if you're like, I would really like to use this retrograde period to be able to hear me communicate with myself, mercury and retrograde communication, communicating with yourself as a part of it, and that might be the strategy that you use. And then we've got your fire pillar for energy. This is the 10 of Pentacles in the upright position. This is where we get into legacy thinking and we are really talking this. Week about building systems that outlast burnout. with the way things are going, like it, it's, it's a marathon, y'all. It is not a sprint. That, that statement has never been more true. And, and so when you look at your systems this week, you're gonna get a chance to really do systems review because, hello Mercury retrograde. And your systems are gonna need a little bit of tending, I think. So you might not fix them all or figure it all out, but the start of doing that analysis and making sure that you're like, you know, I used to do it like this. Is that still the most efficient way? Is it burning my resources? Et cetera, et cetera. And then we've got water for your nerve. System. This is the five of cups in reverse. So we're talking about emotional recovery. You're ready to forgive and refocus, and I love that. I feel like there's a lot of beautiful emotional recovery here. I, the thing that made me see the car or the cups in reverse was this five of cups in reverse in the water pillar. And I was like, could we get any more watery? And so in, in this sense that emotional recovery is gonna be really important. So let's talk about the reversed cup. So not every cup was reversed, pardon me for my earlier statement. Um, we do have one cup in the upright position, but it's in a really important part of your pyramid spread, and that makes total sense. But every other cup is reversed this week, including the star, which I know is not a cup card. It is a major Arconic card, but because of the water element that is. So heavily present in that card. Intuitively as an Akashic reader, I'm including it this week because it just was screaming at me to do that. So, um, the rest of them are all reversed and that really points to drum roll pleas, emotional conservation. There's a big thing about like conserving something for you overall in the total reading between the astrology and the tarot. It's like if you. Pour out your cup and you give everything to everybody. You've got nothing left for yourself, so you're really learning not to leak energy into misaligned relationships. And then when Mercury retrograde prompts clarity around who's real, it won't feel like heartbreak. It'll feel more like housekeeping because these lessons of who's real and who's not, they are going to be becoming. Bigger and louder and more frequent, there is going to be more clean out when it comes to who do I really need to listen to and who do I need to rearrange in my circles of trust or my circles of, um, of advice. Or who I work with when it comes to my business specifically.'cause we're talking about business here, so there might be people where it's like, you know, I used to talk to that person all the time and it's like I just don't talk to them as much anymore. And that is not a bad thing. You might talk to them about other like specific things, but not everything. And then there might be some new people who showed up or you're like, wow, this is really promising. Like I didn't expect. That it might be a group related thing, it could be individual, but there is a bit of this shift and change. Then we have missing swords completely from the, the reading this week that is entirely Mercury's doing, and it really feels like the universe sent us a little memo on a piece of paper and it said, stop intellectualizing and start embodying. So when you have your swords present, you know you're in your head and you're really. Thinking about things and it's like we have spent a lot of time thinking about things over the last few weeks. There have been plenty of swords cards and this mercury retrograde is like time to start doing and I think that is such a great way to go through this mercury retrograde. That is why I do not feel that is, is full of chaos. I feel like it's full of a lot of, a lot of grounding energy. And then we get into our repeater report. Um, we do have a lot of repeater cards. Again, strength returned to us this week and it reminds us that gentleness is power. And we had five of cups. It re, it reappeared this week, but now it's reversed and it really feels like that's a progression that we moved from grief into gratitude. Love me. One of five of cups flips itself over into the reverse, which is why I love incorporating reversals into readings because you get to see that progression. And then we also have the Queen and the page of Wands, which continue to show up, and they give us a theme of visible leadership. So creative courage instead of reactive fire. And then we've got 10 of Pentacles, which echoes last week's night of Pentacles, confirming a real long game energy. When we look at a pattern and we look at a summary, we're talking about moving through emotional detachment to practical stability, to sustainable confidence. And so this mercury retrograde doesn't undo progress. It's just fortifying it by closing a lot of unfinished loops. And y'all, I don't feel like we have a ton of unfinished loops. I feel like there are some pivotal unfinished loops, which. Everyone on their individual personal level is going to notice. But on a really interesting level, collectively, when you're looking at your audience and who you're serving with, whatever your offer is or whatever your product is, you're gonna notice this happening out there on the macro level too, and you're going to be able to say like, wow. Like that's a whole bunch of unfinished loops in that group, and they are making no effort to finish. Those loops and you get a chance to make a decision. Am I overp pouring my cup into that area? Is that good for me? Is that healthy for me? I used to think it was, do I still agree to the terms and conditions and wanna do that? And if the answer's no, you get a chance to decide, okay, what's my exit strategy? What do I wanna do? And, and you can also look at it in terms of, you know, there's a lot of unfinished loops out there in the world when it comes. To gaps in the market or people aren't getting what they need in a certain way, and you get to really see it because people are going to show you during a Mercury retrograde what's not working for them, and you'll be showing other people what's not working for you too. Like it goes both ways. And as you are working on whatever it is you do as a specialty in your business, you'll be able to look at that and say, am I addressing that in my offers? Am I making it really clear when I'm telling people this is how I help you. Is that actually working? And it gives you a chance to help them finish those loops. So like it's an ecosystem. We're all helping each other by being a lot more observant in that way. So there is a journaling prompt that you can use for the week if you would like. It is where have I been? Overwatering relationships that no longer grow anything, and how can I redirect that energy toward my own creative soil? And I love that return to self. We talked about calling your spirit back to yourself in last week. Episode and I feel like it shows up here in such a beautiful, healthy way. And this is like the definition of healthier boundaries in action and to to start to work with this, you're not gonna master it, but to start to work with it now allows you to start finishing out this year of 2025, this nine universal year, and end it beautifully. I'll, I'll talk a little bit more throughout the month of November about some more of the numerology because now that we are in November, I didn't talk about it a lot in this episode 'cause there's just so much astrology going on right now. Um, but we are in the 11th month of the year, and 11 is a master number. So 11 boils down to two. And 11 as a number with the two ones next to each other is the definition of duality. And so when you have an 11 slash two, which is what this month is, you're talking about a master number month. And we get it every year. Y'all happens every, every November. So that's not like, you know, news, right? But it happens every November and we have a chance every year at the end of the year to look back before December and to look back through the year and say, how am I maintaining my individuality? Within the partnership of however it is that I partner up with the world around me. So you can look at that on a smaller level like yourself with say a business partner or yourself with, say, a collaborator that you work with or yourself with something larger on a more macro level. Like yourself with your whole audience and how you talk with them and yourself, with, you know, a whole community. And so you're already getting that energy in the month of November and it's really beautiful. We'll talk about it more as we go through, but this is a lot of information for like one week of reading. I, I'm, I'm not gonna say that it's going to be any less info in the coming weeks. There's just. So much happening before we get to Lunar New Year. After the new year, which we talked about in the, um, the quarterly forecast. And so, you know, just gird your loins as Stanley Tucci says in, uh, the Devil Wears product, gird your loins. And, um, you can totally do this. Mercury retrograde isn't here to break your tick, it's here to polish your truth. So give yourself time to breathe, ask better questions, protect your energy, the way you protect your passwords, y'all. And just remember that you're entering a clean out phase. This is the part where you get lighter, freer, and more precise. And to start doing it now, it means you're gonna be ahead of the game when you hit January 1st. And then next week we'll move deeper into the retrograde and we'll start seeing what rebuilds itself after the dust clears. I feel like there's gonna be a little bit of a shakeup this week, and so we'll see where the dust clears. Until I see you next week, be kind, be curious, let the clarity do all your heavy lifting for you, and I hope you have a great week.