With Mercury slowing down to turn retrograde, I’ve been brooding about a long-ago missed opportunity. At 24, I quit my job as a Los Angeles fashion editor. I’d risen too far, too fast and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Soon, however, I was offered another position–as a consultant for an international fabric company. All I would have had to do, for a handsome fee, was predict which colors and fabrics would be popular in two years’ time. Piece of cake for a Sun/Uranus type with a sharp instinct for trends. But I turned it down to study all things metaphysical.

Though it’s brought me a great deal of knowledge and experience, the road less traveled has not been easy. I’ve never had much money, or the nice, cozy home that every Cancer craves. What if I had taken that consultant job? Surely it would have led to great things–a handsome husband, an exotic second home in a foreign country, and worldly, accomplished friends. I could always have learned astrology on the side…right? We’ll never know. But the longing for what might have been is stirring the possibility of birthing something new. Something that gives free reign to the artistic side of me that’s been underutilized all these years.

As Mercury treks back and forth in Virgo through early Oct. (turning retrograde Aug. 20 and direct on Sept. 12), we have time to examine and make peace with our missed opportunities. Virgo is the sign of work and service. In backward (right-brained) mode, Mercury in Virgo wants us to lay down the whip of left-brained perfectionism and productivity. It’s time to slow down and dream. To imagine what might have been, if only we’d taken a different road–and what might still be.