astroPPM: Mercury Goes Direct

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Mercury Goes Direct

Good news! Mercury goes direct tonight.

That's right - tonight, September 12th at 11:10 GMT.

So we've made it through another Mercury retrograde. And now all those things which have been out there hanging, misunderstood or badly said, unanswered, unexplained and undone - they'll all begin getting straightened out. Much will get into gear instead of being blathered about. A few missing pieces will be found or begin falling into place. People will start hearing, never mind all that faux 'I'm listening!' stuff.

Not that Mercury retrograde doesn't have positive uses, mind you! Retrogrades - of any planet - though annoying, do serve a purpose. They're about getting us to reflect and catch up with ourselves. They're about solidifying gains and cutting our losses.

In this case, Mercury is going direct at 5 Virgo. Simply on the face of it, 5 Virgo falling between 0 and 9, makes it a first decan degree. And first decan degrees always refer to something physical or action-oriented. So this is about something you do or something being done, which needs doing, or which has been done...and maybe not done all that well. Maybe brilliantly, yes...but maybe not.

Occurring in the tangible earth sign Virgo, the whole 'real' and 'reality' quotient is underlined. So know the score. Deal with the facts. Opinions count less than theories, likes and dislikes or results now. This is about workability. Functionality. Does it work? Does it not work? Those are the questions du moment.

Lore on this degree is rather interesting. On one hand, 5 Virgo is spoken of as a karmic degree all about duty. So having Mercury, our metaphysical 'mover' of thought, mentality and everyday doings making its turn in/at this degree heralds a 'turn' in operative parameters...the what you're doing, how you're doing it or how you've prioritized things in your mind or life.

Note here please...this doesn't say how things are going to turn out. Nor does it indicate whether you're starting, changing, or working to perfect (or even undo or repair) something. That's all about Mercury in you personal and individual chart.

But we do know that Virgo is all about productivity and being productive. It's about tending to necessities and everything which not only builds for tomorrow, but maintains today so there is some tomorrow to build for.

Into all this now comes Drakonia, the asteroid symbol of the player, being played and game playing. Drakonia being also at 5 Virgo at the moment fuses it's meaning with that of Mercury. So maybe we need to play along? Or maybe we need to toe some line and 'play the game' by the rules? Possible. Then again, maybe we're being fooled that something needs to be done. Maybe we're even fooling ourselves!

About what? Well, again...the specifics have greatly to do with where 5 Virgo falls in your chart. But considering that Virgo is all about the real, the tangibly useful, the responsibility, the ability or skill and what's 'healthy' in every sense, that's a pretty universal place to start.

Oh, and did I mention that Niobe is also at 5 Virgo? Ah yes...Niobe, the woman whose pride in her children (her "creations") made her the object of immortal wrath.

Pride being the primal factor leading to loss here, ask yourself: have you been too proud to see something? Has a lack of pride made you unable or unwilling to see some realistic truth? Have you been kidding yourself to such a degree that like Niobe, you will draw the pointed arrows of exposure (Apollo) or instinctual reaction (Diana) to you and get 'shot down'?

Diana and Apollo Piercing Niobe's Children with their Arrows

(Jacques Louis David, 1772)

A last note on the defining portion of this cosmic turnstile comes from fixed/royal star Fomalhaut at 4 Pisces - which let's face it, is pretty much totally in opposition to 5 Virgo.

Very much in keeping with Pisces as a sign all about experiencing our feelings and our feelings about our own emotions, on the face of it Fomalhaut in early Pisces is a sign of cherished dreams. And yes, we all want to feel good about life.

One might say Fomalhaut stands in support of arriving at the end of our rainbows and the finding of that pot of gold (with or without the Leprechaun).

Rainbow over Grenoble, France
photograph by Remi Guillot

But like all fixed stars, Fomalhaut carries with it a warning. It warns us about corruptions. If how we go about achieving or building them is corrupt, then where Fomalhaut is concerned the grasping at the golden ring shall itself be an act of self-corruption and thus bring about a big fall. If the dream itself is corrupt, we'll end up miserably disappointed (emotionally corrupted) if and when we get what we so thought we wanted.

Or maybe even worse. Like the other great Royal Stars of Persia (Regulus, Aldebaran and Antares), to run afoul of Fomalhaut is to create such detriment to our life that we realize we would have been far better off never going after the dream to begin with.

Taken together, this Mercury-Drakonia-Niobe (opposition Fomalhaut) asks us to consider, particularly where situations of the moment elicit pride or the urge to skirt some issue ("playing") just because we don't want to face or deal with the reality of things. Ask yourself...what's really at stake here? Am I kidding myself? Am I merely heeding some secret longing? Am I perhaps being 'played'?

Any time Mercury goes direct, the days right around the station/direct point (here September 12 at 11:10 GMT) are typified by everything from feeling like time is standing still to thinking you can't cope or choose because everything's so in flux. And if you have any planet, axis or nodal point at 5 degrees of any sign (or within a couple of degrees plus or minus of 5) this station is going to be particularly intense in your world...to say nothing of the fact that Pluto's about to go direct too!

But that's another blog (and don't worry - it'll get posted soon enough!). In the meantime, in the first few days after Mercury goes direct, expect things to be sticky slow. But within a week or so, they will pick up. Often you'll get news or information pertaining to things which happened either when Mercury was just entering the shadow of its retrograde or the retrograde itself (in this case, the end of July/beginning of August).

Whatever the case there, between now and September 28th when Mercury exits current shadow(ed degrees), we will all be sorting through and taking care of matters left over (or laid aside) since that late July/early August time. Then we move on to things new, fresh and totally not-yet-conceived of.

And that's something, right? So happy Mercury direct!