Mercury's 2011 Aries retrograde pattern...plus a few items
(and indications of blogs) yet to come!
Telling people that Mercury is going direct always gets a big ‘whoo-hoo!’ Especially for those born with Mercury direct in their chart, it feels like getting out of school early with no homework on a warm early summer day with money in your pocket and nobody telling you what to do.
Whoo-hoo! Mercury’s going direct! And since it’s going direct at 10:05am (UT/+0) its even April 23rd pretty much everywhere. We all go direct together!
Whoo-hoo times two!
EXCEPT….
(Oh, don’t tell me you didn’t know this was coming! Is there ever NOTHING we need to deal with? Cammon! This is Earth! This is reality! Wake up and smell the responsibility!)
Look…this really isn’t SO hard. It’s easy to make it hard, but it’s really not so difficult to make this station/direct period really positive and productive.
And just so we have the disclaimers out of the way, here they are:
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Any planetary station is a ‘turning point.’ I won’t go into all the science here, but there is science behind this fact (discovered some 5,000 years after astrologers figured it out but what the hey…) and events which occur during the couple of days just before AND just after any station should be taken seriously.
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Events prior to the station have yet to play out…events after the actual station are the playing out of something which has already happened.
If you are waiting for information our some decision, it generally will happen on or a couple of days after Mercury’s station…as soon as the planet picks up ‘relative’ speed again. (In actuality, no planet ever slows down – retrogrades are about relative solar system positions of other planets vis-à-vis Earth.)
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As for where exactly Mercury is going direct, that would be at 12 Aries, a degree known for an egocentric sort of energy which cares a lot about ‘me and mine’ with some difficulty when it comes to balancing out ‘my aims’ with those of others. The confusion which results here can incite rebellion or attitudes which sound a whole heck of a lot like a kid having a tantrum.
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For many, this energy is SO strong they end up drive themselves right over a cliff trying to prove they’re right, they’re right, it’s so all about that idea in their head!
And with Saturn in opposition here…can we say PUT THAT IN BIG AND BOLD?
(By Jove, I think I just did!)
Mercury is going direct at 12 Aries. As it does that, Saturn is at 12 Libra, a degree known very much for trumpeting the good in the idea but not having the conviction to follow through on anything.
In abstract, Mercury in Aries opposition Saturn in Libra should be about a moment of considering how well what we choose (or have chosen) to do is working out. Are we getting the reception we had hoped for? The Saturn side of this is sort of the ‘applause meter’ – our gauging how well the actuality of reality is against what we had hoped life would be at this point.
And given that this is Saturn we are talking about, there’s always room for improvement (oh please – really? Do we HAVE to?) …AND this is also a good time to make those course corrections. Or when you can have that profitable ‘aha moment’ and set to work improving on whatever needs improving on so that by the time Mercury exits the shadow of its retrograde come May 10/11, you’re in much better shape – at least mentally.
Why not entirely? Well, some things take time. If you’re rebuilding a car or editing the Great American Novel, that may take longer than a few weeks, right? For you, by that May date you’ll be ‘in your groove’ and have an idea of how long things will take and what you need to do first, next and finally.
For others, you will – providing you put in the (Saturn) effort – be at least in the process and on your way to getting where you want or need to go. Results (as they say) are individual of course – those we would see in individual charts and most any astrologer will tell you that one of dangers of prophesizing any date based on effort is that there are WAY too many clients in this world who will figure out how to drop the ball.
Funny, isn’t it…? It’s far easier to predict release dates for hit movies or who’s going to win an election than it is to tell someone when they’re going to get a job because that sort of comment implies they’re going to make the effort where the others are based on efforts obviously already being made.
Anyway…this Mercury/Saturn opposition is a typical sort of ‘decision point.’ But because Saturn is in a public/worldly sign (not to mention because Saturn is Saturn) this can be a really motivational time. Like as not you’ll hear all sorts of decisions getting made – you may even make one yourself! It’s also a likely moment for exhortations – people trying to get you to go along with what they believe right.
And therein lies the decision and the seeds of possible confrontation…even rebellion.
In other words, it’s all the same “I/me + you” energy equation, but there are several general ‘formats’ in which this energy can play out. You can reflect on where you’re going and change that…or refuse to change that. You can do so as a matter of personal drive or you could do so in response to positives or negatives being dealt, handed (suggested, sold, etc.) to you by others. Or by life!
There’s one more symbol on the day here…Medea entering Cancer at 1:49am (UT/+0). And what’s that rule…? Things which happen prior to the actual station have yet to play out. So here we have Medea going into Cancer, sign of homeland, family, house (construction, real estate, etc.), tradition, culture, ingrained habits, childhood…
…all in advance of Mercury actually going direct.
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Medea by Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919)
For one, this sounds like news soon to come. And considering this is Medea, it might be news which is problematic (such as the abuse of children) or news which prompts that over-focus we just talked about with Mercury’s degree of station…or something which halts plans we had been formulating in its proverbial tracks.
Why? Call this reason 'the Medea Factor.' Medea’s is a story of a sorceress and madness and self-defeating, self-undermining love – a love which will drive one to doing the unthinkable.
Focused on Cancer, Medea spells a passionate devotion to all things emotionally defined as “mine”…and maybe to the point of self-destruction.
Okay, not maybe…rather assuredly!
And combined with Mercury’s degree of station and it’s tendency to focus on ‘my idea of right’ and Saturn’s “relatively” weak placement at 12 Libra?
Can you say ‘uh-oh’?
Und yet, yet, yet, yet….there is that eventuality of life. When we look at the relative size, placement and importance of the three players in this drama, though we tend to think of Mercury as the star here (both because Mercury is symbolic of thinking and because it’s the one going direct!) …the end-of-the-line truth here is Saturn.
So let’s review: this year’s Saturn cycle started with its station/retrograde at 17 Libra, a degree which is both theoretical, logical, gentle (at times) and quarrelsome. There is a quality of the ridiculous here (which we sure have seen a lot of!) and an implied necessity to work on our emotional position with an eye to reconciling what we may think so brilliant with a world which may or may not be so accepting of our sense of ‘rightness.’
Saturn’s station/retrograde of January 26 was the beginning of all the turmoil and violent events currently going on in our world. From economic and political uproars in the United States to uprisings and a demand for greater freedom in the Middle East and across North Africa to Japan’s nuclear problems, everything falls under Saturn – mostly in its role as ruler of Capricorn (commerce/commerical structures, governance/national structures, rulers, functional/responsible limits)….but also in the sense that with Saturn transiting Libra, now the good and bad of all such things are going to be brought to us to deal with.
Saturn goes direct in June, another time we can count on as being full of upheaval as the June/July period includes two solar eclipses and one lunar eclipse – amidst which Saturn goes direct.
Can you say ‘handwriting on the wall’? That’s part of what this Mercury direct is about. But don’t think of it as just global or ‘big picture’ ….it’s also about the details and the nuances of life. Mercury always is!
The bottom line here is to be aware. The urge to be self-protective and maybe ‘think the worst’ or simply want what you want so, so much is obvious.
The better part of valor – and your future – is, however, wrapped up in your ability to take the bigger picture into account. Saturn is a ‘cold’ symbol (and a pretty cold place to be – brrrr!) …the point with Saturn is that in the end, facts and reality rules. You can’t escape that reality, no matter how much you want to. In fact the more that you do escape (or try to escape), the worse of a mess you will get into.
And yet, here we are faced with the problem that we can’t just ‘throw out the baby with the bath water.’ There will be wholesale calls for sweeping change – Uranus is here running with Amphitrite, Venus and Black Moon Lilith telling us that those who have the least to lose are urging that the masses just ‘get used to it.’
Mars at 16 Aries forming a bridge between Mercury at 12 Aries and Jupiter/Eris at 20/21 Eris tells us there is harshness in the mix now. There will be those who ‘draw the line in the sand’ and they’re likely to be highly emphatic about it. If they take a truly universal view, they may prevail. Those who are shortsighted or simply seeing things from their own point of view however, are likely to encounter some serious backlash(ing). Maybe not immediately, but soon enough.
Neptune is in Pisces. And not only is Neptune in Pisces but at this moment, Chiron is conjunct fixed star Fomalhaut, a star which promises success ONLY when one’s dream is not corrupted.
Corrupted by what?
By our own emotional longings.
That means facts and Saturnine realities rules. Neptune is not about my dream, its about our humanness…and how we all dream. The important word here is all…which means we cannot negate others. They are as entitled to be them as we each are entitled to be who we are, different though we may be.
An x-ray photograph of Saturn with a grid overlaid to show where
the planet is. And you thought Saturn was a regular, solid planet?
Think again! As one description put it, by the time you were
standing on Saturn's surface you'd be under it.
photo credit: JPL/NASA
The challenge is figuring out what will work for all of us…even though that may well mean we each – universally - have to give up a few things.
Or maybe even our dream that we can have life our way, or go on thinking we actually know and/or are entitled to say what’s ‘right.’
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