Mercury enters its Shadow

The image of Mercury used here is from a photo taken

by NASA's Mariner spacecraft.

  
It’s an interesting testimony to how human life functions…ask any astrologer and they’ll tell you that they get more questions about Mercury retrogrades than anything else.

And those questions tend to come in two varieties…the ‘when is it going to start?’ question which comes with an expression of concern, and the ‘when is it going to end?’ inquiry which more often than not is liberally coated in frustration or angst.

But it does make sense. After all, Mercury is the symbol of our mentality, and humans are think-a-lot critters. Even when we’re not thinking about what we should be thinking about, we’re thinking!

Retrograde shadows have applications when we talk about any planet or asteroid, which here we have to reference in purely technical terms as the Sun and Moon, though known as ‘planets’ in the astrological sense, never go retrograde.

Still, never in all my years of studying astrology have I ever had anyone ask me when the Uranus shadow is going to begin. Or when Neptune is going to exit it’s shadow. Having looked at such things (I’m such a curious creature!) I’d vote for discussions of Neptune as being perhaps the most interesting. And yes, perhaps perplexing.

But then, that would be Neptunian, wouldn’t it?

The idea of a retrograde shadow is that it describes an arc or ‘umbrella’ under which certain events happen, are on your mind, on your plate to be taken care of, or when you’re trying like the dickens to get them done, but for whatever reason they get held up. Maybe you don’t have all the information. Or maybe you’re having to wait on someone else before you move on.

This shadow-retrograde-direct-shadow process has become famous, almost infamous with people – so much so that people seem to think Mercury’s retrogrades are the do-all, end-all of astrological functionality. But that’s not exactly true. That you might think it’s true is more or less all about how you think…and THAT’s Mercury.

So don’t blame the retrograde, okay? In fact, don’t blame anyone – just think it over. That, Mercury retrograde periods (complete with shadows) are very good for. Asking questions, considering choices, doing research, preparing something which you will move forward with as Mercury either goes direct or exits its shadow (either may be appropriate)…the process and seeing to the ‘propriety and efficient effectiveness’ of what you’re doing or taking time to read (or think through) life’s ‘fine print’ is the Mercurial thing – not whether you do or don’t do.

Now with that said, there are certain things lore tells us are not advisable to do under Mercury retrograde: signing contracts, tendering or responding to marriage proposals (a different sort of ‘contract’), buying cars, phones, computers, sneakers – anything to do with the transporting or communicating of you or your ideas is a ‘Mercury thing.’

The 'date diagram' for this round of Mercury retrograde.

HOWEVER….the real issue is whether what you’re doing is the ‘end of the line’ – or whether you are dead set on the choice du jour being the end of the line as you make some sort of Mercury choice. It was pointed out to me long ago by a qualified astrological type that there are those who buy houses for the purpose of flipping them under Mercury retrograde. And that’s a perfect example of a contract which - providing you read it, do the numbers and leave proper contingencies and all such (you know, the common sense stuff) – may be perfectly okay to sign under Mercury retrograde.

Why? Because the purpose of the contract is not to create permanence.

I’ll give you another example: a Certain Member of My Family (who shall go unnamed here) has a knack for taking jobs under Mercury retrograde. But the job they take, which is to say that particular position, never lasts. Either there’s a mutual parting of the ways at the end of the standard probationary period in this person’s profession OR they get offered a different and better position once they’re inside the organization and Ye Olde Honchos can see their true native aptitudes for themselves.

Another Mercury fallacy: nothing can be ‘in the works under Mercury retrograde or it’ll be done wrong.’ Not true. Let’s say you’re a hot rod enthusiast and you want your car totally tricked out and given a paint job to make Michelangelo jealous. PROVIDING the designs and the bids and all that has been comfortably (that’s the key word here) gone through with no rush involved prior to the beginning of retrograde, your waiting while the paint-and-body wizards do their thing under Mercury retrograde would be totally apt.

Processing per se, is fine under Mercury retrograde provided that no one has ‘rushed’ to get things under way.

And that’s the issue with the shadow. Especially as the date of retrograde (June 26th) approaches, people are likely to feel rushed. That’s when you don’t want to push things. And yes, you are likely to feel pressure – everybody does prior to Mercury’s station/retrograde point, and that too is about your mentality. LIFE is not suddenly becoming more pressured…life is asking you how well you deal with mental pressure.

Think of it as a ‘leak test’ for your brain. If there is a leak, the added pressure of Mercury nearing its retrograde station will cause a blow-out.

Mercury is all about making sure we keep ourselves and our lives in order. So things which you want to do can get jumbled up with things you need to do or which you should do (but maybe don’t want to) and that’s where Mercury retrograde brings in the snafus, bollixes and breakdowns which everybody knows is about their not having done what they should have done in the order it needed doing.

Hey, blame it on the planet, you say?

More precisely, such issues would be blamed on the orbital relationship between Earth and Mercury, as it’s the relative difference in speeds and orbital positions around the Sun which causes Mercury retrograde (or any other retrograde) to begin with.

But noooooooo…! We don’t want to DO that, do we? If we did that, we’d be taking responsibility for the fact that Mercury retrograde is all about OUR relationship to the world and to our mental willingness to cope with the various vacillating vagrancies of life…which is all about our mentality.

Like I said as I started this chat…Mercury retrograde is not about what happens in life – it’s about how we mentally cope with what happens.

Or don’t cope, depending.

This particular retrograde is part of a giant long epic (and Mercurial) transit of Cancer. Beginning on May 31st, Mercury is going to be in Cancer until August – a goodly long time for us to deal with all our most personal and native issues.

Or not – again, depending. But since Cancer is all about the many ways our native experience of our own emotionality functions, we are likely to experience and be confronted with many a situation which tangles our habits, challenges our priorities and points out the cracks in our mental foundation.

Or which points the way. It does sort of all depend on how you use this time. And as always, as we of the astrological ilk say, you can use the time…or have the time use you.

 Another way to visualize the process....

One other thing to bear in mind here, and that’s the idea that Jupiter will be entering Cancer on the day that Mercury goes retrograde. Call it a recipe for flipping life’s pancakes or the brewing of change – call it anything you like. But in this thought process, the one about the shadow leading into Mercury’s retrograde, the primal importance of Jupiter reaching Cancer on June 26th (as Mercury goes retrograde) is that Jupiter will be mushing it’s giant red self through twenty-nine critical degrees of Gemini during those very days which are likely to feel pressured anyway.

That amps the issue ten-fold, at least!

Gemini being Mercury’s primary mental (as opposed to functionality) sign of rulership, we’re likely to experience some ‘overblown’ Jupiterian decisions or thoughts our outbursts or choices during this time. Some of us – to be sure – will achieve great things now based on having come to a time of achievement or culmination naturally through prior or previous diligent step-by-step effort.

But let’s be real: this is a recipe for haste, so think before you speak and look (both ways) before you leap, walk, or take anything for granted!

This may be a really interesting time for many of us. Mercury-Jupiter can be a great force for learning, even if not all the lessons are exactly what we might want to be learning at the moment. Jupiter’s association with the media, with justice, with ‘things foreign’ (to us, anyway) fit well with Mercurial dynamics. And with Mercury in Cancer and Jupiter leaving Gemini for Cancer, topics like where or how we live, national populations, family and culture and our native regard for land and life all come up as nominations for personal – and group experiences.

Whatever happens, evidently we need to learn it now so that we can have a bigger, more knowledgeable tomorrow…which I guess amounts to ready, set, know! 
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Mercury in Shadow

  Canada's Lake Peyto and its surrounding mountains in the shifting shadows of an

approaching storm, which will come...and in good time, also pass.

(photo credit: Tony Hisgett, July 2006)

Mercury entered Pisces a couple of days ago. And as of February 8th, Mercury will also enter the shadow of its upcoming retrograde.

That retrograde is going to start in the “teen degrees” and back down into the “personal / action” degrees. Although…considering (a Mercury word!) how Mercury is a symbol of thought and mentality and communication and ideas…that ‘action’ part of Mercury in Pisces could be how you feel about taking some action. Or some action you’ve taken. Or even how you feel about some action someone else has taken.

The point of retrograde shadows is that what happens under the shadow of the retrograde…(which in this case would be February 8th through April – yes, I said APRIL 6th)…it’s something akin to an ‘umbrella.’

The common lore on Mercury retrograde tells us that there will be many things which will resolve or end or come to some sort of natural conclusion between Mercury’s entering its retrograde shadow (on February 8th) and when it actually takes its station to go retrograde on February 23rd.

It’s also a common astrological / astrologer’s observation that there seems to be a lot of ‘pressure’ felt during the run-up to the station/retrograde point. Given that Mercury is in Pisces, that ‘pressure’ is likely to be felt as emotionality. Or unsettled feelings. And our inability to live with such unsettled feelings (or some ‘instinct’ that something is afoot or wrong or problematic, etc.) can drive us to make hasty actions or decisions prior to Mercury going retrograde.

Learning to tolerate pressure and indecision and ‘not knowing’ is part of the Mercurial process. In other words, learning to know that not knowing is not the end of the world is part of owning and operating our own mentality in a mature, intelligent and productive manner…which in this case is going to be about emotional tolerance and tolerance of emotionality or people’s feelings, be they yours or those of someone else.

Huzzahs to those who can do it, right? It isn’t that easy. But being human isn’t easy either…and isn’t that the point?

Two other notes here: Things which are in progress but which do not naturally come to their conclusion prior to Mercury’s station/retrograde are classically best left until Mercury goes direct (which will be in March). However…this is something you do have to judge at some level for yourself, as Mercury’s shadow / retrograde / direct-but-still-in-shadow loop is often a part one, part two, part three thing – with all three parts being sections of the same thing.

I’ll give you an example which came up in real time when a reader wrote me about their eye exam. They had made the eye exam appointment and gotten the exam during Mercury’s shadow-approach to the station / retrograde point. But what about ordering their glasses? This person eventually decided to wait until Mercury came out of retrograde to order their new glasses for fear the lenses might not be correct. But if the whole of the Mercury ‘loop’ was about getting new glasses, I would (and did) advise to merely make sure your optician stands behind their work and proceed, since to my thinking, having the exam during the shadow and having to wait through the retrograde period for your glasses to get made was an (excuse the expression!) fitting example of Mercury’s retrograde cycle.

We each have to do what we have to do and as an astrologer, I do know no two charts are alike. I’ve had clients who are twin brothers born four minutes apart and their charts are markedly different. And yes, their lives are different too.

So the best rule I can suggest to you about this next couple of weeks of Mercury in Shadow is ‘don’t push.’ If something comes to fruition prior to retrograde, fine. If not, THINK it through, while trying to separate your feelings (and how you feel about those feelings or having to feel those feelings) from the cooler, more logical facts.

More on Mercury’s transit as we go along.
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Ixion and Mercury: Shadows of Our Shadows

 Ixion by Hendrick Gottzius (1558-1617)

By definition, we all want what we want. And what we want, we tend to ‘do something about.’

What does that mean? Well, that depends. It depends on on how much we want something, and how much of a rush we’re in – for whatever reason.

But maybe most of all, such things all start with (and therefore depend on) our ability to separate the concept of want from the reality of need. 

There’s a lot of blurring of these terms in our modern day world, and it’s not all that hard to argue that a lot of our world’s difficulties, through mental and emotional high ways and forked tongue lie ways – come back to the mental slight-of-mind which causes us to substitute the word need when the reality is actually want. 

When we internalize this whole dynamic, what we end up with are questions which tend to be referred to as ‘entitlement.’ 

Entitlement too – as a term – has a whole lot of meanings. At it’s base, the term means I’m entitled to…with the real question being what entitles you?

If the answer is because I NEED it (i.e., to function, to survive) that’s one thing.

If the answer is I WANT it…then while it may be worthwhile to ask what’s the drive behind that ‘want.’ Do you want it because you ‘just want it’? We call that ‘desire.’ Do you think you’ll be “less” or be thought of as a lesser being if you don’t ‘keep up with so-and-so’? That’s either competitiveness or some form of insecurity compensation.

If the answer is that you feel entitled because you were promised something, that again has several formats. You may have earned it (pay-for-work) or you may have been guaranteed it.

All of these – all of them – CAN be represented by Ixion, though the person who truly needs in order to survive, that person (or that request) is hardly ever Ixion-worthy…though ‘worthy’ is a really questionable term to use when discussing Ixion.

Why? Because for all the many interesting quirks to the Ixion story (of which there are many and yes, here’s the LINK to the article on Ixion…) the thing which Ixion distills down to as a sticky wicket of human personality is that edge of carnal selfishness…the ability to be narcissistic which each of us is endowed with at our very first breath.

Just to be clear here…there’s ‘clinical grade’ narcissism and a whole lot of other ‘attentive to self’ urges which while a bit narcissistic by nature are neither damaging nor undermining.

 'All is Vanity' by C Allan Gilbert

The same traits which when polarized into grandiosity of such proportions that feeding your own need or supporting your own position (which may or may not change on a dime and which may or may not be ludicrous, self-defeating or damaging to others) which is generally indicative of Narcissism (big ‘n’ – clinical grade) are when scaled back, part of healthy self-esteem.

In other words, life is yet again all about proportion.

And that is probably one of the big concepts of the day.

There’s a lot of excess going around, in this world, and virtually sanctified by everything we see and meet up with, from big business to entertainment to members of various clergies who see fit to judge people, to advertising and much, much else.

Ixion is going on station. It’s about to go retrograde. What we see going ‘wrong’ in the world around us, we’re soon going to realize is alive and eating away at our innards. It’s making us into people we would loathe on sight if we met us on the street or heard us talking in the next room.

And the reason why this Ixion station is going to be tougher, rougher and more testy and testing than most is because as Ixion enters its station/retrograde zone (that being the two days before and the two days after Ixion’s actual turn to retrograde motion)…as Ixion goes to do this, Mercury is also entering the shadow of its upcoming (Aries) retrograde.

 A Relief of Mercury (Hermes) in Stuttgart

photo credit: Ecelan (2009)

Mercury = thought, communication, conveyance, mentality.

Aries = Being, Self, Ego, Physicality. The “I” of it all.

Mercury in Aries is a mentally willful time. So we should expect to be more willful – more want-ful. And we are likely to also be more sensitive to provocation.

Like I said, a testy and testing time.

And just to make it all more prosaic, this would also be the day when Photographica actually makes its turn into direct motion. As it’s doing so in Cancer, this adds a little more emotional sensitivity to the mix.

That could be good, no? Uh – yes, it could!

Then again, it could be really, really bad! Snippy, moody, yelling angry bad!

And yet…given that Photographica is ‘the image’ (reputation, the look of the thing, etc.) …there is this odd sort of chance that this may well be when someone gets a clear perspective on themselves – for good or ill!

Okay…with Ixion in the mix? Chances are that’s less good than ill! But there’s always that chance that someone will see they’ve been being not merely the south end of the horse but what gets left behind by said behind of said horse…

And maybe from such…uh…dungish behavior they will create (ummm….) fertilizer, helping things grow and come to flower?

Stranger things have happened, you know…

A couple of things to note here. We tend to use two day station allowances because that seems a nice safe number to use. So that means Ixion will be going retrograde on March 18th. The real reason to think this through is because given Photographica’s going direct today, that means Photographica’s station extends through these next few days while Ixion’s station effects are also in force.

Considering that Neptune is at 29 degrees, there’s already a lot of delusional grandeur (i.e., dreams of) going around. And with Mercury’s shadow adding a subtle sense of urgency to the mix (as if we needed that?) one would expect – at the very least! – a lot of hyperbolic talk and not just a little talking through various hats coming from people and outlets which just neeeed (read: want) attention of whatever type.

And here we thought Uranus moving into Aries was the end of the "fun" (I'm being decidedly sarcastic...!) for the month?

NOT HARDLY.

(And yes, you can quote me on that one. It's a cinch this month will yet astonish, astound and - unfortunately - dismay!)

Though…with Ixion, is it really fun, or just fun in the short run? Do we act in haste and repent in leisure?

Or do we just be aware of our wants and sort them out from our needs and deal with each thing in proper, prioritized turn?

This is a moment when we need to all keep an eye on our own motives and values as well as those of others. It's as easy for us to slide over our own bounds as it is for world events to seem out of hand or beyond believing.

Perspective is necessary and not now anyone's strongest suit. Looking away isn't the answer. Giving yourself allowance to 'do' because someone else is 'doing too' isn't the answer.

What is the answer is, of course, entirely individual. But considering the story of Ixion and the implication created by the potential for all of us to act as Ixion, awareness and holding ourselves to our own standards seems particularly important at the moment, lest we end up being run over by a wheel of fortune set in motion by our own choices.

As we move towards and into a station/retrograde, what we do in the world or what we will yet encounter or experience in ourselves (that being the retrograde part) or in our lives. 

An excellent example of stations is how England's royal family announced the engagement of Prince William as Jupiter moved into its 'station window' last November. In that case Jupiter was in retrograde and coming to its station to go direct - which is more or less what we have here with Photographica (the 'image,' our image of self or our image of something/someone else). Jupiter is 'expansion,' and in the case of a wedding announcement the information, the knowledge (Jupiter) that a wedding is going to take place is announced.

The decision to get married - which obviously preceded that announcement - took place under Jupiter retrograde, the internal phase of Jupiterian growth and expansion of life. With Jupiter going direct just after the announcement, we have the actual wedding being in the future and a worldly event.

Here we have Photographica going direct; we will yet see the image of something or an existent image being "Ixionized." That event will affect us and our conception of Ixion - reflective (as a lesson of what we shouldn't do) or entitled (not caring) in the days ahead.

Photographica going direct now may promise many things in many a life, to be sure. But that it's station ends at Ixion's station/retrograde does seem to image something consequential about to happen.

And quickly, too.