by Robert Wilkinson
In part three we explore more about this phenomenon that occurs three weeks at a time three times a year. At the end of this article I have included a table so you can find which house(s) this September-October 2008 Mercury retrograde period falls in relative to your Sun or rising sign. Then you can consult my article How Does Mercury Retrograde Affect Us In The Different Houses? to find how this transit will affect you personally as a result of Mercury retrograding through the houses in your chart.
Like all Mercury retrograde periods, these three weeks offer a chance to reorganize in the areas of our life ruled by Mercury. These are the houses of your chart ruled by Gemini or Virgo, any planets in these signs in your chart, and the house occupied by your natal, progressed, or solar return Mercury.
All retrogrades show us that sometimes it is more important to be inwardly oriented than outer-directed. These are times when our previous activities "echo back" information about what we've already experienced during a planetary direct motion phase.
When the inner planets are retrograde, our personal life is most subject to review, reflection, re-doing or getting a new angle on those affairs. When the outer planets are retrograde, we get the same process of review but it impacts our place in the larger scheme of things, whether social, cultural, or transpersonal-global.
When retrograde, Mercury, the "Guide of Souls," challenges us to cultivate our personal understanding of our "fellowship with the Eternal," explore our deeper issues and useful but overlooked details in what's being discussed or asserted, take an unusual view, and allow ourselves to be led by the future implications of what's happening. It’s a time when we truly get a new look at many things and come to a different understanding of how the various affairs of our inner and outer life are coordinated, or need to be.
We can get different perspectives and insights into prior events, messages, and signals, and can fill in important gaps in our understanding. Sometimes it may seem like it's one step forward, two to the side, one step back, one to the other side, then two steps forward, but often we find that we are offered entirely new and crucial perspectives and knowledge that can help us when it's time to move forward again after the retrograde is past.
In parts 1 and 2 (links at the bottom of this article) we explored specific qualities of the present Mercury retrograde period, including aspects, stationary retrograde and direct degree symbols, and other important factors. The period before Mercury goes retrograde is important in getting your paperwork and other life areas in shape, since now that it's retrograde communications and other Mercury ruled areas are slower than usual. It's time to re-do, review, rehearse, research, and take a new look at many things that hit their threshold during the time Mercury went stationary retrograde.
We are now in a three week retrograde period to deal with things we've put off, or take care of things from the past. This September-October 2008 Mercury retrograde will give us new understanding about the events of the past four months.
We can again reconsider, reinterpret, and rework Libra issues and activities, seeing their significance from new angles of understanding. Looking back, we got Cancer insights during the Summer 2007 Mercury RX. We got Scorpio insights during the Autumn 2007 Mercury RX. We got Aquarius insights during the early 2008 Mercury RX. We got insights about our perceptions, communications, interpretations, neighbors, siblings, and environment during the Summer 2008 Mercury RX in Gemini. Now we're getting the natural Air trine energies of Mercury RX in Libra, offering us new insights about relationships, judgments, balance, fairness, and ways we are or are not being an equal with others in our world.
We'll also get insights about how to externalize what we have idealized, transfigured, and needs some form of repair or reconstruction in the past few months, and find a more refined set of initiatives and revelations in responding the dawning of a new sunrise in our lives. As this is a sign that weighs and judges the relative perfection or imperfection of ideal forms and ways of being with others, this time can show us how to get multiple angles of understanding through taking a new look at how we refresh and regenerate with others. We'll also get a new view of opportunities to come and ways our Higher Self can respond in the future concerning the areas mentioned above.
Summer 2007 we explored home and family issues, the supply of our everyday needs, and ways of experiencing our past, present, and future. Autumn 2007 we extended this feeling-understanding and whatever emotional intelligence we developed through the trine from Scorpio to Cancer. Earlier in 2008 we began to synthesize many things into a new larger view or a greater sense of community or larger service, and since June we've explored how the concrete form of the images glimpsed the past year have come forth as forms of understanding, modes of communications, and new "brothers and sisters" in our community.
Our previous spiritual realizations have been given wings as we repudiated obsolete attitudes and activities. This had led us to greater emotional, social, or cultural power. Summer extended this set of patterns, and we found ourselves at the end of a quest having accomplished some life ambition. We continue the emotional, social, and cultural focus during this retrograde period and beyond as a result of both stationary degree points. By the end of this retrograde period, we will stand on the threshold of four months that will offer us rebeginnings and hope for a better future and more ideal and just conditions. Many will feel the presence of sustaining powers and forces, as well as forms of Providence.
By learning about these recurring Mercury retrograde periods, we can understand how to deal with them productively, as well as the months afterwards, which they also indirectly influence. Since this September-October 2008 Mercury will go stationary at 23 Libra and retrograde back to 8 Libra, you can learn a lot about this coming period by reading all you can about Mercury retrograde in Libra.
You can get more information how this important time of Mercury retrograde (which happens three times a year every year!) affects you personally by getting a copy of my book "A New Look At Mercury Retrograde" and reading the section on Mercury retrograde in the houses. However, you can also get some very useful ideas of how it works by consulting the article that I linked to in the first paragraph of this article titled "How Does Mercury Retrograde Work in the Houses." The ideas I offer there work, whether you're referencing the natal or Solar charts.
To that end, the houses in astrology show us the specific areas of our worldly affairs where we experience a given planetary influence. If you know your natal chart, then read the corresponding house in the article. However, whether you do or don't know your chart, you can find out Mercury's approximate position in your Solar houses (created by your Sun sign position) by consulting the following table. These are computed for the Western Hemisphere. If you were born in the Eastern Hemisphere, you may need to add a day, depending on how far East you are.
For birthdays between:
September 15 to 30, read Mercury retrograde in the 1st house.
September 30 to October 15, 12th and 1st houses.
October 15 to 30, 12th house.
October 30 to November 14, 11th and 12th houses.
November 14 to November 29, 11th house.
November 29 to December 13, 10th and 11th houses.
December 13 to December 28, 10th house.
December 28 to January 12, 9th and 10th houses.
January 12 to January 27, 9th house.
January 27 to February 10, 8th and 9th houses.
February 10 to February 25, 8th house.
February 25 to March 13, 7th and 8th houses.
March 13 to March 27, 7th house.
March 27 to April 12, 6th and 7th houses.
April 12 to April 27, 6th house.
April 27 to May 12, 5th and 6th houses.
May 12 to May 28, 5th house.
May 28 to June 13, 4th and 5th houses.
June 13 to June 27, 4th house.
June 27 to July 14, 3rd and 4th houses.
July 14 to July 30, 3rd house.
July 30 to August 14, 2nd and 3rd houses.
August 14 to August 30, 2nd house.
August 30 to September 15, 1st and 2nd houses.
Of course, this table is approximate, and if your birthday falls near the edge of two possible positions you may need to read both. One should always have the chart calculated professionally in order to know where the planets are situated, as this helps clarify your exact cyclic pattern.
Copyright © 2008 Robert Wilkinson
I'm always grateful for your Mercury retro insights and writings, Robert. Thank you.
Of course, I need to re-read them a few times over!
This one just passed from my first to twelfth house, (and 5th to 4th, Solar style), and I moved to a new home, after 19 years in my previous one, a week ago.
Precision Divine Choreography, as ever.
Thank you for all your work.
Wishing you well.
Posted by: jaihn | September 29, 2008 at 02:16 PM
Hi Jaihn - You're most welcome. Glad they help. Yes, it's clearance and reintegration time in your subconsciousness, and without doubt it's the entrance into a new self image, new motive, new truth, and new future that will sprout naturally from your new foundations.
Posted by: Robert | September 30, 2008 at 08:13 AM
Greetings Robert...
I'm so glad to have stumbled across your blog, I have been trying to find a blog of your kind for many years and I look forward to reading it with my morning coffee...
I am feeling at a loss to understand why my best friend/ex-partner has decided to pursue a no strings attached r'ship whilst still holding feelings for me and hope for a future with me (even though he fears his not good enough/I can do better/it won't work out) whilst cheating on her with me. His behaviour in the last couple of months is completely at odds at who he is, normally a straight shooter and incredibly loyal, he just seems confused and is losing sight of his truth.
Whilst incredibly trying for me, I am willing to stand strong and wait for this phase of his to pass.
I need to understand what the hell is happening in his chart to cause this fearful and confusing behaviour. I need insight to aid in my understanding - I am only in the early stages of understanding how astrology works so I would prefer you point me in the right direction in being able to understand what to look to...and a brief insight..
I would ask for a personal r'ship consultation but I am not in the financial postion currently but hope to so in the future.
Pete 20May71 8:22am Dundee, Scotland
Monique 8May78 1:25pm Hornsby, Australia
peace & light...
Monique
Posted by: Indigo | September 30, 2008 at 07:00 PM
Thank you again Robert, for your kind eloquence.
A lovely seeing and naming of my new natural sprouts!
Posted by: jaihn | October 01, 2008 at 05:01 PM
Hi Monique - Welcome to the cantina. People do all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons that may make little or no sense to us. In any case, stop "cheating" with anyone for any reason. It sounds like your friend is a mess, if in fact he has all those unresolved feelings and self doubts. BTW - You'll never be able to "love him enough" to assuage his internal insecurities, and if he's no longer a "straight shooter" then he probably cannot be trusted to do the right thing, whatever that may be. Pluto quincunx his Sun and Neptune square his Sun does show radical disorientation. He'll stabilize, for good or bad, by December.
Hi Jaihn - You're most welcome.
Posted by: Robert | October 03, 2008 at 06:51 AM
Hi Robert,
How do you know for certain that something (dont know what) is going to happen?
Because I have natal mars at 07Libdegrees59'35 3rd house
many thanks
Nicci (Sydney Australia)
Posted by: Nicci Soukoulis | October 13, 2008 at 10:54 PM
Hi Nicci - Some things are easier to predict than other things, and of course human free will is a primary determinant in what will present itself. There are 10,000 possible ways that Mercury going SD on your Mars will manifest. For example, the ruler of your Gemini and/or Virgo planets and houses is now beginning a new Mars cycle. Ruler of Gemini and Virgo whatever brings news, ideas, signals, coordination techniques to how you attack life, or what bugs you, or new info about your way of dealing with houses and planets in Aries or Scorpio. You could find new perspectives, rhythmic activity, or initiatives in the house where it falls, and new ways of doing your Mars. Again, 10,000 possibilities.
Posted by: Robert | October 14, 2008 at 10:46 AM
Thanks Robert, great blog, great articles!
It certainly seems that way, from my limited understanding it seems that the minor inner planet transits (eg mars, mercury, venus) are difficult to predict as opposed to major aspects with outer planet transits (jupiter, uranus, neptune, pluto).
Nicci
Posted by: Nicci | October 14, 2008 at 07:14 PM
Hi Nicci - Well, each planet represents a part of us and our lives. By knowing the different departments of labor, it's fairly easy to see what's going on and will present itself. The trick is to know how a given planet is manifesting in our lives. That entirely depends on our individual habits and responses. The better you know yourself, the easier to predict how a transit will show itself. It's just the inner planet experiences move by more quickly than the outers, which is why it's easy to miss the meaning and all the manifestations of the inner planet experiences but hard to ignore the 10,000 pound gorilla who's come to visit for a year!
Posted by: Robert | October 15, 2008 at 08:32 AM
Robert, seriously you are great, have to tell my mates about this blog.
So mercury rx has ended 16th October 06:05a AEST.
Is this really the case that mercury has stopped retrograding and is now stationary and going direct? when does Mercury really go direct? Some say that the retrograde doesnt really finish till end of October others say 18th October?
Posted by: Nicci | October 15, 2008 at 08:00 PM
Hi Nicci - Yes, it's no longer RX and is in direct motion again. The way it works: Mercury speeds up for a while, then will slow down when it's about to go RX again, stay slow until the next inferior conjunction, then begin to speed up again through the SD point to the superior conjunction, then slow down again, forever. It's definitely direct now, RX is over, but what those people are referring to is that Mercury won't pass over its previous SRX point until late October and thus move out of the RX zone it's been in for the past month or so. You can find out more about the moving backwards and forwards process in other articles I've published about Mercury Retrograde, as well as in my book on the same subject.
Posted by: Robert | October 16, 2008 at 08:32 AM
Dear Robert,
How are you?
my details-27-12-1962,4.45 pm,Bangalore,India
I am in a phase where my current job is getting too stressfull and pointless.A job change is imminent and am on the verge of receiving a confirmation of a new job.When will i receive the good news?There is also a great interview on the 26th Oct for a fantastic opportunity in the middle east?.WIll I make the grade and will I get the offer?
Thanks in advance Robert..your guidance is most critical for me.
rgds
Rao
Posted by: Rao | October 19, 2008 at 10:37 AM
Hi Rao - I cannot do extensive analysis in a comment stream. You are on the verge of a new series of cycles between mid-November and mid-January 2009 that will clear a new way for you. Expect specific news late November or early December. Maintain silence and do your duty late December, the last half of January and early Feb, and you'll be doing Dharma by Feb 19.
Posted by: Robert | October 20, 2008 at 04:00 PM