Mercury Retrograde in Pisces and Aquarius in February-March 2007, Part 1 - A Look Back At New Beginnings

by Robert Wilkinson

This Mercury retrograde period starts February 13 (February 14 everywhere east of EST) and ends March 7 (March 8 east of EST). This retrograde moves from 11 Pisces back to 26 Aquarius, with the inferior conjunction between Mercury and the Sun occurring February 22 (February 23 east of EST) at 5 Pisces. This degree is one of "A Church Bazaar," symbolizing the "interchange of spirit and understanding on which groups are built." It speaks of "new self-development" and "discouragement mastered." Rudhyar says this is a degree where there is "value of giving a spiritual or transcendent sanction" to the interactions between us and others, speaking of a Divine Ritual that blesses our activities.

The inferior conjunction is when Mercury (mind) conjuncts the Sun (life) while retrograde, indicating that signals, messages, and ideas from either outer sources or subconscious sources will fuse with the life principle, setting the tone for the lessons involving how our minds are relating to our lives during the next four months. Since Mercury is retrograde, the degree of the inferior conjunction shows how our lives will merge with our perceptions and bring forth a new understanding of our light.

This is the second step in a two-conjunction process. The first step is when Mercury conjuncts the Sun in forward motion after its retrograde period. As Mercury is faster than the Sun, after this Mind again outraces Life, and explores ideas and perceptions of experiences yet to occur. Then Mercury goes stationary retrograde, and moves into the second step when Mercury again conjuncts the Sun while retrograde. This is when Mind is being absorbed by Life, or Life takes on the results of subconscious or collective ideas returning to source. Eventually Life gets as far from Mind as it can, Mercury goes stationary direct, and begins to speed up preparing for the first step anew in a different part of the zodiac.

We are told that 5 degrees of Pisces also symbolizes the "loyalties of life as manifest in community institutions, and of man's ability to capitalize on the enduring allegiances he develops among his kind." We find that this degree combines "warmth of personality" with "powers of individual effort," and Dr. Jones' offers the keyword BENEFIT. He writes that "... the degree is a special genius for philanthropy and the organization of society's real concern for the well-being of men in general."

During the 11 days before the inferior conjunction (fusion) of mind and life, take a new look at how you can bring out your inner wisdom by adjusting to a future vision or broader perspective that's opening for you, and get a new point of view regarding what your imagination is willing to consider and how to coordinate your life to reorganize it productively. It's great for intuitive flashes, insights into the larger collective consciousness and unconsciousness, and you should find a new ease and sophistication among those you're with.

This retrograde beginning at 11 Pisces retraces ground we covered January 30-February 13, and is a degree of "Seekers For Illumination Are Guided Into The Sanctuary," giving us new understanding and information about the new beginnings we have all walked into since June 2005, when Uranus first went stationary retrograde on that point. The process of individuation has propelled all of us into a new world based on our willingness, training, emotional stability, and persevering awareness. It is a degree of our mind being introduced to transcendent Soul realms, and a new self-awakening leading to a new self-dedication. Many have had to "surrender to inner fears," but only because these could not be taken with us as we entered our new realm of effective living.

This retrograde Mercury starts off semisquare to Mars and quintile to Pluto, showing our need to refine our techniques of how we do things in order to make them more uniquely efficient. It retrogrades back to a quintile to Jupiter, staying in that gifted aspect until the last week of March 2007. This will be great for imagination, writing, seeing the large and small of plans, and connecting the Higher Mind to the lower mind in ways that bring forth unique forms and gifts of insight and vision.

This quintile should give us unusual understandings of ways to expand our energies into a wider sphere of influence, and offer revelations about whatever Jupiter's energies have opened for us the past few weeks. This will harmonize wherever we have Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces, thus resolving some of the oppositional energy inherent in these parts of our life. We should be able to see a much bigger picture than we have before, as well as how our subconsciousness helps or hinders the enjoyment of our adventure. We should come to new ways of expressing how Jupiter in Sagittarius can work its magic in our lives.

The Mercury semisquare Mars is in effect from February 14-19. An aspect of high mental agitation and internal crises of direction and motive, be careful of what you say, when you say it, and how you say it. Slow down, take it easy, and find an adequate motive to justify giving a more profitable direction to your initiatives. Let go of idle speculation and wishful thinking, and get free of commitments to superficial matters that don't concern you. Be practical and realistic in assessing situations, and see how to develop possiblities into concrete opportunities.

The Mercury semisquare Mars will most affect those with planets around 23, 24, and 25 degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn, as well as 8, 9, 10, and 11 Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. This would impact birthdays around January 12-14, late February and early March, April 12-14, late May and early June, July 14-16, late August and early September, October 15-17, and late November and early December. If your birthday falls in these spans, slow down, decrease tension, get clear in your thinking and perceiving, and remember that haste or dishonesty will blow up whatever is going on, so go easy and relax into the new work.

Just as Mercury goes retrograde it is conjunct Uranus, and so while not exact, it is still a powerful influence in this period, since Mercury is now going to give us information, insights, or connections directly related to what Uranus has awakened the past year and a half. Blessings can be found in seeing how parts of your life have been revolutionized and you are now living a different way than you used to. We've all been awakened, introduced to "the sanctuary," and moved into a new life. This year will bring more vitality, new introspection, and help us see the process from a different angle of interpretation than we have before now.

The stationary retrograde period is marked by Mercury in sextile to Pluto for most of the three weeks, enabling us to bust old misconceptions or distractions that really are not true for us. It will help us to a better mental efficiency, and remember potentials as well as ways to cut through the limiting conditions. This will provide all an opportunity to get very clear in our focus by taking new things into account we didn't know before.

Remembering that nothing turns out as expected during a Mercury retrograde, and that things take strange twists and turns and there are curious returns of people, ideas, and experiences in new forms that resemble old forms, open to useful but overlooked angles of viewing things, learn and teach through a sense of perspective of how past and present relate in unusual ways, and be alert to roundabout or indirect communications that show things going on below the surface.

All in all, given the lack of volatile aspects between Mercury and the other planets, there shouldn't be too much upheaval or upset. It's more a time of preparation for major events to come after Venus enters Aries and begins to set off the Grand Fire Trine. Just before it goes stationary direct Mercury semisquares Venus, which isn't that much of a crisis-producing aspect. It's more the final choice of how you want to communicate as you move into a new realm of relationships, opportunities, and responsibilities.

Mercury going stationary direct at 26 Aquarius on March 7-8 shows that through mid-June 2007 we will have opportunities to "pick up and deliver spiritual power" depending on how well we've built our vehicle's ability to do so. It's a degree of Efficiency, and so we should have the skill to check up on the energies at our disposal in order to control the release of power through well-focused feelings to solve some problem natural to our "civilized" way of life. We'll learn how to manage our minds, our speech, our interpretations, our interactions from a different angle of understanding using new insights.

The degree offers us powers of analysis and evaluation necessary to achieve practical goals, and for those willing to take responsibility, events can be shaped in convenient ways so that we can even capitalize on difficulties. We should all be more efficient after this three week period, and able to thread our way through life's complexities to achieve our vision, to whatever degree it is possible at this entry phase in a larger process.

When Mercury goes direct, it is at a platform from which to bring the lessons it has reflected on during the rx period forward into the future life-in-the-making. The angle of retrograde exploration was the stationary retrograde degree. The degree of the inferior conjunction shows how life and mind must come together in a different, perhaps overlooked but definitely useful, view of what must be known. The entire retrograde function is inward-turned, so we can get insights into what must be known to understand some thing from a more holistic point of view. We can also note how our mind, ideas, or worldview are affected by our subconsciousness, or our receptivity to others' subconsciousness.

Mercury retrograde periods reveal their own unique rhythm in offering us a new look at things. Every period in some way echoes the messages of prior retrograde periods, and affects those to come. That's why it's important to observe what has been revealed during other periods in the recent months and years past, so that you can see how Mercury, or Hermes, the "Guide of Souls," is leading you to your authentic self. Regardless of appearances, or how difficult or easy, Mercury retrograde periods show us the path to our Soul. Part 2 of this article will explain how this recurring phenomenon affects each of us individually.

© Copyright 2007 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Svetlana]

Though the Moon peeping through the window -glass hints about late night period on our local latitude and longitude:),I can't but express gratitude for
Revelation as sensation
while on-going preparation
in accord with motivation
for our\Over soul presentation.
It is very meaningful for me privately as my Dark Moon chose February 14 as the place of residence...

[kiwa]

hi Robert,
i'm wondering if you've ever seen "Inside Degrees" by Elias Lonsdale? It is a different set of degree symbols that are uncannily accurate...very inspired, i think...do you know that book? Curious about your take on it...

thx

kit

[carrie ann]

What's going to stop Bush/Cheney? They really scare me!

[Robert]

Hi all - A blast from my past, Svetlana:

Oh brave new world of people's hope, to reach you humanity may not elope from responsibilities gained through the light of time and experience seems to show a rhyme of vision, form, and attitude bright, which will persist throughout this night of now, the past eternal's fruit where security anchors have taken root in all... (from a song written long ago...)

Hi kit - No, I haven't seen them. I've collected about 5 or so other volumes on degree interpretations from the past few centuries, but as Rudhyar noted, there are none other than the Sabian Symbols that have an internal order and structure so that the entire 360 phase process unfolds with one set building upon the previous set yielding the next set. But I'll keep my eye out for that book, since I'm always interested in potential meanings of the different points of our reality.

Hi carrie ann - Well, unfortunately, they're a product of momentum and inertia flavored with criminality, so they're about as hard to dislodge as a tick. That said, we finally have a little bit of braking power on the runaway train, though the latest saber rattling about Iran reminds me of the phrase that "it only takes one fool to keep a thousand wise men busy." It will be a great day for democracy when Cheney and Alberto ("What habeas corpus?") Gonzales are ceremoniously excreted from the body politic back into the legalized bribery circuit, but they have set things into motion that will ultimately crash, hurting a lot of people in the process.

Our job is to outlive and outlast the machinations of small minded men with smaller hearts, and preserve the best of the culture we value, building bridges with others who are of finer sensibilities than the corrupt throwbacks currently running the show. And of course, it helps to think in the future, as there are environmental and economic disasters not that far ahead, and we must prepare the best we can do deal with a world in upheaval like we've never known before. Ultimately, the finer aspects of the human race will survive to thrive again, but only after the busted system collapses due to one too many pieces falling off with no thing and no one to fix it. Meditate, open, learn, practice, and don't let the white noise of the collective delusion throw you off your center.

[Juliet]

Hello Robert,

I found this one as well posted on 2.13.07 per the article you posted above in January...

http://astrotribe.tribe.net/thread/88ca34ef-8c44-4299-859c-8afc6a0d8430

Juliet

[Robert]

Hi again Juliet - Well, after answering your other catch, here I find my old friend God Star again hasn't given proper byline to your humble correspondent. Oh well. I'll give the man his two strikes before I contact him. And it very well could be Spirit compelling me to activate my membership in tribe!