by Robert Wilkinson
In part 3 we explore more about this phenomenon that usually occurs 3 weeks at a time 3 times a year. At the end there's a table so you can find which house(s) this July-August 2012 Mercury RX period falls in relative to your Sun sign. Then you can find out how this transit affects you personally by consulting my article How Does Mercury Retrograde Affect Us In The Different Houses?
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. And of course, the house Mercury RX transits will be where these work out in specific life affairs.
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 the previous article in this series we explored specific qualities of the present Mercury retrograde period. Links to them are at the end of the article.
The period before Mercury goes retrograde is important in getting your paperwork and other life areas in shape, so take note of what was presented in the first half of July and see what hit a threshold and now requires a delay, research, or renewal.
For now, while Mercury is retrograde, please take this period to re-trace ground covered in recent weeks, get new information and interpretations of old ideas and perceptions, and find new points of view. All these are great things to do while Mercury is 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 July-August 2012 Mercury retrograde is giving us new understanding about the events of the past four months and indirect insights into what we'll be dealing with in August.
Once Mercury is retrograde, we often experience that 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 evolved to a threshold during the period before Mercury goes stationary retrograde. So during this time we can again reconsider, reinterpret, and rework Leo issues and activities, seeing their significance from new angles of understanding.
Looking back (a perfect thing to do during Mercury retrograde!), we got Cancer insights during the Summer 2007 Mercury RX, and Scorpio insights during the Autumn 2007 Mercury RX.
We got Aquarius insights during the early 2008 Mercury RX, and insights about our Gemini areas during the Summer 2008 Mercury RX in Gemini. We completed a natural Air trine of Mercury RX energies when it went through Libra in Sept-Oct 2008, offering new insights about relationships, judgments, balance, fairness, and ways we are or are not being an equal with others in our world.
It again moved through Aquarius in early 2009, offering insights about our friendships, goals, ambitions, ideals, group work, larger vision of how we can contribute to our world, how our love and enthusiasms are exteriorizing, and the greatest good for the greatest number. When it retrograded back into Capricorn January 2009, we got insights about our public self image, how we self-organized to make our lives more effective, and how willing we were to embrace different ways to use discipline and our power to take responsibility effectively.
In May 2009, we got new ways of communicating, researching, understanding, and getting insights into how we can or should discover blessings that can reward our faith and purity of heart. When it retrograded through Taurus, we got to review values and how we use what we have, or need, so that our new emerging self-images can be sustained.
In September 2009, we got new perspectives in relationships and how equal we are or are not, finding new ideals that prepared us for important Saturn in Libra experiences that began late October 2009. When it slipped back into Virgo, we got a review on how we needed to adjust to make our lives more effective, or got a new look at work and/or health issues.
In December 2009 and January 2010, we got new perspectives on why we had to surrender in certain ways in 2009, and found unique interactive circumstances that fit our gifts, or gifts to fit our circumstances. Adjustments helped us achieve closure while giving our curiosity something to chew on in the way of ideas we've been externalizing since February 2010.
In April-May 2010 we again got a look back at Taurus themes and issues, and mobilized in some way that has been cooking steadily since then. Those Taurus insights are now key to the opportunities and truths presenting themselves with Jupiter in Taurus.
In the August-September 2010 Virgo retrograde period, we got to see new possibilities of expressing the RX the Taurus energies that affected us between Spring and late Summer. During Mercury RX in Virgo we also got more insights into Saturn lessons from when it was in that span of Virgo from October 2007 through February 2008, July 2008 through November 2008, and February 2009 through August 2009.
The times of Mercury retrograde in Earth signs illustrated how we could be more practical in organizing our lives. In 2010 we began to finish up some things, preparing to move into a more "limitless" set of possibilities.
So in April-May 2010 we got new insights into the past and future Taurus areas of our chart, and by mid-May began a slow, steady growth mode through the August 2010 Mercury retrograde in Virgo which began "an adventure in consciousness" linking us to others. The Mercury retrograde period in December 2010 finished the "total Earth" influence of the Dec 2009-Aug 2010 period, as Mercury went retrograde in Capricorn but then slipped back into Sagittarius, a Fire sign.
This indicated the retrograde Earth influence dominating 2010 gave way in December 2010 to a blend of Earth and Fire, moving the retrograde focus from practical matters toward inspirational and spiritual matters. We began a final "finishing up" period in December 2010, and then entered a Mercury RX Fire era where the past gave way to the NOW.
January 2011 set a time into motion involving our ability to see how to work with foresight to prepare for "future supply." In April 2011, we entered a period of re-shaping our perceptions and expectations on the basis of the new "cosmic order" that began in mid-March 2011. March began a time of new beginnings, initiatives, and pioneering life events due to the multiplicity of conjunctions between the inner planets and Jupiter encoded by the April Mercury RX, where we reworked, researched, or rehearsed the succession of Aries waves set into motion in early May.
In April we entered a "probationary period" of shaping and reshaping our expectations, our willingness to move into unknown zones, and were left with a new identity and a new creativity. Some had to face "intangible fears of nascent selfhood," some perhaps got frustrated at the slowness of the pace of transformation, but we all saw the "redemption of a promise," even if we knew it not.
April began a series of Mercury retrograde periods where the emphasis varies, with the Fire element predominating over the next year. The 2011 August Mercury retrograde again began in early Earth (linking it to the 2010 periods) and retrograded back to mid-Leo, while the Nov-Dec 2011 Mercury retrograde period was again entirely in Sagittarius, a Fire sign.
2012 extends the blending of elements, with the March-April 2012 Mercury retrograde beginning in Aries (Fire) and retrograding back to late Pisces (Water), going direct on the exact degree Jupiter went stationary direct in November 2010. The July 2012 retrograde is entirely in Leo (Fire), while the November 2012 period begins in early Sagittarius (Fire) and retrogrades back to mid-Scorpio (Water). 2013 Mercury retrograde periods are entirely in Water signs.
By learning about these recurring Mercury retrograde periods, we can understand how to deal with them productively, as well as the months afterward, which they also indirectly influence. Since now in July 2012 Mercury went stationary RX at 13 Leo and retrogrades back to 2 Leo, you can learn a lot about this coming period by reading all you can about Mercury retrograde in Leo, and all the possible ways Leo manifests in the world. I've already offered a lot about these degrees and aspects made along the way in previous articles, which I've linked to at the end of this one.
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. It will also be in ebook format sometime this year (if I ever get around to doing it!)
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 this table:
For birthdays between:
Jul 3 to 22, read Mercury retrograde in the 1st house.
Jul 23 to Aug 2, 12th and 1st houses.
Aug 3 to 23, 12th house.
Aug 24 to Sep 3, 11th and 12th houses.
Sep 4 to 22, 11th house.
Sep 23 to Oct 4, 10th and 11th houses.
Oct 5 to 23, 10th house.
Oct 24 to Nov 3, 9th and 10th houses.
Nov 4 to 21, 9th house.
Nov 22 to Dec 2, 8th and 9th houses.
Dec 3 to 21, 8th house.
Dec 22 to Jan 1, 7th and 8th houses.
Jan 2 to 19, 7th house.
Jan 20 to 30, 6th and 7th houses.
Jan 31 to Feb 18, 6th house.
Feb 19 to Mar 1, 5th and 6th houses.
Mar 2 to 20, 5th house.
Mar 21 to 31, 4th and 5th houses.
Apr 1 to 19, 4th house.
Apr 20 to May 1, 3rd and 4th houses.
May 2 to 20, 3rd house.
May 21 to Jun 1, 2nd and 3rd houses.
Jun 2 to 21, 2nd house.
Jun 22 to Jul 2, 1st and 2nd houses.
This table is approximate, and if your birthday falls near the edge of two possible positions you may need to read both to know which applies to your Sun sign. Of course, one should always have a correct natal chart calculated professionally in order to know where the planets are situated, as this helps clarify your exact cyclic pattern.
Here’s what I’ve composed on this Mercury Retrograde so far:
The Guide of Souls in July-August 2012 - Mercury Slowing Down, Preparing to go Retrograde at 13 Leo
Astrology and Mercury Retrograde July-August 2012 in Leo - What Is Mercury Retrograde?
Copyright © 2012 Robert Wilkinson
Hello Robert:
I am a certified astrologer for many years, with a passion for learning and discovering new forms of expression and spiritual enlightenment. Your insight, especially at this time has been meaningful and greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Rhoda Gelman
Astrologic Business & Personal Solutions
Public/Media Relations & Communications
Posted by: Rhoda Gelman | July 19, 2012 at 03:39 PM
Hi Rhoda - Usually I would not post this as it's a personal ad for services which you should have cleared with me to begin with before posting. That's in the guidelines for commenting. Also, I had to delete your email as you posted it, since if I didn't you would have been invaded by spambots. That's the way the internet works if you post an email address. You would literally have attracted hundreds or potentially thousands of spam emails to that address if it were publicly displayed.
Posted by: Robert | July 20, 2012 at 05:48 AM