by Robert Wilkinson
Mercury goes direct in motion July 20, 11:22 am PDT, 2:22 pm EDT, 7:22 pm Greenwich (BST), and speeds up for the next 10 weeks. This shows a quickening of the ability to coordinate, put things together, understand the whole and the parts, the process and the larger cycles. It is now stationary at 14 Cancer, affecting that area in our lives for 3 months to come.
Mercury, or Hermes, "the Guide of Souls," is also known as the Divine Trickster, as well as all lesser models. What does Mercury going stationary direct at 14 Cancer hold for us? As Sirius is the "Sun of our Sun," we will all begin to get signals via Mercury about what this source of ALL the Wisdom Traditions on Earth holds for us over the next few months. We shall all know more timeless Truths and a greater Ageless Wisdom in ways appropriate to our lives.
We are told the symbol is "A very old man facing a vast dark space to the northeast.” According to Rudhyar’s notes from the Marc Jones class, this degree is one of “Fearlessness; and noble, self-perpetuating strength arising from knowledge” as well as “Courage in the facing of spiritual problems.”
In "The Astrological Mandala" he states the keynote is "fulfillment in transcending and changeless wisdom.” He notes this “describes the Wise Old Man, an archetypal figure found in all systems of symbolism,” where the “northeast is the direction from which spiritual-cosmic forces enter the Earth-sphere.” As “the Wise Old Man faces the Changeless Reality, the true North,” we are told “he faces the great Void, that apparent Darkness which is an intense Light invisible to our senses.”
He says this degree is a technique that implies if we meditate “on the changeless and spiritual reality at the very core of all experiences” we “can attain the supreme and age-old wisdom.” We are told that this symbol is “a way beyond appearances and toward permanence in truth.” He states this degree is in the Span of Expansion, and it's the fourth degree of the individual-mental level of the Scene of Decision in the Act of Stabilization.
Of note is that Saturn went stationary retrograde on this exact degree in October 2003. It then crossed it again June 2004. That implies we had long range wisdom that began to be structured into all our lives during that time, and that somehow Jupiter will expand and cut loose those wisdom energies when it also transits this degree.
Jupiter will set things in motion at the end of August and beginning of September, as well as when it retrogrades across this degree in the last half of January 2014 and again when it is direct and crosses it for the last time in April 2014. That implies we shall get direct Mercury insights, information, ideas, and understanding related to the collective developments set into motion when Saturn was on this degree, preparing us to open to new truths and possibilities beginning late August 2013.
Pay attention, since from now through October the lower mind (Mercury) can intuitively “know” what’s coming in late October and early November, and find new ways of using old wisdom and lessons to open to new adventures in the near future. This gives us a chance to anticipate opportunities to come this Autumn through next Spring.
It also indicates more evolving developments concerning the radical shift humanity went through last Winter Solstice but by and large has no idea what happened. I’m seeing some fairly astounding evolutionary leaps in play, for good or ill depending on how balanced people’s hemispheres are. I’ll be writing more about this in the future.
Stationary retrograde and direct points become “hot spots” set into motion by future transits. What Saturn structured in 2003 and 2004 that impacted all we’ve gone through since then can now be seen through a Mercury lens over the next few months, giving us insights into how those influences awakened something in the area where we have 14 Cancer in our charts since then. And we can use the Mercury lens as it speeds up in the next few weeks to anticipate what’s coming this Autumn.
We can now use Mercury’s function of being “the Guide of Souls” to use the qualities of 14 Cancer to weave together the higher and lower realizations we’ve awakened to these past 9-10 years. How we use opportunities to use those realizations to coordinate those into our lives over the next 4 months will show us our way to a higher truth in our lives that will open naturally a few weeks from now.
In any case, we should all start seeing, hearing, and understanding things that point the way to some Mercurial technique of how we have been and continue to be guided to our Soul. Given that it falls at 14 Cancer, it shows us some way to find connectedness on inner and outer levels that can make us more caring, nurturing, and able to assure present and future supply.
Marc Jones says 14 Cancer is “of the immeasurable reaches of past experience as a strengthening of the human spirit for its immediate destiny, and of the eternal rebirth through which (we) may discover that present aspiration and future achievement are without the slightest limitation in any terms of events to come.“ He notes “here is an absoluteness of self as a completeness of expectation.”
He goes on to state “there are no dark moments of outlook that cannot yield inspiration or assurance.” He offers us the keyword SANCTION, and when positive, the degree is “a highly effective enlistment of deeper and hidden elements of life for some momentary end.”
We will also be re-tracing our Cancer lessons from now through August 3-4 due to Mercury still transiting its “shadow” span, ie, the span it’s in since it went retrograde at 24 Cancer. Of course there will be residual echoes for the next 14 weeks as well. Mercury going direct will re-activate many of the aspects it's made over the past few weeks. At various times over the past three weeks, it's made important conjunctions with other planets and a very powerful tredecile and biseptile to Saturn.
It now begins to move forward. This direct period is interesting because Mercury immediately makes a semisquare with Venus and tredecile to Saturn. It then makes a septile to Venus and sesquisquares Neptune at the end of July. After it makes a final biseptile to Saturn in early August, it moves out of the shadow zone and makes new aspects to the other planets.
Of special note is that in this Mercury SD chart, Venus is septile Mars and Jupiter which are conjunct and bringing acute and immediate focus on the Grand Water Trine. We also note the Sun biquintile Neptune, giving unique interactivity between the Light and the Collective consciousness.
Those most affected by Venus septile Mars and Jupiter are those with planets or angles near 3-7 Cancer, 25-28 Leo, 16-19 Libra, 8-11 Sagittarius, 29 Capricorn-2 Aquarius, 20-23 Pisces, and 11-14 Taurus. If you have any of these zones active, prepare for major developments!
Other forming aspects of note when Mercury goes stationary direct are the Moon making a sextile to Neptune and Saturn and an opposition to Mars and Jupiter. However, since the Moon is at 30 Sagittarius when Mercury goes direct, and only enters Capricorn 17 minutes later, then these aspects are all “out of sign,” meaning something has to transpire before these effects will be put in play.
Related to that, the Moon in Sagittarius while Jupiter is in Cancer makes these two planets in mutual reception. Because they are in opposition, it’s a very powerful and dynamic “closed energy loop” situation that will ultimately bless us to accept higher realizations and open to new futures being fed by the rapidly fading past.
As noted, by August 3-4, Mercury will move out of its shadow span and enter its next "unknown zones" where the themes of this retrograde will be played out in forward motion. So for the next three weeks, expect some very productive intersections of past and future, with a promise of greater truths to realize and greater adventures to live. This is a reorienting and grounding time, where we prepare for the new creative and/or fun activities already indicated by Venus in Leo leading the pack.
So at the end of this retrograde period, we find ourselves facing greater Truths, and can find a fearlessness and wisdom in understanding what’s permanent, and what’s already receded or receding from our lives. Here we can experience a vaster feeling connection to others, within ourselves, or some need we share with others. Spiritual connections are now established, and many will become remarkably clear about the wisdom they hold as timeless Truth.
A note here about the Grand Irrationality. While it’s not a factor in this Mercury stationary direct chart, it is about to be set into motion in huge ways through the transits, especially in a few days when the Sun transits the Leo zone of the configuration. This will set some things into motion directly related to the recent Inferior Conjunction, since at that time the Moon was activating the Grand Irrationality from its position at 4 Leo.
These will be further developed the second week of August when Mercury moves through the early Leo zone, and again in late August and early September when Mars moves through early Leo. All of these developments will condition what Jupiter expands in July 2014.
As the Moon rules Mercury and it makes no aspect to Mercury in this chart, it will be as though the backdrop will be one of blessing us as we move forward into a greater Truth and fearlessness. This makes the coming Jupiter transits of paramount importance, since it will conjunct this point for many weeks to come. And of course, much will become evident when Mars transits 14 Cancer at the beginning of August.
We’ve now had opportunities to reshape our feelings and how we respond to others’ feelings, and gotten a new look at needs, habits, and ways of living our lives. Some have gotten glimpses about how their needs were met (or not met) in the past, whether early childhood or prior times in life. It’s definitely been a time of getting a review of what we do and do not care about, or what we need to take care of that we may have neglected in the past.
After this we will all be able to feel more connected with our wider spiritual family. So now that we've done our rehearsals, reviews, revisions, and/or research on how we can coordinate the parts of this emerging process during the past 3 weeks, it's again time to get it on!!!
Here we face the future, and do what we must to weave elements of that future into our current life and affairs. We continue to eliminate attitudes and interpretations no longer appropriate to our emerging process, and can see the interconnectedness of life as we find our unique place to doing our Being in a vaster field of activity.
We now begin to ride the edge of extremely dynamic change, finding new forms of feeling connected to the new life archetypes we’ve been living since the Summer of 2010. Mercury direct will open many views and perspectives over the next 3 months, and the insights we receive and weaving we do in that period will lead us to a natural and powerful new set of views in November 2013. By then we will have crystallized a new humanitarianism, a new way of seeing the world of the 5 senses and the mind as “the playground of God and Soul,” and know the wisdom of our “God within” that will show us the way to gather our power to master our physical mechanism.
In the 2012 Mercury retrogrades, we went through a process of learning how to look at the past with different eyes, seeing the storms and trials we’ve overcome as ways to rehearse how to deal with what is to come. Through retrospection, we had opportunities to call up old powers in new ways that helped us in late 2012. Mercury retrograde in November 2012 put us on the threshold of being able to know without thinking, directly experiencing communication rather than having to go through a linear evaluation of hearing and interpreting words.
Since November we have gained higher awareness related to the old “skins of personality” we’ve shed, as well as old ghosts from the past. Since then we’ve been able to use natural enthusiasms and ways of self-expression to demonstrate our higher “knowing,” and found new desires, new ways of skillfully using power in responsible ways, and new ways to interpret meaning.
Due to the last Mercury direct point at 6 Pisces, the same degree where Neptune went stationary retrograde in June, we’re all awakening to a new dedication, a new set of motives, a new intuition, and a new way of bringing closure to old ghosts. Now that we’ve finished letting go of those ghosts, we can now feel a new permanence, a new courage, a new fearlessness, and a new way of knowing how to live whatever “Ageless Wisdom” is ours to live.
On the whole this retrograde period has been seeing our interconnections, finding sources of supply, examining our habits and feelings to see what we do and do not care about, all of these wherever we have 14-24 Cancer in our charts. Whether through direct or indirect information or realizations, we’ve also gotten insights, returns, and understanding about things we didn’t know about before the retrograde began.
So as Mercury now goes direct in motion, open up and be receptive to higher awareness, higher knowledge, and a greater faith in your ability to know in ways you’ve never known before. We are now solidly in a time of learning deeper experiential methods of weaving things together, and a deeper dedication toward integrating personality within a deeper Soul response.
As the Grand Water Trine is front and center, keep purifying, eliminating, and regenerating your mind and ability to focus without distractions getting in the way. Accept a new identity is already being made manifest, so go with the flow, learn all you can about harmonious ways to understand and express feelings, and get ready for an acceleration in the pace of a new life adventure that’s already prepared for you.
We’ve just been through a clarifying period where many things have been reviewed to see what’s necessary or unnecessary, and had to learn ways to weave feelings into our life expressions. We’ve also seen what needs to be regenerated to bring forth the higher awareness we’re already receiving, with more realizations to come over the next few weeks. We’ve now reoriented in fundamental ways, and can now move forward on the basis of the insights we’ve gained these past several weeks.
Things related to Mercury will speed up considerably for the next three months, so flow with the greater Truths and Life that’s been revealed and will continue to be revealed over the next weeks and months. We’re now at a threshold state, where we may get new insights into old things, new ways of seeing alternatives, and new ways of remembering old wisdom to be applied in new forms.
From here we move forward into a clearer, more exciting future! Revolutionary things are in the air, so concentrate to see the bigger picture. Soon we’ll see events of the past from a higher symbolic angle that show us a new identity has been crafted, and we can now see more clearly what that is and how we can live it wholeheartedly.
And as usual, here are links to recent articles on what this June-July 2013 Mercury Retrograde in Cancer has been all about:
The Guide of Souls in June 2013 - Mercury Slowing Down, Preparing to go Retrograde at 24 Cancer
Mercury Retrograde – A Repeat Look At the Guide of Souls
Mercury Retrograde in Cancer in June-July 2-13 – Recalibration and Integration Time
Astrology in July 2013 – Mercury Retrograde Giving Us A New Look At Cancer New Moon Lessons
© Copyright 2013 Robert Wilkinson
Robert,
Your work is always refreshing, enlightening and inspiring!
Reassuring too.
I am helped a great deal by what you write. Since there is so much floating and moving around us now, I read your work as a way to direct my felt impressions to a bit more organization.
I am very glad to read about how we are all closer to the sunshine in our lives than the darknesses through which we've for several years now, have been feeling our own ways.
Posted by: Sherry | July 19, 2013 at 04:19 AM
great article thank you so much. mercury rx has i think been delaying the effects of this trine for me because im a 7 degree cancer sun in my 7H, and my guy's a gemini, so mercury rules him and is in my sign. plus his mars and venus are there conj my sun and transit jupiter in this trine as well, so the mercury rx has affected him there too.
i have faith that the trine is still going to bring benefits, but i think we'll see a lot of them after the uranus/pluto squares (which he and i are both being hit with, with our personal planets in cancer and libra), and mercury direct. im so happy to hear of major developments, as its all in my 7H, and forming a relationship is exactly what i hope to do.
the transiting moon will conj my ascendant and natal neptune rx later today, and then it will conj my partners true node over the weekend, along with mercury direct, and then the full moon on monday, which is unaspected for both of us.
a lot in store for all of us in the next few weeks, i think!
Posted by: acquagal | July 19, 2013 at 09:15 AM
Thank you for this article Robert.
I have my natal Moon at 13°58' of Cancer. Ascendant at 13°19' Virgo born May 16 1983. Emotions and visions are definitely moving and evolving for me.
Thank you again for these insights, especially about Saturn going retrograde on this degree in Oct. 2003. Things, events and decisions I experienced and was guided to make back then are starting to make a lot more sense to me now.
Posted by: Max | July 19, 2013 at 11:33 AM
In case its of interest, the North East in ancient feng shui is known as the Flying star and holds free flowing power that activates all in its path, good or not good, thus facing it head on, if ones intent is not good for the whole is then ones nemisis...
Posted by: Debbie | July 22, 2013 at 07:39 PM
ps I suffered my first ever full blown panic attack October 2003...should have known Saturn was involved lol!
Posted by: Debbie | July 22, 2013 at 07:42 PM