by Robert Wilkinson
Yes, it's THAT time again! Mercury is radically slowing down, preparing to go stationary retrograde at 4 Pisces on February 6, 1:43 pm PST, 4:43 pm EST, 9:43 pm Greenwich. This has important implications for all signs.
I'll be composing several articles about this Mercury retrograde in Pisces and Aquarius over the next several weeks. Until then, adapt to the slowing pace of things, be willing to put some things on hold for a little while, and take a look at what's been set into motion up to now with an eye to seeing what has to be done before things can again move forward in early March.
I know there are many unfortunate things attributed to Mercury retrograde, but there are also many productive things that get done, connections that are made, and different angles of view glimpsed that make our understanding more complete and well rounded.
The two weeks before the retrograde is good for setting things in motion that will need a delay before being picked up anew. Or for doing things that will need research, rehearsing, or reworking to whatever degree before completion. The time before Mercury goes retrograde is good for doing what must be done so that other related things can be done later, as well as reconnecting with people and activities from the past that are somehow related to the future.
The coming retrograde will be an extremely important one showing us how to navigate “psychic traffic jams” in collective consciousness, and give us one look back so we can get clear about how to mobilize energy to overcome something that is “burning out of control.” We can see what needed to end before now but hasn’t, and how to gather our energy to complete those endings.
We can get new insights into old motives, old betrayals, old sorrows, or old ambivalence. Some will get flashes into past life impressions that have been creating confusion or cross currents in this life. As Mercury is very close to Neptune, obviously this sets the Grand Irrationality into high profile over the next few weeks (and months!)
This can help us review how we’ve handled Neptune in Pisces so far, and related to that, how we’ve positioned ourselves over the past few years as Neptune and Chiron have crossed “the cusp of the Age” between 29 Aquarius through 2 Pisces. Neptune has occupied this Mercury RX span of degrees (19 Aquarius through 4 Pisces) since February 2006, so we may get insights into why some peculiar or deceptive things have come down since 2006, and especially since January 2007. (In my own life, I would LOVE this phase to come to an end!!)
Some will even flash back on events that happened when Uranus was in the span between 19 Aquarius and 4 Pisces. Uranus was between 19-30 Aquarius from March 2000 through March 2003 and again September through December 2003, and was in the first 4 degrees of Pisces from March through September 2003 and again January through March 2004 and finally September through December 2004.
I referenced some of what this meant to all of us in articles about Uranus awakening the Age of Aquarius and Neptune dreaming into collective consciousness. Mercury retrograde in late Aquarius and early Pisces can give us insights into this long wave transitional period through the inward-turned perceptual process.
Some will see what has held them back and decide to move forward. Others will see the needs to say goodbye, and cast off the old forever. This can give us a new look at fluid ways of moving with life energies. Pay attention to reflections, returns, and new insights into the emotional intelligence that you’ve been cultivating since last June. By listening to the inner voice, this period will allow you to get clear about some things that have been obscure or fogged.
In February, we can see what life has prepared for us since the last Mercury retrograde. This Mercury retrograde will offer us opportunities to look back and distill wisdom from our past experiences and choices even as we navigate the Grand Irrationality set into motion by Mercury conjunct Neptune in a stationary retrograde septile to Pluto. This continues the pattern from last October when it went stationary retrograde at 19 Scorpio septile to Pluto and biseptile to Neptune!
In fact, with the septile to Pluto in play when Mercury goes retrograde, it’s safe to say we will all confront a) major choices and changes that will alter the direction of our lives in several ways, and/or b) we will get a new look at, and a new understanding of, prior choices and how they’ve created results we’re dealing with in the present.
This retrograde will help us take a new look at subtle or obscure feelings, as well as collective consciousness. We will all come in some way to links to our community, a “sense of significance in relationships,” and feel a flow of old feeling-ideas to a form of consummation, even though it may take a few weeks for us to see it.
We can learn to open to new ways to listen to our inner voice, or new ways to understand common human issues. We can learn indirect or roundabout ways to attune our mind to a more acute receptivity to deeper or higher ideas, or perhaps take a new look at how our feelings show us how our motives are conflicted, or overly influenced by the collective atmosphere.
Consider the next 3 weeks as a bridge to a new year, where we will find many interesting insights based in looking back or within. Here we see what has been, will be, and never could have been. May attention to the signs, signals, information, and understanding that comes through your feelings and introspection, since saying goodbye opens the door to new Neptunian dedication in 2015.
This is where we get to look back on what has been and what is happening right now in order to get insights into what is to come. It will certainly be an important retrograde, given the aspects in play!
This chart gives us a huge number of extremely important aspects indicating what’s up both for the next few days and the entirety of the retrograde period. The day that Mercury goes stationary retrograde, Venus is novile Mars and septile Saturn, and the Moon is in Taurus, separating trine to Venus and Pluto, and in a tight T-square with Sun squaring Saturn, throwing a void into late Leo.
The Moon is also septile Jupiter and triseptile Mars, creating another non-rational configuration along with the Grand Irrationality. This will certainly be an important time of choices, or re-evaluating old choices and making new ones.
Mars is biseptile Jupiter on the exact degree of its last conjunction with Saturn, promising this retrograde period will give us insights into old karmic dues that have been paid since 2012 and how the endings that began in August 2012 have yielded a void that can now be filled once Mars moves across this degree three times in the next 5 months. To this we add Jupiter on the degree of “searching for the Mystery” and it’s evident that we’ll get glimpses or reflections on the “life Mystery or revelation” we’ve been chasing since August 2013. I’ll elaborate on these in coming Mercury RX articles.
Again, of major importance are Mercury’s aspects when it goes retrograde. The big ones include a semi-square to Venus and an out-of-sign trine to Mars (it’ll be in a trine for all its RX period, as well as when it goes direct and moves through its shadow span!) And of course, as I noted the conjunction with Neptune and septile to Pluto makes the Grand Irrationality in full force during this retrograde.
Expect big “forks in the road of destiny” via Mercury in the global situation. Some of these were decided a while back, and now we get a new look at what worked and what didn’t. Now we get to review and reflect, blessing and letting go of old confusing or stalled situations, or old sorrows we no longer need to carry.
Due to the irrational aspects involving the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto, almost every planet and sign in the zodiac will feel the pressure of being at a fork in the road dividing past and future. This period will help us redefine, research, rehearse, or rethink our relationship with our Pisces energies. We all have it somewhere in our chart. This is a new look at how we relate to those energies.
Regarding the Grand Irrationality, if you have a planet or angle in any of the 7 zones of this configuration, expect some heavy insights, reviews, returns, and new understanding forcing a new set of decisions that will determine your future direction. These zones are approximately 19-23 Scorpio, 10-14 Capricorn, 1-5 Pisces, 23-27 Aries, 15-19 Gemini, 6-10 Leo, and 28 Virgo-2 Libra. To learn more about this long wave phenomenon please go to recent articles on the subject. Obviously when the Moon is moving through any of the 7 hot zones it’ll set major things into motion.
Along with the Grand Irrationality creating an energetic field of destiny-producing choices and changes, as noted we have septile series aspects involving more than a few other planets. That’s a LOT of craziness where many areas won’t make much sense but we’ll have to be dealing with things anyway! I’ll elaborate in which degree spans are activated in a future article in this series.
This stationary retrograde chart has many of the same major aspects as the New Moon just past, as well as the Venus stationary direct chart. Please check out those articles to know more about the major aspects in play right now.
So expect a wild ride, and move through the confusion using your navigational skills you cultivated during the past 9 months during the time of the Water Trines. This one can help us understand some things that were confusing before now, and help us reorient and integrate some things as we move sideways into the future. Since much won’t make any sense and be thrown into some temporary confusion, or we’ll confront our own or someone else’s compulsions, kick back a little, let much pass without being confused or ambivalent, and keep transmuting your magnetism to deal with the constant dance of planets showing down and speeding up.
This Mercury retrograde will give us many signs and signals for what will dominate Mercury-ruled areas from early March through early June 2014. This retrograde is a time of critical choice and change, where we can take a new look at what’s behind us before moving forward anew at the end of the RX period. We can get all kinds of new insights into future potentials, while seeing things in the recent past differently.
The Inferior Conjunction happens February 15-16 at 28 Aquarius, on the exact degree Jupiter went stationary retrograde in 2009, less than a day after the Full Moon at 27 Leo. That indicates the coming “fusion of life and mind” will show us how to prepare for what’s coming, as well as give us a new insights about what freed us or opened us between June 2009 and January 2010 that’s related to our current situation.
So all in all, we begin a period of important choices and changes in trajectory and destinies thanks to the challenges and weirdness of the Grand Irrationality coupled with the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter in septile series aspects. Welcome to many things being reviewed or coming back up to surface thanks to the retrograde quality of the time. Some will review past efforts to see what still needs to be integrated into the life, and/or there could be returns, rehearsals, or echoes of the past and its needs, habits, and personality structures.
While there will be some hard edges, this time should help us integrate our feelings with a new way to viewing how we feel what we know and know what we feel. This period can help us feel connected with others who share our ideals. There may be the return of old friends and allies, or ghosts from the past that need to be blessed and passed on.
While the last Mercury retrograde period was the beginning of a genuine renewal, this one helps us “let go, let God.” We’re getting ready for a full mobilization of our powers and skills at the end of February that will determine how the Great Fracturing of April impacts us personally. Take a look at the new goals, ambitions, and friendships that opened in January, since we can capture that which is valuable in March.
For all of us, during the next several weeks the future that's already rolling forward will slow a little so we can get a new look at crucial elements of the process we cannot afford to ignore. We will all have opportunities to take a new look at a revelation we’ve been chasing for a while, and by reworking how our subconscious mind operates, should be able to see quick endings and larger perspectives by March.
By mid-February, we need to stay open to a greater mental vision that shows us how to take a new look at how we’re managing our energies. This time helps us rehearse and/or research potential futures already showing themselves in symbolic forms. This is the beginning of an important phase shift in all our lives, as well as the threshold of a new way of living, feeling, and knowing.
It promises to be a very intense time that doesn’t make much sense, but it doesn’t have to. Learn to monitor and steer the flow, adapt and adjust to the limits of the circumstances and ideals available at the moment, and bless everything that’s been a frustration or source of sorrow before now.
This will be an important retrograde, where the past is already on its way out, and the future isn’t quite as clear as we would like. It will help us rehearse or do the research we need to get ready to spring forward in early March, clear about our need to mobilize and rise to some occasion.
Last July’s Mercury retrograde led us to a fearless, timeless truth that comes straight from the “Sun of our Sun,” the Star Sirius, said to be the source of all of the wisdom-traditions on Earth. Summer 2013 marked a new receptivity to a greater emotional intelligence and spiritual wisdom. New feelings, new understanding, new ways of living, and new personality integration experiences resulted from that Summer Mercury retrograde. We deepened our magnetism in the Mercury retrograde period of October-November, and since then have been learning “cooperative building” with others.
Renewals, returns, reconnections, reunions, and rebeginnings are promised by this retrograde. And of course, more on this Mercury retrograde period will come soon!
Copyright © 2014 Robert Wilkinson
"The Inferior Conjunction happens February 15-16 at 28 Aquarius, on the exact degree Jupiter went stationary retrograde in 2009, less than a day after the Full Moon at 27 Leo. That indicates the coming “fusion of life and mind” will show us how to prepare for what’s coming, as well as give us a new insights about what freed us or opened us between June 2009 and January 2010 that’s related to our current situation."
This part here Robert, hit me like a ton of bricks! and reminds me again, of how stunningly accurate Astrology can be when its examined in a full context.
It was around this time (June/July 2009) when the Jupiter/Neptune conjunction in Aquarius coming up to conjunct my natal retrograde Saturn (which is the ruler of my chart and forms powerful aspects to personal planets) that I made a decision which over the last few years has turned out like a double edged sword of fate combined with deep solid yet difficult personal growth. But still to this day, the ramifications of the life changing decision back then has turned into a massive log jam in my life to this day.
Something is going to trigger around mid February when the retrograde Mercury (ruler of my NN, MC & conjunct my Sun) goes back over that area.... I live in positive faith with God!
Posted by: RodJM | January 31, 2014 at 05:44 PM
Hugs for you Robert, I've become a fan of your way of explaining. Last retro Mercury was fairly productive for me. I'm hoping this one can be as well once it retros into Aquarius since it's exalted there. Perhaps might temper his retro feistiness I imagine.
Posted by: Jupiter | February 03, 2014 at 01:12 AM