by Robert Wilkinson
Following up on the general meaning and function of the "Inferior Conjunction" between the Sun and Mercury, today we explore specifics of the Inferior Conjunction of June 19, 2014 at 29 Gemini. This “fusion of life and mind” will impact the rest of the retrograde period, and many weeks after.
Because this particular Inferior Conjunction is an extremely important event due to when and where it's happening, this is a long article that will pull together a comprehensive overview that ties together past, present, and future.
The inferior conjunction is when Mercury (mind) conjuncts the Sun (life) while retrograde. This indicates 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.
The Sabian Symbol for the Inferior Conjunction
The symbol we’ve been given for this degree is “The first mockingbird in spring.” In the original Jones class notes, Rudhyar says this symbolizes “recapitulation of past opportunities at the threshold of a new cycle of experience,” and “realization of new potentialities.”
In the Astrological Mandala, he says this degree involves “the creative exuberance of the human soul in response to life renewals.” Here we can weave “collective material” and express it so that we demonstrate our virtuosity to our environment and our world.” He says it falls in the span of "Expansion,” and it’s the penultimate degree of the individual mental level of the scene of Exteriorization in the Act of Differentiation.
According to Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, the degree is one of how our “aesthetic experience” strengthens our core through our “skill in imitation.” Here our “aspiration becomes articulate far in advance of (our) self-refinement,” where the promise is made manifest in extraordinary achievements. This is an attempt at self-revelation which enhances our roles in everyday life.
He offers us the keyword of QUICKENING. He states that when operating in a positive manner, this degree is "consistent stimulation to others in all human affairs.”
So we enter a time of opening to new ways of externalizing our skills, knowledge, and aspiration. We may get insights into why some things had to be fractured, so we could use the valuable leftovers to express “the song of our life.” This Inferior Conjunction can fuse hindsight and life experience to see how new forms of self-expression, or understanding, have come forth in the past year.
The next four months are a time to get educated from seeing the past through different angles and interpretations, take a new look at neighbors, siblings, or our immediate environment, or see how we’ve been liberated from old pressures we no longer need to bear.
Back To The Future – Remembering What Shaped Our Experience Since 2002
Through the looking back yet to be done through the end of this Mercury RX period, we can see how we attracted or repelled what we did in the past, and how these created space we filled until it exhausted its attraction. Still, the coming months will bring highly specialized and fortunate opportunities to “reverse magnetism” to attract what we need in the future.
Some of what we will glimpse or remember will echo what the Sun conjunct Jupiter at 29 Gemini in May 2013 set into motion, and we may even glimpse echoes of the June 2012 New Moon also at 29 Gemini. Great time to look back to see what to expect! The former event set up a greater “enlightened” Jupiterian teaching or truth around this degree, and the latter impacted how that subsequent Sun conjunct Jupiter expressed this past year.
All of us are impacted by outer planet conjunctions and Lunations, so all of us have been dealing with offshoots and variations of the themes symbolized by 29 Gemini for at least a year. This Inferior Conjunction marks a point where by looking back at how life manifested since then, maybe we can put some things together, or follow the breadcrumbs through a forest we’ve already navigated to see what technique of externalizing information impacted us.
So whether this shows us a new understanding of the past year’s Jupiter lessons, or more distant 2012 Lunation lessons that were set into motion at the 2013 Sun conjunct Jupiter, this “looking back at life” should give a more comprehensive and well-rounded perspective that will help us understand how we’re all being led to a technique of individual self-expression, using “collective material” in our own unique or specialized way.
We’ll continue to move through the current Mercury retrograde experience in late Gemini until it goes direct at 25 Gemini on July 1, 5:50 am PDT, 8:50 am EDT, 1:50 pm Greenwich (BST). Between now and the second week of July when Mercury again crosses 29 Gemini, we’re reorienting and reconfiguring things related to the theme of that degree. We will understand more when Venus crosses this degree in mid-July.
What’s Up After the Inferior Conjunction?
As I pointed out in the first article about the Inferior Conjunction, at this Inferior Conjunction at 29 Gemini we will have “a fusion of life and mind” that will help set a platform. In blending these principles we will see a shift in our affairs, attitudes, and understanding about those things symbolized by Mercury in Gemini.
Natal points in harmony with 29 Gemini will see productivity, understanding, stabilization, and unique qualities come forth. Natal points in friction with 29 Gemini will see turning points, blocks, braking action, and release of potential. These are the primary “Life-Mind” fusion lessons through the next Superior Conjunction on August 8-9 at 17 Leo, a degree that will help us regenerate and renew ourselves, our heart, our love, and our social existence in a dynamically active collective circumstance.
So this Inferior Conjunction should bring a roundabout return, reflection, or echoes from the past about prior rehearsals that have turned into realities since then, or show us how current rehearsals are forcing us to prepare for things to come. It’s time to focus on visions of the future, and mobilize our skills so they satisfy some future need that’s on the way. Again, this need to “think in the future” seems to be a huge theme for the world right now. An alternative possibility is that we can now see how we prepared in the past for future needs, or conversely, through the retrograde lens see how past preparations led us to where we’re at right now.
As noted earlier, Venus will bring value or worth to what is being introduced in these energies when it crosses this degree in mid-July. The Inferior Conjunction now makes this a "hot spot" for months to come. One major factor at work in the chart for the Inferior Conjunction is that there is a very strong quintile between the Sun and Mercury with Uranus at 17 Aries on its stationary RX degree.
That will bring multiple unique gifts and insights to anyone with a planet or angle within a couple of degrees of 16-18 Aries, 28-30 Gemini, 10-12 Virgo, 22-24 Scorpio, or 4-6 Aquarius. It also implies that when Mars transits 22-24 Scorpio between August 30 and September 4 this Inferior Conjunction influence will be triggered in huge ways, and when Saturn moves through that zone in October and early November, we’ll see clear crystallizations related to this degree. (It’s also interesting that this is the zone where Saturn went stationary retrograde in early March, making all these celestial events linked across time.)
Lessons for the next four months
Some of the primary lessons involve using the Uranian gifts and special conditions wisely through knowing how to withdraw from something with dignity, correcting some limiting factor by trusting our inner Truth, aka “the God within.” This prepares us for the realization of having completed a major phase of life by late August at the Mars-Saturn conjunction, since Saturn is on that degree during this event.
Let your “will to wholeness” break up old complexes, move into a radical release while taking care of details, and take advantage of opportunities to listen to your inner guidance. It’s also a time to allow your mind to become stronger in its ability to build and relate various concepts to each other, while integrating it all into “the upper chamber” of Consciousness. You can move through this period, getting “spiritually integrated knowledge” that you can use in “singing your song to your world.”
While there is some volatility via the forming Cardinal T-square involving Mars in Libra opposed Uranus and square Pluto, with Uranus also square Pluto throwing the void into 12-18 Cancer, the trick is to be cautious while finding what you need to protect your interests while also finding what you need to nurture those interest. This tests our ability to use what we’ve learned from Jupiter in Cancer in wise, kind, thoughtful, and caring ways.
So take a new look at the Mystery that’s been revealed since Summer 2013, or some revelation about your home, family, past, habits, or needs. See how you’ve been taught strength and flexibility, and been led to a vaster Truth and fearlessness. We’ve found ways to “materialize the spiritual,” new techniques of personality integration, and allowed our personalities to be impacted by Soul impressions that have led us to this new stage of finding what we need to sustain our outreaching activities.
The Moon in Aries shows we’re leaving the collective and “walking on dry land” in some important way for the first time. This is a critical degree, a point of emergent individuality, and while there is some uncertainty associated with this degree, it’s still a powerful statement of moving out of one field of existence into an entirely and radically different new field of existence. As the Moon makes no significant forming aspects except a sesquisquare to Saturn, it is more or less a “standalone” influence for the 4 month period this chart is in action.
So Just How Does the Process Work?
The Inferior Conjunction between Mercury and the Sun 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. This is called a “Superior conjunction.” Most recently this occurred at 6 Taurus on April 25-26, 2014.
As Mercury is faster than the Sun at any “Superior Conjunction,” after that event Mind again outraces Life, gets ahead of the Sun, and explores ideas and perceptions of experiences yet to occur. That’s what we experienced between late December and mid-January, when Mercury began to slow down.
After Mercury gets as far forward from the Sun as it can, it begins to slow, eventually going stationary retrograde. It then 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.
Mercury Retrograde - Past As Prologue
In an interesting "co-incidence," many stationary points and Inferior Conjunction points make significant aspects to other points in previous Mercury retrograde periods. Perhaps by studying the sequence of retrograde, conjunction, and direct points we can see how Mercury, a.k.a Hermes, the Cosmic Magician and Guide of Souls, is steering our long range perceptions, understandings, and co-ordinations toward Soul understanding.
For example, the degree of the February 2014 Inferior Conjunction was exactly the same as where Jupiter went stationary retrograde in June 2009, and the prior Uranus transits and subsequent Neptume transits of that degree. So that Inferior Conjunction directly connected the dots between all those events. It also gave new life to all previous Mercury stations involving late Aquarius and all previous Eclipses in late Aquarius.
As I noted earlier, this Inferior Conjunction will find us looking back at the year since the last Sun conjunct Jupiter on this degree in June 2013, which had a direct relationship in what was taught and learned this past year with the lessons and qualities of the 2012 Gemini New Moon. And it should be the next natural step in stabilizing our late “Air sign” understanding, since it trines the previous Inferior Conjunction at 28 Aquarius.
This Inferior Conjunction of mind "looking back" into life will help us take a new look at how we have or have not taken care of what matters since the last retrograde in Aquarius. We’ve closed out a lot over the past few months (and years!), and this gives us a different view on why these helped us prepare for what’s happened since then, and how it’s related to what we have to prepare for to anticipate what’s just down the road.
This Inferior Conjunction in Gemini gives us a new look or new understanding about how to understand what we’ve awakened to, discovered, or exteriorized via communications over the past year. This can also show us how we need to get something back on track through examining how the past few months have shown us the way to put things together around this theme and see a better future vision over these past 4 months.
What’s the Backdrop to What’s Happening?
The fact that the Inferior Conjunction falls in Gemini makes Mercury the worldly ruler of the conjunction. That implies that Mercury is steering this boat, and is one of the dominant energies at this time, along with Venus in Taurus. As Mercury weaves and unweaves, combines and recombines, this Inferior Conjunction will help us explore different ways to put things together, different ways to see how to do things, and how we’ve been led to our Soul via the events of the past 4 months.
As Saturn’s duality is “Life/Death,” we will see how our consciousness and responses are either creative, destructive, or both, to cite the venerable Kabalistic Arhat Paul Foster Case. Mercury is where we learn if our mental processes are creating chaos and disorganized scattered conditions through ambivalence, and thus come to see how to use discernment to coordinate various functions to bring forth perfect knowing how to do whatever needs to be done.
As the backdrop to how our mind and life relate to each other, perhaps we can learn how to deal with Mercurial energies in ourselves or others from a different angle of view, organizing or reorganizing or ideas, perception, interpretations, and way of communicating. This is about seeing or finding new ways to understand, communicate, or interpret the signs and signals of our existence through looking back on the vaster perspective we acquired in February that prepared us for the Great Fracturing and recalibration that occurred when Mars was retrograde in Libra. To note, this Inferior Conjunction is also trine the Mars SRX degree, thus linking the past two Inferior Conjunctions with Mars in a Grand Air Trine.
All in all, the coming 4 months will bring interesting returns, reflections, and rehearsals of how and what we’ve dealt with past communications, whether with siblings, neighbors, or others in your “mental environment.” These can bring us needed insights into these things so we can come to a greater understanding about how we do or do not prepare for expectable conditions.
Once the Inferior Conjunction happens, whatever has seemed delayed, postponed, or dragging along will move forward soon. This can bring forth a greater connectivity with others or a definite sense of how to shape our expression to reveal something of our inner life, vision, and purpose to the world. Here we find a new way to sing our song, express what has meaning for us within a collective field of activity, and prepare for major decisions and reorientations to come.
Generally, the 11 days before the inferior conjunction (fusion) of mind and life is a good time to 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. It's also good for getting 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 seeing how you're being led to see elements of your Soul you may not have recognized before now. So think back on what's happened in the past couple of weeks, and find a new way to view how those things may symbolize the future somehow.
Just remember during retrogrades, especially Mercury retrograde, that often things that don't turn out one way lead directly or indirectly to other things somewhat related manifesting down the road. It's as though nothing should be taken at face value, and often what we do or think during Mercury retrograde creates odd echoes in the future that take different shapes, or different functions related to the original intention.
And as usual, here are links to recent articles on what this June 2014 Mercury Retrograde in Cancer and Gemini is all about:
As usual, here are links to recent articles on what this June 2014 Mercury Retrograde in Cancer and Gemini is all about:
The Guide of Souls in June 2014 - Mercury Slowing Down Preparing to go Retrograde at 4 Cancer
It’s Mercury Retrograde - Time For A New Look at the Guide of Souls
Copyright © 2014 Robert Wilkinson
Thank you, Sir Robert for the insights and explanations of how the astrological contacts and shifts have influenced our lives. For those of us, who have gone through chaotic shifts, relationship break-ups, and un-expected changes since 2011, do you sense a period of 'completion' or new beginnings coming in the near future? I, perhaps naively, assumed that by now i would have begun to step into the light at the end of the tunnel or at worst felt closer to the tunnel's end. I am sure there are other looking for the tipping point of the monumental 'T square' event, as well.
Thanks again
Posted by: clay gregory | June 19, 2014 at 04:20 PM
Hi Robert, what are the impacts of this conjunction when it is (a few degrees from) on the ascendant? My ascendant is 25 Gemini. Thanks and can't wait for your updated book on Mercury retrograde.
Posted by: Heather | June 20, 2014 at 07:55 AM
Hi Clay - Each completion becomes the entry to a new chapter. I cannot in good conscience tell anyone that this pandemic chaos will be "over" any time soon, but I can state we're all learning how to stay centered in the NOW, learning to detach from appearances of "good" and "bad" and seeing how we're a part of what is. Whether we're part of the problem or part of the solution or both depends on our individual circumstance. And of course, how happy or sad we are as we navigate these strange and chaotic times is entirely in our own hands.
Hi Heather - I would think you would get flashes of past self image that will be updated, or you'll take a new look at your self image and "see the light" of who you are or how you see yourself from alternative angles. You should see how early life experiences forged elements of your self image, or how your family signals in some way contributed to a duality in your self image.
Posted by: Robert | June 20, 2014 at 08:23 AM
Thank you Sir Robert so much. We are back in the Black Hills for two weeks and will be doing a Solstice get together tonight. This article of yours will be the centerpiece. The Aussies send their best regards. We are continuing the "Potluck" strategy to social change. Namaste Y'all.
Posted by: dcu | June 20, 2014 at 08:49 AM
Hi Robert, Would that also apply to a unity of the family-created duality or a final merging into the "whole self"? As in early life experiences have been dealt with and peace has been found? Thanks again for your insight.
Posted by: Heather | June 20, 2014 at 07:01 PM