by Robert Wilkinson
In this article 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 January 2016 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? Of course, if you know your Ascendant, you can also use this to see how it affects those houses as well.
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.
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 late December and see what has now hit a threshold. Take a new look at what evolved during the period before Mercury went stationary retrograde and now requires a delay, or re-thinking, or re-shaping to express a renewal in the future.
While Mercury is retrograde, take the time to re-trace ground covered in recent weeks, get new information and interpretations of old ideas and perceptions, and find new points of view. It’s a great time for picking up things that have been on hold, or which have progressed in bursts of activity followed by fallow periods.
It’s a natural time to research, review, rehearse, and re-do whatever needs a new approach in our lives. Since Mercury is in Aquarius, reconsider, reinterpret, and rework Aquarius issues and activities, seeing their significance from new angles of understanding.
These periods are good for getting a different understanding of things we never quite figured out why they happened the way they did. Sometimes communications are more difficult or slower than usual, but I regard the difficulty or delay as part of the process of how that communication unfolds between two people when and how it does. I go into the retrograde process in great detail in A New Look at Mercury Retrograde.
So welcome to another three week retrograde period where it’s a natural time to deal with things that have been put off, and take care of unfinished past business. Take a new look at the past to bring things up to speed in the present. This January 2016 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 from January 25 through April 28, 2016.
So in what House(s) does this Retrograde Occur for my Birthday?
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 this Mercury retrograde begins at 2 Aquarius and retrogrades back to 15 Capricorn, you can learn a lot about this coming period by reading all you can about Mercury retrograde in Aquarius, and all the possible ways these signs manifest in the world. I've already offered a lot about the degrees and energies at play in this retrograde period in previous articles in this series.
If you want to know even more about what we can expect from Mercury retrograde in Aquarius, as well as all the other signs and houses, if you haven't already gotten your copy, you may want to buy a copy of the new expanded 2nd edition of my pioneering book A New Look At Mercury Retrograde, the 2015 winner in its category of The Indie Spiritual Book Awards.
The first major work on Mercury retrograde ever written, it offers in-depth information about Mercury retrograde people, Mercury retrograde in the various signs and houses, and what the entire Mercury Retrograde phenomenon is about. If you want to know what we can expect from Mercury retrograde in Aquarius, or the last one in Libra, or the others in any other sign and the influence in the houses, it’s all in there.
As I’ve mentioned before, it is written for both astrologers and laypeople. I have just about everything you could want to know about Mercury retrograde, including how it works, what it means, celebrities who have it in their charts, historic events that happened during Mercury retrograde, and what signs are involved in future Mercury retrograde periods.
By knowing more about 2014's Mercury retrograde periods in Pisces/Aquarius, Cancer/Gemini, and Scorpio/Libra, or 2015’s Mercury retrograde periods in Aquarius, Gemini, and Libra, you may see patterns in what was going on in your life, what you were taking a new look at and why, and how this "looking back" influenced your choices as you moved through past events. And you can get a heads up by taking a look at the coming 2016 Mercury retrograde periods in Aquarius/Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn/Sagittarius. It’s all in the book!
Here's the Amazon link to the page where you can order your paperback or ebook copy of A New Look at Mercury Retrograde. It is an invaluable resource for understanding past, present, and future Mercury retrogrades, so get your copy today. Just make sure you get the 2015 edition, and not the 1997 first edition, since the second is a far superior product!
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 post titled "How Does Mercury Retrograde Work in the Houses." The ideas I offer in that article really do work, whether you're referencing the natal or Solar charts. That article is a brief take on what I expand on in A New Look at Mercury Retrograde, and combining the information in the article with what I’ve written in the book gives a comprehensive overview of the many possibilities that could show up when Mercury is retrograde in any house in your chart.
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:
Dec 22 to Jan 3, read Mercury retrograde in the 1st house.
Jan 4 to 20, 12th and 1st houses.
Jan 21 to Feb 1, 12th house.
Feb 2 to 18, 11th and 12th houses.
Feb 19 to Mar 3, 11th house.
Mar 4 to 20, 10th and 11th houses.
Mar 21 to Apr 2, 10th house.
Apr 3 to 19, 9th and 10th houses.
Apr 20 to May 2, 9th house.
May 3 to 20, 8th and 9th houses.
May 21 to Jun 3, 8th house.
Jun 4 to 21, 7th and 8th houses.
Jun 22 to Jul 4, 7th house.
Jul 5 to 22, 6th and 7th houses.
Jul 23 to Aug 4, 6th house.
Aug 5 to 22, 5th and 6th houses.
Aug 23 to Sep 5, 5th house.
Sep 6 to 22, 4th and 5th houses.
Sep 23 to Oct 6, 4th house.
Oct 7 to 23, 3rd and 4th houses.
Oct 24 to Nov 5, 3rd house.
Nov 6 to 22, 2nd and 3rd houses.
Nov 23 to Dec 4, 2nd house.
Dec 5 to 21, 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.
Previous articles in this series:
Mercury Retrograde in Aquarius in January 2016 – Liberation From Old Conditions By Self-Mobilization
Mercury Retrograde – Time For A New Look at the Guide of Souls
The Guide of Souls in January 2016 - Mercury Slowing Down, Preparing to go Retrograde at 2 Aquarius
Copyright © 2016 Robert Wilkinson
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