by Robert Wilkinson
Today we take a look at important Sabian Symbols, aspects, and other important factors in play the next three weeks as Mercury is retrograde in Virgo.
This Mercury retrograde begins August 30, 6:04 am PDT, 9:04 am EDT, 2:04 pm BST. This retrograde moves from 30 Virgo back to 15 Virgo, with the Inferior conjunction of Mercury and the Sun occurring at 21 Virgo on September 12.
The Sabian Symbol for Mercury’s Stationary Retrograde Degree
The Sabian Symbol for the 30th degree of Virgo is “A false call unheard in attention to immediate service.” In the original Jones class notes from “The Astrology of Personality,” Rudhyar says this is a degree of "joy of enlisting in a task which broadens the life horizon," and "willing rising to the occasion, or escape from narrow destiny."
In the Astrological Mandala, he goes on to say that this degree symbolizes “the total concentration required for reaching any spiritual goal.” He goes on to state “on all decisive occasions what must be done has to be done so intently that no outer voices can penetrate the mind,” and with this symbol, we “stand at the gates of the sacred Pyramid” where we must take the decisive step.
He says this symbol is a point of decision resulting from our previous choices, where we must not be distracted by voices from the past. He says “the outer doors of perception and thought must be closed, so the soul can complete its conquest of illusion.” He says this degree falls in the Span of Experimentation, Act of Stabilization, and is the final degree in the Scene of Education on the Individual-Mental level.
Dr. Jones says this is a degree of “human responsibility as an immortality of the soul,” where we have “achieved an absoluteness of attitude or understanding” allowing us to “dramatize a high personal competency in everyday problem solving.” He states “each individual creates his place for himself” and “al life tends to protect (us) in (our) ways of going and all circumstances somehow seem to shape themselves for (our) convenience and encouragement.”
He offers us the keyword SAFEGUARD. He states that when operating in a positive manner, this degree “is exceptionally gratifying self-fulfillment through the development of a genuine integrity.”
So we’ll be using our retrograde Mercury function to send and/or receive impressions and ideas related to previous ways we escaped from an old destiny and embraced a new one, or perhaps we’ll remember how we solved a problem that opened new circumstances for our growth. Here we get insights and returns related to previous “experiments” where we were educated, or educated another. This is a time to take a new look at our work and health, and see if we can’t be more efficient in doing what we must do to embrace a new destiny.
As I gave you in a previous article, this Mercury retrograde will offer us opportunities to look back and find a new way to conquer an illusion, or “resist a false call.” We will hear a call to our soul, and find a more effective competency in preparing to accept that role. The coming period will give some a look back at a prior form of spiritual service, or how they once fit into a bigger plan. This one helps us “return to the garden” and renew how we express our integrity.
This gives us a new look at how we are ministering to others, or being ministered to by others. It opens the door to the sanctuary where our minds behold the soul realm, and requires that we accept we are entering a new way of serving and being served. Shamanic power can be found by those who concentrate, and accept a greater destiny.
Some will experience returns of people from the past who were spiritual Brothers and Sisters, or they will be of some service in the present. Some projects will have to be postponed, or a new way found to make something work. This can give insights into several different ways to get something done, and favors practical rehearsals before “doing it for real.” All of us will get glimpses of how our past experiences and choices resulting from the last Mercury retrograde have led us to a new view of possibilities.
During this Mercury retrograde period, pay attention to the roundabout signs and signals opening you to noticing these qualities. These lessons will be illuminated when the Sun crosses this degree Sept 20-21, and remain in focus through the time Mercury re-crosses this degree around Oct 6-7, when it finishes its forward motion shadow transit.
It should be a great time to see things we didn’t understand before, or perhaps reclaim something from the past. Here we take a look back and reconsider or renew some prior service or discipline. We can find a new angle of perspective on our purpose, and revise and/or renew how we do what we do.
As with all Mercury retrogrades, we can use this time to take a look back at whatever in the past has recently begun. This one in Virgo helps us re-shape our way of expressing Virgo energy in the house where that sign is active in our chart. As it retrogrades back to 15 Virgo, when our review is done, Mercury will be sitting on the degree where Saturn went stationary direct in 2009, which was also the degree of the Moon in the March 2015 Full Moon. So this retrograde will bring memories or returns related to these events, and many will get insights about the cultural excellence they’ve attained these past 7 years.
Elements
As I said in part 1, we have entered a new Mercury Retrograde element period. All 3 Mercury retrograde periods in 2015 were entirely in Air signs, making the houses where we have Aquarius, Gemini, and Libra in our chart the focus of those retrogrades. That means we looked back, or got new understanding, around all things that were Air-related.
The January 2016 retrograde was a transitional Mercury retrograde pattern, where the retrograde period began in an Air sign but ended in an Earth sign. The last one in Taurus and this Mercury RX period are entirely in Earth signs. This continues the reviews and rehearsals in all things related to the practical arena of existence in 2016!
These reviews and new points of view will be activated in major ways as the Sun moves through this Mercury retrograde degree span in Virgo over the three weeks Mercury is retrograde. This will illuminate the Mercury lessons we first saw when Mercury was approaching this retrograde period. Now that Mercury is retrograde, we’ll get a new look at these things.
So enjoy this period featuring Mercury retrograde in Earth signs, which will last until the Dec 2016-Jan 2017 transitional period when Mercury begins in early Earth and retrogrades back to a Fire sign. So one good thing to do during this retrograde is to take a look back at the Mercury RX Air influences in 2015, and see how it affected the Aquarius, Gemini, and Libra sectors in your chart. It may give you hints about how it set up your retrograde experiences in your Capricorn, Taurus and Virgo sectors in 2016.
Current Positions Related to Past Stations
An interesting feature of retrogrades is that often the SD and SRX points are on or near previous SD and SRX points. This one continues the pattern of being in a favorable to past Mercury SRX or SD degree, since it trines the last SRX degree at 24 Taurus, and because it goes SD at 15 Virgo, it trines the last SD degree at 15 Taurus and the Jan 2016 SD point at 15 Capricorn. So this RX period both continues the middle Earth emphasis that began in late January, showing that 2016 Mercury SD influence is entirely Earth oriented.
Looking back, the 2014 sequence had Mercury stationary direct at 19 Aquarius in February, 25 Gemini in July, and 17 Libra in October. In 2015 Mercury went stationary retrograde at 18 Aquarius, 14 Gemini, and 16 Libra. So in 2015 all the stationary RX degrees conjuncted and/or trined all the SD degrees of 2014. If you want a more comprehensive perspective on the Mercury retrograde effect in your life in 2015, take a new look at what began at those 2014 stationary direct points.
In 2015, Mercury went stationary direct at 2 Aquarius, 5 Gemini, and 1 Libra. The January 2016 SRX degree was 2 Aquarius, conjunct or trine all of those forward moving points. As noted, this year the trines are entirely in Earth signs, and in December 2016, Mercury goes stationary retrograde at 16 Capricorn, literally 8 minutes of longitude from the January 2016 Mercury direct station at 15 Capricorn!
In 2017, all of Mercury’s RX stations will be in Earth signs and retrograde back into Fire signs except for the period in December 2017, which will be entirely in the Fire sign of Sagittarius. There are far reaching implications in how these patterns affect our lives, since over time they eventually trigger every element in every house in our chart.
Behind the Scenes in this Virgo Retrograde
While in Virgo, Mercury is in its home sign, and therefore the final dispositor for all the other planets except Venus in its home sign of Libra, and Neptune in its home sign of Pisces. This makes Mercury very powerful during the time it’s retrograde, and as it’s entirely in the last half of Virgo, expect lots of educational experiments. Mercury’s influence will wane quite a bit once Jupiter moves into Libra, since then Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune will all be ruled by Venus until that planet moves into Scorpio near the end of September.
Aspects
This should be an extraordinary retrograde period since there are a host of favorable aspects along with the powerful release mechanism of the Mutable T-square formed by Sun opposed Neptune with both square Saturn, releasing energies into the void between 8-11 Gemini. Even though the mutable energy will shake some things up wherever we that active in our chart, we still have so many quintiles and tredeciles that gifts and specialized circumstances will be everywhere!
At this Mercury station, we see the Moon in Leo novile Jupiter and trine Uranus, with Mercury starring with a conjunction to Jupiter, quintile Saturn, triseptile Uranus, and tredecile Pluto. These are overall very harmonious, with other favorable aspects from other planets helping boost the good that can come during this RX period.
Other significant forming aspects besides the ones already mentioned include Venus quindecile the Sun, quintile Mars, quadranovile Neptune, and biseptile Pluto, triggering the Grand Irrationality. We also see the Sun square Mars and Saturn, sesquisquare Uranus, opposed Neptune and trine Pluto, Mars quadraelftile Uranus, Jupiter quintile Saturn, triseptile Uranus, pentelftile Neptune, and tredecile Pluto, thanks to Mercury collecting the light. Saturn is still square Neptune, and Uranus is again trielftile Pluto. Overall these indicate various degrees of specialization, realization, and mastery of forms of duality.
Venus biseptile Pluto shows this to be yet another powerful and profound fork in the road of humanity’s destiny, and will impact wherever we have early Libra. The Grand Irrationality currently involves degree spans around 10-14 Leo, 1-5 Libra, 23-27 Scorpio, 15-19 Capricorn, 7-11 Pisces, 28 Aries- 2 Taurus, and 19-23 Gemini. Expect events and ideas from the past to be understood in new ways, opening new archetypal roles to play and new “perfect forms” to emulate.
The quintile, tredecile, and quindecile are all specialization aspects, and the novile and quadranovile are gestative aspects that promise spiritual realizations at some point for those who are inclined in that direction. The elftile series aspects show the need to transcend a duality by making leap of faith, and with so many of each of these active, this period will yield some amazing spiritual growth for everyone. You can find out more about the spiritual aspects by referencing this brief overview of the Spiritual aspects, complete with glyphs for all of them, or purchasing the much more extensive in-depth class on the spiritual aspects, including the septile (7th harmonic) series, novile (9th harmonic) series, and elftile (11th harmonic) series aspects. If you want the class with powerpoint graphics and accompanying recorded tracks, email me.
The hard aspects challenge us to take a broader view of things, and be flexible and adaptable as we move through changing conditions. This is the final point in the year where the Mutable T-square dominates the landscape, and tests our ability to shine our light, integrating all the previous t-squares and grand cross energies that have scrambled many things, leaving us where we are now. The good thing is this retrograde offers so many favorable aspects to the planets in the T-square that we will see many good things released through the frictional aspects.
As is usual for Mercury retrograde periods, this one will also be a “back to the future” type of energy, where the Guide of Souls will give us a new look at things, people, ways of working, and how be more effective. Here we look back even as we are productively propelled into our future in inspired ways.
The Moon will bring the focus to “the joy and power of new beginnings” as we release all that inhibits our hearts. The Sun will bring light to new forms of training, where we must take the initiative to embrace a greater spiritual potential. This is a time of returns, reviews, rehearsals, and renewals hat will have deep echoes for many months to come.
In future Mercury retrograde articles, we’ll explore more about various elements of what’s in play during the next three weeks, what Mercury retrograde in Virgo may be good for, the coming Inferior Conjunction and what it means, and what we can expect between late September and early October after it goes direct several weeks from now.
A New Look At Mercury Retrograde
If you want to know what we can expect from Mercury retrograde in Virgo, as well as all the other signs and houses, if you haven't already gotten your copy, please consider purchasing my award-winning 2nd edition of A New Look At Mercury Retrograde.
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 Virgo, or any other sign or house position, it’s all in there.
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. Of course, you can also find out more about how the 2016 Mercury retrograde periods in Aquarius/Capricorn and Taurus affected you, as well as how this one in Virgo and the next one is Capricorn/Sagittarius will play out. It’s all in the book!
Here's the Amazon link to the page where you can purchase a paperback edition of A New Look at Mercury Retrograde. You can also get a Kindle ebook at that site, or go to Barnes and Noble for a copy on Nook. (Please note that if you go to amazon, make sure you're ordering the 2015 edition, and not the earlier one. There are plenty of used ones for sale, but they are far inferior to the newest edition.)
Previous articles in this series:
Mercury Retrograde – Time For A New Look at the Guide of Souls
The Guide of Souls in August 2016 - Mercury Slowing Down, Preparing to go Retrograde at 30 Virgo
Copyright © 2016 Robert Wilkinson
Absolutely awesome and timely.
Also very beautiful and clearly written. Thank you Robert.
Blessings be to all
Posted by: Nic | August 31, 2016 at 02:48 PM