by Robert Wilkinson
At 2:31 pm PDT on July 28, Mercury enters Virgo, one of its home signs. This ends the 2 week Leo backdrop to planets and houses we have in Gemini and Virgo, and brings Distributive Earth to the forefront of those planetary Lights and life houses.
Mercury’s entry into Virgo begins its slowing phase as it now approaches its shadow zone at 9 Virgo, preparing to go stationary retrograde at 22 Virgo on August 23. Begin to get your affairs in order, as this phase when it’s “crashing into retrograde” marks a time when everything Mercurial will slow through its Inferior Conjunction with the Sun on September 6 at 14 Virgo when it will again begin to speed up.
Take a good look at the details and meaning and adjustments to be made from now through its RX station, since that’s the span we’ll get a new look at between August 23 and when it goes stationary direct on September 15 so we can put it all together as we run through it a third time between then and when it leaves its shadow zone on September 30. As this affects our ability to coordinate things, discover things, give and receive information, and see things from multiple points of view, keep it grounded and practical.
While Mercury is in Virgo, it makes very favorable trines to Jupiter, also in an Earth sign. Mercury should stabilize our understanding of many things as it makes its three trines to Jupiter between now and September 25. These “prime the pump of an expanded view” preceding Mercury’s trine to Uranus, opposition to Neptune, and trine to Pluto in late September and early October.
That particular combination of aspects brings a sextile energy to Uranus/Neptune, as well as Neptune/Pluto. This combination creates a special evolutionary configuration which I call the “Peace Sign,” since geometrically it forms a triangle with a vertical line cutting the middle. This is an extraordinarily productive and stabilizing configuration anchored in this case by Neptune, bringing universality to the practical trines created by Mercury in Virgo, Uranus in Taurus, and Pluto in Capricorn. Expect signs and signals from Spirit!
While in Virgo, Mercury is in one of its home signs. Therefore Mercury is in its own first house, as well as in its own 4th house of Gemini, the other sign it rules. So Mercury in Virgo is natural to itself as well as grounded in its own practical attention to details and order which brings structure of its Gemini traits. I explain more about how Mercury functions in various signs in my pioneering work A New Look at Mercury Retrograde. Since it’s about to go retrograde, if you want to know about Mercury retrograde in various signs and houses, as well as how it functions in worldly events, please get a copy. It’s both fun and informative, and will give you “a new look” at all things related to Mercury retrograde!Until the next Inferior Conjunction, Mercury will be out in front of the Sun, bringing signs and signals of things to come in August and September. It stopped “leading the light” when it made the Superior Conjunction with the Sun, and will not “lead the light” again until the Inferior Conjunction in the first week of September. (When Venus makes its “Inferior Conjunction” with the Sun on August 13, it will “lead the light” instead of Uranus.)
Mercury in Virgo will help us organize, reorganize, rearrange, and take note of details we might not have noticed before. For now, we’re still under the influence of the last Superior Conjunction “fusion of Life and Mind” at 10 Cancer. This is giving us a new look at past things that enlightened us socially or emotionally at a turning point in our lives. This is a time to remember how in the past we were “crafted to perfection,” or at some point achieved “the acme of civilized living” which we are now reenacting in some ways.
Keep in mind that Mercury’s April-May retrograde between 16 and 6 Taurus had as a theme of “the old answers can’t solve the current questions” and old approaches won’t necessarily get the job done. This set of lessons will be amplified when Jupiter goes SRX and SD on these same degrees between September and December.
The coming retrograde will give us a review of the “venerable standards” we adopted about 15 years ago so we can see if they still work for us at this point in our lives. For now, face forward and get everything in order, since once Mercury begins to slow down in its shadow zone we’ll begin to feel the retrograde effect. I’ll write more about the coming retrograde in a couple of weeks.
© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson
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