by Robert Wilkinson
Mercury is rapidly slowing, preparing to go retrograde soon! Lots of Virgo action ahead!
The shadow zone is defined by the span between where a planet goes retrograde, and where it goes direct after the retrograde period. In this case, Mercury goes retrograde at 22 Virgo on August 23. It will retrograde back to 9 Virgo, where it goes stationary direct on September 15.
That puts the shadow zone between 22 and 9 Virgo, and around 5 pm PDT August 3 Mercury will enter 9 Virgo, the degree where it’ll go SD in mid-September. I’ll be writing quite a few articles about the coming retrograde which will post as it comes closer.
So we now begin an 8 week run of three passes over the span between 9 and 22 Virgo. We’ll have returns related to Virgo people and events which impacted our lives in the past. This will be “a look back” at past service, past work, past health issues, and those in the past who served us. This one brings memories of prior Virgo experiences so we can get a different angle of understanding.
Mercury retrograde always gives a new take on whatever it’s transiting, and this period is going to reveal much which will be important from a long-ago Saturn transit, since that planet went SRX at 22 Virgo in December 2008. That was when we began to examine values we venerate and were willing to live by. This will bring a review of that period between late 2008 and 2010, as well as what we’ve dedicated ourselves to these past 15 years.
During Mercury retrograde, we often see how we dealt with something in the past and come to new insights about how it affected our ways of relating to similar things since then, or we could come to a new way to apply those old insights into life experiences. The sign(s) where Mercury “looks back” opens us to new ways to view those things, giving opportunities to weave, unweave, or re-weave our understanding of how to apply our “second sight” as we are “guided to our Soul.”
Since Mercury last went stationary direct in May, we’ve been in a period of building bridges with others while being alert to what isn’t working any more, or the need to find a new approach to something. We’ve been stabilizing and trying to find a degree of momentum wherever we have 6 Taurus in our charts. Much of what’s been happening in the Gemini and Virgo sectors of our charts has prepared us for a new dedication, new standards, and new service.
The coming Mercury retrograde period will definitely bridge the past, present and future! We’ll take a new look at the near past, as well as the past 15 years. We’ll be seeing the present as preparing us for new work, new forms of original self-expression, and new ways of educating and being educated.
The retrograde period begins in a review of how our “merit has been certified” these past 15 years, and many will find “ancient values” which can be brought into play for others to venerate. This retrograde will take us back through the parts of Virgo where we’ll revisit the social/emotional levels and actional levels of “education,” as well as the individual mental-spiritual and social/emotional levels of “characterization.”
Time To Adjust to A Different Pace
The Mercurial data you notice over the next 3+ weeks will be clarified after the Sun crosses the Mercury SRX degree around September 14, a few days after the Inferior Conjunction at 14 Virgo on September 6. That begins to quicken the information cycle, since Mercury goes direct on September 15, speeding everything up substantially. So in the coming weeks, adapt to the slowing pace of things, get all your papers in order, finish what you can, and prepare to put some things on hold for a little while.
Take a look at what's been set into motion with an eye to building in delays, rehearsals, or more research before things again begin to move forward in mid-September. 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.
With Mercury’s retrograde station at 22 Virgo, get ready to go inward and review what you value and why you value it. We can find new ways to educate and be educated, more or less “backing into new techniques and knowledge as prelude to expressing our uniqueness or genius in some way this Autumn. I’ll give you more about Mercury’s SRX degree in a week or so.
if you want to know more about Mercury retrograde and how it may operate in Virgo and how it affects your chart, please consider getting your copy of the 2nd edition of A New Look at Mercury Retrograde where you can find out all you need about this retrograde, as well as past and future retrogrades. Here's the Amazon link to where you can order the paperback 2nd edition of A New Look at Mercury Retrograde, and if you want an Kindle ebook copy you can get it there as well. Just make sure you get the much improved 2nd edition with the award on the cover rather than the earlier one from 1997.
See you soon with more on the coming Mercury retrograde on a degree of “A royal coat of arms.”
© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson
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