by Robert Wilkinson
Mercury is rapidly slowing, preparing to go retrograde soon! Lots of Capricorn and Sagittarius 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 9 Capricorn on December 12/13. It will retrograde back to 23 Sagittarius, where it goes stationary direct on January 1, 2024.
That puts the shadow zone between 9 Capricorn and 23 Sagittarius, and around 2 am PST on November 25 Mercury entered 23 Sagittarius, the degree where it’ll go SD on January 1. 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 23 Sagittarius and 9 Capricorn. We’ll have returns related to Capricorn and Sagittarius people and events which impacted our lives in the past. This will be “a look back” at past truths, past adventures, past responsibilities, and past public activities which helped us clarify our larger vision and parts to play in society. This one brings memories of prior Sagittarius and Capricorn 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 what we’ve learned about tuning in to the invisible world and how much harmony we feel from our “fulfilled selfhood” and “detached understanding.” Because the retrograde begins at 9 Capricorn, we may get echoes of the period from 2005-2014 when Pluto was in this span, especially related to its direct station at 9 Capricorn in September 2013 affecting the subsequent year.
Those “seed forms” were crafted into structures when Saturn transited that span beginning January to July 2017 when Saturn occupied 23-28 Sagittarius, the period from late September 2017 through early April 2018 when Saturn occupied 23 Sagittarius-9 Capricorn, and May through early December 2018 when it occupied 3-9 Capricorn. When Mercury occupies the same degree as Saturn did then, we should be getting some indirect information about how the things we learned then have brought us to where we are now. And because Jupiter transited this span from late October through early December 2019, we should catch remembrances from that period as well.
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 September, we’ve been in a period of learning and expressing our individual creative genius, “sculpting” our lives to make them more effective and setting up the patterns which will expand in early 2024. We’ve been learning discernment while seeing 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 9 Virgo in our charts. Much of what’s been happening in the Gemini and Virgo sectors of our charts has prepared us for a greater efficiency and more precise ways of expressing our genius.
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 entire year, since it has 9 Capricorn as its “theme” which I’ll explain in the first article about this Capricorn/Sagittarius retrograde coming in a couple of weeks. We’ll be seeing the present as preparing us for a new sense of our position and responsibilities in society and new ways of accepting our part to play in the world.
The retrograde period begins in a review of how we need to take responsibility or renounce duties and obligations which are no longer ours. We’ll definitely take a new look as we go back through the parts of Capricorn and Sagittarius where we’ll revisit the social/emotional and actional levels of “Crystallization,” as well as the individual mental-spiritual and social/emotional levels of “Transference.”
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 between December 29-30, about a week after the Inferior Conjunction at 1 Capricorn a few hours after the Solstice. That begins to quicken the information cycle, since Mercury goes direct on January 1, 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 9 Capricorn, get ready to go inward and review what drives your ambition or sense of public selfhood. This period can help us take a new look at how we use power in a social setup, as well as what would constitute our emotional fulfillment. We can find new ways to be effective and open to a greater adventure, or at least reposition ourselves as we prepare “to enter a new country” at the direct station in January. We’ll be more or less “backing into new techniques and knowledge” as prelude to crossing a life threshold in January. 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 Sagittarius and Capricorn 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 “An angel carrying a harp.”
© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson
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