Mercury retrograde, Eros and Hades

Dear Friend and Reader:

Mercury has been on its retrograde course for one day now and in six more days it will make another conjunction to Jupiter. The series of three Jupiter conjunctions is part of this retrograde story — they each have their own.

An intense thirst for knowledge, as well as the impetus to observe how things effect you on an intimate level, are two signatures that I am picking up on with this current retrograde.

Mercury is awareness. Jupiter brings in the wider world, that is, something bigger than us of which to be aware.

Added to that, Hades is retrograde in Gemini standing opposite Eros in Sagittarius. Hades is a very slow moving non-planet. It does not exist, except in the ephemeris. There are eight of these things that are used, but not commonly (called the trans-Neptunian points, as opposed to objects); and one or two others that exist and are used even less commonly).

Hades is about depth and working with stagnation. It represents things like mining. So, opposite Eros (a near-Earth asteroid), we have an image of going deep into the heart of the matter: a miner for a heart of gold, or iron or diamond…whatever you are mining for.

My partner and I have been having some pretty heavy conversations lately: it usually goes that way when you have a person with Mercury in Capricorn to butt heads against in matters such as philosophy. As with many people who struggle to understand one another, but come from different places, the discussions often turn to the origin of language itself. This is one aspect of the power of Mercury retrograde: to disassemble language is to attempt to rebuild it again using your own definitions, or, in the case of communication, a mutual understanding of each word.

Personal philosophy has an interesting way of reflecting many things in life, including what we expect. And one of the ways in which we give and receive information from the world is through communication. Mercury is the planet of communication and gesture, so it is only natural now that it is moving backwards for language to take on a different meaning — particularly in Aquarius, the sign of invention. Perhaps it is a more subtle, intrinsic way to listen or talk that can arise from this current retrograde.

Aquarius also highlights electronic communication, which has infested all of our lives to a degree that we would not have believed possible just 10 or 15 years ago.

With Hades opposite Eros there is another aspect to communication worth mentioning. Hades is, as Eric writes “a touch of the dark side”, as well as the effect time has on the body (aging), while Eros is the deep-seated desire to mingle energies and to experience the joy of life. It seems almost as though the two of these are opposing forces: aging versus joy. Acceptance is the key to navigating both of them. It is the same with communication.

We are all aging/changing entities with desires and experiences to try to share. There comes a time when we must accept people for who they are because we must accept ourselves. It takes a lot of thinking and experimenting and hashing it out. Luckily for us, the astrology is spelling out a time of community and sharing for a stronger future.

Til next time,
Genevieve Salerno