Mercury retrograde conjoins the Sun

Dear Friend and Reader,

Today marks the end of the Bush era as President Obama begins his first term. The Sun has made its ingress into Aquarius and the Moon will enter Sagittarius at 12:30 pm EST. We are also six days away from the solar eclipse in Aquarius. This particular eclipse is going to occur in a packed Aquarius, something we haven’t seen the likes of since 1962. Mercury retrograde is makes its interior conjunction with this new Sun today, which is a little like the Sun itself turning into Mercury. If you observe these days of the interior conjunction for a while (three each year), you will notice that they are indeed unusual news days — and this is no exception.

Photo by Sean Hayes.
Photo by Sean Hayes.

The interior conjunction to the Sun (that is, Mercury coming between the Earth and the Sun, as it is doing now) is the exact midpoint of the retrograde; it’s half over today. This particular interior conjunction is interesting because just as the Sun enters Aquarius, Mercury is about to re-enter Capricorn. So the two planets pull apart and begin a cycle through the signs that the other occupied.

It’s interesting that this is happening on one of the great turning point days of our era, the day that the Bush administration ends and that Barack Obama takes office. While this is not astrology that you would associate with the turning of an era, it is peculiar enough, and strongly indicative of change, to feel appropriate for this day. Of course there are many other images of change in the chart: Saturn and Uranus at opposition; Pluto on the edge of Capricorn; and the gradually warming-up square between Uranus and Pluto — that’s the one that indicates the biggest changes, and it’s not exact until 2012.

Let’s consider Mercury for a moment, though. When a planet goes retrograde, what it means is based on our movement in the solar system, the other planet appears to go backwards. Retrograde energy has a way of bringing up the past, or facilitating retreating (as we saw with the Israeli-Hamas cease fire Sunday). It can also bring up the more ephemeral qualities in a project or relationship. For example, it is always advised that one should avoid signing documents or buying big machines like cars or computers while Mercury is in retrograde.

While an easy route to interpretation would suggest that Mercury in retrograde means bad stuff will happen to your DVD player, another way to look at it could be that patterns from the past can be accessed in a deliberate, mindful way. Perhaps it’s not so much about the DVD player breaking as it is about the temperment broken appliances produce.

So what can we expect with Mercury retrograde in effect during the Inauguration? Maybe a bit of extra feedback in the microphones? Just kidding. But seriously, with Mercury conjoined with the Sun at this time, my input is that a lot of nuances from the past will be worked into Obama’s speeches tonight. We have already seen that in the train ride to Washington being a sort of homage to Abraham Lincoln.

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