We are now in that sensitive moment where Mercury is slowing to a complete stop and reversing directions from retrograde to direct. The moment of the station (as it is called) is 9:13:28 am EDT on Tuesday. Mercury’s exact address at the time of the station is 21 Virgo 37. This is pretty close to a conjunction with Saturn in late Virgo, and Mercury will again pass through the Saturn-Uranus opposition (for the third time). That is next week. The degree of the station puts it into close aspect with Mars, Chiron and Eris; and close enough to call an aspect with Neptune, the lunar nodes, Jupiter and Ceres: that’s one busy Mercury in Virgo. Damn, stationing direct is busy enough for a planet.
Now as for what this “means.” This is a fragile, potent moment of events, ideas and mental processes changing directions. If you pause long enough to think, you will actually feel this happen.
Astrology is not merely a symbol; something actually occurs in real time and real space, and that something parallels (and influences) events in the actual world. Mercury is a magnet. If you put a magnet next to a disk drive you will wipe out the memory. If you put magnets on the skin outside a fractured bone, it will heal faster.
The big magnet known as Mercury is shifting its direction of motion relative to the Earth, and all its affairs will sway. That would be you and that would be me and indeed that would be us.
Without sounding too much like, “Monday is for washing, Tuesday is for ironing” (holy shit, I remembered that right — Aunt Josie told me that decades ago) in fact there is often a logical order of operations based on the movements of the planets. Mercury is still retrograde right now, though from moment to moment, its apparent hourly motion is slower and slower. The issues that it represents are beginning to unravel. The mental or creative processes that it has been guiding are about to change directions. Processes that have been directed inwardly may respond by becoming more outwardly oriented.
Now is the time to pay close attention to the movement of the subject matter and relationships involved. It’s a time to be extra clear and extra careful, and be on the lookout for things that need attention. It is NOT a time for making “final” commitments or decisions; but rather, guiding things gently in the direction you want them to go.
I strongly suggest not messing with your computer, not sending anything in for repair, and not making purchases above $25. Just sit and hang loose while this passes, and keep your emphasis on the mental plane: your thought process, communication, and idea creation.
And don’t forget to watch for that distinctly Mercury stationing direct property of: the truth comes out.
Hey Patty,
I do indeed think the Divine has the power to move storms, through many prayers and concentration, though not-so-much through me and my wandering attention. Still, I do wonder why the Korea chart chose to become conscious in my mind, and therefore yours. Perhaps I will pray for both countries and their inhabitants just in case the Divine moves this storm too far.
Regarding the two yods in progress, and Eris’ involvement in particular, Chiron in the U.S.’s chart (20 Aries 08) has received copious amounts of stimulation from her in recent times, which I had not noticed, astrologically anyway. If there could be a reason for stirring up the old wounds it just might be the reforming of healthcare, and todays debate in Congress just might reflect that. The U.S. chart is already affected by the incessant transits to its Neptune (22 Virgo 25) and now with Mercury going direct so close by, one’s faith in the Divine is in overdrive. So much to pray for. That includes the President whose Mars is at 22 Virgo 34, and his wife, Michelle whose Saturn is at 22 Aquarius 13. With Chiron, Eris, Mars and the sometimes-deceptive trickster Mercury calling the shots, we should all pray that they have the best of intentions. I’m down on my knees for the rest of the day my friend.
BK – Don’t you think the Divine has the power to move a storm when many minds are concentrating/praying on a situation? You are a champion my dear lady.
Awkward indeed.
In my morning email is a message from a christian prophet who said that the ‘voice’ of God spoke to him and asked everyone to pray for the leaders of this country, so that they would be open to His direction. Call me foolish, but I am a firm believer in the power of prayer. If ever there was a time that our president needed it, it is now.
Len,
Reaching awareness? Without contemplation? Perhaps. But not without adequate rest for sure. My apologies, but somehow, while on my dinner break tonight the country in the path of the typhoon changed from Vietnam to Korea. Good grief! Citizens of South Vietnam, you have no chart of your own anymore (if you ever did!) but you will not have to pay for the sins of South Korea I promise.
Also, when you mentioned the exactitude of the Eris to Mercury quincunx I saw there was a 2nd yod; Eris sextile Chiron to quincunx Mercury. So yes to the word of the day being awkward, yes to bending, yielding and learning, and yes to information overload.
So sorry for the screw up, but Patty, I’m sure the devastation will still be awful enough to open our hearts and pocketbooks to the folks who will suffer losses, but I don’t have the astrology to back it up anymore, just a good laugh at myself!
“Some efforts and enterprises have progressed with dispatch towards clarity and resolution. It would seem like a good place to sort through examples of both and figure out what’s up with that. Any ideas, folks?”
Len:
I hope that means we have a civil, orderly and fruitful debate on the public option in health care tomorrow in Congress.
Gooood catch on the yod, bkoehler. Reminds me of reaching for awareness without the luxury of contemplation. It’s good to be prepared for the moment when it presents itself.
Of all the aspects Eric pointed out, the most compelling is that with Eris (within ten arc SECONDS of being exact). When you consider Mercury to be on the very inside track and Eris on the very outside combined with the inconjunct / quincunx aspect, the word of the day would seem to be awkward in common. Those of us who are willing to bend and yield might learn something.
On a level not having to do with aspects, i have noticed two things about this retrograde (1) It has been a test of patience (2) There has been a lot of obfuscatiion and information overload, but it has not been universal. Some efforts and enterprises have progressed with dispatch towards clarity and resolution. It would seem like a good place to sort through examples of both and figure out what’s up with that. Any ideas, folks?
Love You All,
Len Wallick
Bk,
Awestruck!
Hey Patty,
Well, I’m sure the message of healing is the same, but I was checking on South Korea because it is in the bullseye of the storm that will hit the continent tomorrow, Tuesday. I did find that South Korea uses the “birthdate” of 8/15/48, which has the Sun at 21 Leo 42, which is EXACTLY opposite transiting Chiron. S. Korea’s Sun is conjunct Mercury at 24 Leo 38 and Saturn at 25 Leo 33. The Moon is in Sagittarius at 24 + Sagittarius.
This means that with trans. Chiron at the “point” of the yod, with the quincunx to each of the sextile planets, Mars and Mercury (all at 21+ degrees) it is where the energy of the aspect will manifest. With South Korea’s Sun opposite transiting Chiron, I expect there will be devastation aplenty. Let’s hope that Chiron will heal whatever wounds this Leo Sun must represent. And yes, get out the pocketbooks AND the Kleenex because I suspect it will be overwhelming (due to the close relationship of Neptune and Jupiter to Chiron). Also, I think you are right Patty, the love will be shown for these people, just as it was shown to the New Orleans and surrounding area citizens after the Katrina disaster. I think also, that because Saturn is so close to the transiting Mercury station direct tomorrow, this tragedy is associated with the opposition to Uranus somehow.
be
P.S. The Sabian Symbol for 22 Leo is A Carrier Pigeon Fulfilling Its Mission. Rudhyer says “This is the ideal of the WORLD SERVER.
Vis a vis Iran, the US is now in the position of having to do something other than start a war.
This will be Obama’s Cuban missile crisis. I trust that the comparisons to the Kennedy administration will end there.
Fe, in the morning I’ll cover the facebook poll incident. Thanks for the draft.
ef, signing off for the night.
BK – it is for healing – at least that is my instinct. That which isn’t love will be displayed for the world to see, same as Katrina’s devastation. That which IS love will also be on display. My guess is we’d all best empty our pocketbooks to help out whichever way we can, or face certain losses of our own. I’ve always been gifted with protection that way – or at least that is what I have always imagined.
21-22 deg Aquarius
A Rug Is Placed On The Floor Of A Nursery To Allow Children To Play In Comfort And Warmth
So is Iran showing some extreme unloving behavior right about now, or what?
Just realized that Mercury’s aspects with Chiron and Mars create a yod, with the focal point Chiron (and Neptune, and Jupiter!!) Is the 21 degree of Aquarius significant in the South Vietnam chart?
With the latest death count in the Philippines at 140 due to the massive storm (one report said it was twice the size of Katrina) that has now been upgraded to a typhoon, is headed to Vietnam. If it hits there, as the CNN weatherman reported, it could be even more devastating. In the Philippines, flooding has forced nearly 500,000 people from their homes.
The weatherman said if it hits Vietnam, the inland mountains would force the rain to flow back to the coastal region, where most of the people live, and add to the flooding that would already be hitting the area. It is supposed to hit Vietnam on Tuesday evening.
Other than Mercury going direct, what in the language of the planets would foretell this disaster?
I am astounded daily by where I see/feel/smell/hear the fear. It amazes me. People who have no idea that they detest change, that they cling to what is, or what was, that think they are progressive, that think they want something “new” in their lives.
And the emotional shit that goes with it. Jealousy. Ownership. Rage. Anger.
(wait…wait…I think I hear the 5th dimension singing…here it is…”…where is the love……”)
I feel at that point wherein I understand that my lifetime personal fear is been based in what others’ fear in me. Begining with dad and working through family, friends, teachers, acquantances – even the fucking stalker at my church (not helping at ALL with my conscious choice to participate in organized religion).
People afraid of truth, information, knowledge – what are they going to find out or experience that’s all so horribly bad? That we’ve fucked up? Sigh. Well, preaching to the choir here, Eric, you’ve been writing this for years.
Love you – and here’s to Change – REAL Change.
xoxo
Linda
I think that we need to flush out the shadows. Love reveals anything unlike itself. This is part of “the truth comes out.” It’s impossible to build a consensus without awareness and a common set of values.
What we are seeing here is backlash. There are actually people who are terrified of change; who are opponents of progress. We give them nice friendly names, like “ultra-conservative.” But that is just packaging. The issue here is that we as a culture have spent so much energy cultivating fear that we don’t know how to deal with its effects, and this is clearly one of them.
It is the statement that someone would rather die than change.
eric:
This is not a light-hearted comment on the Mercury retro phase we’re in.
As a response to how we need to handle these days, I think you’ve put it right. The disturbing, violent quality of the news, particularly about the culture wars, the death of the census worker in Kentucky, and the Facebook poll asking “Should President Obama be killed?” – makes me glad we’re at the end of the this particular retrograde.
It gives one pause. Are we through with going backwards culturally? Is this phenomena a reflection of Saturn-Uranus opposition? Are we facing, and hopefully healing that which we fear (the Other, change)? I know, even as I asked, these questions I ask now are fear-based.
The planetary station puzzle reminds me of the thing in physics where if you measure the distance between here and the refrigerator, and you calculate the time that takes for a mouse to walk half the distance, and then do it again with the remainder, and then again, then again, then again, the mouse never actually gets there.
Oh my goodness, mercy me, and lands’ sake.
You just took me back to Polly Pockets and her daily treasures (washboard, iron, needle’n’thread, etc in pockets round her pinafore) –
– my mini-washer, clothes line and teeny-tiny ironing board – so I could learn the pattern and tools of the trade along side mom’n’her daily chores.
OMG. And so part of my life-long ‘shucking’ was initially to scorn process and structure, but now rather to embrace the importance of strong foundation and understand that what needed doing is re-thinking and re-tooling the fundamental structure/s within which I live –
– then filling structure/s with Other Than the life-chores of generations past. Seems too oh-so Polly Pocket’s easy……we have come so far!
PS, my friend Tracy Delaney, who created Serennu.com and who has nearly as many Twitter followers as Obama, is an ephemeris programmer. I really don’t know how she did it (well, at the kitchen table, with a computer) but here is what she says about a planetary station. This is the thing that stood out from memory — “the speed never registers as zero, which would be actually stationary.” I asked her for the rest of the details. This is what you get when you put programming in the hands of a Pisces: you get philosophy.
Hi 🙂
Well it’s fun to go back to basics. In the program to find the station, I check its speed once a second around stationing time – Mercury always changes directions in less than a second (i.e., one second it’s speed is minus 0.0000001 (retrograde) and the following second its speed is +0.000001 (direct)) – the speed never registers as zero, which would be actually stationary. Most ephemerides only check it to the nearest minute anyway.
If we checked it every millisecond we might find what appeared to be a zero speed moment, but that would still probably only be due to limitations in the number of decimal places we were using – you could always go more accurate – so all you can do is hone in on the moment to a good enough level of accuracy, but you can never isolate it, and the whole thing becomes a philosophical problem – we can only infer that it must be stationary at some point.
This under-a-second station is even the case for objects as far out as Pluto.
Also, Swiss Ephemeris will give me the speed for any given moment – but we also have to think about how speed is really calculated – it can only ever be measured by comparing positions over time, i.e., we don’t really measure speed at an instant, speed is only a function of time, but by assuming uniform acceleration between two measurements we’ve taken either side we give it a number – I find the whole thing disappears up its own arse if you think about it for too long, it’s mind-blowing, suitable for Mercury storm 🙂
So I found my program wouldn’t work when Eris arrived on the scene (how very her) – because her speed does actually appear to be zero for several seconds (to the degree of accuracy we measure it).
x