Mercury turns on a dime in Sagittarius on Tuesday at 8:43 pm EST. Mercury resumes forward motion in a fire trine with the Leo Moon as if to remind us of surrounding circumstances. The word “surrounding” is used advisedly as a reference to the recursive nature of the astrology right now. That is to say, the large number of significant events in the sky seem to be containing and referencing each other like Matryoshka nesting dolls or, in a more seasonal reference, the so-called Chinese boxes. In your own life you may want to be open to a similar experience where any reference to yourself also references the world at large and vice-versa, because such perspectives may help you to deal with complex problems that may have confounded you up to now.
The first and most obvious recursive phenomenon is in relation to the current eclipse cycle that concludes with an auspicious total lunar eclipse this weekend. Mercury stationed retrograde on November 24, about a day before the November 25 partial solar eclipse that opened the burrow we have been moving through for nearly two weeks. In other words, the eclipse cycle has been very neatly nested inside the period of time that Mercury has been in apparent reverse motion. That matryoshka effect has contributed to the ambient weirdness of recent days. One example involved Mercury itself.
Right in the middle of the retrograde period, when Mercury was passing between Earth and Sun (basically eclipsing it) some folks think they saw an alien space ship in a video from one of our solar satellites. The video shows Mercury being impacted by a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun. Some viewers thought they saw a large, planet-sized object right behind Mercury, supposedly ‘uncloaked’ by the CME. Those eager to see evidence of alien life did not note that it was a highly processed time-lapse video made over two days, hence the sensible official explanation that the mysterious image was Mercury’s position from the day before. Then again, how many official explanations have you believed lately?
That question gets to the core of what we have been going through with an eclipse nested inside of a retrograde. Everybody wants you to think they are plausible. You may want the same thing, but on a case-by-case basis, not everything makes it through the horse feather filter. Of course, if the filter is going to work well at this time it should be based on more than just intuition. That’s because intuition is implied in the next recursive layer.
Fire signs represent, among other things, intuition. The ethereal plasma of a flame is hypnotic, giving us a hint of places our rational mind does not have access to. Sagittarius is the fire sign that has hosted both last month’s solar eclipse and the Mercury retrograde. It is also, however, the current location of one third of the known centaur objects and two mysterious points of sheer and unimaginable power. That’s enough to put a twist on even the soundest intuition.
The literal twist is with the mega-gravity object with the colloquial name, Great Attractor, because that’s what it does. That’s also about all we know. Something out there in inter-galactic space is powerful enough to pull millions of galaxies like a train wile curving and re-curving space-time around its kernel of truth. That kernel can only be the object of speculation. The same is true for the core of our galaxy, also located in Sagittarius. Intuition tells us The Core holds a key to our creation, but it is obscured by a band of dust made out of the same stuff you are made of. To behold the core is to reference yourself and back again. Speaking of which, the same is true of the centaur planets, but they hold a different kind of power — the power to get us out of a loop and on to a higher level of recursion.
Objects of mysterious origin and eccentric behavior, the centaurs are at once like us and very unlike us at the same time. In reality they resemble comets caught in a repeating loop that connect the large, gaseous outer planets. Symbolically they represent our burdensome connections from early life, earlier lives or previous generations that keep us in a repeating loop. Working with them consciously gives us a chance to break down into manageable pieces the behaviors contained within traumas, contained within behaviors that are of long ellipse and mysterious origin themselves. But it’s a lot, and it’s reinforced when Mercury finally gets moving forward again.
The reinforcing agent is the Leo Moon in a tight fire trine with the Mercury direct station in Sagittarius. Add a somewhat wider but accessible aspect with Uranus, now stationing direct in Aries, and you have a grand fire trine. That translates as a big powerful wheel of intuition, emotion and disruption that can get away from you if you let it. The key is to start with the little wheels and ride them until they connect with the next one and work your way up, no matter how powerful and attractive the big wheel of fire seems to be.
Start with the innermost matryoshka, the solid, knowable kernel of life inside all the hollow ones: yourself. Realize that Mercury going forward again will cover the ground of its retrograde and the ground of this weekend’s lunar eclipse yet a third time. Know that Mercury will eventually contact all the Sagittarius centaurs one more time. Understand that Mercury’s archetype, your mind, will get back on track again and be the better for it. Just remember to start with the little wheels, no matter how mundane they may seem. If you can do that and remember not to get stuck in a repeating loop, before long you will be riding higher than you ever dreamed.
Offered In Service
Maeve,
I too, rely on Tracy’s Serennu.com and Astro.com for charts. (And when using Astro, I’ll usually reference back to Serennu for clarity).
All my other learnin’ re: astrology has been here at PW and crusin’ the internet….I research astro just as I would anything else; read read read; evaluate, read, compare and verify the source.
Good to have you here; glad you joined the party!
xo
Carrie and Amanda: Thank you. Everything seems to be in place. Mercury is a trickster.
Maeve: Thank you. My reply yesterday was an affirmation which acknowledged that you do indeed get the gist of it. Recursive phenomena are inherently confusing because they are self referencing. Think of being between two mirrors and seeing your own reflection into infinity. The key is (just as you say it) to get off the smaller wheel where it intersects with the bigger one so you don’t get caught up in the repeating loop. Conceptually, the centaur planets help you do that. Please, does that help? As regards to doing your own chart, don’t worry about being confused, we all begin at the same place. Try serennu.com or astro.com or astrolabe – each sight has a place where you can put in your birth certificate data and get your chart. i like serennu best because Tracy Delaney is the best, especially with understanding how some of the fine points are as they are. You may find another site more to your liking depending on your style of thinking (they are all valid).
Carrie – Len’s response to me was a little two-liner (unless I also missed it). Fe’s comment about Athene is in the second to last paragraph/sentence of Fe’s first post. Just a couple words for each.
Len – I’m tryin’ to keep getting it. It comes and goes. This one sunk this morning while scanning this post – the nesting dolls/boxes/things also relate to the interconnectedness of “coincidences”. Seeing similarities in so many places sets patterns and expectations. If one can tweak the expectations for good, then you’ve a head start. 🙂 Start expecting the good stuff and you’ll see it more and more.
General question for y’all – I see many of you making reference to specific degrees and aspects of your natal charts juxtaposed with current planetary foo. While I’ve got my degrees of the basic stuff (sun, rising, north node, plus the regular planets, courtesy of astrolabe.com), is there a resource that’s more detailed and more useful so I can correlate the info like you guys seem to be doing? I do have my old “Everything You Need To Know About Astrology” purple book, but haven’t touched it in yeeeeears.
carrie, either Merc Rx is up to hijinx, or the posts you’re thinking of are in another thread. there was a lot of conversation with maeve under another post; a recent daily, i think.
Fe’s comment in this thread does mention Athene… or did you mean another one?
let us know if you find them!
🙂
Is it my imagination or is Len’s post to Maeve missing? It also seems like a post by Fe about Athene is missing. Anyone know why these are not showing up?
I be here Fe, and thanks for sharing your own visual of Athene bursting forth from her daddy’s head; somewhat different though from finding the seedling hiding in the mother’s form. It’s really a perfect way to truly balance it all, the masculine and feminine, the inner and the outer and find harmony in the process. After all, we are not just one or the other are we? I was just thinking that the “old picture” of yourself could be symbolized by Memoria’s brief presence (a scrapbook picture perhaps) on your nadir along with the transiting south node. It emphasizes the transient nature of life as we experience it, always evolving and yet able to look back to where we were and where we came from. We must not forget who we were once and only discard that which no longer serves us. The seed preserves the essence. What blooms through to the MC ( or even from daddy’s head) is a product of that seed and how well it has been nourished. Enjoy the journey!
be
Thank you, Len.
Fe and Amanda: Thank you.
this eclipse is conjunct my nodes, within a degree or so of my nodal return.
i find i just try to keep swimming,despite the moments of pressure and overwhelm, taking heart in small steps like mailing off my final student loan payment for my MA (since 1998!), finally making an appointment with a healer/counselor i’ve been curious about, making a connection, however unformed, between an ancestor’s story and my own. little steps for this doll.
Len: (and Be if you’re out there lurking)
Thank you for the grounding element of the matryoshka as visual icon for this upcoming weekend and week of events.
I’ve been working to wrap myself around the way this upcoming eclipse is affecting me: It’s right along the axis of my MC (13 Sag) and my IC (13 Gem). There’s something releasing, which is an old picture of myself in the world, with the new person working to break cleanly free into the open.
Perhaps, the energy breaking through is the “seed” inside the innermost nest doll, waiting to jump out the top of the head (like Athena did from Zeus) of the largest, outermost doll.
Personal note to Mysti: Bought me a nice little cinnamon broom yesterday at TJs. Been told for three years by “the Little Voice” to get one. Finally did. Weekend, here we come!!
Maeve: Thank you for your comment. Actually quite eloquent. By golly, i think you’ve got it.
be: Please, may i say “see my comment to Maeve”.
This reminded me of that old song “Circles In My Mind” by Dusty Springfield if memory serves me, and I’m not altogether sure it does. Still if nobody believes anybody – especially officials – these days, what difference does it make, huh? I like the intuition theme here with the grand trine of Moon and Mercury and Uranus-direct; potent stuff. Intuition can lead to imagination which can lead to creativity and that’s believable. As for seeing a space ship in the video of Mercury, well, we all are getting whacked by the CMEs which could cause us to see stars. Anyway, how many times did someone see Neptune but not speak up before he was ‘discovered’; speak up and be thought a fool or wait for confirmation and let someone else get the credit. It’s a gamble.
Well, I guess it depends on your values though, and for those of us who value plausibility and a mind on track, we have been advised of the lure of the GA and the rush of fire and the unconscious behavior of the centaurs. Thank you Len for clearing a path back to sanity during this wild and crazy period; it’s a mine (mind?) field out there and we appreciate your advice and wisdom.
be
This feels like the beginning of what I’ve been grasping towards with this whole crazy planetary woo-woo. Although it needs more thinking, it _makes sense_ now. Well, okay, -more- sense.
Thank you.