Rapid Transitions — Mercury, a Comet and a Man

And it didn’t really have to stop, it just kept on going.
— Jimi Hendrix, “Castles Made Of Sand”

The astrology of the next few days correlates with the rapid transitions that define the essence of Mercury, a comet named ISON, and a man who could have been 71 years young tomorrow — James Marshall (Jimi) Hendrix. At 3:35 am EST tomorrow, Mercury moves past the Scorpio degree where it appeared to reverse its motion on October 21. That’s another way of saying that Mercury will have emerged from the shadow (or “echo”) of its final retrograde this year.

Astrology by Len Wallick

At the same time Mercury enters new Scorpio waters, comet ISON will be near its closest approach to the Sun, which will take place Thursday. You could say both Mercury and ISON are moving on, but in very different ways.

Mercury will continue to move around the Sun and through the zodiac; of that we can be reasonably sure. That is not to say, however, that Mercury will merely be going through the same motions you may have become accustomed to.

After taking nearly two months tracing and re-tracing the first two thirds of Scorpio, Mercury will zip through the final third in about a week, entering Sagittarius on Dec. 4. That’s a big transition, and it’s probable that there will be some correspondingly swift movement in your life as regards the nature of Mercury and its correlation to how you think, communicate, or receive and process information. So long as it does not mean that you will be driving too fast, it’s probably all to the good — your good.

Mercury is transitioning back to its old self after spending about half of this year swimming, sailing or slogging through the three water signs — Pisces, Cancer and Scorpio. Looking back, it has probably been time well spent for you, like slowly going through the motions of learning something new. Don’t be surprised if the proficiency to execute those slowly practiced moves precisely, and with great speed, is one of the transitions you experience soon after tomorrow, and as Mercury continues to accelerate into next year.

Even though Mercury is undeniably swift (both in apparent and actual motion), it pales in comparison to the comet currently called ISON, which is rapidly approaching a speed of 248 miles per second as it nears its closest encounter (or perihelion) with the Sun. Along with its higher speed, ISON is also associated with a higher degree of uncertainty as compared to Mercury.

By making what is probably its first (and perhaps last) conjunction with the Sagittarius Sun during the United States holiday of Thanksgiving, ISON has the potential to rapidly transition into a spectacular, and auspiciously timed, celestial phenomenon that would far outshine Mercury (or any other planet) and inspire people for years to come.

Yet that potential comes with the possibility of ISON transitioning out of existence altogether (for having flown too close to the Sun), and the probability of being a phenomenon as short in duration as it is swift and spectacular, never to be seen again. Lending a poignant and provocative edge to the comparisons and contrasts of Mercury and ISON during their nearly concurrent rapid transitions this week is the fact that both together and separately they symbolically evoke memories of James Marshall Hendrix on the 71st anniversary of his birth tomorrow.

Those of us who were fortunate enough to see Jimi Hendrix perform know how he manifested the astrology of the late 1960s. It is astrology we are both revisiting and expanding upon now on several levels.

In 1967, when Jimi burst onto the scene to outshine all his peers, Mercury was having a year very much like this one. The three water sign retrogrades of 1967 correlated to the long years when Hendrix practiced, polished and learned to play faster and more fluidly than anybody else. That long development quickly culminated in a career transition that finally started moving as swiftly as Jimi’s playing — much as Mercury is finally and quickly getting back up to speed now.

The acceleration of Jimi’s career in turn corresponded to an acceleration in the thinking, communication and information processing of his generation, inspiring people (musicians and otherwise) for generations to come.

In addition to being the product of long practice, Hendrix’s technique was both innovative and integrative. He combined mastery of respected traditional performance modes with audacious showmanship, like playing his guitar behind his back, or with his teeth. On top of that, he went where no guitarist had gone before by systematically weaving the devalued “straw” of electronic distortion and feedback into melodic gold.

By the same token, the Mercury retrogrades of both 1967 and this year have served to encourage people (perhaps including you) to synthesize intellect (Mercury) with emotions (water signs) into a sum greater than the previously separated, and unequally valued, parts.

Unfortunately, Hendrix did not apply his musical proficiencies to his life. Instead of integrating and synthesizing his rapid success into a new period of artistic and personal development, he transitioned from earthly existence at the age of 27, leaving us with a valuable lesson — a teaching that ISON now evokes in the form of both individual and collective questions. As usual, the collective answers will derive from the greater sum that your personal answers will contribute to.

After having devoted so much of this year to the arduous but productive process of advancing your individual growth, to what purpose will you turn it? Or will your apply it at all? Or go back to being your old self?

Facing a world as uncertain as ISON’s fate, can you integrate its teachings after it is long gone, probably never to return? Beyond that, will you be able to take inspiration from the rapidly transitional, no matter where and how you find it, and apply it so as to advance the cyclical beyond repetition?

Jimi Hendrix is gone, never to return as he was. One way or another, the same will almost certainly be true of ISON. Mercury, on the other hand, will return. It will return to Sagittarius in about a week. It will return to Scorpio in about a year. One day, it will even return to another year of exclusively water sign retrogrades.

If humanity is to survive beyond those returns and avoid rapidly transitioning out of existence altogether, you and each of us together must begin now to assure that the perpetual cycles of the sky do not correlate to a repetition of mistakes.

It will mean integrating the cyclical certainty of Mercury with what ISON is about to teach us through their mutual proficiencies for rapid advancement. You can do that. This year has prepared you to advance rapidly yourself. Further, you can weave what you have integrated into a synthesis of your own, as a fitting remembrance of what Jimi Hendrix both succeeded in achieving and fell short of doing. He would have wanted somebody to take up where he left off, not necessarily in music, but in life. That somebody could be you. 

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

21 thoughts on “Rapid Transitions — Mercury, a Comet and a Man”

  3. Thanks Len. I am getting some papers notarized Friday (only time the mobile notary is available) to hopefully clear up some issues I need clearing up. This reading you have done makes me feel a lot better about the issues at hand.

  5. Robert Fripp is another. His Guitar Craft was part of my training and gave me the original idea to put together music and meditation.

  6. Chief: it’s good to hear of more. Bowie was one who fell into crazy with Ziggy and the White Duke, but then got off cocaine by the end of the 70’s and still lives. Paul McCartney and Donovan are also inspirations as they’ve integrated meditation into their practice and still have strong voices. Tori Amos is another who integrates health into her musical path. Any new way starts out with only a few. A lot more wisdom seeds have sprouted now than during the conjunction of Uranus Pluto at the beginning of this wave. Hardly any pale folk had heard of Tai Ji in the 60’s, now it’s practically a household word. Resilient things grow slowly. Especially when empire pulls them, thinking them to be weeds.

  7. Ive been amiss some in my new meditation practice (moving seems to pull me away or toward other issues) and so I just commence today with the centering thought of gratitude. Funny (and so perfect) that this comes for thanksgiving!! as we all focus on the “one prayer you ever need speak” … let me add here that I am so grateful for this piece, Len, for your honoring Jimi as you do, his music, his mastery AS WELL AS the site you mention, strawberry laughter. I am always so happy I come here. My soul thrives on finding such likeminded evolved and loving spirits. Bless you all for sharing as you do.
    m-mack

  8. Was that a deep sigh of relief that escaped my lips as I slept at 3:35 am today? On the day Mercury stationed retrograde a month and a week ago, I made plans. Included in those plans was some personal work with the Dark Goddess who’d been bird dogging me for over a year. What a fool I was! Thinking I could have her on MY terms! All my plans unraveled and I spent a few weeks grinding away in her gizzard. We are not finished, but I can feel her pushing me back toward the light, lest I get too comfortable in this long retreat. So very relieved to have Sun in Sagittarius and Mercury speeding along forward. I get to apply what I learned, and make some new mistakes instead of the same old ones. I hope. Saturn lumbers on through Scorpio, heading for my natal rendezvous.

    Strawberry, your website is a beam! (you can discreetly link it to your name in your wordpress profile, and anyone who wants to know more about you here at PW can look.) What a lovely story with your brother. Inspiring and hopeful. My three brothers have been neglected by me too long.

    Be, that bear waving its paws is hysterical, except that the bear is a tough love medicine, and probably will not take kindly to my amusement.

    Thanks for the collected poetry and perspectives from Suria, Wandering_yeti, and Chief Niwots Son, and A word’s straw into gold! Yes to that one.

    Work calls. Thanks for joining me for coffee this morning.
    Thank you Len, as always.

  9. What a beautiful website Strawberry! How exciting! I only had time to have a quick look (and read Len’s lovely horoscopes), and really look forward to reading it properly when I have time. What struck me is that although it talks about pain, it’s full of light and spaciousness. You inspire me, girl! Great about your brother, too.

  10. Kari: Thank you for your kindness and congratulations on what can only be called a winning streak for you.

    craig: Thank you for the love, and for accepting the love that is my service here.

    aword: Speaking of love – loved how you captured it all so succinctly. Thank you.

    wandering_yeti: Yes! Speaking of having captured the essence of the problematic parts. Yet, your own participation with music (as shared with us) has repeatedly revealed that the true cathedral is in your heart and in the heart of other musicians who find their salvation through the most blessed of devotions – song. If memory serves, it was Kant who noted that music and laughter alone require no reason. Thank you once again for sharing your hard-won wisdom (which Kant would have reason to envy).

    suria: Thank you once again for a lyrical synopsis that is also an expansive exploration – truly humbling for me.

    Chief Niwots Son: Thank you for sharing your dream so generously, a well as your fine sense of things mercurial. Most of all, thank you for your continuing support of others who comment here.

    P. Sophia: Your kindness is accepted gratefully as among the greatest of blessings. Thank you so very much.

    beleclaire: You are very welcome.

    be: And a very Happy Thanksgiving to you. Good eye on your part for those degrees of Aquarius you have noted, because they not only correspond theme-wise to now, but also to next year, when Mercury will transit precisely those degrees after emerging from the echo phase of its next retrograde cycle. Wow – you are good!

    Salamander: Thank you for your adroit perception, and good luck on your internship.

  11. Thank you for the article, Len Wallick.

    I guess ISON’s voyage coincided with the recent diplomatic deal regarding Iran, which was a very pleasant surprise. ^^

    So I guess the weather on Tuesday and Wednesday is a symbol of Mercury in Scorpio finishing its shadow phase. No wonder it felt like a Mercury Rx day in terms of weather and travel.

    I am looking forward to Mercury’s entry into Sagittarius, perhaps I’ll feel more energized throughout the day! 🙂

    I’ll do what I can to put the Mercury in Sagittarius transit to good use. I’ll focus on my natal Saturn in Sagittarius to continue driving as wisely as possible, and being a wise adventurer. With my internship, I certainly have interesting local trips servicing precipitation and stream gages.

    What I have noticed though is that with Sagittarian transits, people feel more strongly about my convictions. With Uranus and Pluto challenging my natal Neptune in Capricorn, and Neptune squaring my natal Jupiter in Gemini, my ideals are changing, and I feel less opinionated compared to before (for better or for worse). And then with Mars in Virgo (then through Libra) going through my 7th house, I feel more challenged by other people, and it makes me want to be more careful about what I express to others.
    So I’ll have to be cautious with Mercury’s transit through Sagittarius.

    Strawberrylaughter, I am happy to hear that you have made so much progress this year, and that you got back in touch with your brother.

  12. I do hope ISON makes it around the Sun Len, how exciting that he will make his perihelion to the Sun on this U.S. holiday. It would make our Thanksgiving memorable for sure. The symbolism of Mercury leaving his shadow phase and ISON’s brilliance has evoked for you the memory of Jimi Hendrix with its combination of speed and its synthesis of mind and feeling. For me it evoked the story of Phaethon and his father the Sun god Apollo. Today trans. Phaethon is at 19+ Aquarius, but on Thanksgiving Day he will be conjunct Minerva (aka Pallas-Athene) who also symbolizes creative intelligence and wisdom. They will be at 22+ Aquarius and I thought you would find the symbolism (Sabian) appropriate. . .
    “A BIG BEAR SITTING DOWN AND WAVING ALL ITS PAWS. . . The self-discipline which results from an intelligent development of individual faculties under proper training.” (An Astrological Mandala by Dane Rudhyar)

    If Mercury and ISON can teach us to advance rapidly, then what about the Sabian symbol for the degree where Phaethon (who flew to fast and too close to the Sun) and Minerva (a master weaver and rational thinker) will be on Thursday which expresses the value of training? Dane Rudhyar says “We can learn to discipline our natural impulses and to use them for a more-than-personal purpose.”

    It looks to me like all roads lead to a rapid transition into new purpose if we can just, as you say keep from “driving too fast” and going up in flames. I hope you and all PlanetWavers will have a spectacular Thanksgiving this year. We have much to be grateful for don’t we?
    be

  13. Thank you, Beleclaire & Chief Niwots Son. It is indeed lovely icing on a somewhat excessively-caked year. I hadn’t realized how much I’ve missed the strength that relationship brings me. Brothers, when you don’t need to strangle them, are one of the greatest gifts a girl can have.

    And I appreciate your note about my site. I’ve been hesitant to promote it here, but as I’ve been brazen enough to poach one of Eric’s writers, I suppose the least I can do is promote his work. So — Eric, I hope you’ll forgive me, I’ll only do this once — for anyone who’s interested, my website is StrawberryLaughter.com. A few pages in, you’ll find monthly healing-oriented horoscopes Len has been generous enough to team up with me to create.

    I’d never have been able to do any of this without the healing support & wisdom I’ve found here, week in & week out. Many, many thanks to all of you.

  14. Wise words Len received with thanks.
    This year of watery Mercury retrogrades has been full of unexpected revelations for which I give thanks..

    Kari – what a beautiful reconnection with your brother, thank you for sharing it.

    Happy Thanksgiving all.

  15. This is a day that is filled with such signs and symbols, of feeling connections of love, divine purpose and unity. A truly blessed and miraculous day. There are no words to express my gratitude here, to all. But to you Len I somehow hope you feel how thankful I am for you too. With great appreciation, I send out loving kindness for you.

  16. “Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful…”

    – James Marshall Hendrix

    That breath of fresh air I felt last week has picked up speed, and this Mercurial Gemini is happy for the movement of Air. Last night a dream of college, now 30 years in the rear-view mirror, felt like the liberation of an old way of being, and the old baggage of the past. I’ll be searching the sky for ISON now that the clouds have lifted, looking for that flash that so resembles the arc of Jimi’s career.

    wandering_yeti: While many “rock stars” did not get past the frat boy stage, I will submit to you two gentlemen who “got it” during their careers with the Grateful Dead: Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh. Mickey recently toured his “Superorganism” music, which features him interfaced with a computer that translates his brain waves directly into music. Phil, having received a liver transplant in 1999, continues to tour and loves playing with the younger generations of musicians, teaching them on-stage how to search for the Sound. Only a few, but perhaps the same percentage of the general population that leans into “waking up” in a give incarnation.

    Strawberrylaughter: What a beautiful gift to have reconnected with your brother, and that he was able to see you for who your really are. On top of every other wonderful accomplishment of this past solar cycle, this feels like the icing on the cake. PS- Your website is beautiful, may it be the portal towards healing for all you may benefit from your gift.

  17. i shall start again in the morning, whichever way that is….
    know. in the dark
    forbidden phrases unspoken echo
    (when? i was halfway up the hill
    or was i halfway down?)
    this place – hospitable but not familiar –
    smells of purple petals.
    maybe, curled up at a tree-foot
    forgetting how i come to be here,
    fairies can take the dream.
    (not the prayer.
    not my sheltered song.)
    who turned the lights off? oh, me.
    oh my! just when i thought i’d the might to see
    what i’ve been doing. even though.
    even though (who?).
    even though (why?). all through…
    (when?) i was having so much fun
    (you weren’t to know i was having fun
    i didn’t say…or did i? did you answer?)
    the past is passed. now in the night
    the stars shine brighter.
    the future? right on another edge.
    like a racing comet
    with a question.

  18. Hendrix was one of many sacrifices to the gods of money, the record company executives as far as I can tell. A dead rock star is like Jesus for the Roman Empire; you can now use him as you will without the living person to shine light on your lies. I was born after Hendrix died, but the Rock machine was still shining strong in my childhood. Like millions of kids I saw the powerful magicians weaving their spells on larger than life stages that put the Gothic Cathedrals to shame and fell in love. But all that glitter has a seedy underbelly where rock stars never mature past frat boy drunkenness, where the money and the over the top sensory stimulation combine with easily available cocaine, heroin, and booze to crash many a sensitive artistic human.

    Since I was a musician before I got martial arts and before the Dharma started to influence me those Asian techniques create in me a different kind of musician. I feel something of the old Bardic way in how my training came together where it’s not enough to be a dazzling performer on the surface; discipline, compassion, and balance prevent the fall into mindless consumption and arrogant postures that lead to misery and early death for far too many sensitives.

    The sensitives of humanity are the indigenuity of humanity’s baseline because it’s the heart that senses sentience, not the words or the microscopes. If human wants to continue to evolve we can’t afford to waste the sensitive folk as the Rock industry so often does.

  19. Weaving straw into gold.
    My mission;I choose to accept it.
    (ISON may self-destruct in five seconds, but your pertinent lessons Len, will not.)
    Thank you.

  21. “This year has prepared you to advance rapidly yourself”??? Is that even possible? Good god, Len, what a thrilling idea.

    I’ve been feeling a bit lost since the Sun left Scorpio, like my little storm-tossed sailboat has finally reached the doldrums — that band of water near the equator where the forces from above & below meet, & cancel one another out. It feels a little like the wind has gone out of my sails; the surface has found some solidity, & I can see into the depths without my mask. But apparently it’s just a short time-out. 😉

    In the moment’s quiet, though, I appreciate all I’ve learned in this watery year. The indescribable ways my heart has expanded, to embrace life and love however they show up. I expect I’ve fallen in love a dozen times this year, sometimes with things in myself, certainly with my work, often enough with others. As I make room for more of me, I find there’s automatically room to take in more of what my world is offering. Like the Grinch, my heart’s grown four sizes this year.

    The sweetest and most unexpected confirmation that all this has been energy well spent came from my baby brother (who has towered over me since we were teenagers), saying to me after I worked on him the other day, “you are not the big sister I’ve ever, ever known, but you’re the big sister I’ve always wanted. I remember you being my best friend once, but I’d written our relationship off years ago & had given up even attempting to have a meaningful connection with you again. It’s amazing to have you back.”

    He & I were once allied against the world — Wonder Twin Powers, Unite!! (Incidentally, he has Chiron 3 arc minutes into his 1st, so bang-on his AC, a Sun-Panacea conjunction in his 11th, & a Pluto-Sirona (Celtic goddess of healing) conjunction in his 6th. He runs a wellness center.)

    Odds look to be better than even that he & I will find ourselves renewing that old alliance in the coming year. There’s so very much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. Know that all of you will be in my dinner prayer on Thursday.

    My love to you all, ~Kari

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