By Len Wallick
Tonight, less than half an hour before the Full Moon, Mercury will enter its echo (or shadow) phase at 18+ Leo. That marks a boundary and a beginning. While the fleet one does not station retrograde until August 2, this passage stakes out what will be its furthest retreat. Crossing this point of entry into echo phase, Mercury will be precisely conjunct the asteroid Isis. That conjunction will open a continuum to both parallel and distinguish this particular retrograde cycle. In your life it may feel like remembering the future and anticipating the past while standing in forever. There may also be the sense that something is trying to get your attention.
In the words of astrologer Sheila Belanger, when a planet moves from one sign to another, it is as if the archetype it represents changes its costume. The symbolic intellectual energy of Mercury is currently wrapped in the raiment of Leo and the Sun, its ruler. This favors our thoughts and communication being brought to bear on matters of the conscious self. That was a theme of Gary’s Caton’s expository on the Full Moon in the Planet Waves subscriber edition two days ago. Yet there is another process, an echo, if you will, initiating in parallel and still below the surface with the beginning of Mercury’s shadow phase today.
When a planet in direct motion moves into the space it is destined to retrace, it slows down as if to listen to an echo from its own future. Appropriately, Mercury is not only listening but communicating the feel of that future to our minds by conjoining with Isis from the get-go. That is because this retrograde will not only repeatedly encounter but also express the archetype of that asteroid in several other forms.
Shortly before crossing over into Virgo, where it will station retrograde on August 2, Mercury will make its first of three conjunctions with a hypothetical point. That imaginary object, is called Isis-Transpluto. It has occupied the last degree of Leo for a long time. That is a place Eric has referred to as the sphinx point, where the Goddess energy is strong and “where we combine the energy of a woman with the energy of a cat. Or maybe just notice.”