From Body to Mind

By Len Wallick

Tomorrow, Friday August 20, Mercury stations retrograde at one minute before 4 pm EDT at 19+ degrees Virgo. This is an event that takes place three times in most calendar years. This corresponds directly to the fact that Mercury goes around the Sun about three times in the period that it takes the Earth to go around once. This particular year we get to experience most of four because one was already in progress when 2010 began.

Not all Mercury retrogrades are created equal. Granted, all of them have a great deal in common. In addition, the sign or signs in which the retrograde takes place, and even the degree at which it stations are subject to subtle cyclic repetition. However, the location and direction of that sign’s ruler, the orientation of the luminaries and the placement and direction of all the other planets are never precisely duplicated. Thus, every retrograde period develops a theme of its own.

The first thing to realize about any retrograde is that it is an illusion of perspective. There’s not much difference in the actual speed at which planets move but the varying size and shape of orbit will create a difference in the apparent speed. To simplify, the planets on the inside lanes will lap those tracing a longer ellipse. This creates an observational experience somewhat akin to being on a train that starts to move forward, making the stationary train on the next track appear to move backward.

Another thing to know is that when a planet stations it turns on a dime and gives you ten cents change. One moment it is slowly moving in one direction. Then, precisely the same moment it is slowly moving the other way. No, there is no stationary moment. Just think, if you could do that, you would either be a superhero or a very highly paid athlete.

Specific to Mercury retrogrades is the general pattern of expression that has become proverbial and even iconic. Indeed, the characteristic synchronicity is consistent enough to serve as the gateway to astrology for many people. If it has to do with communication, transportation, electronics or finance, expect Murphy’s Law to prevail. Indeed, many of you may have recently experienced this.

That’s because the few days before and after a Mercury station are when what can go wrong is most likely to go wrong to the greatest degree at the worst possible time. This period is often called the storm and is comparable to the tidal surge that precedes a hurricane. Misplaced the car keys lately, have we? Your intrepid correspondent had a taste just hours ago having incorrectly saved and entirely lost the first draft of this blog, having to start over from scratch in the middle of the night. Oh well. Such is the fragrant fertilizer that contributes to spiritual growth and stronger character. And if you believe that, Eric can get you a good deal on a serviceable bridge in Brooklyn.

Like the much shorter period called a Moon void, things started, acquired or put together during a Mercury retrograde have a nasty tendency. They often need to be done over, be replaced or will fall apart. Nevertheless, life does not and cannot come to a standstill at any time. Sometimes it’s necessary to begin, proceed with or complete things in spite of auguries. Indeed, it’s healthy if you refuse to be dissuaded from any reasonable effort or enterprise so long as you are just as determined to resist discouragement and exercise positive persistence.

As regards to appropriate behavioral protocol, it’s almost like being a boy or girl scout. If there ever were a time to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind (let’s leave out “obedient”, ok?) cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent, Mercury retrograde is that time. Be sure to add patient and make wry note that the scout credo does not include the word sober, just in case you wondered where that song about one hundred bottles of beer on the wall came from.

Finally, those of us who have grown up in the modern world of multi-national corporations, instant communication and media saturation have not been taught about a concept that was common knowledge not so long ago. The pan-cultural concept of the Trickster. The elusive entity that messes with our perception, leading us to error. In Greco-Roman mythology, that was one of the hats worn by multi-tasking Mercury. For the present-day, please consider the probability that the Trickster exists inside us and that taking responsibility is also taking control.

That about brings us up to speed on the generalities. This specific retrograde is the third consecutive one to take place entirely within the bounds of an earth sign. As such it completes a grand trine tour of sorts. It has been written in this space before that three times indicates a pattern. Let’s look at how the previous two Mercury retrogrades began and see if we can distinguish one developing.

The day after Christmas 2009, Mercury stationed at 21+ degrees Capricorn. A cardinal Earth sign ruled by Saturn. Just days before, the Sun had ingressed the same sign, marking a solstice that was concurrent with the epic Mars retrograde station in the first degree of Leo. Also in Capricorn was Pluto, in direct motion at that time, almost exactly ninety degrees apart from Saturn in early Libra (a square aspect), very close their present position. Combining those elements of context with the fact that the phenomenon carried over to the next calendar year, retrospect seems to have developed a theme, that of sorting through our accumulated and common cultural baggage. We’re performing the sort of purge that one would conduct before packing only the essentials in preparation for a new life at a new residence, far far away.

The next date Mercury turned retrograde was April 17, 2010 at 12+ degrees Taurus, a fixed Earth sign. This time the station took place just before the Sun ingressed the same sign on April 20. This was the same day Chiron found itself in Pisces for the first time in over 40 years. This was the same day a particular oil rig in the Gulf Of Mexico blew up. This made for the most foreboding Beltane since Mordred was born. That seems to be the gist of the theme: a disturbing, unbounded, ill-defined sense of loss, featuring layer upon layer of deception with no sane motivation. There is interminable uncertainty with no closure or resolution. It’s like waiting for Godot to sing ‘Hier sitz ich zur Wacht‘ and wondering whether that is dry ice or smoke appearing from behind the curtain.

Which brings us to tomorrow. Having absorbed an eclipse cycle during June and July, we are still getting our bearings on the other side of a wormhole. We’re in the midst of a tight, new rendition of the cardinal T-square that we must learn to experience physically in order to sustain awareness. It is concurrent to the hour with the Leo Sun opposing retrograde Neptune in Aquarius, and concurrent to the arc minute with the hard-earned yet compromised conjunction of Venus and Mars in Libra. Once again, just days before the Sun makes ingress to the sign where Mercury retrograde is taking place in a mutable earth sign — Virgo, ruled by Mercury itself.

What are we to think? One may propose that first and foremost we must think. It is the reason your servant has proposed that we now be in the process of knowing and tracking the cardinal T-square in the auspices of our intuitive, emotional, physical body. Appropriate because, like any physical discipline or occupation it frees our mind to think. Mercury regressing in a sign of paradox and promise will require every bit of awareness, focus and reason we can muster.

The potential is that we can experience what recent colloquial terminology has called change on a cellular level. That’s another way of saying accelerated evolution in this life, now. Necessity is in the process of becoming a real mother. The current synchronicity of the planets is extraordinary and is asking for us to respond in kind, by re-inventing ourselves consciously and intentionally. We can no longer afford to leave the important business of evolution to natural selection lest we be selected out.

If you don’t believe that, consider this. Uranus, the planet historically associated with change that is as unpredictable as it is monumental, has retrograded back to Pisces, the twelfth solar house, and a mutable water sign. Pisces is ruled by Jupiter, which is currently retrograde in Aries, part of the new rendition of the cardinal T-square yet still functionally conjunct Uranus. No sooner does this happen than Pakistan, already the most unstable nuclear power in the world, finds itself literally under water and figuratively hung out to dry by the rest of the world. How would you feel if you lived there? Pissed off maybe? Betrayed? Abandoned? Desperate?

And all the while the lunar nodes are rolling back like the hands of a retrograde clock. Back towards Gemini and Sagittarius, the nuclear axis. We have our work cut out for us, folks.

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