Mercury as I write has just entered the shadow zone for it's retrograde period which begins on 26th June. The retrograde hit zone this time around is between 13 and 23 degrees Cancer and lasts until 3rd August although the retrograde period itself will end as Mercury stations on 21st July.
Mercury today in the last full day of it's retrograde period, it turns direct just after 20:00 hrs London time (tomorrow). Right now Mercury is conjunct to and turning on the Fixed Star Deneb Adige, the brightest star in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan.
This star is nicknamed the star of the Shamen, it has a mystical, enchanted and almost euphoric feel to it, it is gently powerful in a very subtle way. The Swan as a bird is strong and can be very protective and aggressive, so there is a duality about this star that one never knows exactly what qualities are going to come out.
Now Mercury is known as the trickster or the joker in the universe, and combining this it with Deneb Adige, I get the feeling that what you see or hear now might not be the full story, there will be a deeper or slightly confusing element to everything that is going on, as if you are being lulled into a trance or a false sense of security. Maybe veiled threats will be made in trying to hide something, maybe someone will use humour against you to disguise a darker truth? Maybe you will deliberately thrown off course, diverted or delayed for some reason? Remember until tomorrow Mercury is still retrograde and even direct still in the retrograde shadow and conjunct to Neptune.
The Shamen will be plying his magic for the next week or so until Mercury finally moves out of range of Deneb Adige on 22nd March...
Oh yes, here we go once again. In just a couple of day’s time on 23rd February, Mercury Retrograde will be upon us all, this time in the watery sign of Pisces. Three and a half weeks of the most irritating kinds of difficulties and problems could pop up out of the blue and test our resolve. You know with the big problems in life we get a chance to sit and mull over what we are actually going to do to solve them, simply because the outer planets that create these changes move so very slowly. Mercury Retrograde on the other hand is so infuriating because it triggers small little testy issues that appear out of nowhere, often in quick succession, causing us any amount of grief and frustration. As such, Mercury Retrograde has gained this reputation as something bad and ominous. Is it as bad as it seems, and how do you go about things to make the best of an admittedly tricky planetary movement?
These aspects are starting to form running from now through until Monday/Tuesday 21st/22nd January
We have Mercury and the Sun moving together through the skies now and when one hits a star, the other follows straight afterwards. On entering Aquarius, these planets hit Altair, the star in Aquila the constellation of the Eagle. As I have mentioned before, Altair is a bold star of movement and bravery, one which is linked to strength, military matters and taking decisive action. Robson says of the Altair Sun connection that it brings honour, favours from superiors, many friends but losses and possible ill health. Mercury's link can bring difficulties, misfortune and problems on long journeys.
One immediately thinks of the Algerian hostage situation and the French air raids over Mali which continue to move on apace. This is a time for taking the lead in a situation, fast thinking and making bold decisions, but these can be rash and counter-productive if you haven't completely thought through your plans of action.
The moral of this story is use these conjunctions wisely and you can make strides forward. Use them recklessly and you might find yourself having to go back to the drawing board...
Spread the word about Solaris Astrology - Click here to go to my Facebook Page
This aspect is now active and exact on 13th November 2012 and in force until around 16th November.
This is one very tricky and potentially difficult aspect to deal with, and over the next couple of days you should all be rather wary of it. As you will be aware Mercury is retrograde and this aspect is often associated with things going wrong, communications getting lost or mixed up, delays happening and technical failures occurring. Now Mercury moving in retrograde will be making a troublesome square to Neptune which has just turned direct. With Neptune retrograde until just recently, our minds will have been clear and open to all possibilities and our intuition will have been serving us well. I don't think that we would have been so open to deception, only to deceiving ourselves. The reason is that any planet in retrograde works on an internal level, rather than in an external manner.
A good analogy for Neptune retro and direct can be seen in the weather. Neptune moving direct is like a low pressure system. The wind blows pushes us off course, the clouds roll in obscuring our view and the rain falls. We may get plenty of ideas, but we can't see properly how to implement them until some clear weather arrives; our intuition may be rather off the mark. The clouds brought in by the low pressure fog our minds and we become susceptible to deception and illusion from others. As the weather may be bad, we put on protective gear to shelter us from the storm and as such we do become more attuned to what is going on around us, and we become more pro-active.
When Neptune is retro, it's like a high pressure weather system. Normally you get clear still weather and you can see for miles in all directions. In the same way, Neptune retro brings clarity to our minds and we can see any problems way before they hit us. This clarity allows us the make use of the ideas we had during the Neptune direct period but it may also encourage us to get rather lazy, complacent and self-delusional because we know what the weather is going to be and we aren't expecting any nasty surprises. As we can see all the possibilities and we know what we want to achieve, we can avoid any dangers without having to try too hard.
Now with Mercury running into Neptune moving direct the chances of things going awry because of wrong or deceptive information. Our intuition may be a bit more tuned in now that Neptune is moving forward, but it better be as the con-artists and deceivers out there will be looking for likely victims. It is not a good idea to deal with important documents or make important decisions under this influence, as not everything we see, hear or experience will be as it seems...
By the way – look at the picture above one more time…
Tonight and into tomorrow morning Mercury makes a fire trine to Uranus so we have a really receptive link and connection between the planets ruling the mind and the higher mind - Uranus is the higher octave of Mercury. Keep track of your thought and your insights now as your brain is likely to be razor sharp and full of ideas and solutions to problems. Now is a time when you can think laterally and inventively however your attention span is likely to be short now, so don't be surprised if you get bored easily.
Uranus, the planet of rebellion, of disruption, independent spirit and thought turns retrograde on 13th July for it’s annual 155 day retrograde period. This happens on a regular basis and normally one would not take so much notice, however this time Uranus is now in a series of square aspects to Pluto and it’s turn to retrograde motion coincides with Mercury, the planet of communication and of the mind turning retrograde too a couple of days later on 15th July. What’s more, these two planets which represent the way we think are in trine aspect in the skies above us.
