STARFIRE

November 2006

November 2006 - Mercury Retrograde--Again
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MERCURY RETROGRADE--AGAIN

Mercury’s retrograde again, and for once, I was ready for it. October was a phenomenal month–a month of commitments, corrections, transformations, and endings–and as it drew to a close I found myself excited about new projects, but a little daunted by the scale of the commitments I made to myself. All those Saturn aspects! And all the work they bring with them!

When my desk is piled high with unfiled papers, Mercury retrograde is welcome. The piles go down. Odds and ends get finished. Details get cleared up, facts checked, and errors corrected. The year, Mercury retrograde is the calm before the holiday storm.

Jupiter and Saturn squared off in October, and Saturn moved away from its opposition to Neptune. Suddenly we’re all faced with all the solid work involved in the commitments we thought would be easy. They can still be easy, of course–but Saturn will require structure and foundation work.

Family commitments are cropping up now, too. Usually I hear about family needs at holiday time, but they’re coming early this year. We could lay the blame on Saturn and Jupiter again, since ancient astrologers often used Jupiter for the mother (the teacher in the home) and Saturn for the father (whose work was the family foundation). Or we could blame Saturn and Pluto for the family transformations and deaths. We could even look at the planets in the degrees of the nodes and say, Sure, there are always conflicts and crises when planets are in the nodal degrees.

From October 28 until November 17th , Mercury retrograde gives us a chance to slow down, get our bearings, and revise our plans. Mercury retrograde’s a good time for keeping promises, making minor repairs, and reworking budgets (but with a calculator, please, since most of us do make mistakes when Mercury’s retrograde).

For one thing, we’re not shopping for anything but immediate necessities. You aren’t, are you? Mercury retrograde’s not the time for shopping.

It’s a fine time for revising manuscripts, but not for starting them. National Novel in a Month begins while Mercury is retrograde this year. I’m participating–but then I carefully began my planning and plotting before Mercury went retrograde. As October went on, it seemed that more and more of my non-plotting writer friends were doing more advanced planning than usual. Saturn does have its uses.

One of the best indications in the Mercury retrograde chart is the close conjunction of the Sun, Venus, and Mars in Scorpio. Scorpio interpretations run the gamut from the lowest vices of our culture to the highest forms of healing and transformation. The Sun is our sense of higher purpose and self-direction. Venus represents our personal values. Mars is the motivation and energy to take action. Their close connection during the Mercury retrograde period suggests a focus on personal interests that will offset the external pressures of Saturn, Neptune and Pluto in recent weeks.

Jupiter and Mercury in conjunction are good for communication, but they are in Scorpio, the silent sign. Jupiter and Mercury in Scorpio could leave important words unsaid, but they could also bring deep feelings to the surface where they can be shared. I’ve been suggesting that private clients use this time to revisit sticky issues in personal relationships, to make one more effort now to resolve problems and clear up misunderstandings.

Saturn was in the 23rd degree of Leo when Mercury went retrograde, and Jupiter and Mercury were squaring Saturn from the 23rd and 24th degrees of Scorpio. The conflicts and needs for correction that come up now will not go away. Projects that require more structure or more research or corrected data should be given top priority. The last ten days of each Mercury retrograde period are especially good for planning, and important projects do need intense planning now.

Unfortunately, the degrees of the nodes are in the 24th degree, and Pluto and Mercury are each in the 24th degrees of their signs. The Moon is conjunct Pluto and barely into the 25th degree. Jupiter conjunct Mercury is in the tag end of the 23rd degree. The configurations around the 24th degree suggest important and long-lasting crises on a scale ranging from family crises to international terrorism. Mercury retrograde doesn’t favor new negotiations, but it may moderate and provide an opportunity to revisit old issues and calm down international tensions.

Mercury retrograde tends to favor incumbent, and we have Congressional elections in all 50 states while Mercury is retrograde. Both parties have made an effort to encourage early voting and absentee voting this year. Early votes, of course, are less likely to be influenced by Mercury retrograde and are less likely to favor incumbent. In one of the hottest races I’m following, the two candidates are both incumbents in widely publicized positions–although of course one is running for re-election to her own seat and the other is leaving her position to vie for the Congressional post. So there we are with incumbent of sorts vs. incumbent for sure, and Mercury possibly shifting the balance in the final days before the election. Now that’s the kind of fun that keep astrologers up at night.

The chart I’ve used for this column is set for New Mexico only because I live there and am watching the fireworks from that vantage point. If we set the chart for Washington, the Moon-Pluto conjunction would have moved into the 10th house, and Saturn in the 7th would remind us of our nation’s powerful enemies. The Moon-Pluto conjunction is a monthly event, so we can’t read too much into it. Its connection to the nodes and to the retrograde event give it weight, and its influence would be a revision of our leadership’s intentions in the War on Terrorism. There’s not enough evidence in the chart to suggest the direction of the change–only that there’s good support for a change, and that no possible change right now would please all the people affected by it.

There are no planets in cardinal signs, so no new initiatives suggested. With a full stellium (five planets) in Scorpio, we’re more likely to dig in to fixed ideas than to be flexible in negotiations. Unfortunately, that’s a worldwide tendency now.

It’s also unfortunate that the chart set for Washington moves the Sun, Venus and Mars into the Eighth House. Self-interest reigns, and private interests will be unusually powerful in the November election.

It looks like an interesting winter. The Scorpio stellium and Mercury retrograde coming together at election time, along with the Saturn connections to both Jupiter and Pluto, provide a pressure cooker effect. There will be changes this winter. We’ll choose some, and others will choose us.

It’s worth taking time while Mercury is retrograde to calm our passions, clean up our personal messes, and plan principled actions for the weeks ahead.

Mary O’Gara, Ph.D.