STARFIRE

September 2009

September 2009 - Mercury Putting the World in Order Again
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Mercury Putting the World in Order Again

It’s been a memorable summer, but other summers have been more enjoyable.

Fortunately, Mercury goes retrograde September 7th, and there will be order in our lives again. Think about the lessons of the past year; the American public has been feeling our economic problems in very personal ways all year. Coming to the full cycle of the seasons, people feel disheveled, frazzled, weary–and hopeful.

Mercury retrograde is the perfect time to tie up loose ends. The September 2009 retrograde season brings specific benefits and minor hurdles, so there are techniques to be observed if you want the full benefit of this retrograde.

First, finish your shopping by Labor Day (September 6 for those of you outside the United States) and focus on using up what’s at hand from September 7th to September 29th. Saving money is still in style, so go ahead and reuse envelopes, use free deposit slips from the bank, or wear out the things you’d never buy again anyway.

Then, make a list of every single unfinished project, personal or business. All of them. Even the ones you know you’re never going to get around to. (The first time I did this I had over 500 items on my list, most of them leftovers from owning a retail yarn and needlework shop.) Keep working on the list until it’s truly complete, right down to the apology you’ve been avoiding or the book you need to return even though you’d really like to read it one more time.

If you find affirmations useful, try this one when your list is complete: “I now choose to complete every worthwhile project I begin.” (And thanks to Jack Addington for the suggestion.) Write it on the list, say it over and over in spare moments, intone it as you’re going to sleep.

Now choose the projects you’re simply not going to do. Cross them off the list. Give away or toss out any materials you’ve kept just for those projects. Jupiter (expansion) and Neptune (sacrifice) are moving together (conjunct) in the sky now, so sacrificing what you no longer want is an appropriate way to stir up new abundance.

What you don’t want will be a treasure for some local charity. Homeless shelters and group homes for battered women and children relish toys and crayons, for example, and food banks are as eager for canned food as other charities are for winter clothing and blankets.) If you’re not going to do it, get it off the list while Mercury is retrograde.

Now schedule completion for everything else. Estimate the time and put it on your calendar or day-timer. Pay attention to your intuition (Neptune again) and move anything you don’t want to schedule over to the “sacrifice” pile.

Return everything you’ve borrowed. Then ask everyone to pay you what they owe or return what they’ve borrowed. Okay, not everything. We all have friends with whom borrowed books and traded favors just seem to stay in balance. I’m talking about the ones that get out of balance and make you tighten a jaw or arm muscle when you think about them.

By the time you finish all that work, you’ll have honored both the completion and the planning modes of Mercury retrograde. You’ll have nodding briefly at the Sun and Saturn, which are also conjunct during the Mercury retrograde period. The Sun-Saturn combination provides structure for new plans, so be sure to end the period with a list of ne projects you want to undertake after Mercury goes direction September 29th.

Meanwhile, back in Washington

Today I’ve had three phone calls about the astrological chances for health care reform, so I set the chart for this month in Washington.

 One of my callers is eligible for an existing program. If there’s any chance you have government benefits or grants you’re not using, the first week of September is a good time for initiating a new search. If you need to reapply for a benefit, consider doing that while Mercury is retrograde. (There may, of course, be other considerations–deadlines, available assistance, or an intuitive feeling about your personal timing.)

Congress will revisit the health care package with Mercury retrograde. The odds of anything new being added when Congress goes back to work this fall are minimal. The chances are Congress will revisit that 1100-page package, whack a lot of it and pass the rest. Old programs will be revised, not replaced, so be sure you double check your personal benefits under whatever program Congress and the president enact.

And don’t expect the new legislation to do all it promises. Neptune, master of illusions, is with Jupiter in the 9th house of laws, so there’s going to be some fluff and some human suffering or sacrifice in whatever passes. Pluto retrograde in the 6th house promises permanent changes that will affect people’s health and their health care routines, but doesn’t describe them in detail. Well, Pluto in Capricorn does promise bureaucratic changes, but retrograde Pluto makes a new agency unlikely.

Will taxes go up? You bet. Whatever passes will cost more than the legislators say it will. (North Node in the 8th house suggesting we’ll have to stretch to find ways to pay for what we do now, and there’s still Neptune of deception in the lawmaking 9th.)

The good news is that healthcare will be extended to people who are not covered at present. Coverage for illegal aliens? The question probably won’t be addressed directly if Congress can avoid it. The principle may be decided in the courts at a later date. The most likely expansions will be home care for the elderly (cutting the cost of nursing homes and offering at least one provision that families favor.)

Mary O’Gara, Ph.D.