Mercury rules the thinking mind. Photo by perpetualplum.
Details: Mercury stations Rx at 19 Virgo 04 on Aug. 20 and stations direct at 5 Virgo 22 on Sept. 12.
Mercury stations retrograde in his own sign of Virgo today. This is the second of the three annual Mercury Rx events. Interestingly enough, all three of this year’s retrogrades occur in Earth signs. (The previous Mercury Rx spanned from mid-April to mid-May in the fixed Earth sign of Taurus.)
In this article, I want to tell you a little about how I think Mercury Retrograde is supposed to work and a little bit more about:
• How the Virgo retrograde period should play out;
• Who will be most affected by it, and;
• What you can do to turn an often-frustrating phenomenon into a successful adventure in consciousness-raising.
How Mercury Rx Works (The Short Version)
Most of what we read on pop astrology sites is that Mercury is the planet of communication and the mental realm. We are reminded to:
• Back up our computer data;
• Double-check emails before we hit send so as to avoid bcc:-ing the entire office on our gossip about the boss;
• Avoid signing contracts, buying a house, making a major purchase (especially involving electronics);
• Plan for all sorts of frustrating delays, misunderstandings, lost mail, and the like.
And those are valid cautions. When Mercury backtracks through the sky, mind and communication tend to turn backwards and inwards, causing all sorts of frustrating snafus and unplanned-for problems.
But it is precisely this turning inwards and backwards in time that also represents the spiritually important function of the thrice-annual Mercury retrogrades. These events – when mind is forced to slow down and ego constrained to deviate from its straight-ahead obsessions and preoccupations with achievement and success – are built into the cosmic calendar specifically to encourage us to slow down, look within and take stock.
I really should say that Mercury retrogrades are soulfully important. In classical myth, Mercury is the psychopomp, the guide who at death takes souls from the above-ground to the underworld. The underworld, of course, represents the soul – the deeper and often more turbulent components of the Self that have their own aims and also possess the power to short-circuit our best-laid plans when we ignore, deny, and repress them.
So, the short version of how to work with Mercury Retrograde is this:
1. Know where the retrograde is happening in your chart. If you know your birth time, you can figure this out pretty easily. Calculate your chart at astro.com then look for the degree range of the Mercury Rx in your chart. For example, the current retrograde starts at 19 Virgo and ends at 5 Virgo.
2. Houses represent areas of life experience. The house or houses Mercury is moving through during his retrograde period will tell you what areas of life you need to be examining.
3. Note any planets that Mercury aspects by conjunction (0 degrees), opposition (180 degrees) or square (90 degrees). What these planets symbolize (and also the houses they rule in your chart) are also up for review and reorganization.
4. Use the retrograde period to your advantage. Rather than pushing obstinately ahead to get things done on your ego’s time schedule, consciously go with the flow. Realize that this is a time when the river of life eddies, swirls and sometimes flows backwards. Meditate on the life areas and archetypes that Mercury is activating for you. Look back in time at how well you have handled these parts of your life. Look inward at your motivation and the ways you sabotage yourself from getting what you claim to want.
Each Mercury Rx Has Its Own Flavor
Each Mercury Rx is unique. When the retrograde occurs in a water sign like Pisces or Scorpio, it’s going to have an emotional flavor. How are you dealing with your emotions in that life area? When, like this year’s retrogrades, it happens in Earth signs, we’re going to be challenged to get in touch with the cold, hard facts and details in the relevant life area.
For example the current Mercury Retrograde is happening in my natal 2nd House and in my solar 7th House. The 2nd House talks about money, resources, self-esteem, and tools. So I’m going to be taking a good hard look at how I’m handling my money. Since it’s in an Earth sign, I’m going to need to set my emotions aside and look at the facts. I may feel like I’m doing well with balancing my checkbook, but what do my bank records say? One of Virgo’s downfalls is its tendency to be hyper-judgmental and self-critical. Am I sabotaging my income by being such a perfectionist I avoid doing my work rather than risk failure or embarrassment?
The 7th House is about relationships. Since I already know that Mercury is affecting my money house, I’m probably going to use this as a lens through which to undertake a comprehensive relationship review. Am I maintaining certain partnerships or wasting time and energy on certain-people because of a lack of self-esteem (negative Virgo/2nd House energy)? Am I staying in a relationship because I feel obligated to fix this person (negative Virgo/7th House energy)? Or, conversely, am I missing out on business partnership opportunities because I’m too lazy to pursue them (not being Virgo enough) or because I’m too fussy/perfectionist about a potential partner (being too Virgo)?
Who Will Be Most Affected?
I challenge you to really take this paradigm and apply it to your chart and your life during the current Mercury Rx. I’ve been doing this pretty conscientiously for the last year or two and while it hasn’t made the frustration of blocked communication and thwarted plans disappear, knowing that I’m going to emerge much smarter about these areas of my life at the end of the retrograde has made me much more patient.
And with this paradigm in place, you can learn from every Mercury Retrograde, whether it makes a major connection to your personal chart or not. Speaking of which, here’s who is most likely to be strongly affected by the current Virgo Rx:
• People with Sun, Moon, ASC or MC or other important points between 5 and 19 degrees of the mutable signs (Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces, Gemini)
• People born between 1960 and 1966 with Pluto (soul mission) in these same degrees of Virgo
• Also note that Mercury covers the same territory that Saturn (structure, boundaries, commitment, authority, success) was emphasizing from November 2007 – July 2009. Mercury can help you mentally consolidate your Saturn lessons from that time period and activate the positive “success” side of the Saturn archetype.
I expect this particular retrograde to be a strong one. Mercury both rules and is exalted in Virgo and when a planet is strongly dignified, it has the power to act according to its true nature. In addition to all the attributes we’ve already discussed, we might remember that Mercury is the Trickster. He has a way of puncturing our self-importance and bringing us back down to reality, which is ridiculous and uncontrollable as well as being sublime and divine.
I also believe that this Virgo retrograde is timed to give us the opportunity to reflect and organize our thoughts. We’ve just come through a particularly intense “reality tunnel” since the Summer Solstice and, Virgo excels at cleaning up messes and bringing order to chaos. Virgo also understands that since the Universe is a mental creation (the first law of Hermes/Mercury), all messes are mental messes. We can use this period to process the intense spiritual and emotional changes most of us have been going through this year and develop practical strategies and new mental paradigms that enable us to incorporate our new perspectives and desires into daily life.
I hope you’ve found this helpful and enjoyable. Please contribute to our online community: Leave a comment below, join the daily discussion on the Words for the People Facebook page, or send me an email to let me know what you think and what you’d like to see more of.
11 Comments
Thanks, D.K.!!! Extremely helpful and relevant!!! Already feeling the effects but now I think I can relax a little knowing where the Rx will hit hardest. Also, good to reminder to not be so perfectionistic and time-oriented…It took me awhile to read through your post and figure out the areas of influence but I think I’m finally ‘starting’ to get the hang of this.
Cool, Mansoor! Thanks so much for the feedback. That’s my ultimate goal – empowering my readers to become their own astrologers. You don’t have to be an expert to understand where the planets are working with you. One question – would it be more helpful if I showed a copy of my chart with the Virgo areas highlighted? Would that have helped you with your own chart.
Blessings,
DK
D.K., thanks for asking! I was good with the information you presented per your example. I’m still just getting comfortable with the the whole process of deriving the areas of influences so it’s a little slow going. Well, maybe it would have helped me to be sure I was doing it right. It might have been more helpful to others, however, if they haven’t read your yearly solar/natal chart reports and how to figure out in which house Saturn holds sway–I spent A LOT more time reading those! Thanks so much for the great info, your weekly horoscopes and awesome new site!
Thanks Mansoor! I appreciate the feedback. Once you get a handle on houses and rulerships, it opens up a huge new level of insight into the chart. Sounds like you’re on the verge of making those connections if you haven’t already. Your investment WILL be rewarded.
Much love,
DK
thanks for such an illuminating article. i appreciate that you choose to frame difficult times and choices within a larger, possitive perspective. the process of actualizing one’s self and community in the world is decidedly different when we are loved/loving ourselves enough to not be defined/confined by our fears and faults.
question: i found where mercury falls in my natal chart, is that the area i should be looking at for this current retrograde? If so, is that always the place that will be affected for me when mercury goes retrograde?
Hey Tara, Thanks for the kind words. You want to look for where Virgo is in your chart for this current retrograde. And for future retrogrades, you’d want to find where that sign is in your chart. For example, the next retrograde happens over the Christmas holidays in Capricorn and Sagittarius. Wherever those signs are in your chart, those are going to be the houses that are affected. But you’re right this time in this sense: since Mercury is the ruler of Virgo, and Virgo is being affected in your chart, whatever Mercury symbolizes in your chart will be affected as well.
But, for instance, if the Mercury Rx were in Cancer, you’d want to look at where the Moon is in your chart, and this area would be affected — because the Moon rules Cancer and she’s going to feel what’s happening in her home sign — as well as the house where Cancer falls. Hope this makes sense.
super helpful, thanks!
Dear D.K.,
I am an avid reader of your site, thank you so much for your work. Mercury Rx in Virgo is always a tough one for me with Sun, Moon, Saturn, N.Node all in Virgo in the 8th! All conjunct! Hello Virgo karma. And with Cap rising, I feel there’s enough Earth in my chart to last me several lifetimes ahead…Is there anything you could touch upon about the lessons of Mercury rx traveling through the 8th house? Mercury and Venus also fall in my 8th house, though very close to 9th house cusp in Libra. With such a concentrated 8th house chart, transformation and deep work on the inner self have always been keynotes in my life. Yet, I struggle to move past the extreme mental workings of a super-Virgo to embrace the shifting in consciousness my soul is clearly put here to do.
Also, you mention the connection to the Saturn in Virgo lessons of the last 3 years, which Mercury can help you to consolidate – can you explain this Mercury/Saturn connection?
Thank you!
Layla
Layla,
Thanks for the kind words. Wow – that’s a lot! The first thing I would say is, “Own it!” In other words, you chose to have a very intense inner experience in this lifetime and a very intense mindspace. It’s important to take responsibility for that choice. That’s one of the things I love most about astrology – you see the pattern in your chart, and you can no longer buy in to the ego’s attempts to get you to blame yourself, hate yourself, etc. It’s just a choice you made prior to incarnating. I’m extremely sensitive – psychically, emotionally, sensitive to light, sound, smell – and while there are many times in this crazy world when I wish I weren’t so sensitive, I can also see it very clearly in my chart.
Hope this is making sense — I think what is trying to come through is that just as I probably won’t stop being hyper-sensitive, you probably won’t stop having lots of intense thoughts and mental chatter. But the point isn’t to change who we are, the point is to accept ourselves as inherently perfect just the way we are.
One of the things I invite people to do in my hypnotic work is just let the ego-mind be there, saying all the stuff it says. And ask, what would happen if you just allowed that stream to be there but remembered that you can also enjoying returning your attention to your breathing. Or to your yoga asana. Or to the feeling of your hands as you wash the dishes or the sensations in your feet as you feel them against the floor. With all of that Earth, you certainly have the ability to tune in to feelings in your body. And I wonder if you do that, if you’re doing that right now….If you might be able to be aware of the ego-mind commenting, or waiting to snag your attention back, but temporarily displaced into the background of your experience?
Then wondering how it would change your experience if you became aware that you could do this on command, if you only make a point of remembering that this is one of your special powers! You might find that the more you remember to make that simple choice of sort of switching channels between auditory/internal dialog channel to kinesthetic/body sensations channel that the ego voice sort of tends to wander off down the hall for periods of time. Like my four-year-old at dinner last night, trying to shout over the adults for attention for fifteen minutes and finally going off to play with her blocks…
Let me know how that sits with you?
The Mercury/Saturn connection is that Mercury is going over the same territory emphasized by Saturn from late 2007 to early 2010. What Mercury can do for you is help you organize your thoughts about what Saturn was teaching you during this time period, which involves taking responsibility for your physical/energetic self (Sun), emotional self (Moon), spiritual path (N. Node) and how you structure reality/money (Saturn). It’s a great time to journal about all these areas of your life, or work with a coach or therapist, someone who can help you filter out the mental noise and help you prioritize and organize your thoughts. Does that make sense?
Thanks for the great questions. I bet your dancing gets you to a place where that mental part of you gives up and takes a break!
DK
D.K.,
Thank you so much for your wonderfully insightful response. You have such a great perspective, and that was very helpful. That’s exactly the the type of energy shift I have recently been made aware of and have been working to incorporate. First, allowing the ego-mind to just be there and then consciously shifting the focus into a more heart-centered, earth-connected place. It’s amazing the things the mind comes up with, isn’t it! I find laughing at oneself is also good medicine for this.
“That’s one of the things I love most about astrology – you see the pattern in your chart, and you can no longer buy in to the ego’s attempts to get you to blame yourself, hate yourself, etc. It’s just a choice you made prior to incarnating.”
“But the point isn’t to change who we are, the point is to accept ourselves as inherently perfect just the way we are.”
I completely agree with you here. You put it so eloquently. Understanding this concept (no easy task, mind you) seems essential for a seeker of the spirit and conscious evolution, and yet here I’ve been screaming at all the grown ups around me like your little one. Wondering why I was dealt such crappy cards in life! Children really are such wise teachers – Better to find some blocks to build than continue to let the ego-mind run amok into total exhaustion of the nervous system. Continually reminding myself that I have the power to turn that switch off, and tune into my connection to the Earth and the physical is indeed a colossal awareness that needs integration. Thank you for that insight. Interesting that you should mention washing the dishes – I’ve always loved washing dishes. Yes, a true Virgo. And yes, dance is my livelihood, and does help with relieving the ongoing mental processes – though I haven’t always been good to my body. Another of my Saturn lessons.
I definitely was not prepared for my Saturn Return – though I saw the writing on the wall that it would it be rough if I didn’t. And rough it was. With Saturn parked right between my Sun and Moon and trine my Asc, how could it not be? Saturn is still an enigma to me, I’m still trying to make friends. Yes, what you said makes sense and I shall now begin to clean house, sifting through all that was stirred up in those areas by the great Teacher to find the treasures. I’d love to do a reading with you the next time I’m down in New Orleans. My family is down there, though I’ve transplanted to NYC long ago.
Thanks again for the great response. I love your visionary approach and have always resonated with your writings. Blessings.
Layla
Hey Layla,
It would be interesting to feel what might happen if you made that awareness your obsessive mental focus for the next year. You could use your Virgo strong mind to explore, learn about other people who have overcome pain with the mind (Milton Erickson comes to mind) or things like voluntary control (Jack somebody, google it) – the ability to control nervous system and even organs with the mind…one huge thing you have going for you is now that Saturn is out of virgo you should start seeing the Saturn rewards roll in. Which would be increased mastery in all those areas of life.
“Continually reminding myself that I have the power to turn that switch off, and tune into my connection to the Earth and the physical is indeed a colossal awareness that needs integration.”
O-Sensei, the founder of aikido, was once asked how he stayed in his center when all the warriors around him were thrown off balance. He said, “I lose my center just as often as anyone else; I just return to it more quickly.”
That is my gift/wish/blessing to you in 2010-2011. May you joyfully master the art of remembering your center (which of course you access in your own totally unique ways, not anyone else’s) and returning it to more frequently than you had ever imagined possible before now.
Thank you so much for the kind words. My heart is so full of love and gratitude!
DK