Time to Start Getting Smart(er)

5.12.03


Textbook Mercury Retrograde Phenomena, Nos. 117-121: Floppy disk crashes, destroying rough draft of honors thesis. Friend agrees to meet friend at stranger's party, but isn't there when he shows up, is wrong about what time it is by more than 45 minutes. Difficulty printing envelopes for wedding invitation response cards ensues. Videotape of important TV program has mysterious section in middle that has been erased. Even good ol' Mom gets flat tire on day she's forgotten Triple-A card and cell phone.

(Luckily, friends with Triple-A cards and cell phones accompanied her, or she might still be there.)

And you'd better believe that Mom got a good talking-to, not just from me (don't we love playing parent to parents?) but from the wise friends who'd brought Triple-A cards and cell phones with them. Hopefully, she learned her lesson.

In fact, I noticed that all the above examples I witnessed during this current Mercury retrograde period (Apr 26-May 20) each came with some sort of big or little lesson for us to absorb, in order to prevent them from repeating themselves in the future.

Of course, we can always find a lesson in any event in our lives. But these particular Mercury retrograde inconveniences, more than mere traffic jams or misdirected mail, beg to be considered, thought about and processed. I usually try not to make too much of Mercury retrograde—because, as with so much pop astrology, people overdo with what they are willing to attribute to it. During this few weeks, though, I definitely took extra note of how our minds (Mercury's domain) are operating differently, to incorporate alternate ways of thinking into their usual habits.

This is due, in large part, to the prominent positioning of Mercury now, as the Sun and Moon and Earth line up into a lunar eclipse for Thursday's Full Moon, and then into a solar eclipse two weeks later. Periods of time around eclipses possess a magical mystery, during which many of us can sense movement, change, a turning of tides, but cannot determine exactly what is happening or how we will be different after the fact.

Eclipses, essentially super-charged Full Moons (lunar eclipses) and New Moons (solar eclipses), serve as signposts or chapter-markers for the next several months. The lunar eclipse delivers fuller, potentially unsettling awareness of emotional dynamics in our lives—awareness that will hopefully allow us to let go of past drama and say goodbye to outdated behaviors. And the solar eclipse, usually the stronger influence, marks the start of a new phase, which we must embrace as part of coming to terms with reality and its continual change. Though something fresh begins at each solar eclipse, we don't necessarily see what will develop until later, when we can look back from the perspective of hindsight. Astrologers look for qualities in the charts of eclipses to determine the general tone of the six-month period stretching between sets of eclipses. In personal consultation, we also look at clients' birthcharts to determine which areas of their lives and what natal dynamics an eclipse's power will activate.

I characterized the last pair of eclipses in Nov-Dec 02 as being strongly influenced by Uranus, that planetary revolutionary who shakes and rattles things up with little respect for convention or tradition. "Bing! Pop! Surprise!," I explained, was the name of the game—and looking back over the months since then, I can confirm that this period was indeed marked by sudden, dramatic change. Personally, my own life is in a much different place than it was then, in ways I never predicted and that came on big and quick. Our country started a war, and though the war wasn't a total surprise, its rapid-fire pace (and fast finish?) and its impact on global alliances were certainly unexpected by many of us.

Uranus itself has since switched signs, from Aquarius to Pisces, further emphasizing this feeling of a break between what has happened before and how it will happen going forward. The past six months, this last Uranus-influenced chapter, was as if someone entered our house and moved around all our belongings, the furniture and the knick-knacks and the stuff in the drawers, and now we have this totally different place, with things about it we like and things we don't, that we haven't grown completely accustomed to, as of yet. But there's no possible way we could put everything back where it was, even if we wanted to. And that's, believe it or not, a very good thing.

So now we have the next chapter, beginning with Thursday's lunar eclipse in Scorpio to set us on our way toward understanding how all the dots connect. But don't expect to figure it out right away. (Those of you dedicated readers may have noticed I keep giving this same piece of advice.) This lunar eclipse is paired with that sharp t-square between Jupiter and Neptune in opposition, both squaring poor confused Mercury retrograde in Taurus. Plus, Mars in Aquarius comes along in conjunction with Neptune, which conjures a lot of energy for inspiration and cosmic coincidence but offers very little concrete clarity.

Last week, I wrote about this configuration in a silly little parable to illustrate how Jupiter and Neptune combined with subtle momentum to carry us to where we are now, exactly where we should be in order to reap good luck and faith in enacting our destinies—if only we could differentiate between our ego and our purpose, between our ass and our elbow. Yet, if we take into account that our whole last several months has involved Uranus rearranging all the furniture and hiding the cap to the toothpaste, then, duh, of course we are a little disoriented.

In my little story, Mercury was the practical-minded consultant hired to help Jupiter and Neptune work out their differences, but even he wasn't ready to draw any conclusions. This lunar eclipse is when Mercury (our conscious logic, thought processes, and communicative abilities) finally starts to wise up—though the first step is to admit you don't know what the hell is going on. That's what's happening now.

By the time the solar eclipse rolls around in a couple weeks' time, Mercury will be out of retrograde, running direct again and ready to act like the trustworthy consultant we hired to bail us out, in perfect time to help us with our fresh start. Mercury will be joined by Venus in Taurus, a very advantageous conjunction for turning our previously riddled thoughts into calmer, more fertile and sense-making order.