What about Mercury retrograde in a birth chart?

What about Mercury retrograde in a birth chart?

Also as an abbreviated post in Facebook Soul Centered Psychological Astrology

February 25, 2014

My friend, it may be that Mercury on the near Earth side of its orbit is good for inner work; case in point, my article, written a few days ago. One of the reasons I thought there is rich value for counselors is my suggestions as to how to make positive use of the times Mercury is retrograde. Like you, experience has been my teacher and has disabused me of the doom and gloom of the things that are supposed to go wrong while Mercury slides between the Earth and Sun. “Retrograde planets in a birth map were anciently said to be weak or debilitated. . . That it continues to retrograde for a period after birth might detract from its capacity to incite progress . . . “, writes Nicholas Devore. With attention, we see that the business that causes chaos is often in our heads. 

          While it looks as though the tree falling on the car was just an unfortunate accident, we really don't know. Maybe the driver was in a rush and parked in an unfamiliar place. Maybe it was just coincidence. Maybe Mercury was direct in motion when it happened. If such Cosmic Authorities as Astrologers go off on the problems of Mercury Rx, aren't those who pay attention to such authorities on the lookout for "Mercury Rx distress"? I have a friend who regularly writes about news items during those Rx periods, but I find an equal amount of similar stories when Mercury is swinging around the far side of the Sun, in the same direction as the Sun. People aren't blaming the hard drive crash on little Mercury when Mercury is direct.

          In your case, "in the old days" (hopefully), Mercury Rx in a nativity had the astrologer looking for mental challenges like deafness, or what used to be called retardation, or at least a speech impediment, or being held back in school. While any of those things might occur for a Mercury Rx native, wider examination will often show brilliance. The actress Hedy Lamarr, while she's fading in the dust of time now, was once viewed as one of the most beautiful women in the world. Her Sun in smoldering Scorpio, had been crossed by Rx Mercury (5° 11’ past the Sun, about to go direct a week later, to chase after the Sun once again). To enhance her mystery and beauty, she had the Moon just over Neptune in Leo, but that's off-topic. She had plenty in her life that fit with the depths of Mercury Rx, but to point out that that factor has little effect on mental brilliance, her career might have taken a different direction.

          She spent much of her time in a workroom with drafting table and equipment. "It was Hedy's idea for a secret communications system - specifically one that could guide a torpedo using a technology called "frequency hopping" - so that signal couldn't be intercepted." [It was 1940, and German U-boats were wreaking havoc in the Atlantic torpedoing ships, very often with women and children aboard trying to flee the Nazis - something Hedy knew a little about, being born to Jewish parents and having fled Austria on a ship she knew was carrying Louis B. Mayer.] Her idea got a patent. "Today, frequency hopping is used with the wireless phones that we have in our homes, GPS, most military communication systems - it's very widely used,” said Richard Rhodes in his biography, "Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World." So much for Rx Mercury twisting the mind into something not so useful. Of course, those delineations were from olden times when astrologers were looking for mental aberrances in Mercury Rx natives.

Note: Mercury is retrograde as I write this, so any errors are his fault. There are several articles here on Mercury's retrogrades. Under the title of the blog, Astrology STARTALK from Tim Rubald, is a search box. Just type in Mercury to pull them up.

 Copyright © Tim Rubald 2014

New Moon Sep 5 2013

Considering the intensity of the times (that isn't going away), the New Moon, September 5, at 11:36:08 GMT, 7:36 EDT, shows some areas of hope and promise (geeze, Sarah Palin ear worm strikes).

The stress that I've been writing about for a decade with our current deep, global, revolution, is the big not going away part. The shorter term challenge of the generations, or freedom vs. control is with us for this lunar period.

Productivity and optimism may show their furry little heads, and American values and a real sort of patriotism, not the lip-service, flag-waving, my country right or wrong, kind, but the real thing, the patriotism that acknowledges that we are all in this together. Rich or poor, black, brown, red, or white, straight or gay, even red haired, we are all Americans. We can get some work done about shoring our values up, about recognizing the better nature in one another.

Might I even suggest some progress regarding financial matters, the economy? Shifts are slow in that department but some profound changes are in the works. Oh, my, jingoistic Conservatives may not like the sound of it, but regulation that serves to curb the excesses and prosecute the crimes resulting from something like what Ross Perot called a giant sucking sound; dollars and jobs leaving America and American control.

Mars in the fiery Sun's Leo is having some stress with Big Daddy Saturn, who sometimes just might scowl a bit. In this case, there may be some attention to finance, business, and investment, at whatever level that affects you in life. Those words might have you thinking, "Not me," but those are astrological words, symbolic and metaphorical; as the song goes, "Isn't that the way; Everybody's got the dues in life to pay." It's also what I referred to as a clash between the generations. Would Clinton and Biden's kids be off to a new war? I don't think so. That sort of privilege is a facet of the clash.

This theme hits a bit of a crescendo when the Moon gets to Saturn (September 9). When she does, Mars is about exactly square (challenge for change, bringing creativity to fashion and to form new solutions for the future); it is a time when consciousness itself is part of the development most seek.

Here's the astro-babble of the layout: Saturn is in Mars' Sign, Scorpio, and Mars is raging in the heat of Leo. That's a big clash between Fire and Water; between Fire and Earth. Impulse vs. practicality. Action vs. planning.

September 9, Mars is perfectly balanced against Saturn, the strength and vitality of youth, versus the wisdom and power of age. This is a clash of the gods. Mars tries to force Saturn to dream a new structure into being. We think we understand practical limitations and we know that survival requires new approaches.

The Moon ties it all together on the morning of the 9th.  The Moon comes along at the same time that Mars aspects Saturn, and first joins Saturn, and eleven minutes later, forms an action angle with Mars (maybe the most powerful of ways that planets relate to one another).

The Moon reflects a different, and much more ephemeral, impulse than the Mars to Saturn aspect. The Mars to Saturn is about a profound, creative need to change orientation. It's like bulldozers working in the realm of consciousness to build a new world. It's deep and comes with a long-term view. The rapidly cycling Moon comes along for feeling attention to future-focus, and asks "Let's do this!" She's pushing for action from fiery Martian creativity. At the same time, she asks of Saturn that he father a new child (these are gods; they can make children in a minute if they want). A child needed for immediate deep work, shorter term, but seeding larger plans of two, and of thirty years. In 2040 or so, ideas and actions birthed now will manifest. Sue me if I'm wrong (but I'm not wrong).

In a short few days there can be a need to envision future use of consciousness, in both two and in thirty years. The periods are connected by the theme. Like the building of the Great Barrier Reef, it's a process, a heightened period of attention to a humanitarian construction in some way, shape, or form. There is an advantage to having the elders sit us down to talk. Fire and impatience are not enough. Actions, efforts, thoughts, emotions, love, and anger all influence the formation suggested in this simple arrangement; Fire and Water, Inspiration and Spirit, War and Peace. What shall we make of them? How will it be in thirty years? Time travel is a daily occurrence for astrologers who have the inclination. Those who remember history see the ripples; see the flow of the river without banks. Impulse, inspiration, wisdom, patience, raw energy, harnessed with no harness but love. Think of the pony tamed with kindness rather than the one roped and "broke." The overall process may be about sharing or hoarding resources. Do you see it play out now in workers asking for living wages, nations working to free themselves from oppressive rule, from ordinary farmers demanding access to their own seed? The specifics differ from person to person. The core issues remain the same.


Copyright © Tim Rubald 2013

NEPTUNE STILL on November 9, 2011

NEPTUNE STILL on November 9, 2011
 

Neptune stations today (the still point where we look out to the solar system toward that planet and due mostly to our orbital motion about the Sun Neptune changes from backward to forward against the measuring dial of the Tropical Zodiac) which means, it resumes forward motion. For a few days though Neptune has pretty much not been moving and that will be the case for a few more days to come.

Neptune (discovered 9/23/1846 in Berlin) is a slow mover anyway, taking about 164.79 years to orbit the Sun, 14 years in a Sign, moving about two degrees a year, and due to how we view and track Neptune's motion through the Zodiac it appears to spend about 5 months of every 12 in backward, retrograde, motion. That slowness and infrequency is one of the factors that make a Neptune station (change of direction) special.

I saw a fellow on the beach the other day burning a drawing into a piece of flat driftwood. He used a hand magnifier to focus the sun's rays to burn in a design. When the alignment is right and steady the focal energy is powerful enough to burn the wood. Similarly, when a planet reaches a station point it is as though it is in a similar state of high focus. That's what we have now with Neptune.

Neptune is the planet of the Great Dream, of emotional absolutes like Truth, Love, Beauty, and of the higher realms of music and art. What first came to mind as I allowed the Neptunian flow today (after bravely resisting an impulse to meditate - which by the way is an excellent idea when Neptune is emphasized) was the Lovin' Spoonful song that I've been a fan of since it first hit the airwaves in 1966, "What a day for a daydream,"  begins the tune, Daydream.
 

I just wanted to point out Neptune's station today and suggest that on the one hand it's okay and appropriate to give time to your dream, and, on the other hand, that a bit more concentration is in order if you have a job in something that requires critical exactitude (like an air-traffic controller) or even in, as drug labels may say, driving or operating machinery. That applies any time Neptune is in emphasis.

While I'm not a big fan of degree symbols, I will point out that the most popular symbols, The Sabian Symbols give this for the degree of Neptune's station today:  28-29 deg Aquarius - A Butterfly Emerging From A Chrysalis.  Isn't that special?