Mercury clears its retrograde shadow, October 7
All month: Uranus retrograde in Aries
All month: Neptune retrograde in Pisces
The good, or should we say great news: Mercury resumes whole-hearted and uncompromised forward motion on October 7, when it clears its retrograde shadow. Contracts are now writable and signable. Significant purchases can be made, travel plans finalized.
On this same day, Mercury, planet of communication, moves out of Virgo and into Libra. There’s a sudden new conviviality in the air, and long-deferred calls and contacts will seem easier. Enough of that introverted Virgo-ish kicking of ourselves (and possibly others) for real or imagined faults and failures. The past is done and gone, it’s probably not as important as we imagined, and the time suddenly feels right to reach out and make connections.
We may have some deep and interesting discussions, particularly if we can avoid Libra’s tendency to focus exclusively on the positive. If we dig deep, we’ll be in Uranus and Neptune retrograde territory, and there’s a lot there.
Uranus is the shocker, the Great Awakener, the revolutionary, the patron of electricity, sudden genius, inspiration, discovery, and the unconventional. Uranus has been retrograde in Aries since late July and will continue so until late December.
With the Awakener in Aries, we’ve been opening our eyes to the areas in which we want and seek independence. Uranus always bucks convention, often ultimately creating an utterly unexpected “new normal” in place of old structures. But we don’t always perceive this final outcome at the outset of provocative change.
During the retrograde, we’ve been especially feeling our independence. Asking ourselves how and why we need to be independent. Struggling, perhaps, to create a vision of what that independence looks like. And fighting all the currents that want to pull us back into habit, convention, and mindless conformity, whether these are our own expectations or others’.
Have you ever tried to wade a rushing stream, and been forced to stand still somewhere in the middle, your legs and feet struggling to hold you against the strong swift current while you seek the inner strength and balance to continue forward? This is where we are now, midway through this retrograde stream: in some way we each feel deeply on our own, struggling with everything in us to resist the currents that want to sweep us along, and determined to continue onwards towards the far bank of the river, and our own independence.
Neptune retrograde may, paradoxically, be a help to us in this endeavor. If we can use Neptune retrograde in Pisces’ “truth antenna” to access our deep intuition, these next steps can be easier. Neptune retrograde can help us confront truth and break out of denial. This kind of wake-up call can be horribly uncomfortable. But it can also be just what we need to truly move forward.
And yes, we can do it!
