Can you hear it? There is an answer to your ques­tion being offered up now. We are at the half-way point in the Mer­cury ret­ro­grade cycle, the moment when Mer­cury is exact­ly aligned between the Earth and the Sun. It is like a “new Moon” for Mer­cury, and is the moment when this intro­spec­tive cycle yields up an answer.

For ten days, we have been direct­ed back inwards to seek for a greater under­stand­ing. Now comes a moment of truth. What should we expect, what should we do?

The ret­ro­grade cycle of Mer­cury cre­ates an oppor­tu­ni­ty for self re-exam­i­na­tion and reflec­tion. We need to take time apart from the day to day dis­trac­tions and delve deep­er into our assump­tions, view­points and atti­tudes. We need to chal­lenge the “prism” through which we look out upon this world and see it as if with new eyes.

Take time this after­noon or evening to lis­ten to your own high­er self…wherein are found all the answers about your­self and the world around you.

You are an answer to a cos­mic ques­tion; you were born to take part in this great jour­ney of spir­it, life, con­scious­ness. Always remem­ber, the first injunc­tion in that spir­i­tu­al growth has and will always be, “to know thyself”.

Ear­ly today, your dreams come true if you apply your­self. Imag­i­na­tion is the true source of our future, but we have to make it so by work­ing it into real­i­ty. So, be inspired by your dreams today; then fol­low through on that vision with a per­for­mance that rings as tru­ly yours.

Lat­er today, we are chal­lenged by Uranus, which makes us feel as if our spe­cial­ness or free­dom is being frus­trat­ed now. The square is remind­ing us that we need to make a choice as to how we should express our indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and expe­ri­ence our free­dom. We and oth­ers will be more abrupt or irri­ta­ble now, and that is because we are all feel­ing a loss of free­dom or a lack of appreciation.

In Sep­tem­ber, as we began the fall sea­son, we were shown some­thing about the rela­tion­ship between our need to be appre­ci­at­ed and our need to be true to our self. That rev­e­la­tion showed us some­thing about how we need to find a bal­ance between our seek­ing for approval ver­sus going our own way despite what oth­ers may think.

Now we need to make a choice. Per­haps we need to let go of an old way of being “orig­i­nal” or dif­fer­ent and find one that is more appro­pri­ate for who we are now. Or, maybe we have been so con­cerned about the respect of oth­ers, that we are in dan­ger of being appre­ci­at­ed, and yet it is not tru­ly us who they appreciate!

Make a choice now to grow. Do that by cre­at­ing a greater space of free­dom that you can enjoy with one anoth­er. And in that space, show the respect to one anoth­er that demon­strates that you tru­ly under­stand, “I am that, I am”.

Though Jupiter is known as the “greater benef­ic”, not all good things come from the biggest plan­et in the solar sys­tem. Some­times too much, is just that…too much. When Jupiter makes a hard aspect to anoth­er plan­et, we all have to be care­ful not to over­es­ti­mate, over­do, and fall into many oth­er exam­ples of los­ing touch with what is reasonable.

The Sun rules our self; Jupiter is the prin­ci­ple and pow­er of relat­ing. We will have a ten­den­cy now to over-relate. That means we will either go too far in push­ing our self upon anoth­er, or over­re­act to some­one else at this time. Like­wise, some oth­er per­son may be over-reach­ing or react­ing towards us.

A square lit­er­al­ly means we are at a turn­ing point; this is a time of deci­sion about per­son­al growth. This square is ask­ing, “how are you going to act in order to grow rea­son­ably now?” Some­thing was revealed back towards the end of Sep­tem­ber about your poten­tial for growth and rela­tion­ship. Now you have to make a choice about that.

This deci­sion will have some­thing to do with let­ting go of an old con­cept, belief or idea. By chal­leng­ing your beliefs you can break up an old way of relat­ing and move into a bet­ter one. The self/Sun wants to expand by mov­ing along a path that has been true (till now). Jupiter is say­ing that you need to use your imag­i­na­tion now, you need to show more com­pas­sion now, if you want to grow beyond yourself.

Before true growth, comes a greater under­stand­ing. The path to under­stand­ing is found through com­pas­sion. If you wish to be ful­filled now, then show that you are ready by the breadth of your gen­eros­i­ty and the great­ness of your heart.

Warn­ing! …Triple Con­junc­tion ahead. Sun­day evening into Mon­day evening could prove to be one of the more intense peri­ods of this month. Three plan­ets are lin­ing up with one anoth­er. All three effects will be felt simul­ta­ne­ous­ly as they align with­in min­utes of one anoth­er Mon­day night.

Mer­cury is ret­ro­grade and so is com­ing back over Plu­to as it did on Decem­ber 5th. Mer­cury is like­wise align­ing with Mars again as it did on Novem­ber 20th. Look back and see what was hap­pen­ing on those dates, there will prob­a­bly be a con­nec­tion with what hap­pens now. At this time, with the ret­ro­grade influ­ence, each con­tact is turned inward and inten­si­fied. The les­son is more per­son­al, the effect more deeply felt.

The Mer­cury align­ment to Plu­to helps us to have much more insight into our own think­ing and that of oth­ers. But the con­trol issues of Plu­to will have to be con­front­ed now as regards our way of think­ing about author­i­ty. We should always see these times as oppor­tu­ni­ties for greater self-aware­ness and per­son­al growth. But that often comes about through some chal­lenge thrown down by oth­ers. The chal­lenge here will con­cern some­thing to do with Author­i­ty; we can­not force an idea mere­ly because our posi­tion gives us pow­er to do so. And like­wise, those in a supe­ri­or posi­tion to our own should not try and force their ideas upon us.

The Mer­cury align­ment to Mars speeds every­thing up. We might say some­thing, or say it in a way, we will lat­er regret. Fast and agile think­ing is admired, hasty and angry speech is not. An intel­li­gent mind is agile, with a facil­i­ty to chal­lenge assump­tions, (includ­ing one’s own). But with Mars spurring Mer­cury, we might become eas­i­ly hurt and angered, and pass on our pain by being mean or curt to anoth­er. Instead, we should turn the “thought­less” ener­gy around and impart to it a true sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty; and, that what we must respon­si­ble to is how we care one another.

Mars con­junct Plu­to com­pletes our triple play and reveals the deep­er lev­els of what is mov­ing us now. Plu­to rules our willpow­er; Mars rules our desires and actions. Com­bine them togeth­er and we can (by will­ing) do any­thing. The impos­si­ble is pos­si­ble now. We will win the competition.

But what might be the price? We might win the bat­tle but lose the cause. Our wield­ing of any pow­er must be in ser­vice to its source. If we become too full of our­selves, too full of our pow­er, we will prob­a­bly mis­use it and bring about unwant­ed reper­cus­sions. We will fail and fall.

Mars and Plu­to in Capri­corn com­bine now to illus­trate that we must acknowl­edge our duty; that our use of pow­er must be exer­cised in order to serve and ful­fill our respon­si­bil­i­ties. By so doing, the exer­cise of pow­er is guid­ed by hon­or­ing what we stand upon with one anoth­er, our cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al her­itage. We will and must use our pow­er to cre­ate, not destroy.

We are here to act with regard for one anoth­er so that we might ful­fill our des­tinies with each oth­er. We must wield pow­er so as to pro­tect and pre­serve what has been passed down to us by those who came before, as we must now pass it on to those who fol­low. Act now in order to hon­or the val­ues and tra­di­tions that form the foun­da­tion of your life. It is your duty.

Mer­cury turns ret­ro­grade today until Decem­ber 30th. Our minds are turned inward, we become more reflec­tive and intro­spec­tive. But life goes on, so the end result is that nor­mal out­ward com­mu­ni­ca­tions become much more scram­bled. We are not speak­ing, writ­ing or design­ing as clear­ly as before; and, who­ev­er is our intend­ed recip­i­ent is not receiv­ing as well either. Mis­un­der­stand­ings build up and frus­tra­tions and ten­sions result in what appears to be a break­down of “mes­sag­ing”. This need not be.

Instead, use this time to re-exam­ine your thoughts, ideas, and plans. Repair your think­ing and use this oppor­tu­ni­ty for intro­spec­tion. Mer­cury is actu­al­ly clos­er to us dur­ing these ret­ro­grade peri­ods, (3 weeks in dura­tion, 3 times in a year), so its pow­er and influ­ence should be strength­ened. Many indi­vid­u­als find that these peri­ods are often filled with a flur­ry of activ­i­ty and much progress can be made in improv­ing our thinking.

Till the 18th, Mer­cury ret­ro­grades in Capri­corn, so we need to re-exam­ine our thoughts regard­ing author­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty. Then, till the 30th, Mer­cury moves through Sagit­tar­ius help­ing us to ques­tion and look more deeply into our beliefs and assumptions.

When it comes to the day to day neces­si­ty of stay­ing con­nect­ed with oth­ers, just make cer­tain to be more care­ful in both send­ing and receiv­ing. We can make mis­takes at any­time; it just seems more like­ly at this time because we are all under the influ­ence of this change of direction.

Also, we will com­mu­ni­cate some­thing of val­ue today thanks to Mer­cury sex­tile Venus. The pro­duc­tive com­bi­na­tion of these two inner plan­ets means that our appre­ci­a­tion of and thoughts about beau­ty, grace and love will turn out well.

Talk about what you care for, enjoy the arts, and share lov­ing thoughts with friends and fam­i­ly. You will find greater mean­ing in some­thing or some­one today.