You’ve been sens­ing a change of ener­gy, a shift of direc­tion… and you are right. Her­mes has (seem­ing­ly) stopped mov­ing for­ward and is retrac­ing his steps. That’s right, it is Mer­cury Ret­ro­grade Time, again. From now till April 23 it is going to be “inter­est­ing”.

Three times a year, and for about three weeks each time, Mer­cury appears to slow down, stop and then move back­wards. It is real­ly catch­ing up to Earth (being between us and the Sun), pass­ing us by and then con­tin­u­ing on its jour­ney around the Solar system.

Ide­al­ly, if you could accom­mo­date your life to the rhythm of the plan­ets, then all would be just fine. You would take this time and use it for intro­spec­tion, self-reex­am­i­na­tion and con­tem­pla­tion. You could focus on review­ing old thought pat­terns, ideas and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. You would forge a bet­ter under­stand­ing of your men­tal pat­terns and work to remove your blind spots. Real­ly, it is the per­fect time for a spir­i­tu­al retreat, self-study or rest.

But, life goes on (usu­al­ly), and you have to con­tin­ue in your life pat­terns at home and work as if every­thing was the same.…but it is not. So, watch out for pit­falls and look for the oppor­tu­ni­ties that come with Mer­cury in reverse.

Because every­one is sim­i­lar­ly affect­ed, be more care­ful with the com­mu­ni­ca­tions you receive as well as in those you send. Fol­low up the receipt of any mes­sage by con­firm­ing with the sender what you under­stood the mes­sage to mean. When you send a mes­sage, con­firm its receipt and then make sure it was under­stood as well. The rule of thumb with Mer­cury ret­ro­grade is nev­er assume… any­thing! By just being more care­ful you can avoid the annoy­ances that seem to come with Mer­cury danc­ing back­wards, and you can instead focus on its very real benefits.

This is a time to bend the mind back on itself. After all, one of your great­est gifts is your “self-reflec­tiv­i­ty”, your capac­i­ty to look at your­self as if from a van­tage point out­side of your­self. Mer­cury ret­ro­grade helps you to use this pow­er of your observ­ing-ana­lyz­ing intel­lect so that you might bet­ter under­stand yourself.

This time, the ret­ro­grade is in Aries, so the lessons will be about your aware­ness of your “Pres­ence” in the world. Re-exam­ine how you appear to oth­ers. Are you com­ing across too strong, so that your pres­ence is over­whelm­ing? Or do you move so soft­ly that no one notices and so you underwhelm?

The moment you turn a cor­ner, the moment you enter a “space”, it changes. Was it the change that was need­ed, was it the change you intend­ed to bring? You are always you, but you should bring to bear what is required giv­en what you sense is need­ed. Remem­ber, of all those ele­ments of your pres­ence the most impor­tant is… your attitude.

By work­ing with Mer­cury now you can exam­ine these “Masks of Per­son­al­i­ty” and make sure that you are pre­sent­ing the best of you to the world. When you prac­tice this “Art of Pres­ence”, you per­form through the best of your­self, because you have cen­tered your atti­tude by align­ing your­self with your true self.

So, let Her­mes, the mes­sen­ger, take you with­in your­self so that you may come out again with that greater clar­i­ty of pur­pose, inten­tion and atti­tude. Right think­ing leads to Right Atti­tude which allows for Right Action, these are the gifts of Mer­cury in ret­ro­grade. Thank you Hermes! 

Okay, this is one of the “big ones”, and I wrote this about it in my Overview for 2011:

The oth­er “car­ry-over” align­ment from 2010 is the oppo­si­tion (Full Moon) of Jupiter and Sat­urn. Their cycle, from Con­junc­tion to Con­junc­tion, (or as in this case, Oppo­si­tion to Oppo­si­tion), is 20 years. In 2010 they came to an oppo­si­tion in late May and mid-August, and their final con­tact will be on March 28, 2011. 

With Jupiter rul­ing prin­ci­ples, truths and beliefs, and Sat­urn rul­ing struc­tures, insti­tu­tions and real­i­ty, their oppo­si­tion pro­vides a sharp con­trast for us to see how much what we believe to be true is being lived out in fact. In oth­er words, it is a time for a reck­on­ing between the belief or mean­ing behind the form and the form or real­i­ty itself. More often than not, (and this depends upon what else is hap­pen­ing down here and “up there”), this oppo­si­tion can cre­ate a cri­sis of faith in our belief sys­tems or a loss of trust in our insti­tu­tions… or both. Cer­tain­ly, here and around the world, this was a year of reck­on­ing, and more than we might at first realize.

The Great Muta­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn
For this dance of Jupiter and Sat­urn has a sto­ried his­to­ry for astrologers. We have used their ser­i­al align­ments as they progress through the ele­ments to under­stand some of the larg­er forces at play in our uni­verse. What we have dis­cov­ered is that Jupiter and Sat­urn will come togeth­er in their con­junc­tion in the same ele­ment, (Fire, Earth, Air and Water), for about 180 to 200 years, before they move onto the next ele­ment. This move­ment from ele­ment to ele­ment is called the “Great Mutation”. 

Since 1842 their con­junc­tions have been occur­ring in Earth and their last such align­ment was in the spring of 2000. While in an ele­men­tal phase, those con­di­tions estab­lished by that ele­ment per­me­ate and pro­mote the devel­op­ments in cul­ture and soci­ety. So, the last 169+ years have wit­nessed an explo­sion in the har­ness­ing of ener­gies and mate­ri­als of the earth, lit­er­al­ly. It has been an “age” of mate­ri­al­ism, of the rise of our car­bon fueled soci­ety and the cre­ation of a very spe­cif­ic kind of real­i­ty. But there is change in the air already, and our real­i­ty is about to be transformed… 

For what we have also found is that there is often a sign of things to come right before the next Great Muta­tion. Often, it seems, the sec­ond to last con­junc­tion occurs in that next ele­ment in the series. So in 1802 there was a pre­cur­sor align­ment in Earth. And most recent­ly, it was the 1980–81 Air con­junc­tion in Libra, before we reached the final align­ment in Earth via the Tau­rus con­junc­tion of May 2000. 

What these seem to pro­vide is a “seed­ing” of what is to come, a taste of the new world that will be inau­gu­rat­ed at the next Great Muta­tion, which for us is just ahead in 2020. As the 1802 con­junc­tion jump-start­ed the “Age of Mate­ri­al­ism”, so too has the 1980–81 align­ment ini­ti­at­ed what we might call the “Age of Virtue”. 

Though some aspects of this Vir­tu­ous­ness or “Vir­tu­os­i­ty” have man­i­fest­ed  in rather phys­i­cal forms, such as in the devel­op­ments in the 1980’s and 90’s which wit­nessed the pro­lif­er­a­tion of com­put­ers, cel­lu­lar phones and the inter­net, (our inter­con­nect­ed­ness was accel­er­at­ing), and which has now lead to the evo­lu­tion of vir­tu­al worlds and com­mu­ni­ties, (such as expe­ri­enced in phe­nom­e­na like Face­book), I know that the 2020’s and beyond will wit­ness the con­tin­u­ing unfold­ment of forms of con­nec­tiv­i­ty that will tran­scend these phys­i­cal forms and their lim­its. But we, I, are get­ting ahead of ourselves.

Jupiter and Sat­urn Now
At the present moment, the final oppo­si­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn with­in the Earth series pro­vides us with this moment in time to see to what extent we have trans­formed our­selves and our world through our mate­r­i­al “mas­tery”.  And, it equal­ly reminds us what lim­its and chal­lenges have been cre­at­ed by this earthy par­a­digm in our con­scious­ness as well. We may mar­vel at our cre­ations, yet we must mourn what we have sac­ri­ficed of this Earth to bring about our present world reality.

Now you feel the need for a deep­er com­mit­ment; it is time for a more numi­nous expe­ri­ence of being one with the uni­verse (and your beloved). Venus moves into Pisces for the next 3 weeks and the mag­i­cal, mys­te­ri­ous and sub­lime are call­ing you to let go of the less­er and dis­cov­er the greater life with­in and without.

Venus in Pisces opens your heart to the great­est Truth, that all of life-cre­ation has emanat­ed from one Spir­it-Source. You look upon any oth­er… and you look upon your­self. The Great Souls who have achieved enlight­en­ment, who have come to their ful­fill­ment in the human form, do not leave behind those of us still seek­ing to find our way. They ful­ly under­stand, and so they must abide. They stand by the thresh­old; they extend their hand in com­pas­sion, sac­ri­fice and so wait for you… and there is no greater love than this.

So, dur­ing this time of Venus in Pisces, you too must do your part. Fol­low the path of truth, the path that con­nects each and every one to anoth­er. You must sac­ri­fice some­thing less­er and hon­or that which is greater with­in yourself. 

Take a step toward that thresh­old of enlight­en­ment, to that love and under­stand­ing, which waits for you… your destiny.

Venus returns to the Sea as Aphrodite aligns with Posei­don. Cre­ativ­i­ty and love surge as the dreams, visions and imag­i­na­tive pow­er of Nep­tune joins with the plan­et of beau­ty, grace and relationship.

Venus rules your val­ue sys­tem; it indi­cates what you like and how you love. The key to this is the val­ue you have and hold for yourself…your “self worth”. Your men­tal and phys­i­cal strengths, your aes­thet­ic and moral sen­si­bil­i­ties, com­bine to cre­ate your val­ue of your­self. The more you know of your­self, the more you pos­sess your “self”; and to that same extent you will then have a bet­ter rela­tion­ship with the things and lives of the world around you.

The gift of the con­junc­tion of Venus with Nep­tune is that you can re-imag­ine your worth or val­ue; you can dis­solve a less­er sense of self and dis­cov­er a greater, more inclu­sive expe­ri­ence of your­self that has always been possible.

It is true that you are lim­it­ed at any point in your life by your expe­ri­ence of what you have been able to under­stand, exer­cise and make man­i­fest of your poten­tial. But with the gift of Nep­tune to inspire you, through its gifts of dream, imag­i­na­tion and faith, you can free your­self from this lim­it­ed real­i­ty by return­ing you to the spir­i­tu­al well-spring, the spir­i­tu­al uni­verse of all those poten­tials that are with­in you.

There is mag­ic with­in you; it is the gift of the cre­ative spir­it and it is your birthright. Now let Nep­tune and Venus illu­mi­nate your path and bring you to a greater faith and a deep­er love. Be a cre­ator, be yourself!

Now, at the begin­ning of the year, there comes a flash, a spark of divine intel­li­gence, to light your way ahead.

Some­times Spir­it speaks with a soft voice, like a feath­er’s caress, gen­tly open­ing your heart and mind to the greater real­i­ty. But some­times it comes with thun­der, and bolts of light­ning announc­ing “Behold the New Day”! This is the way of Uranus.

Uranus is “The Awak­en­er” who comes to help you break free from a less­er sense of self. The Sun is the self, the source of all that you can be. But often you hold back and fail to express your greater indi­vid­u­al­i­ty because of con­di­tion­ing and fear. The poten­tial is with­in you, you can feel it, but you draw back from the light into the shadows.

Uranus quick­ens the spir­i­tu­al process of indi­vid­u­a­tion. Lim­it­ing pat­terns of thought and action are shat­tered by the aware­ness it bestows. Uranus lights the way to your true spir­i­tu­al self, and by this illu­mi­na­tion you inte­grate and so release your greater self into your life.

You are able to be more than your con­di­tion­ing because you are a spark of the divine. When that real­iza­tion of your spir­i­tu­al her­itage is secured, your life becomes part of a greater life, like a melody with­in the greater Song of Spirit.

Uranus aligned with the Sun calls upon you to free your­self from fear, to break the pat­terns that bind you, so that you can be true to yourself.

Remem­ber, you are here to answer a cos­mic ques­tion posed at your birth. It is by the release of your true poten­tial that you become the answer.