Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio October 31st - November 20th 2019

Mercury, the planet that rules the mind, thoughts, and communication as well as our day to day commutes, errands and monetary transactions, will station retrograde in Scorpio on October 31st.  Mercury is known as "the messenger" and "the trickster".  

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A retrograde is when a planet appears to move backward in the sky.  In astrology, when a planet is in retrograde, its influence is said to be turned inward in our lives and it is a time where as the planet retraces its steps over recent degrees of the zodiac, we review and reevaluate.  

Typically a Mercury retrograde means we will be in some way reviewing our thinking and communications.  Because we are in a period of reevaluation during a retrograde, we may find pushing ahead challenging if not impossible.  During Mercury retrogrades, it is not unusual for phones to start acting up, WiFi to go out, fax machines to break, details to get missed, conversations to get misunderstood, vehicles to break down and travel plans to go awry.  It is never advisable to sign a contract during a Mercury retrograde unless the contract has already been finalized pre-retrograde and there are no changes, the reason being that the chances of overlooking important details or missing something in the fine print is much more likely during Mercury retrograde.  As a time of review, Mercury retrogrades can be great for tasks like editing.

This Mercury retrograde happens to be in Scorpio, meaning that this review of the mind and messages will be occurring through the prism or filter of Scorpio energy.  Scorpio is the sign of other people's money, such as taxes and inheritances, power, transformation, healing, the deep psyche, shared resources, elimination, regeneration, death and rebirth, destruction and creation, the mysteries, occult and taboo, passion, sex, what is hidden, secrets, unearthing, truth, obsessiveness, and resurrection.  

This retrograde begins with Mercury stationing retrograde conjunct Venus in Scorpio.  The conjunction is technically exact the day prior, October 30th. 

Simply put, Venus and Mercury together translates to "love expression".  However, the meaning here is layered.  Venus is the Roman version of Aphrodite, known most widely as the goddess of love.  Venus manifests as both the evening star, the goddess of love, and the morning star, the goddess of war.  Venus/Aphrodite comes from a long lineage of goddesses including the Sumerian Inanna and the Babylonian Ishtar.  They were goddesses of not only love, but sex, fertility and war.  Venus rules both Libra, sign of relationships, aesthetics, balance and harmony and Taurus, an earth sign associated with values, money, possessions and security.  While Venus represents the feminine energy within us all and attracting our desires to us through alignment and receptivity, and rules over love and relationships, Venus also rules over our values and our value of self, which not only extends into our ability to give and receive love, but is at the core of our relationship to money and possessions because it determines how we value ourselves and the resources we offer to the world to support ourselves.  

Mercury is about how we express and communicate, but that is because Mercury rules our mind and therefore our thoughts.  Our thoughts are a product of our beliefs and values.  Therefore the way in which we express and communicate is driven by our thoughts, which are a product of our deeply held values and beliefs.  

Scorpio is an energy that goes deep.  It has the power to be profoundly transformative, precisely because it will take us to the depths of ourselves necessary to uncover these deeply buried beliefs we carry that hold us back. 

While "love expression" is absolutely a theme of this Mercury retrograde beginning  influenced by Venus, when we take a closer look, that has everything to do with us healing deeper issues within ourselves around our value of ourselves, gaining clarity on what it is we most value, and therefore shifting our beliefs which in turn changes our thinking and therefore how we express ourselves in the world.  

Scorpio has no tolerance for the shallow or superficial - only intense and deep connections will do.  With this retrograde being kicked off with the blessings of Venus in Scorpio's healing waters of transformation, we are given an opportunity to work some relationship magic.  This energy available with Mercury conjunct Venus on October 31st supports love expression as well as any dialogue where compromise is necessary.  Venus loves balance, harmony, equity and peace, and on the 31st she will be whispering into Mercury's ear instructing us on how to go about achieving these with our communications.  

The upcoming Mercury retrograde has one more major influence.  Mercury in Scorpio is making a total of three aspects to Neptune in Pisces that weave through this retrograde.  Mercury and Neptune will be connecting via an aspect known as a trine, which is a sixty degree angle.  This happens when two planets arrive at the exact same degree of different water signs at the same time.  Because trines always involve two planets both in water signs, they are known as easy or helpful aspects, where the two planetary energies are blending harmoniously rather than challenging each other.  

Neptune has been in Pisces since 2011 and will remain there until 2026.  Neptune is the Roman version of the Greek god Poseidon - the god of the sea.  Neptune rules the hidden and mysterious, including imagination, dreams and all things magical, spiritual and shamanic, as well as illusion, delusion, lies, deception and escapism.  The energy of Neptune is known to have a dissolving property and be nebulous, whether this is for better or worse.  ​

Neptune stationed retrograde in Pisces on June 21st, and will station direct on November 27th.  ​When a planet is retrograde we experience its energy in a way that is more internalized and as the planet backtracks we review how that energy is at play in our lives.  With Neptune retrograde we may find ourselves facing a reality we had been hiding from or denying.  However, Neptune also connects us to our intuition and the spiritual realms.  If we are using Neptune energy to disconnect from reality and our truth, we keep ourselves from using it for higher purposes.  So while Neptune's retrograde may leave us with nowhere to hide and with no choice but to accept our reality, that is precisely what will make it possible for us to access the energy of Neptune to connect to spirit and our inner guidance and bring our dreams to life rather than hiding from a reality we cannot face.

Over three separate meetings Mercury and Neptune are going to help us work something out.  The first of these alignments occurred on October 15th, with Mercury direct and Neptune retrograde.  The second one will b on November 13th, this time with both planets retrograde.  The final connection of these two planets will be on November 28th with both planets direct.  (Mercury turns direct on November 20th, and then Neptune follows suit on November 27th, just one day prior to the third and final aspect.)  

Whatever presented itself in your life on October 15th sets the theme of this series of trines between Mercury and Neptune.  The same goes for the time period of October 11th until October 31st for the Mercury retrograde itself.  October 11th is the date that Mercury began transiting the degrees of Scorpio it will be covering in retrograde for the first time.  This is known as the pre-shadow of the retrograde.  Because Mercury will be going back over these same degrees during the retrograde, during the pre-shadow the issues that come up in your life having to do with the mind, thoughts, communication, and expression filtering through the energy of Scorpio, which includes themes of healing, transformation, regeneration, death and rebirth, the deep psyche, and uncovering truths, not to mention power, sex, and other peoples' money.  

Each of the three times Mercury and Neptune reach the same degree of Scorpio and Pisces, respectively, Mercury, as ruler of our minds, will be receiving Neptune's ethereal messages for us and broadcasting them through the energy of Scorpio.  Remember that Neptune is an enigma - there is nothing here that will be all that tangible or easily defined.  When under Neptune's spell, the senses we use to interpret the mundane world become unreliable; we must navigate with our intuition as what our eyes see could be illusion, and what our ears hear might be deception.  Also Neptune influence dissolves - think of watching wave after wave crashing onto rocks or cliffs and how hypnotic the sight and sound of that is.  And we can watch for hours entranced without ever noticing what those waves are actually doing to the rock that seems so solid - eroding it.  Logical thinking and reasoning won't work here - this is territory we must feel (or even imagine) our way through.  If there ever an aspect to apply magical thinking, this one is probably it!

Mercury in retrograde reaches cazimi (the halfway point of the retrograde where Mercury conjuncts the sun and therefore appears to disappear under the rays of the sun).  Cazimi is when the retrograde planet is said "to be granted an audience with the king in the throne room".  The sun is the light of consciousness.  This is the climax of the retrograde - the point at which we receive insight.  

Mercury cazimi the sun will be on November 11th at 8:23 a.m. MST.  Typically when the planet of the mind and communications is traveling backward, it is not recommended to try and push any type of message with the intent of moving things forward.  However, due to the favorable influences acting upon Mercury at the degree of cazimi, and cazimi being by definition a moment of insight, enlightenment or raised consciousness, the morning of November 11th is supportive for communications, messages or proposals to be well-received. The closer you can time your communication to the exact moment of cazimi, the more power you can access to back it.

On November 20th, Mercury stations direct.  Just as it began, this retrograde cycle completes supported by harmonizing influences which all in all make this Mercury retrograde more about healing and reconciling than consisting of challenges that teach us lessons and force growth, which is a really sweet thing in the midst of the challenging astrology we have navigated for much of this year.

Happy Retrograding!

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