The Cosmic Story: Mercury Retrograde Ends: What Did You Integrate?

Stepping into Our New Story

Mercury, the quickest planet in our solar system, is slowing down, stopping and reversing direction tonight at 1:31am September 22nd, hours before the Autumn Equinox.  Mercury has been retrograde since August 30th and has moved backwards through Virgo from the very end of this sign of healing, integration and wholeness to about the middle. The question Mercury tried to answer is: what do you want to become so we can begin to build it?  Virgo's energy is geared toward the integration of Body, Soul (Mind and Heart) and Spirit.  To be your Self and to own it.

It seems auspicious that Mercury will stop to observe us as the Earth comes into Balance for the Equinox--in the North, we will celebrate the Autumn Equinox while in the South, you will celebrate Spring Equinox.  For both hemispheres, there will be a balance of Day and Night.  What has Mercury taught you about Balance?  The Equinox occurs at 7:22am PDT/ 10:22am EDT/ 2:22pm GMT on September 22, 2016.  What have you harvested this year?

There are the usual rumours of Mercury retrograde breakdowns: car trouble, communication difficulties, travel disruptions, computer breakdowns.  I wonder if this happens when we aren't paying attention to some inner issues: are our goals still viable?  Who don't we want to talk to? Where are we running to? Where are we overdoing, overloading or over stressing ourselves to cause breakdowns?  And people have reconnected, rediscovered and redone things.

Within the next few days, this little planet will begin to move forward again in relationship to Earth.  Our intelligence--our rational and intuitive minds--hopefully has been regenerated in some way. With Mercury in Virgo, we get to work with a transformative, magical Mind, one that alchemizes our inner energies to create a more integrated personality.  This was a great time to work with the Unconscious and bring about changes in our beliefs that have hampered us from moving forward.

This is the alchemical Mercurius/Mercury--the transformative Mind, which is how Mercury manifests as the ruler of Virgo.  What did you purify?  What did you burn off? What did you awaken? What did you imagine and how are you bringing it into your life?

This is a very strong change of direction for a few reasons.  First is that Mercury rules Virgo so makes the best use of this energy, acting as the Psychopomp or Guide of Souls here.  It likes to pay attention to details and get it all perfect--or as perfect as it can be at the moment.  It can lead you into the Unconscious and guide you through the dangers there until you face the energies calling you down.  And then it can bring you back up into the light of consciousness, changed and whole.

Mercury Stationing Direct, 9.22.16

The second reason this planetary station of Mercury is strong is that it forms a grand mutable cross (a planet in each of the 4 mutable signs): Mercury in Virgo opposes Neptune in Pisces and squares both Saturn in Sagittarius and the Moon in Gemini.  The Moon and Neptune open us to the Unconscious, while Mercury and Saturn fine tune what we find there and bring it into consciousness.

We have to look at our limiting beliefs and see if they're valid.  If not, they do not serve us or Life itself.  Once we let go of old beliefs and habits of thought and know what we want, we can consciously choose what we believe. We can live our purpose and prosper once we release the chains that bind us to our past.  The lunar eclipse last week released our old stories back into the Collective Unconscious.  Now we can begin to live our new stories with focus and energy, because we've left the old world behind.

This Mercury retrograde gave us a blessing.  Let us honor it by living it.
Cathy

Mercury Retrograde Special

If you want to see how this Mercury retrograde affected you, I am offering a special 1/2 hour reading.  Just email me at cathy@wisdom-of-astrology.com and we'll set up an appointment.  If you can name and own what you learned in the past 24 days, you can use it to help build your new life.