Mercury Retrograde - January 5 until 25 2016
Happy New Year, lovely friends! I really hope your holidays were as beautiful and as wonderful as possible! I know a lot of us are feeling the effects of planetary aspects moving around, creating a lot of friction, exhaustion, general grumpiness, and also a lot of misunderstandings. Well, hang on, my darlings! Today is the first day for Mercury Retrograde!
Typically, this time of the year is historically filled with "fresh start" energy. New Year's resolutions, new ideas for business growth opportunities, and new shifts in perspectives - from where we have previously been in 2015 to where we want to venture to in 2016. I am sure we are all trying to start dedicating more time, focus, and intentions on our renewed dreams. However, this first month of this particular year, we have a Mercury Retrograde coming into play. Oh, no! Right? Just kidding! They aren't all as bad as they seem. Mercury retrogrades are pivotal and important times of year (that happen about 3 to 4 times EVERY year). Besides becoming a huge buzzword for people the last few years, I feel as if Mercury retrograde has a really bad general reputation. This comes from a lack of understanding of the necessity for the planet that rules communication and technology.
Mercury not only rules communication, it represents coordination. Thought processes, ideas, and sensory information from both unconscious and unconscious sources all need to be coordinated and understood. Mercury analyzes, sorts, groups, and makes sense of things. How does we handle nervous energy? How do we express and convey our thoughts? How do we approach others and information in order to learn and exchange ideas?When we are "acting out" our Mercury, we are inquisitive, curious, communicative, and versatile. On the negative side, we can be high-strung or nervous, nit-picky, indecisive, and overly technical.
The purpose of Mercury retrograde is to review and revise our life and our connection with reality. The timing of this universe is geared toward the Sun as it moves through the zodiac. Mercury has an orbit that at times gets ahead of the Sun allowing us to look into the future toward new and innovative ideas. However, we cannot continue in that vein until we come back to the present designated by the Sun and put our new ideas into manifestation. During the time that Mercury jumps ahead, we ultimately have to bring the ideas back into the present to test and evaluate to see how they fit into our life. As Mercury retrogrades back into the present, the connection with the Sun happens as we test drive our ideas and re-align with reality and the natural timing of the universe. Mercury itself rules how we think, we will be adjusting everything related to thoughts, concepts, ideas, and communication, especially how technology and material elements play a part in the physical manifestation of ideas. When Mercury retrogrades, we find that many parts of our life are being revised. Often these revisions can be a surprise or throw us back a step. However, these revisions which occur during a Mercury retrograde, are a "course correction" and provide a stop gap measure until we can review situations. During this time of revision, change is compounded and confusion is created by our reactions to the ever-changing situations. Thus anything started during this time will ultimately be taken back or even revised further, making for a highly frustrating time. This will be especially true with changing our minds, reviewing new ideas and our communication being improved and honed so not to be mis-understood.
For many of us, the timing of this is not the best, as it is January; we want to push forward with our action steps for our new year. However, I am looking at this Mercury retrograde as an extended mindful time period to plan more thoroughly, cultivate more inner wisdom, and head back into my proverbial cave to make sure my to-do list is exactly what it needs to be for what I want to accomplish this year. The planet Mercury goes retrograde in the sign of Aquarius on January 5 where it will remain for three days before going into the sign of Capricorn for the rest of its duration. Mercury in Capricorn directs our attention to our career, material gain and prestige. Mercury will turn direct on the 26th and around that time things will start to get back to normal, however it is best to wait until Mercury is out of its shadow phase on February 16th to be extra sure. Business, travel and communications will run much smoother at that time.
The best mode to be in during a Mercury retrograde is one of "non-reaction". Treat the time period as a time of gathering information, yet because the information will be in constant change it would be like trying to comb your hair in a wind storm. Best to wait until the changes stop before attempting to make things orderly. Therefore, just let the winds of situations blow around you without reacting. Once Mercury turns direct, take a look at the information that is still around at that time and go about putting everything in order, while maintaining the fine art of flexibility.
Mercury retrograde occurs at two levels. At one level, there is not much you can do with the actions of others, except to be more conscious and prepare for delays and errors by double checking. But at the personal level you can do a lot in order to avoid the consequences of Mercury Retrograde. Most of us encounter the consequences when we are not centered, aware or conscious of what is going on around us, and more often than not the culprit is that we are not acting from our heart and spirit. Instead we are reacting from our needs, our hurts, from our buttons being pushed, or the way that we take care of others and not ourselves. In that way we act from our shadow, and that is what mercury retrograde is all about. Mercury Retrograde occurs when it is moving backwards, into its shadow, and thus communication, scheduling, transportation and judgment becomes cloudy or error prone. As much as outer work is challenged by Mercury Retrograde, introspection and inner work is very supported. Take advantage of Mercury Retrograde by clearing your own tendencies to get caught up in your own shadows and those of others.
It's okay, Leo.... this is hard for us, too!
Don't worry, surviving Mercury retrograde is easy and it's a wonderful time for a redo. Recalibrate and restructure the things in your life holding you back. Before Mercury goes retrograde, back up all your files on your computer and double-check all your appointments and commitments. You can easily survive Mercury retrograde by reviewing your life. Are you happy with the direction it is taking? Revaluate and make improvements. Reorganize and reduce your clutter. Give old items to charity. Rewrite your bio and replace old photos on social media sites. Double-check all travel plans. Give yourself plenty of time. Complete projects that you have already started. Clean your living space and environment. Take a class or a new course of study. Read everything you sign, twice and above all, go with the flow because everything happens for reason. And most importantly: RELAX!
The following excerpt is from www.cafeastrology.com
Mercury ends its transit of Capricorn on the 1st, when it enters Aquarius, and then turns retrograde a few days later, on the 5th. With Mercury retrograde in Aquarius until the 8th, this is an excellent period for getting in touch with our humanitarian goals as well as ideals. We may be more able to tap into our inner muse and come up with especially inventive ideas. On the 8th, retrograde Mercury enters Capricorn, where it will spend the remainder of its retrograde cycle (until January 25th). During this period, we may have little tolerance for small talk and tend to express ourselves after much deliberation. Plans may be considered then reconsidered. We are in a good position to reevaluate professional or life path plans and goals. We might explore what ambition or our reputation means to us. Retrograde Mercury aligns with the Sun on the 14th, bringing illumination to our thoughts, on the same day that it forms a trine with insightful, big-thinking Jupiter. This inferior conjunction presents a favorable time for processing recent events and ideas, and for beginning to look at problems or issues from a new perspective and with a new understanding. What we say or write now has impact, for better or for worse! Mercury aligns with Pluto on the 21-22 while retrograde, and then on the 29th, tying in intense ideas and revelations with those experienced on December 19th. Mercury begins retracing its steps now in direct motion from the 25th (its shadow ends on February 14th).
Follow the link above to see how your sign might be affected by the planetary aspects this month, and to read up on other information to keep in mind through January.
We will have a few Retrogrades this year in Earth Signs, and given this heavy introspective energy, we are going to be looking within and having to take stock of all our earthly issues.
There is a big emphasis on the earth signs in 2016 which will shift our focus to more earthly matters, hard work and logical thinking. Mercury is the earth signs are like a voice of reason pushing you towards logical thinking, reasoning, studies and being frugal. You can gain the most benefit from this by working hard towards your goals. Mercury is encouraging and nudging us towards a more stable way of life now. Life can't be a party all the time, sometimes you just have to get the job done. If you would like to know more about how the planetary movements influence you specifically, I recommend checking out www.astro.com. They have a lot of wonderful free information on their site, and allow you to have daily personalized horoscopes!
At the end of the day, we are all in this Mercury retrograde together! Please remember to be kind to everyone you encounter, as you never know who may have just had a Mercury retrograde meltdown. Or who is really going through it. Until next time, I send you all so much love and light. Also, take care of each other.
