Mercury Retrograde (26Dec09-15Jan10)

Stationing retro at 21 Cap on 26Dec, then retroing back to 5 Capricorn on 15Jan10. This image is from NASA.gov, the surface of Mercury. Not what you expected? Its trip through Capricorn is all about realism.

As always, Mercury retros are for seeing into things in new ways. Though many of us don’t allow Mercurial things to work differently, so get stressed when things don’t work the way they’re supposed to. It’s one of the great things astrology can offer us – being aware of the cosmic weather and adjusting to it, learning to live with more grace and ease.

Second-guessing and doubting could be two results for folks during this retro. Capricorn’s all about who’s in charge and what they have to do to get there, so authority could be called into question.  Others’ of course, but really yours. This is what would lead to doubts coming up – Capricorn is where we form long-term strategies and, over the long term, execute them to create things of lasting value. Maybe I didn’t plan this enough, or ask enough realistic questions before I started this project. Maybe what I planned is in reality going to take longer than expected. Or maybe I have to learn something new to make what I’m working on truly worth creating.

Also as always with Mercury retros, there’s the opportunity to see and think into course corrections. Whatever’s going on re Capricorn stuff in your life, here’s the chance to see and think into it in different ways to make some alterations to those strategies and ways of executing them.

Along the way, you’ll have the stereotypical delays on plans, miscommunications, misunderstandings, lost keys, broken appliances and vehicles (whatever breaks, by the way, has been ready to break for a long time). And we’ve got the usual warnings about signing contracts, etc. So but the energy’s working differently, this is the given – your reaction to it is what counts.

If you let it stress you out, everything gets harder. If you take what re thinking/communication/planning doesn’t go well and open to thinking/communicating/planning differently, you’ll get something really valuable out the experience. All Mercury retros are for getting inside things to see how to make them work better, and it’s during the retro when the energy is working in weird/not normal ways, that we can actually see how to make them better.

At the end of the retro, when it’s stationing direct, it’ll be conjunct Pluto and square Saturn, which will have itself just begun its annual retro period two days prior. Everything up in your life about learning who’s really in charge of what in your life will have the chance to have new insight added to it.

Pluto in Capricorn asks us to learn to take responsibility for ourselves and own long-term goals, while Saturn in Libra tells us that unhealthy or immature relationship patterns just won’t cut it anymore. Adding Mercury to this can bring you to see deeper layers of this dynamic in your life, however it’s manifesting. Is there something that needs to be articulated to yourself, or said to someone else, to support you in taking back your energy and giving back others’ to them? Is there some bit of history you don’t yet know informs your issues with authority and the stuff that’s coming up in your relationships? Saturn and Capricorn are about history, so some of your insights could lead to that.

Stay calm, be open, breathe deeply. Be willing to do some things a couple of times. And remember that a little patience can do you a lot of good, and this retro won’t be the end of the world…even if’s the end of an appliance or gadget or two.

Tom Jacobs is an astrologer, medium and channel in Tucson, AZ. Contact him via his site, https://tdjacobs.com.