Even though Mercury is now moving forward, another slow down occurs as Saturn turns retrograde today until September 6th. Saturn is now in its home sign of Capricorn. Saturn is happy in Capricorn where his orderly and structured energy is appreciated. Saturn in Capricorn will be teaching us a great many things about the effort it takes to mature and the importance of making that effort without expectation of what will be received. Now the work is the reward.
Mercury, the planet that rules over communication, thinking, writing and technology begins its first retrograde period of 2018 today until April 15, 2018. Mercury is the ruler of talkative Gemini and efficient Virgo. For 3 or 4 times each year, Mercury appears to orbit backwards or be in retrograde orbit and turns its cerebral energy inward. When this happens, appointments are missed; last minute cancellations occur and email is misdirected. We don’t seem to be able to get our point across and the POV of others is lost on us. Murphy’s Law rules the day and we can expect nothing but chaos. But for me, I have always felt the issue is that we are like the proverbial Sisyphus and his boulder, spending 3 weeks of futility trying to bend Mercury to our will.
March has always been an unpredictable month. The bridge between winter and spring, the weather is always questionable, chilly one day – warm the next. We can see small bits of green pushing upward toward the Sun, the promise of spring and more daylight ahead. But as soon as we think about putting away our Parkas, along comes a late snowstorm, reminding us that it’s not quite over yet.
The new moon in Aquarius coincides with a solar eclipse the day after Valentine's Day, this Thursday, February 15th. For millions of people around the planet, it is also Chinese New Year. Watch for another blog post about the Year of the Earth Dog later this week. This is a time for introspection, for reflecting on what needs to shift or change internally, before making what could be some sweeping external changes in March when the sun enters Aries and the whole cycle begins again.
