Mercury's station

Before we jump to our topic, I wanted to continue on a thread from last time.  We spoke about the USA's natal chart having a Sun (identity, image) in square (90 degrees) to planet Saturn (constriction, depression, responsibility) and that transiting Saturn (that is Saturn in the sky) was very close to our natal placement.  (Yes the USA is having a Saturn return for those who know that term -every 29 1/2 years Saturn in its orbit around the Sun, comes back to where it was in a nativity. )

Today I just saw the NYTimes headlines "Nations mood at lowest level in 2 years" .  To me that is a correlation of us being made of one substance, as Marcus Aurelius says, as what is happening in the sky is mirrored below. The USA has a natal predisposition (Sun) to resist (square) any form of self discipline (Saturn).  That innate characteristic will be on view as long as Saturn is in Libra until October 2012.   We will be watching this unfold in the upcoming months.

Onto Mercury... as we all know Mercury does not actually stop, change direction, stop again and turn around.  Mercury appears to do this because of our perspective from earth  (our perspective is everything!).  Mercury is the fastest planet orbiting around the Sun and we rarely see it.  Only at dusk when the planet is at its eastern elongation do we see him as an evening star, as it passes between the Earth and the Sun;  and again about 3 weeks later, Mercury is seen rising ahead of the Sun in the morning sky at its western elongation.  We see Mercury has come from setting behind the Sun in the evening to rising ahead of the Sun in the morning.  And what has happened in between?  Mercury has connected with the Sun.  Our thought patterns, information and ideas (Mercury) have reconnected with our purpose (Sun). 

This is the true meaning of any planet retrograde-it must reconnect with who we are, with our purpose.  As mythological Mercury could go from Olympus to Hades (the only god who could) to bring out new information from the underground, so in modern times we use the Mercury's retrogrades to rethink, reedit, redo, everything in fact with the word re in it.  The good news this weekend is that Mercury has finished this part of its cycle and as of Saturday the 23rd will begin its direct journey away from the earth.  The going is slow at first as Mercury prefers faster speeds, but the tide is on our side.  Whatever information has been gleaned from its underground journey can be used to move ahead.