Hell to Pay in Heaven
The double retrogrades of Mercury and Venus
As of this week, we are now in the full swing of the Double Retrograde with Mercury stationed and now chasing Venus on her journey to the underworld. Together they’ll be moving back through the first decan of Aries and crossover into Pisces.
Separately these retrogrades are complicated ordeals that give us an opportunity to reassess our patterns, and it’s a season to take our reflections deeper and with longer consideration. Every year we “enjoy” times where multiple planets are retrograde, it’s usually something like a Mercury retrograde happening at the same time as Jupiter, Uranus or Pluto or some other outer planet is Rx. Occasionally the inner and outer planet retrogrades align to be happening in the same zodiac sign. It’s not unusual for multiple planets to be retrograde at the same time, but what makes this Mercury/Venus combo particularly singular is they are going through this journey so close together—always within a 5° orb of each other—and traveling between the same two zodiac signs of Aries and Pisces.
It’s a beautiful and bittersweet transit because just before Mercury stationed retrograde, he made an exact conjunction to Venus (March 11th). The planet was prograde at that time while Venus was retrograde, so they separated into opposite directions after the direct hit. A few days later, as Venus continued backtracking, Mercury stationed retrograde (March 15th) and started chasing after her. On March 27th Venus will cross the extremely important threshold between Aries and Pisces; two days later Mercury will re-ingress into Pisces as well. The two planets will remain within a couple degrees of each other with Mercury pursuing Venus in high concentration until eventually he slows down and stations direct on April 7th and leaves Venus behind in Pisces. The two will not meet in an exact conjunction again until November 24th.
The choreography alone is reminiscent of a yearning, right-person-wrong-time love story, but the treading back and forth between Aries and Pisces is poetically charged, as well. Pisces represents the realm of the underworld; the subliminal; the unconscious; the hidden psyche; and Aries is the new life that springs forth from that realm of abstraction. The border between Pisces and Aries is a stark boundary between the spiritual and material, dead and living, darkness and light. Progressing through the zodiac, it’s always a little relieving to go from the scary, murky waters of Pisces into the bright light of Aries where everything is illuminated and direct; where you can finally feel the optimism that comes with knowing where you and where you’re going. The dark grotto of the Piscean netherworld is one that we have to navigate, not with our five senses that we are accustomed to, but with our intuitions and instincts. So, for Venus to move backwards into Pisces—even though it is the sign of her exaltation—it’s a bit disorienting to go back to that realm of the boundless oceanic waves. From a mythological character standpoint, it’s endearing to watch Mercury go after her and tragic when he has to leave her behind. As I was examining this astrology, I found it to be rather familiar.
The legend of Orpheus & Eurydice is perhaps the most re-told myth of all time, that is, if you also count vague reiterations of the general plot structure of lovers doomed to sabotage their happy ending at the last moment as a re-telling. It is of course the tale of Orpheus the musician falling in love with the beautiful Eurydice, who dies tragically early from a snake bite. Orpheus’ grief is so grave that he undertakes a great and terrible journey to the land of the dead to retrieve his beloved. With his music he manages to move Hades to allow him to rescue Eurydice from death on the condition that he never look back at her once as they make their ascent back to the world of the living. With Eurydice following behind him, Orpheus starts to lead the way back. As they make their journey, however, Orpheus cannot hear Eurydice’s footsteps behind him and starts to doubt that Hades kept his promise. As they near the threshold between the underworld and the light of the living world, Orpheus’ doubt is mounting and he glances back to make sure Eurydice is there, thinking they are close enough to the exit that it would be okay. He does in fact see Eurydice behind him, but he is not clear, and his looking back casts her back into the underworld, separating them forever.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be living under Mercury’s and Venus’ dramatic reenactment of this story. As above, so below, as they say, so we can expect the themes of this myth to echo throughout this retrograde season and affect our astrology in subtle (or maybe not so subtle ways). In general, the astrology is saying, “Do not look back! Lest you meet the same fate as Orpheus,” but this is rather superficial advice. Looking back is not wrong. It would have been fine for Orpheus to eventually turn around and be reunited with Eurydice at the right time. His fault was not in gazing upon her, after all, it was in doubting Hades’ promise and losing faith just before the task was done. A more nuanced piece of advice for this astrology is: do not allow yourself to be tempted with doubt to look back before you are ready, or before your journey is complete. Retrogrades are process astrology. They are not times where things happen quickly or in any kind of direct way, and it is imperative to trust the process. Keeping faith that everything will all turn out as it is meant to is one of the biggest meta-lessons of these seasons.
Mercury retrogrades come and go regularly a few times a year—they are seasons of fixing mistakes we made while we moved too quickly through life. Hold-ups and delays and frustrations abound during these times, but they (hopefully) habituate us into a routine of going back over our work to make sure we didn’t miss anything. The overarching lesson of Mercury retrogrades is how to be meticulous. Venus retrogrades, on the other hand, happen every 18 months, so they hit us with a stronger force and tend to affect our feelings and sensibilities. Venus retrogrades urge us to re-evaluate our values and sense of worth in ourselves—these things, of course, have a tremendous impact on our relationships. Relating to one another necessarily entails exchanging value, and, acknowledging our own worthiness and the worthiness of others is a bedrock to trusting each other enough to engage in intimacy and care and eventually love. We tend to feel an almost supernatural force pulling us to look back toward old loves because it is a great time to re-examine what went wrong and how we were complicit in bringing about the conditions we wanted to avoid (presumably, the end of the relationship). Rekindling old relationships is best left to when Venus is back to moving prograde, but this is a time for looking deep within ourselves and make an honest attempt at adjusting our patterns.
I can imagine we’ll be made to suffer misunderstandings, mishaps and confusion resulting from impulsive (Aries) decisions and getting caught up in emotional reactions (Pisces) for the next month. During these crises and dilemmas we must remember that every experience is giving us valuable information on our own habits and the habits of others. From pain comes growth, of course, and by the end of this we’ll have expanded so much our capacity for compassion and love that we’ll look back with fondness on the passage of this time as though we are looking at old pictures from our youth, remembering ourselves once again.