Mercury's Karma Chameleon
Mercury stations direct to wrap up the most chaotic Summer in recent memory
Mercury is now standing still—stationary, stationing—in the sky at 21° Leo. The retrograde ends Wednesday, Mercury's day, August 28 at 3:15 PM MST. This direct station is Part I of the Finale (Part II is the New Moon on September 2) to this intense Summer. What made these last few months so chaotic was the activation of the Mutable signs Gemini, Virgo, and Pisces by nearly all the planets. The T-square dynamic between these three signs created many head vs heart struggles in our lives.
Saturn transiting through Pisces is attempting to give structure to the amorphous feeling center of our subconscious. Meanwhile Mars and Jupiter became entangled in the cerebral mess of Gemini's concept-centered overthinking spirals. Mercury started his retrograde journey in the early degrees of Virgo which only served to make us hypercritical and seeking perfection in vain. These planets forming conjunctions and squares to each other filled our Summer with confusing conversations, disorderly events, and invectives being used as a replacement for more sensitive words we couldn't find at the time.
Mercury first hit 21° Leo in the middle of July—an incendiary time in American politics for sure. For the collective, political messaging has dominated this seasonal on-ramp into the American election. The trouble with propaganda being pushed out during this time is that it is fraught with more reversals and gaslighting than usual. There is never any honesty in any political campaign, but this particular year feels more sinister and cunning in its maneuvers. I expect major exposures over the next two weeks.
On a personal level, since August 5 we've been retracing our steps all the way back to that starting point in Leo. What conversations were happening around July 15-18? What messages were being transmitted? What plans were you making at this time? Mercury's been backtracking, and so the feeling is frustration at unmet expectations and the best laid plans falling through. When it comes to how we express ourselves and our feelings, either small flaws were exposed at this time, or significant losses occurred and now we're deciphering what went wrong and learning how to avoid these mistakes in the future.
The last 3 weeks have revealed how not on the same page we've been with anyone. The thing about Mercury ingressing backwards into the sign of Leo is that Leo is the sign of the Ego, the Self, the "I think"; "I feel"; "I know" land of assumptions and false certainties driven by self-centered pride. As Mercury joined the Sun in Leo and opposed the Full Moon in Aquarius on August 19, we had to confront the harsh reality that we do not exist in a vacuum, and that the problem with relating to anyone is not knowing how we might come across to other people. It's hard enough to 1) reconcile what's going on in our heads and hearts (the Gemini-Pisces conflict) and 2) find the right words to accurately express what's going on there (the Virgo dilemma). But then with the Leo-Aquarius polarity exposed by the lightning flash quickness of the Full Moon, we were put to the test of aligning the Self and the Other with our communication skills.
The gift of this retrograde is stronger clarity about how we feel in our hearts and minds and what we need to do to effectively express those things. There's always damage done by a Mercury retrograde, but the best part is feeling the pressure lift and the frustration disappear. We cannot accept anything that was said, done, or decided on as final during this retrograde. All will be revealed in the fullness of time, but the best thing we can do for ourselves is be flexible, curious, and intentional as we move through the next two weeks.