The Retrogrades are Coming to an End

Over the past several months we have been experiencing many retrograde periods, the chief ones being the Mars and Mercury retrograde cycle. On Wednesday, April 4^th at 3:11am, Mercury will go direct at 23° of Pisces. This has contrasted greatly with Mercury’s short entrance into Aries, the sign of the doer. For many of us, the urge to move forward strongly just a few weeks ago, has changed to varying degrees of doubt, uncertainty, and a feeling that something important must be changed. We probably have been experiencing delays, new issues or questions, etc. This is now coming to an end.

The helpful thing to know from astrological transits is what is the nature of the cycle in which we find ourselves. What we can know from this is that within a few days from now we can become confident that the ideas that have been developing the last month have now been fully processed. We have had the opportunity to thoroughly review and examine all kinds of issues, problems and plans so that we can now move forward on them with a high degree of certainty that we are moving in the right direction.

In the short run, however, there may still be some difficulties. Why? Because when a planet changes direction, that planet is stationary for a few days. This means that from the viewpoint of the Earth, the planet seems to not be moving. In the case of Mercury, it can result in the feeling that either the mind is a bit stuck or even in a rut. It can feel like too much Mercury, that is, too much thinking, too many imaginings which do not take you anywhere.

This particular transit is really affecting me. My natal Mercury is 22° Virgo, which means that as I write this Blog, the Mercury at 22° Pisces is exactly opposing my Mercury. Boy, am I feeling this. Virgo is by nature logical, orderly, rational etc., and emphasizes exactness. Pisces on the other hand is much more feeling oriented, intuitive, enjoying swimming in the waters of music, imagination, and sensitivities of all sorts. So, to the Virgo oriented person, this can feel like my mind has gone muddy, less able to focus in the usual way, and forgetful. In response to this, I have been using the Calendar function of Outlook and writing down appointments and tasks that I never do ordinarily. Even so I’ve double booked, which is something I hardly ever do. I had an astrological class last night and was missing the simplest of transits. They were correcting me constantly. I felt sorry for them; though I know they know me well enough to know that I’m not usually this weird. I was even thinking of things correctly, but saying them wrong. It felt like I was in a fog. I was unfocused on the everyday matters and only in the mood of following. Everything was easy peazy, a phrase I have been using a lot lately. For some people, this is no big deal, but for me it is bugging me greatly. I have to go to the store and find out what is going on with the battery in my cell phone and can’t get up the energy to actually do it. Oh well, I’ll do it later.

Is this what you Pisces people out there deal with all the time? If so I think I sympathize more than I ever have. Just so all of my readers know, a person can understand astrological principles and have the ‘right’ words to express something and not really know by experience what we are talking about. We just look good on paper. But, when we have to experience something like this transit, we get a firsthand look at what we have taught and wrote about and I tell you one thing for sure. Actual experience is NEVER the same as one’s mental understanding alone. Sometimes words are just words and it is best if we recognize this. It’s always a bit humbling to directly experience something new that we ‘thought’ we already knew. That’s when we find out how limited our understanding actually is.

The Mars retrograde is also winding down. It will turn direct on Friday, April 13^th, 2012 at 8:53pm PDST about 10 days from now. After 11 weeks of Mars retrograde it will be interesting to see and feel this change of direction. If any of you are sports enthusiasts, you may get a chance to see the effects of this rather quickly. Teams that have been doing really well may suddenly begin to lose, while other teams may make quick turnarounds. I’ve seen this many times. In other words, Mars turning direct can create game-changing momentum shifts that surprise many people. It will affect every arena of life, including politics, religion, business, etc. For example, watch and see what major public announcements are made. You can bet that all of them will have gone through a lot of development time as many hours of thought and planning went into what is finally being announced.

The same is true for this Blog. As many of you have noticed, we have not been running our AstroCast portion of the newsletter. It is going through several changes and new areas of interest are being developed as well. We hope we will soon be able to offer new types of articles. Also, I have not completed my series on Pluto through the signs of the last decades as I take a deeper look at the nature of Pluto in Capricorn. You can look forward to the continuation of that series.

I also would like to encourage my readers to inform us if you would like to see certain subjects included in the newsletter. We are open to considering other subjects, so just let us know.

We would love to hear from you if you have any stories to tell us about how you experienced the planets of Mars and Mercury changing direction, so if you desire please feel free to respond to this article.