Mercury retrograde in Aquarius and Pisces: The two faces of the Trickster in February 2014

The big change for this trecena is that Mercury turned retrograde February 6th and later turns direct on the 28th, so most of the month would be a good time to avoid signing contracts or other legal papers, making any major purchases, or even taking a new job. If you can postpone these types of activities the terms will be much clearer after Mercury is moving direct. Mercury retrogrades force us to slow down and pay more attention to our lives by making us focus on the details of our daily experience. When looking at a retrograde cycle of any of the personal or inner planets, it provides information about a correction to our present course.

During this report period we have completed Mercury’s travel through the first stage of the retrograde process on 1/22. There are two important points to be aware of in looking at the cycle. We look at the point where the planet appears to move backwards and the point where it appears to move forward again. The first stage represents the shadow time between passing 18 degrees Aquarius, the point where the planet will eventually begin moving forward again and the point where the planet slows, stops, and begins moving in reverse, 3 degrees Pisces. During the first stage we received information about needing to adjust our direction. The second stage is the retrograde phase and is a time to watch the events that occur related to the information received in the 1st stage. The 3rd stage begins when the planet is moving forward again until crossing the line where it originally turned retrograde. During the 3rd stage we move forward with a revision to our previous course. We entered the 1st stage for Mercury on January 22nd, so from then until February 6th, we received information about an adjustment that needs to be made in our lives. Mercury is retrograde from 2/6 at 3 Pisces until 2/28 at 18 Aquarius which will be the time when we will notice events that shift our thinking, and from February 28th to March 20th, we are in the 3rd stage where we implement the change in direction from the awareness gained through experiencing this process.

    I think this is an interesting Mercury retrograde, because during its course it will connect with two planets three times each. It squares Saturn, and trines Mars with three events each. And on February 15th, the day it conjuncts the Sun, which happens in every Mercury retrograde, is less than 24 hours after the dramatic Leo Full Moon. This has me recall the Chinese proverb, and I believe curse, “May you live in interesting times”.

I’ve discovered that Mercury retrogrades repeat every 79 years, so look for the reoccurrence of themes from 1935, 1856 and 1777. Let’s see if those were interesting times. 1935 saw Adolph Hitler’s reinstatement of the air force, the Luftwaffe and the rearmament of Nazi Germany, both in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, a Coup D’état attempt in Greece, the Harlem Race riot occurs in New York City after a teenager is brutally beaten, the Great Dust Bowl in the United States, other natural disasters being a 7.1 earthquake in Pakistan killing 40,000 people and the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States killing 423, FDR signs the Social Security act, the Congress of Industrial Organizations or CIO is created pushing the cause for industrial unionism, Heinrich Himmler’s Lebenborn program is founded to support Nazi eugenics, Mao Zedong called for National United Front against the Japanese invasion, and the rise and fall of gangsters and bank robbers in the USA. What stuck out for me was the realization that during the corresponding February 1935 Mercury retrograde, was also the first post Uranus Pluto squares year, with Uranus in Aries as it is now, but Pluto in Cancer. This was an historical time period of global financial decline and increased fascism.

1856 brought the an increase in the conflicts between pro-slavery and anti-slavery with armed conflicts particularly in Kansas, and senator Charles Sumner being beaten with a cane by congressman Preston Brooks for Sumner’s speech attacking southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas rendering Sumner unable to return to duty for three years and Brooks becoming a hero across the south, the Taiping Rebellion, the Second Opium War, and the Anglo-Persian War were also events during 1856. 1856 was the time period when Neptune was last in Pisces, as it is currently, which was also a time of more compassion for the suffering of slaves in the United States, but also more opposition to that compassion. Which currently seems to be being played out in the theme of Wealth Inequality, which if all your income only pays for survival needs then isn’t that a form of enslavement? And of course here in the United States we have millionaire legislators, who are voting for corporate interests over their constituents’ needs. Perhaps this will be a time of change particularly given the Year of the Horse. I was reading recently that the 1% is becoming fearful of America erupting in a way that is similar to the French Revolution. 1777 saw the American Revolution becoming more heated with the Continental Army operating as an organized fighting unit. Interestingly tactics that we look at as carried out by patriots in history, would now be acts of terrorism from our modern viewpoint, such as attaching a time bomb to the hull of the HMS Eagle or placing cannons on Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor. These are themes of the Trickster archetype, to use cleverness and covert actions rather than attempt to battle a powerful adversary on its own terms. During most of 1777, Pluto was in Capricorn, dismantling power structures that have out grown their usefulness, which is the last time period Pluto was in Capricorn until 2008, where it remains today. Clearly we are looking at cycles within cycles, the players have changed roles, but the themes of a decaying empire collapsing under its own weight, with individuals employing tactics of cleverness over direct confrontation, the oppressive power of fascist governments, economic decline increasing the chasm between the elite and the struggling throngs, and the growing compassion for those left without a voice are the fabric of our times.

    If you look at the house of your astrological chart that contains 18 degrees of Aquarius to 3 degrees of Pisces, you can find the theme where you will experience revisions, reviews and rethinking of the characteristics represented by that house. For me it is the ninth house of long distance travel and higher education, so I expect this cycle to provide new information about potential learning or teaching experiences with the possibility to travel to do so. No matter where the Mercury retrograde occurs in your chart, this often leads to changing choices, goals, and directions. In the world look for the themes of completion through emotional and spiritual review of the past strong spiritual undercurrents and otherworldly realizations, but also brings great confusion while in Pisces the first face of the Trickster, and then communications will turn towards topics like the history of social consciousness, social justice, impartiality, freedom, individuality, and innovation when Mercury moves through Aquarius where it’s exalted, representing the second face of the Trickster. All the Mercury retrogrades in 2014 will move from a water sign to an air sign: Pisces to Aquarius, Cancer to Gemini, and finally Scorpio to Libra.

    As we begin the Ben trecena, Mercury is slowly building momentum as it has turned retrograde at 3 degrees Pisces on the 6th. When a planet slows down to a stop from our perspective here on earth, that planet is considered to be at the peak of its power and Mercury being at the peak of its power reminds me that the Greek god Hermes, who the Romans renamed to Mercury, was also the trickster god. He was the messenger of the Gods and if you weren’t on his good side you might not get your message or it might be altered to mean something different than was intended. In mythology the trickster is a god, goddess, woman, man, animal or spirit that creates mischief by playing tricks and acting outside of the accepted rules of their community. I can cover the trickster archetype in depth later in the broadcast if there is time, but I do want share this quote from Joseph Campbell “Almost all non-literate mythology has a trickster-hero of some kind. . . . And there’s a very special property in the trickster: he always breaks in, just as the unconscious does, to trip up the rational situation. He’s both a fool and someone who’s beyond the system. And the trickster represents all those possibilities of life that your mind hasn’t decided it wants to deal with. The mind structures a lifestyle, and the fool or trickster represents another whole range of possibilities. He doesn’t respect the values that you’ve set up for yourself, and smashes them. . . . The fool is the breakthrough of the absolute into the field of controlled social orders.” And that is a great description for Mercury retrograde. It also contains a formula for confronting a much more powerful foe. Being cunning over fighting on their terms.

Scott Davis presents the for 1 – Ben (reed) trecena spanning from February 7th 2014 to February 19th 2014. Also see video here for the Two Faces of the Trickster.

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