Imbolc Greetings
Mercury, planet of the lower mind went retrorade on the 30th of January. This happens around three times a year, and lasts around three weeks.
I don’t personally fear the troubles retrograde Mercury is said to bring in its wake. Instead I see these times as an opportunity to stop, take stock and re-assess. I enjoy the process of really being present and slowing down and checking and rechecking things which ordinarily I don’t do so much.
I see these times as an opportunity to be really present in the moment.
If things do go awry, and sometimes they do, I will take the long view and try to work out the symbolism of what has happened.
Of course, Astrology is excellent for this. We can time events and draw up the chart and examine the planets, signs and houses to give us clues as to what was going on.
This is how we grow as people, ‘know thyself’ as the Delphic oracle instructs.
Take some time over Imbolc 1st-2nd of February, while Mercury is retrograde, to dig a little deeper and have some dreams or journal or meditate to go deeper into yourself.
Mercury will go direct on February 21st.
Ha! Writing about Mercury Retrograde and trying to finish my book while writing up a newsletter, what could possibly go wrong!
This morning, I decided to add some more to the Magical Herbalism Newsletter I send out six times a year, when I looked for the page the whole thing had disappeared, gone, vanished.
Hilarious and not! So I had a look at the astrology. As you can see, both Mars and Uranus were conjunct the Ascendant (me) rushing (Mars) with tech (Uranus). Mars is exactly square the Sun in the 11th, me hoping to get it out to my people and being blocked. The newslettercould be seen as Saturn (ruler of my 10th house of career) or the Moon, ruler of the 3rd house of messages. The Moon is in Virgo in my sixth house of work and is applying to a trine of Venus in Capricorn in the 10th.Venus represents me, ruler of Taurus on the Ascendant. My first instinct was to abandon the task, this newsletter doesn’t have a great circulation, much less than my instagram account, where I do most of my posting. I was pissed off and wanted to cut my losses (Mars/Uranus). But the Moon trine to Venus suggested all would be well in the end, and I remembered I had sent a test email to myself the day before. I was able to cut and paste the newsletter, minus the updates I had added this morning. And I sent it out. Interestingly, the additions were links to all the interesting things my friends are doing, courses, workshops etc. I had the idea to spread the word about their work. But I was blocked. I could of course re-done it, but honestly, I was too irritated and pasting links is a painstakingly slow process, I just couldn’t find the energy. I think this is what the Mars/Uranus was doing, as Mars rules the 7th house of my friends, and Uranus cuts things out, the Universe was saying, nope, don’t do this. I am not sure why. But I took it on board.
What are your experiences of Mercury retro?
I have some space for Astrology Clients at the end of February.
For details of my work see here or email me directly here
Elisabeth Brooke 