Mercury—for the next two days—is retrograde.  Retrograde means it goes backwards, or in planetary terms, that it moves in the opposite direction along the ecliptic (the Sun’s apparent path in the heavens).  Planes will be late; appointments will be forgotten; keys will be lost; homework will be deleted accidentally or swallowed by the dog.  Mercury Retrograde lasts about three weeks every three or four months, and is heartily cursed by those who know its name.

But Mercury Retrograde has other sides.  There is no better time for taking back words spoken in anger or haste; or for rethinking unsound plans; or for holding that fleeting, serendipitous, in-depth conversation that changes one’s life forever.  Come Mercury Direct, normalcy returns; but not before we are enriched by the lessons of time out of time, so to speak.

Tho’ it’s the most widely-known, Mercury is not the only planet which moves in reverse on occasion.  Take Venus: when Venus retrogrades (not often, thank heaven, and for a period of six weeks), we feel as tho’ nobody loves us.  We are never more aware of being alone, even in a crowd: when the planet of relationship goes backwards, the sweetness and joy in life seem to have vanished; and everything feels cold and grey in their wake.  Yet there is no better time for solid reassessment of our feelings about relationships or (more importantly) the roles we play in them.  And money? Possessions?  We see and understand all too clearly what we have been doing in those realms for months, often to great dismay.  Venus Retrograde is the time to retrench and rethink our values.

Mars—the “doing” planet—is clearly at a disadvantage in retrograde motion, unless what one does pertains to the past.  Assessment—re-evaluation—reorganization: these are all positive Mars Retrograde activities, because anything new will be impeded almost certainly—for the four months or so of its duration.  Considering the exact nature of our (myriad) Mars Retrograde frustrations can help us figure out where we are stuck, so that we can get un­-stuck.  But it’s not likely to be fun, unless you like cleaning out closets.

So, despite the potential for revisions, retrogrades have a bad reputation.  The bad news is that something is almost always retrograde.  The good news is that when the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto) go retrograde, we feel it less, either because they are less personal, or because they move so slowly that we become accustomed to the drill.

All this being said—we are coming, for exactly a month, into a period with NO RETROGRADE PLANETS.  This is rare, and wonderful: no retrograde planets means that all systems are going forward.  THIS is the time to buy a house, start a project, or get married: to write into the contract of any long-term endeavour this marvellous spate of hassle-free planetary motion.  From December 25^th, 2011, until January 24^th, 2012, we get a break; after that Mars goes retrograde until April 14^th—not a good time to start ANYTHING.

Except cleaning those closets….

Courtesy of April Elliott Kent's excellent piece on the same degree. http://bit.ly/pyoMOD

“It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how.”  The Cat in the Hat (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, a.k.a. Theodor Geisel) said that in 1957; and it’s as true now as it was then.  Knowing how begets confidence in one’s place in the world, which leaves room for more light-hearted amusements.  And Pluto—that most heavy-handed of planets–is about to move to 6• Capricorn, which is about LEARNING how.

Now Pluto has been here twice before, recently: it brushed through in December and January, setting the scene for the first parts of Arab Spring; after turning retrograde in April, it went back over this degree during the tumultuous events in Libya (now apparently in the mopping-up stage, since going direct on September 16th).  And now it’s back again.

The Sabian Symbol for 6• Capricorn is ”Ten logs lie under an archway leading to darker woods.”  According to Dane Rudhyar, the idea expressed is one of completion: the logs have to be moved before one can get through the archway to the woods.  This is what’s up: this is the next hurdle.  There is a task to fulfill before one can move on.

So what needs to happen before we can move on?  Pluto is in Capricorn, which rules governments and economies.  In political circles, there are bills to pass and measures to be taken; there are candidates to choose and priorities to set.  Similarly in financial circles, there are markets to stabilize and reinvigorate.  Pluto overhauls everything it touches, which is why these matters come to the fore NOW.

Because Pluto moves so slowly—it takes 248 years to complete its cycle—it occupies each degree for weeks, sometimes months at a time; and, as I mentioned earlier, there are periods of retrograde motion; so Pluto only moves a couple of degrees a year.  Hence, for observers of geopolitical astrology, each degree has weight and meaning.  Pluto’s last degree—5• Capricorn—was dynamic: “Indians on the warpath.  While some men row a well-filled canoe, others in it perform a war dance.”  Multifaceted mobilization has been the theme since the end of August, and what have we seen?  Passionate protest against privilege on Wall Street.  Mass murder of citizens in Syria and Yemen, attempting desperately to throw off cruel regimes.  Global markets tumbling and being propped up, only to rise and fall again.  Frantic, thwarted attempts to stave off starvation in sub-Saharan Africa.  With all this activity, surely it must be time to assess our efforts determine what is or isn’t working?  Are we not sufficiently aroused?

Enter Pluto at 6• Capricorn.  We have to pause, because the Zeitgeist demands it.  We are mobilized, impassioned, outraged; now we have to figure out how to use that Plutonian energy to do what needs doing to complete the tasks before us, so that when we get to the next degree–7• Capricorn—we will be able to hear when the “veiled prophet speaks” what it is that he is telling us.  We’ll have to know how.

“Astrology is a moveable feast.” –Erin Sullivan, The Astrology of Midlife and Aging.

I know, I’ve written about this before, but I keep finding new (to me) and marvelous astrological literature.  So I will keep my raptures brief, and make instead an on-going list.

What I’m Reading Now:

• Eclipses – Celeste Teal, Llewellyn Worldwide, 2006. Simply the best book on the subject I’ve read so far.  I am now determined to read the rest of Ms. Teal’s canon.
• The Astrology of Midlife and Aging – Erin Sullivan, Jeremy Tarcher/Penguin, 2005.  An encouraging and clear-eyed look at the cycles of later life.
• Skeet Shooting For Astrologers – David R. Roell, Astrology Classics, 2011.  Dave’s hilarious but right-on-the-money insights, compiled as essays from the weekly Astro-America Newsletter.  Great fun and food for thought.
• Cycles Of Life – Rod Suskin, Llewellyn, 2005.  South African Rod Suskin’s fresh take on predictive astrology.
• Parkers’ Astrology – Derek & Julia Parker, DK Publishing, 1991.  A big, bright, beautiful coffee-table compendium of the Parkers’ combined lifetime in astrology.
• Astrometeorology – Kris Brandt Riske, American Federation of Astrologers, 1997.  How to predict weather patterns with astrology—still stretching to grok all the relevant factors to learn this!
• Cosmos and Psyche – Richard Tarnas, Penguin, 2007.  Having made his name in academia with a more mainstream tome (The Passion of the Western Mind), Richard Tarnas presents his astrological magnum opus.  Excellent (if exhaustive) analysis of the historical impact of outer-planet cycles.  Tarnas evidently can’t believe the findings of his own research!

I will add to this list as I find new treasures, but so far this has kept me busy this summer!

I have always been fascinated by eclipses.

From Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court I learned of their fortuitous habit of appearing in the nick of time in a manner both mystical and magical; from my parents and teachers I learned that one can harm one’s eyes by watching them without protection.  (We made cunning little boxes, crude camerae obscurae, in order to observe them indirectly.)

I understood the basic concepts—a solar eclipse is like a super-charged new moon, a time of beginnings; a lunar eclipse is an equally-intense full moon, signifying the culmination of events.  The effects of a solar eclipse are more obvious, because it operates in the world of spirit; lunar eclipses are more subtle, as they activate the stirrings of the soul.  The houses in which they fall indicate the area of one’s life affected; if they land on or oppose a natal planet, they will work through matters associated with that planet.  They generally travel in pairs, at roughly 6-month intervals; occasionally there will be an extra (generally solar) eclipse.  June-July 2011 is such an occasion.

As a novice astrologer I devoured Robert Jansky’s classic Interpreting the Eclipses (now, sadly, out of print), absorbing astronomical data about eclipse duration and nodal emphasis, both crucial in determining the length and intensity of the effects.  In Jansky I read of Saros Cycles, a series of 18-year eclipse returns which invariably held the flavour (for good or for ill) of the first eclipse in each series.  (Jansky mentions 19; NASA charts 175.)  Jansky wrote with passion and precision (he was a Scorpio), documenting case histories from his client files (including his own firing from a long-time position).  I was hooked; but couldn’t find more material at the time and went onto other astrological explorations, mentally shelving the intention to delve deeper into eclipse lore.

Mainly what I learned was that eclipses disrupt.  And they do: they clear out stagnant areas in our lives, whether we want them to or not.  Like Pluto, they pick us up and move us, or they inspire us, or they thrust new influences and experiences into our path.  An eclipse on my Venus took me from my well-established life in Nova Scotia to my childhood home in Maryland to marry my high-school sweetheart—after thirty-six years—two eclipse cycles.

Celeste Teal’s fine book, Eclipses, which came into my hands in December and which I did not start reading until recently (spurred by this 3-eclipse month, June 1^st to July 1^st) has put everything I have read and experienced about eclipses into perspective and given me practical, useful insight on how to incorporate them into my practice.  I am still absorbing and playing with the concepts she packs into that book.  And Fred Espenak—Mr. Eclipse, as he is less formally known—NASA’s premier eclipse scientist—has compiled a Fifty-Year Canon of Solar Eclipses: 1986-2035, charting the Saros Series in depth.  (His companion tome on lunar eclipses will shortly be available from Amazon.)

I have a lot of reading to do.  Thank goodness it’s summer.