On the 14th of January 2022, at 11:41 UTC, we have the first Mercury retrograde for the year. Mercury stands still to start moving backwards at 10 degrees of Aquarius and retrogrades all the way back to 24 Capricorn, where it stations still to move forward on the 4th of February 2022.
Mercury square Uranus
The first thing is looking at what is happening when Mercury is standing still in the sky. What happens during these moments is significant because they give a particular signature tune to the whole retrograde. It is like when you go on a journey and the last person you say goodbye to always leaves a lasting impression.
The few days before the actual retrograde starts, Mercury slows down to an idle speed. Going retrograde is not an instantaneous happening. The braking of the movement forward is very soft.
Since the 8th of January 2022, Mercury has been in a three-degree engagement range with Uranus at 10 degrees Taurus. It so happens that Uranus is slowing down too, to go direct in motion. And Uranus slowing down is even longer and more pronounced than Mercury’s. These two planets have been in a square conformation for six days before Mercury retrograde. They will be so again for five whole days after the retrograde starts (the 19th of February 2022). In the meantime, Uranus stations to move direct on the 18th of February 2022.
Eleven days total of the Messenger arguing with freezing logic and dogma with Uranus in Taurus. Both start with arguments that they will eventually make several flip-flops turns. Remember Mercury is our communications, thoughts, ideas, and logic, besides markets and electronic equipment. Uranus is the energy that loves changing things for the sake of changing them. It is very electrical and jittery in nature. A narrative in our personal lives and in the mundane world will be spun around several times, each time from different points of view, not all of them coherent with each other.
Now imagine this scene. Mercury brimming with intelligence, logic and probably highly opinionated. He is obstinately grinding his cold analysis into Uranus. Uranus, already in a very awkward position in Taurus, sees these futile arguments as irritative and perhaps dull. He throws back to Mercury flashes of illumination, hoping that Mercury might see beyond his current boxed set of ideas.
Imagine that Mercury and Uranus are looking at each other from a distance, eager that this tension finds its outlet. Both are ready to pounce on each other. But as it is all going to happen, Mercury coolly turns his winged feet and heads backwards. I can imagine Uranus saying a very loud WTF.
A different take for the same story
Mercury and Uranus are enacting the same dynamic that happened between Saturn and Uranus in 2021 (in 2022, they will get to do something similar). But instead of seeing it from Saturn’s No point of view, we investigate it through the elaboration of ideas. The process is lighter and more versatile because Mercury is more flexible than Saturn. Saturn is heavyweight, whilst Mercury is lightweight. The stress fractures are brought in through sound waves, not tectonic plates.
Mercury and Uranus are talking to each other in an irritative and abrasive manner as it was happening with Saturn. However, compared to Saturn, this is a staccato, more than bulldozing through. Mercury and Uranus share that same sense of fleetness and lightness.
Uranus incubating a sensitive point
Another critical detail to notice is the following.
Uranus is grinding and pivoting to go direct on the 10 degrees of Taurus. This 10th degree of Taurus will be the seat of a partial North Node Solar Eclipse on the Taurus-Scorpio Axis, on the 30th of April 2022. When that eclipse comes to manifestation, it will bring all that is happening again to the forefront like a recollection left latent to flourish later on.
All the stories we are talking about will receive a reset with then consequent upsurge of energy.
Who is in and who is out
The interplay of all this game is between the elements of Air and Earth. Be it through Saturn or be it through Mercury. The same shift we had of the Great Conjunctions is being reiterated. In fact, Mercury will be passing on the degree of the Great Conjunction ongoing just now, that of the 0 degrees of Aquarius.
We are given a possibility to view the shift in the Air Element from different points of view. Earth is not an easy element to move. It needs wind to uplift it. And who better than the steady cold outward wind of Aquarius to do so.
Mercury, the one that has no difficulty going anywhere, is exploring the energy that goes up, Air and the energy that goes down, Earth. The energy that likes to see things from a distance, Air and the energy that wants to be very introspectively grounded (Earth). The intellect (Air) versus the physical (Earth). The verbal force (Air) versus the mute power (Earth). Those who are in (Earth) versus those out (Air).
Mercury is exploring both sides on the barricades. Both Aquarius and Capricorn are ruled by Saturn. So, in both, Mercury has to play by Saturn’s rule of limitations, taking responsibility, inhibition, constriction and delayed gratification. However, in Aquarius, he will look like a scientist analysing through a microscope; in Capricorn, he will look like a businessman analysing through the account ledgers.
The rubber meets the ground
This is an inferior retrograde for Mercury. Mercury is on the side of the Earth, meaning he is more into our earthy dimension, concerned about us humans more than the gods “up there”. He is bringing to Earth the message the gods gave in his superior conjunction that happened on the 29th of November 2022 at 07 degrees Sagittarius.
Look back at that period. It was quite a hectic one because we were in between eclipses. Any ideas, inspirations that you had at that time will now need to find a way to come down to Earth. What needs to change, elaborated? What needs to be looked at with detachment and cutaway because that specific logic didn’t bring any results? What needs to be practically analysed from the point of view of feasibility?
Weaving a multicoloured tale
Like Venus, Mercury will slowly descend from an evening star into the underworld to rise as a morning star. And like Venus, Mercury has already met the Dark Lord Pluto. Actually, it was a nearly exact triple conjunction of Mercury, Pluto and Venus during Mercury’s shadow period (29-30th December 2021). What happened back then in your life?
Like Venus, Mercury retrograde will meet Pluto again on the 29th of January 2022 at 26 degrees of Capricorn. The same day as Venus is finishing her retrograde at 11 degrees Capricorn.
And like Venus, Mercury will meet Pluto again at 27 degrees of Capricorn on the 11th of February 2022. By then, Mercury has finished his retrograde motion but is still in his shadow phase (the cooling-off retrograde period).
The True Nodes will change from Gemini-Sagittarius to Taurus-Scorpio during the Mercury retrograde. Mercury will be making contact with the new position of the nodes just as he did with the old ones in his preparatory shadow period. Thus acting in his retrograde period as a bridge.
As by his nature, Mercury links various stories that have been happening altogether. Mercury is bringing in the big picture but without forgetting the detail.
On the 23rd of January 2022, at 3 degrees of Aquarius, Mercury goes into the heart of the Sun. From that point onwards, things shift from catabolism to anabolism, from destroying to building. It is the ground zero moment. All the stories Mercury has been collecting will be in a crucible of extreme coldness. What cracks will leave the scene, what endures continues in the journey.
Mercury hasn’t forgotten about Uranus. This journey in the underworld with the guidance of Pluto and Venus and the catalytic force of the Sun has served him to find more knowledge. From the 22nd of February 2022, these two will be again in the engagement range. And both in moving forward motion. No more flip-flopping.
We have now the blueprints for proceeding. Mercury just needs that outwardly touch of Uranus. That quantum leap for the blueprints to activate on more than one dimension. On the 25th of February 2022, at 11 degrees of Aquarius and Taurus, the two proceed to jolt the world. And the second leap will come with the 30th of April 2022 eclipse.
Mercury, after finishing with Uranus, heads to conjoin with Saturn. Saturn in Aquarius, in the meantime, will have his annual meeting with the Sun (the 4th of February 2022 at 15 degrees Aquarius), burning off in absolute zero kelvin all the unnecessary baggage.
Mercury is like the ambassador trying to make two very influential politicians of two separate countries reach an agreement. This will happen on the 3rd of March 2022 at 18 degrees of Aquarius.
Many players, many coloured threads
To perhaps understand this intricate Mercury retrograde, one needs to open out reality on more than one dimension.
We have Mercury playing the game, but involved is Saturn, both by being the landlord of where things are happening and because of the nature of the story, as I explained earlier.
We have Venus intimately involved with this Mercury retrograde on many levels.
We have the Dark Lord, Pluto weaving invisible manipulative powers. We have Venus and Mars, the Love and Strife polarity, which will eventually play the same game. They meet on the Capricorn side at 16 degrees on the 16th of February 2022. They then meet again on the Aquarius side at 0 degrees, the degree of the Great Conjunction, on the 6th of March 2022.
We have Uranus shaking the whole board. And the Lunar Nodes changing the point of energy coming in and out of this earthly dimension.
Follow the holographic needle
What keeps coming to my mind is Mercury acting like a needle, spinning a pattern that for now is hidden. To be more appropriate, Mercury is weaving in and out energies of various colours in a vast hologram which, by time, to those who wish, it will become more apparent. Mercury will take us through detours, different and conflicting ideas or solutions, perhaps leaving us bewildered about what to think. But let it play out. Follow the needle.
We are like this Mercury, many Mercuries, with an infinite combination of colours weaving a story in the hologram of the Earth. This Mercury retrograde allows us to look at the narrative from many points of view. It is a full-blown Saturn flavoured retrograde. Do not expect it to be sweet. It is astringent, bitter and cold. It is a reality check.
How much this transition from Earth to Air goes smoothly without falling into more dictatorship depends on every one of us.
Wishing you health, joy and prosperity,
Hilary
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