Mercury turns retrograde this week, for a total of five retrograde planets. With all this retrograde energy will we even notice Mercury turning retrograde? And what’s up with the eclipse at the Summer Solstice? There’s a lot going on this week so tune in and learn more. The transcription is below the video and promo stuff if you prefer to read.
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Transcription
Welcome to another week’s astrological forecast. This week’s forecast is for the week of June 14 to the 21st 2020. I’ll be covering Mercury Retrograde, I’ll be covering the changes of direction of both Neptune and Venus. We’ll be covering the eclipse on the 21st which is going to be quite significant. And I’m sure we’ll talk about it next week but eclipse energies start to build a few days before, four or five days before, so I’d like you to be prepared and ready for that.
I want to start by talking about the retrogrades and I know for some of you who have been listening every week, this is all old hat for you. But this whole year between June and October, the middle of October and probably into November, there are going to be between four and seven retrograde planets. That’s a tremendous number. If you think about the fact that three planets retrograde is an average number, it’s very rare to have no planets retrograde or one planet retrograde. But it’s even more rare to have six and seven planets retrograde which is what we have coming up. Currently we have Venus, Saturn, Pluto and Jupiter all traveling retrograde. Mercury will turn retrograde on the 18th which is in this coming week.
Most of us are familiar with the idea of mercury retrograde – it has gotten a lot of buzz. I like to say it’s the pumpkin spice latte of astrology because everybody knows about it. It’s pretty much common knowledge now, which is exciting, except there’s so much misinformation about it. I have people calling to say, should I plan a trip when Mercury’s retrograde? Should I sign this contract? I really need a job but I can’t sign the contract when Mercury is retrograde. And then there’s two weeks on either side, this shadow period, so five weeks, four times a year, when we can’t do anything? That’s not workable. So we have to know what does that mean when the planets are retrograde? How can we work with those energies, instead of having them, you know, smack us upside the head? So that’s what we’re going to talk about because right now we’re starting to get into these retrograde energies in a pretty serious way.
We’re going to see that in the world in terms of the COVID lockdowns A lot of people are saying, “oh, we’re out of quarantine, it’s all over.” “There might be a second wave in the fall.” But really, that’s not what’s happening – the virus is increasing. And then there’s a little dip and then it increases, and right now it’s on a pretty steady upward trajectory trajectory. So I’m a little concerned – I do believe that we should be prepared that with all this retrograde energy, that we’re going to be doing a lot of looking back and a lot of redoing and a lot of reassessments, a lot of slowing down.
When a planet is retrograde, it’s not actually traveling backwards. Of course, we know the planets don’t move backwards, but we observe the skies astrologically from Planet Earth. That’s why it’s not astronomically correct. It’s looking at the planets from the perspective of humanity. And they look different. So sometimes other planets do appear to turn retrograde just like Mercury does. Mercury is the planet of communication and the planet of messaging, and that’s why it’s often said that communication goes haywire when Mercury is retrograde. But there have actually been studies done questioning whether there is more confusion and more communication glitches when Mercury is retrograde. It doesn’t seem to be testable, although in your own life. I’m sure you have a lot of anecdotal evidence for Mercury Retrograde causing problems.
In any case, right now we have four planets retrograde and when Mercury turns retrograde, there will be five. Mercury has already slowed down, it’s barely moving. So we are in that sort of buffer period where the retrograde has really started. So what do we do when Mercury’s retrograde? The best thing is to really pay attention to communication. When a planet is retrograde, it wants our attention. It’s it has a big presence in our life. When planets are retrograde in the natal chart, for example, those planets operate very much on a personal level. And when the planets are retrograde in the sky, they are louder, their messaging is louder and that’s why sometimes their influence is so strongly felt.
Right now Venus is retrograde which is causing a lot of, you know, sort of reacquainting ourselves with friends from the past with loved ones that we’ve lost touch with. Pluto is retrograde, as it is for half the year, where we’re really having to look at our obsessions and the things that are creating conflict in our lives. Pluto is the planet of transformation. It can show where our obsessions are undermining us. We also have Saturn retrograde, which is pointing out all of the things that we’ve done wrong, which might feel bad, but the point is so that we can correct them and create a life that’s more functional. And our lives are changing right now, we’re not going back to the way things were. We are having to recreate a life that works better for this current reality. And Pluto is really going to help with that. Jupiter, the planet of abundance and opportunity is also retrograde. And it’s helping us to create some new ideas.
Jupiter and Pluto are getting very close to the second phase of a conjunction when the two planets are fused together. That is going to culminate on June 30, but they are only one degree apart right now, so that conjunction is already happening. We have Jupiter, the planet of our ideals, our search for meaning our philosophies, our religions, our ideology, and then Pluto, which is the darkness, it’s the emergence of the truth. often very difficult truths. And when Jupiter and Pluto come together, there can be a lot of ideological conflict, I think is the mildest way that we can say that. During the first phase of this, we had the first phase of lockdown. Then we started having a lot of people come out against wearing masks, and the whole health public health situation has become a political battlefield. I don’t want to get into the politics today and I’d like to keep them out of the comments as well. But the second phase, which is pretty much right now, Jupiter and Pluto are within a degree and that’s going to culminate on the 30th. There’s likely to be a great deal of conflict. Typically, when we’re not in a pandemic, this often manifests as religious conflict, or political conflict, where ideologies are clashing. We certainly are seeing plenty of politics, but we’re also in a situation right now where the murder of innocent black people is being highlighted and the Jupiter Pluto conjunction is certainly helping with that.
In any case, back to the retrogrades: we do have two planets changing direction – one this week one and then two the following week. Mercury is turning retrograde as I said, Neptune is going to be turning retrograde on the 23rd. When a big slow-moving planet like Neptune changes direction, it’s kind of like if you have a huge semi tractor trailer trying to make a U turn, it takes a long time trying to make that turn. It’s pretty much in one place as it tries to navigate. So we see that with Neptune retrograde. Neptune is pretty much stationary in the sky. When a planet is stationary it’s like a laser beam of energy. Neptune is a planet that inspires us to transcend the mundane world. And sometimes this can be blissful. Sometimes it can be creative, sometimes it can bring spiritual wisdom and enlightenment. And sometimes it can just bring confusion. It can make things very unclear, it can make it difficult to know which way to go. I feel like that’s where we are right now. Neptune is also associated with viruses, and mysterious illnesses. COVID-19 is very mysterious. Nobody can really figure out how is it transmitted and where did it come from? It’s completely surrounded and cloaked in mystery which is very Neptunian.
Neptune is going to be retrograde for quite some time, as it is every year so that in itself is not such a big deal. But while Neptune is changing direction, which is pretty much from now for the next couple of weeks, don’t be surprised to see a lot of this sort of pea soup fog in the world, not really knowing which way is up. We can deal with those energies if we understand what’s underpinning them. Then we can say ah, there’s a lot of retrogrades. When we have both Neptune and Mercury stationing retrograde, there’s probably going to be some confusion. Just prepare for that – just know there’s going to be glitches. When you have a glitch you’ll be I was expecting it. It’s not a big deal. Well, it might be a big deal, but at least we knew it was coming, which I feel makes it a lot easier.
So … other things going on this week. We have some very nice, harmonious Mars energies. Last week we had stressful Mars, Mars conflicting with Neptune and with the Sun. Mars is the planet of drive and desire and aggression and so there could have been a lot of frustration and irritation last week. This week, Mars settles down and harmonizes with Jupiter and Pluto in a sextile, which is a harmonious supportive aspect. So that’s going to be really nice. And that’s going to be locked into the chart of the eclipse that we have coming up on the 21st.
Now this eclipse is particularly intense because the eclipse itself is the New Moon at zero degrees Cancer. Zero degrees Cancer marks the first day of spring, which is also the summer solstice. So the actual Solstice point is zero degrees cancer, and when there’s an eclipse on a Solstice or Equinox point it’s a powerful portal of energy that can change the experiences that we have over the next quarter. So it’s a good idea to kind of be aware of this, especially if it touches anything significant in your chart. It’ll be opposite my Mars, so I’m really “excited” to see what’s going to happen! But in any case, the eclipse point, the Sun and Moon at zero degrees are very close to the North Node. The North Node, because it moves backwards, was in Cancer and it just moved back into Gemini. There’s been a shift there and as the Sun and the Moon collide in the journey from Gemini into Cancer, they cross the North Node point. I like to think of the North Node as a signpost to our future. It points to the direction that we are meant to go. And so the Sun passes the North Node triggering this portal of energy to propel us towards our future destiny, whether it’s exactly what we want or not. And then the Moon follows as it transits the North Node.
An eclipse happens when the Sun and Moon are in an exact or a close alignment with the nodes of the moon. And because the lunar nodes have this quality of destiny or fate, there is a somewhat of a fated quality to an eclipse that can bring up some issues that we need to face before we can move forward in our personal journey. We had an eclipse at the Full Moon two weeks ago and this is the second of a series of eclipses. The final eclipse in the series will be at the full moon in two weeks.
This is the New Moon in Cancer. So this is a time to assess – who is my tribe, where is my home? What do I need to feel that security? How can I improve the way I connect to my deepest self, my deepest needs? Do I even know what those are? Those are questions that will be asked in this eclipse. There are some interesting alignments that are part of the eclipse chart: one is this very nice Mars sextile that I talked about before. We also have Saturn in an awkward quincunx which is a 150 degree angle to the North Node. Saturn is the celestial teacher. When Saturn aspects anything, we have to learn something and Saturn is triggering the North Node here in an awkward aspect that brings up something for us to look at, but doesn’t offer a solution, leaving us a little uncomfortable. Okay. Here’s this problem, what do I do about it? There’s not an immediate answer to the question. Sometimes the questions have to be asked before the answer can be known. And that’s what we have going on here. There’s also a very wide, meaning far apart, square from Chiron to the New Moon. It’s nine degrees apart which is a little far to really consider, but I’m going to probably consider it anyway. Chiron being the planet of wounding and healing. There’s a suggestion here that an old wound could be opened up here, could be brought into view. Eclipses are said to unmask something that’s been hidden.
Let’s look at this as a very good time to become aware of patterns and thoughts and ideas and relationships and goals and wishes that are standing in our way. So that we can release those we can do a course correction and we can move more fully into amore joyful and integrated future. So I think that’s a great note to end on. I really appreciate your joining me, and I look forward to seeing you next week. Thanks again. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
