Cloaked in mystical trepidation and uttered hesitation, Mercury retrogrades have a bad rap. In truth, there is nothing to fear. However, this is a time to pay attention.
Why?
Because astrology is merely an external representation of inner patterns. Mercury represents our innate force of communication, expression, and perception. He was the only god that could travel freely between all the worlds -the underworld, mortal world, and divine realms.
Retrograde times have the gift of new information, insights, and epiphanies needed for our most optimum expression. So, if any forced pauses arise (and they likely will), they are meant to get you to stop, review, reassess, reevaluate, and revise accordingly. New perspectives tend to create doorways where there were only walls and paths where there was only jungle.
So the first key of any retro is to LISTEN. To pay attention to whatever is arising. To allow the disorganization to occur, knowing you will have a chance to put it together better.
Yet, this is also the challenge. Messy means uncertainty, and that is often triggering for us that like “security”. If you want a sense of what area of your life this exquisite disarray is happening, look between 11°-27 ° Scorpio in your natal chart. You can also take a look at your life. The shadow or set-up phase began on October 11th, so things are already being uncovered. Mercury stations retrograde officially October, 31st.
Of course, uncertainty doesn’t mean anything at all is dangerous; just that it is unfamiliar. In fact, uncertainty is where all the magic is. An important point as we correlate this retrograde with the Sign of Scorpio.
If you are like many of my clients and students, Scorpio is the most intimidating, perhaps feared, and often misunderstood sign.
Why?
Because Scorpio energy is one that relishes the unseen and unknown. Scorpio represents the part of all of us that can travel to the underworld of our personal vulnerability, and find the alchemy lying dormant there. This retrograde will ask us to travel down into our depths and explore a bit. Expect some significant inner work, some making the unconscious conscious, some revelation, transformation, and integration.
“Midway upon the journey of our life,
I found myself in a forest dark.
For the straightforward path had been lost”
~The first lines of Dante’s Inferno
Scorpio terrain is often not something we quest voluntarily. Often we must be taken down through some life event that takes us into uncharted territory.
You are not being punished. You are being invited.
Things are not falling apart. They are getting uncovered.
Synchronisitically, this retrograde officially begins on Halloween. Halloween has its roots in the pagan celebration Samhain. Samhain was one of four major pagan holidays, and it symbolized a time where the souls of the dead were able to mingle with the souls of the living. All things unseen were believed possible, from ghosts to fairies to demons. Even when early Christians tried to substitute their All Saints Day, the roots of Samhain held steady, as exemplified by our modern Halloween.
Perhaps, this embracing of the unseen world echoes our own very human need to see what is unexamined in ourselves, what is in shadow, and what is yet undiscovered.
To be whole, we must embrace all that we are.
To be light, we must also embrace our darkness.
Scorpio represents the balance of life and death
shadow and light,
power and surrender,
endings and beginning,
and the seen and unseen.
Scorpio represents things that make us most vulnerable- what better way to reveal our shadow after all. Scorpio detests deceit, betrayal, and all things that bypass the reality of wholeness. Scorpio is the sign of this type of deep reflection and transformation. It is not afraid of the darkness but instead travels, ever deeper, into it. Like a hero on a hero’s journey, Scorpio leads you across your inner threshold, to face inner demons and monsters.
This retrograde asks you to do the same.
Life events could arise that ask you to look deeply at parts you keep in your shadow. Some dark nights of the ego. Some old identities. Some endings. Those things that go bump in the night of your own soul, your fears and inner demons require excavation and transformation. It is time to explore the caverns of your own haunted house.
What still haunts you?
What limiting beliefs, memories, unfinished business, or traumas are yet walking your inner halls?
What ghosts from the past still rattle their chains, disturbing your peace?
What is your relationship with uncertainty, control, trust, and things that go bump in the midnight of your psyche?
Where do you hold on when you need to let go and let go when you need to hold on?
For a moment, we are reminded of the thinness of the veil and the healing that happens when we cross it.
The shadow is simply part of you-you have yet to meet. And upon that meeting is where we find true empowerment.
Because the intent of all shadow work is to simply reclaim power from a time it was lost. To resurrect some part of us, long shamed or forgotten.
There is immense potential lying dormant in fragmented places.
It is yours to claim.
“Soul work is not a high road. It is a deep fall into the unforgiving darkness that won’t let you go until you find the song that sings you home.”
~McCall Erickson
Want to know what specifically this transformative time if offering you?
Sign up for the Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio webinar or contact me for a reading.
Shadow phase begins 10/11
Retrograde 10/31
Direct 11/20
Integration phase ends 12/7