Fighting Retrograde Fatigue

1.30.08


For the record, I'm not sorry to leave Mars retrograde behind. Yes, as of today (Wed Jan 30), he is direct again. (Release sigh.)

And for anybody out there who'd counter my relief by mentioning how, alas, now Mercury is retrograde, I'd tell 'em: No worries, it's peanuts compared to this nasty Mars business we've been dealing with.

Bring on the Mercury retrograde, I say. It stretches from this past Monday (Jan 28) to Feb 18, in the sign of Aquarius… which isn't such a terrible place for Merc-retro. Aquarius is already an against-the-grain thinker, seeing beyond 'the way it's always been done' and to electrifying innovations, linking disparate parts together into a new vision for the whole system. So why not add the retrograde factor to an already unorthodox Mercury? The ideas only can crazier-and perhaps even more 'genius'.

As I wrote last week, this Mercury retrograde period (along with its before-and-after 'shadows') is marked by a triple conjunction to Neptune, obscuring all by-the-books logic with an ambiguous blessing/curse of hopefulness that allows us to glimpse the highest potentials in everyone and everything… or to overlook crucial realities (because it feels better and more 'compassionate' to gaze through the ultra-positive lens), if we sacrifice groundedness for pure inspiration.

Ideally, we'd spend the next few weeks absorbed in sky's-the-limit brainstorming sessions, entertaining possibilities our inner cynic wouldn't ordinarily allow, scribbling scraps of lofty poetry about humankind's beautiful diversity, telling random strangers strange facts that would instantly connect us to them, and them to us… and not worry so much about all the reasonable pragmatic exceptions to what our creative minds came up, which would only serve to deflate the buoyancy of spirit our creative freedom conjured.

Of course, that's also good enough of an excuse to steer clear of instances where your most traditional and/or painstakingly careful logic is required… through the end of February, if possible. In other words, we can embrace our inner 'space case', knowing that sometimes the most bizarre thoughts and statements lead to a spontaneous enlightenment-at the same time, remaining aware that certain circumstances (and those folks we encounter in them) don't look so kindly upon unapologetic 'airheads'.

Use this Mercury retrograde in ways for which it's best suited-fresh, strange, socially-minded angles from which to look at life differently, with an eye toward universal understanding. All the while, avoid situations where being 'weird' or 'impractical' are seen as disadvantages.

And as far as Mars's return to direct motion goes, it will simply take us some time to work through all that's been stirred up in our lives since October and November of last year. Ways in which we've 'turned in on ourselves' over these past months must now be 'undone'-or, more properly put, redone, now that we have experiential knowledge of what might happen to us if we don't. This upcoming month or so is a great one for experimenting with different methods for this 'redoing': Mars is retracing his steps through Gemini, the zodiac's inquisitive dilettante who'll try anything once, while Mercury retrogrades through a fellow air-sign.

Though it'll take through early April for Mars to officially leave its retrograde shadow, I expect a good portion of its unfurling will be done by early March, once Mars returns to Cancer (Mar 4) and makes his final opposition to Pluto (Mar 7). By that point, we'll have a clearer idea of which new varieties and variables will serve us best-and which won't-so we can spend March 'completing' the jobs begun six months earlier.