It goes without saying that we are living in a time of profound change and evolutionary potential. Change always involves challenge at some level. Crisis and opportunity are inextricably linked; they dance in complexity. Nature is a prime example of this complexity. She is a reliable guide to the convolutions of both natural and human processes. Yet nature also assures us that renewal follows destruction, at some point. For example; despite the terrible destruction of the Australian outback it is now flowering and yet similar fires rage through California.
The nature of the universe provides pointers to the energetic flow here on planet Earth. Astrology assures us there is guidance available. We may not see solutions to our global issues just yet, but we can go to the source of those issues energetically. It is there that the transformation of old structures can be found and new responses emerge through finer consciousness. It is there we will discover the emerging solutions to the evolutionary shift needed, at some point. Hopefully that point will not arrive too late for our planet, for we have choice and our choices influence the rate and power of renewal. Now we are in the most intense period of this year through to December. There is a faint light emerging at the end of the tunnel however. That light is first seen deep within us. So no matter how it may appear on the surface we are being called to look deeper than problem-orientation.
The obvious challenges, personal and collective, that we face at the moment are energetically represented by transpersonal planets in Capricorn. It’s a major deconstruction, taking us through to 2021, and then to 2023 when Pluto moves into Aquarius. More recently, the tension has both escalated and become more personal due to tense alignments between Capricorn planets and planets in the zodiac signs of Aries and Libra. I have written about these energetic interplays in depth in previous 2020 energy blogs and on my Whole Woman Facebook page. This more intense phase takes us beyond the obvious deconstruction of our ‘normal’ lives and collective belief systems into more subtle obstructions to evolution. The way forward is being revealed particularly through our relationships.
We live in a world of energy and information, physical and emotional experience and energetic phenomena. Human beings create belief structures and emotional patterns in order to experience this infinite play of energy as a place of safety and security, as controllable, or at least as knowable. These patterns of consciousness provide a level of certainty, stability and control that most human beings have needed to this point. They are a framework of subtle forms through which we live. Now those forms are being stripped away. Purely because they were never real in the first place, but merely acted as a filter through which we experienced life.
In this deconstruction process we are witnessing not only the death throes of ‘normality’ but of concepts, ideas or beliefs about ourselves, our lives and now also our relationships. The difficulties of the pandemic (whatever you believe about it) are exacerbated with the challenge of how we connect or disconnect with others through our minds, our beliefs and opinions about said pandemic. Behind it all lies the loss of normality, the uncertainty of change happening at a rate we can hardly process and ultimately the fear of death. Is the pandemic causing this? Or is it something deeper that is causing it? If we look deeper, might we not see that the pandemic is not the instigator of our current crisis but the result of years of economic and ecological suicide – our disconnection from what truly sustains us, from nature and each other. We have not cared deeply enough about what we are doing here on Earth, our impact on each other or on the living community that life on Earth is. More fundamentally we have not lived in the honesty that life is constantly changing and always uncertain, including the fact of death. In the main, we have become blinkered about the truth of life and our responsibility of care for all life.
How does all this tie in with current astrology? We are about to enter another Mercury retrograde period. As many of you may be aware, Mercury retrograde calls the mind inward to explore a different perspective on current experience. (I explored retrograde planets in my blog Back to The Future. We are wise to slow down in a Mercury retrograde period, to revisit, reflect and re-engage aspects of life experience we may not have fully engaged before. Mercury travels retrograde three times per year and this final retrograde journey of 2020 crosses the zodiac signs of Libra and Scorpio. The key to these two signs is relationship, our personal relationship with our deep inner world of feelings and how that plays out in all relationships. Libra and Scorpio are the signs where we meet ‘other’, and our responses and reactions to that connection. These signs main themes (when relating to Mercury retrograde) include the synergy of intellect or emotion, peace-seeking conversations or unmitigated honesty, diplomacy or integrity, playing nice or playing mean.
The Mercury retrograde period runs from 13 October to 3 November, with its shadow zone extending beyond that period from 23 September to 20 November. During this whole period Mercury passes over the same zodiac degrees three times, bringing light and new connections to particular facets of our relationship experiences. The journey is pulling our consciousness beyond the obvious challenges of facing a pandemic and all it brings to our lives personally, to the less obvious energetic imprints within our human psyche that lie at the source of a more authentic engagement with life, particularly with those we are close to. The potential is to dive beneath the stark reality of life now to discover what’s at the core of our reactions to current life experience and the challenge of difference with its judgment, separation and potential for conflict. As we dive down the potential is that we reach the deep still space of Scorpio presence, resourcefulness and tenacity that deeply nourishes us. It’s about ceasing to look ‘out there’ for answers and going ‘in’.
In this journey the Libra aspect of the retrograde journey is pulled towards finding win-win solutions, cultivating balance and harmony but perhaps at the expense of honesty, an escape from the grittiness of really embracing what is actually happening. Whereas Scorpio revels in the grit, seeking the core of emotional honesty, excavating everything to find the diamond hidden in the ashes of what was but can get stuck in the mire, in self-sabotage and the projection of shadow. As we flow through the retrograde what is shadowy gets pulled towards the light and we are enabled in discovering a fuller more authentic balance within our relating, despite the current challenge of living on the edge of uncertainty.
Throughout this period Mercury both activates the current Aries, Libra and Capricorn dilemma and frustrations of yes/no, want to/can’t, difference/conflict and so on, and yet also begins to move beyond it. Key dates for navigating tension include 23rd September, 12-14th October and 1st to 6th November. What opens in experience in this timeframe, as a question, a challenge, a pending decision about direction, particularly with regard to direction, connections, communications and relationships, potentially finds its new place in November. In the interim there is a need to discover what lies beneath in terms of a new way forward. Key: What is my real motivation in any difficulties or conflict, beneath the surface? What lies beneath what’s obvious?
What is required to both face the challenge of a pandemic and embrace our core misalignments is commitment. We cannot change the facts – although we may argue their source. Whatever is ‘really going on’ as individuals we need to address its impact in our lives. Individual evolution is one strong aspect of collective evolution. Some answers to our current frustrations may well be found in our emotional sticking places. In essence the underpinning of any stuck energy is a belief in separation. That’s not to deny we are all operating on different frequencies, but it is to ground the utter truth – humanity is one body energetically. What happens to one, affects all. Going to a deeper truth (however that looks for you) with core self-honesty, without judgment, unlocks energy blocks and opens the embodiment of a higher frequency integrity. That process – a process that can be immediate – requires commitment should we choose it. Where we don’t actively choose it, we may find ourselves going there anyway.
Mercury’s journey through Scorpio is accompanied by the Sacred Feminine energies of Juno with exact meetings on 30 September at 3 Scorpio, 19/20 October at 9 Scorpio and 27 November at 22 Scorpio. Juno is the Queen of Heaven archetype, wife of Jupiter. She is just one of the Sacred Feminine archetypes supporting this year’s unfolding. Juno’s quest was to embody the highest frequency potential of relationship; she was married to the King of the Gods after all! Her energy offers the opportunity of commitment to go through the unconscious elements of relating no matter how tough it gets (especially in Scorpio), whilst her shadow comprises some of the deepest shadows of relating: jealousy, possessiveness and scorn. Juno in Scorpio says it how it is, which can be a breath of fresh air and potential for more consciousness, or a misguided finger pointing away from self with blame towards a partner or the seeming villains in the collective story. Where there’s projection (rather than clear awareness) the main question is: What might I be avoiding in myself through the pointing finger? That’s not to discount awareness of the ‘play of life’ but to remove the distortions of judgment, blame and shaming.
Along with the Juno factor of this Mercury retrograde, there is focus to a higher frequency wake-up that is calling through the planet Uranus in Taurus. In some ways this phase begins to open up the 2021 frequencies – the Aquarian principles of pioneering shifts, radical reinvention and serving the future in holistic ways rather than through materialism. Right now however the opposition between Mercury retrograde and Uranus potentially opens up higher consciousness in our shadow zones of emotional intelligence and relationship, that, if faced with grace, will create a stronger foundation for 2021 shifts. Around the key dates of the opposition – 7-20th October and 17/18th November – there may well be shocking revelations or key insights into exactly what’s needed to embody that higher frequency.
The whole of this period could be said to encompass a journey through relationship shadows (Scorpio) to empower more conscious and authentically harmonious relating (Libra). The key lies in looking beneath what’s obvious, behind what’s playing on the surface, and recognising that misalignment, reaction, conflict, at the core come from a disconnection from love. We all know that disconnection. When love is our foundation – not the sweet emotional sticky play we think is love – but the reality of our innate connectivity with Life itself. We can flow through what feels different, edgy, distorted or challenging with genuine curiosity, grace and integrity. Then we may move away from, or towards, that difference without agenda. This is the Libra-Scorpio journey. To express an authentic honest response to life to ‘other’ in ways that promote harmony, co-creativity and uplifted solutions where we all thrive. That begins with each one of us meeting the challenge of change as well as we can, knowing our seeming differences on the surface are just that, the play of life expressing itself in infinite potentials.
